April 6, 2015

Well i didnt get to see all of conference, but i saw most and it was really good! i really wanted to watch there talks in English to feel the power they talk with.  But it was nice to listen to the portugeuse translation one last time :p   my comp is downloading it to his pendrive so that we can listen to it when we get back in the apartment.  i really liked Utchdorfs explanaiton of grace.  It seemed the focus this year was MARRIAGE and freedom of religion.  Saturday was all about marriage...

We had three baptisms this week, it shouldve been four but the other son didnt want to.  It was a family of mom, dad, and son.  But they arent married, but they dont live together.  We had to get a firm commitment that they would keep the commandments. we are encouraging them to get married. But is was an awesome way to celebrate Easter or in potugease-Páscoa!  I couldnt imagine a better day to get baptized. The members were awesome, there were so many there to support them.  we got that video called PORQUE ELE VIVE / or because he lives, and a member put it on our pendrives last week and we have been using it in lessons, it worked really well for short lessons this week, and we got pretty little cards from the church with the site of the video to hand out to everyone.

The stake conference was at my old chapel and so i got to see all our recent converts and reactivated less actives!  It was such a special thing to see them all firm and go by themselves!  I saw a young man of 14 years old that came all by himself and the next day the whole family came to watch!  I gave Rogerio a big hug, it was awesome to see them, and others are really firm as well.  I am so grateful for the members that help in retaining new members, even though they dont know the converts that well they make a big difference, they dont even know the role they play in the salvation of such special special people!

Well the other Elders that were in the ward we go to were transferred out in an emergency transfer and now we have their area in goiania and the city of Senador Canedo and the city another half hour farther where the family that baptized lives, called Caldazinha! we have got work to do! but im really excited!

ha, so i missed like an hour of conference on sunday because the baptismal font wasnt draining all the way, and the baptism was after the session!  so i had to go in, roll my pants up and get to work! we took the rest out with a bucket and cleaned it out! there was a dead lizard in there...ha. but i was sweating and smelling bad! ha. i filled up the bucket and my comp took it outside and dumped it, TEAMWORK! ha.  but everything went jsut right and the font reached the limit right as the meeting began! a tender mercy from the Lord!

one more miracle in this great work.... 

Well today is my comps bday! he shares a bday with Jesus! how cool is that? ha.

idk gmas adress but tell her Happy brithday and that i miss her a ton!

well have a great week! love you guys!

-Elder Grondel

March 30,2015

What? Mom?!?!?   haha.  No i for sure knew that she was gonna make it!  Thats so cool! Im so Proud of my mom!!!  You for sure deserved it.

Well, for some not as cool news as moms.....this week was pretty cool!  We got our goal for the week.  We have been working with a famiy from another city, a mom and two sons who are really cool! the mom has been searching sincerely for an answer and reading the book of mormon.  She is a friend of a member out their and is progressing really well.  We found some really cool people this week that went to church. i think they liked it alot.  We are always excited to have new interested investigators.  

This week i studied alot about Love-Charity.  I started to realize the importance of having love, its so important that even if you do all the "works" and have all the faith, but dont have love...you are nothing!  Love is so powerful that it can give you an instant remission of sins! You can be purified if you love much!  What a wonderful thing.  I am trying so much to develop this "pure love of Christ".  It was such a great topic of study this week!

This week was the birthday of  the guy next to me cutting the food in that picture and Leandro our recent convert.  they had a barbecue sunday after church and invited Leandro and Patricia to eat with us.  That family is really special, the pictures on facebook are from the family nights at their house.  We gave them a family proclamation to the world in a really pretty picture frame i had in my suitcase :)  and gave the testimony of the living christ to leandro.  i gave each of them an old spice....because they dont have american deodorant here. haha. i told them that i wasnt trying to hint to them that they stink, haha. its because american things here are like "super cool" and "hi tech"  and thats like the only american thing i have.

Well i dont have to much other stuff to say, im loving this area! the work is great! my comp is really cool! we had some great cooler weather these past two weeks, it was wonderful, but today its already gotten a bit hotter.  

I have gotten really skinny, ha. i thought i would gain a little weight with the wonderful food we get, but my body just cant eat very much anymore. and i sweat so much of it off in this heat!

Well i love you guys! Have a great week!   congrats mom!

Tchau!

-Elder Grondel

March 23, 2015

this week was pretty cool!  We got our goal for the week.  We have been working with a famiy from another city, a mom and two sons who are really cool! the mom has been searching sincerely for an answer and reading the book of mormon.  She is a friend of a member out their and is progressing really well.  We found some really cool people this week that went to church. i think they liked it alot.  We are always excited to have new interested investigators.  

This week i studied alot about Love-Charity.  I started to realize the importance of having love, its so important that even if you do all the "works" and have all the faith, but dont have love...you are nothing!  Love is so powerful that it can give you an instant remission of sins! You can be purified if you love much!  What a wonderful thing.  I am trying so much to develop this "pure love of Christ".  It was such a great topic of study this week!

This week was the birthday of  the guy next to me cutting the food in that picture and Leandro our recent convert.  they had a barbecue sunday after church and invited Leandro and Patricia to eat with us.  That family is really special, the pictures on facebook are from the family nights at their house.  We gave them a family proclamation to the world in a really pretty picture frame i had in my suitcase :)  and gave the testimony of the living christ to leandro.  i gave each of them an old spice....because they dont have american deodorant here. haha. i told them that i wasnt trying to hint to them that they stink, haha. its because american things here are like "super cool" and "hi tech"  and thats like the only american thing i have.

Well i dont have to much other stuff to say, im loving this area! the work is great! my comp is really cool! we had some great cooler weather these past two weeks, it was wonderful, but today its already gotten a bit hotter.  

I have gotten really skinny, ha. i thought i would gain a little weight with the wonderful food we get, but my body just cant eat very much anymore. and i sweat so much of it off in this heat!

Well i love you guys! Have a great week!   congrats mom!

Tchau!

-Elder Grondel

March 16, 2015

So this week was pretty good!

We Didnt have as many people as we had hoped at church. We had some people super confirmed saturday night but the weather got a tiny itty bitty bit colder and everyone is getting sick and getting colds.  There is one family we are teaching that is really cool!  The dad understands so well about the restoration, his name is Leo.  He wanted us to go to his moms house and teach her, and when we did he went there with us and told the whole restoration and the book of mormon with so many details that we hadnt even taught him!  He had gone on the church site and studied all about it!  They had their family in brasilia invite them over saturday but they decided not to go because they had planned to go to church.  But he ended up getting really sick Sunday morning and couldnt go to church.  But they really want to go and are really excited.  He always offers to help us out and give us food, he even offered us his computer so that we could call and talk to our families! haha. not until mothers day Leo!!!

But another family went to church, and the mom was sick, but she stayed almost to the end before she had to leave and go to the doctor because she was soo sick. But they seemed to be really liking it. They are member references!

Their is another family that we have been teaching that was having alot of problems with their marriage, they had been married, divorced, and want to get married again.  Last night we taught with a member about eternal families. it was really cool.  The mom started to cry and thank us for coming, she said the fighting at home and the feeling in the house has completely changed since we have started going there, and last sunday they even went to church.  She said wether they join the church or go back to their old church our work has been in vain.  It was a bittersweet moment.  We were so happy to see a family changing as they applied principles of the TRUE gospel and studied the BOM, but it was sooo sad they didnt recognize the testimony that they have been given...how much clearer can it be?  Why in the world would you go back when God has revealed to you something so great!  Imagine if Joseph didnt follow the counsels of God he received in the first vision! If God tries to give us more knowledge, more light, and we dont accept it/apply it....he will take away even that which we have. 

 29 Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough!

 30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him thatreceiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

I hope we can all always remember to accept and apply the light that the lird has given us.   

This week i have started learning alot about myself and things i want to change before i return home.  I want to take advantage of this time so close to the spirit and aquire the attrirbutes of Christ.  I will be studying alot of the sixth chapter in Preach my gospel this week! :)

As Genereal Conference is getting here, i wanted to challenge all of you!!!  ALL OF YOU!   to write down a list of your friends (6-10 names)and pray about who you should invite to general conference. Your success as member missionaries is not if they get baptized or not, but if you invite or not!!! its all about the invite. Prepare a great invite for your friends, maybe practice inviting people in family night with each other doing role plays!  

have a great week everyone! miss you tons!  Boa viajem papai!

-Elder Grondel

March 9,2015

This week was another great week, maybe even one of the best ones of my mission!  We have a  level system here for all the key-indicators and there are 7 levels and we have been trying for a while toi get some of the higher levels and this week week got the level 5 and it was soo cool!  We were needing a few lessons with member and references from member or investigator and when the night was ending we got three references from one lady that led to three more!  and our recent convert, Leandro, from this past saturday went with us on two lessons! it was awesome! there is so much work to be done here. but we chased all of our goals and got home 9:26 happy with a great week. 

One of our investigators dogs ate one of our recent converts kittens..haha. but luckily it didnt cause any problems. 

 We had a baptism of Leandro this week, he was able to stop smoking and be baptized! he tried really hard and was able to stop!   

Patricia had a mircale happen last week!  She has been here for 3 months looking everywhere for a job and hasnt found anything. and 3 days after getting baptized she got a job!!! She had quite a bit of fear before being baptized and we talked with her alot about taking that step of faith in the darkness and the Lord will bless us....and she took that step and was extremely blessed! 

We ate lunch yesterday with that family thats trying to get married, it was soo good! They are so firm!  Its sooo cool to see them progressing, the daughter gave a talk in the "new beginnings" saturday night.   They posted the pictures of the baptism on facebook and his cuzin from the south of brazil emailed him and said hes a member and is the bishop of his ward and that he was really excited to see his kids getting baptized. he didnt even know he had family that were members!

i put a pause on reading jesus the christ because my comp finished a marvelous work and a wonder and is letting me read it, its super great! i wanna read as much as i can or all before he or i is transfered. My comp is super cool! he has a lot of patience with me and has great ideas.

Ya Josué has a ton of pictures and fotos of me on his facebook.   hahaha i saw dads facebook...superman!!! haha

Caleb thats awesome! congrats! i wish i wouldve played soccer, thats gonna help your cordenation out a ton for football!  and when you serve in brasil you can show all the brazilians how to play soccer!

but i will answer you questions dad.

1) i learnded that i have a lot to learn. My testimony has really been put to the test and because of this it has grown so much.  My knowledge of the gospel and the tests of faith have helped me strengthen my testimony as well.  I love being able to say with conviction That "I Know This Church Is True"

2)The Gospel/scriptures, and more about Joseph Smith, who he was, his story all that.

3)Go out with the missionaries! Tell everyone about the gospel! Share your testimony and your beliefs! Overcome the fear!  Study the first lesson in PME and gain a testimony of it. PRAY AND ASK! 

4)Read the explanations of the lessons and the book of mormon and practice telling it in role plays with your families and then set goals and plans to apply it by a certain day and then follow up with how it went!  Also its great to study the part about working with members so they can understand how the missionaries are taught to work with the members.

5)They give references and go visit with us/or invite us over to introduce freinds in a family night and THEY INVITE THEM to churhc and other things! They also inlcude the investigtors at church, because we always tell them that they will love church! if the members dont help them feel the "pure love of christ" they wont feel much to desire to come back.

6) Mark more family nights.

7)They have a desire to help and understand that the misisonary work is the most imortant...but the majority just doesnt know how to do it and how they can help.

8)Wake up and go? im not quite sure i understand this question.

9)DONT JUDGE! invite them to the activities. live the gospel.   love the investigators by word and action

There is a great book our mission uses called "The Power of Member Missionary Work" That is super great and deals with alot of these topcis, i think you would love it and get alot out of it.

We seem to be able to lead by example as we try really hard, but sometimes i want to be able to lead in other spects as well so that the others also have the same success we are having. we tell them and tell them but sometimes i feel like there is a lack of aplication.  how can i help them apply what is helping us?

Thanks everyone!

 

   Happy Birthday dad! thanks for everything that youve taught me and for pushing me a ton.  i hope to one day be able to be as great a leader as you.  Thanks for all your inspiring letters that keep me going.

Amo Vocês..

-Elder Grondel

March 2,2015

This week was great! we had three baptisms!   thier is a family that we are teaching that wanted to get married and baptized, but their is  a problem with one of the papers neccasary from the dads last marriage that he has to go to são paulo and fix and he wont be able to go their until he has holidays in july :(  but the kids really wanted to get baptized so we let them. ha. they are sucha mormon family already! the girl is 15 and already put up a picture of the salt lake temple in her room and a picture of jesus in her closet for when she goes to choose clothes she chooses good clothes! and the boy always makes sure his family says prayers before eating! the dad makes us some wonderful food! he went and caught some amzing fish, it was soo good. ha.

the other one was patricia, she has three kids that live in another state, she left them there so that she could come here to work to be able to support them and she has had alot of trouble with finding a job since being here, but the members are awesome in helping her out and making her feel part of the family.  she had alot of fear of being baptized and doing the wrong thing, but she overcame it and it was a wonderful baptism with a great number of members.

Their is a member here in my area that is crazy abouit missionary work here, and he always takes a ton of pictures and puts them on facebook, i think he will send you a friend request this week and you will be able to see a ton more of my pictures. his name is josue

We havent passed to much more by the presbyterian because we are always running from place to place, .  we have so many investigators, today we asked president to send another companionship of missionaries out here to help next transfer. we will see.we basically destroyed his ideias but they twist and contort the words of the bible...its amazing what they do

go Cougs! raaarrrrr!!!

Well the zone was a little bit better this week, more missionaries had people at church, they are doing way better, the companionship with the best numbers in the zone this week was the sisters!!! i will tell everyone in the zone that tomorrow at our meeting to wake them up a bit. 

well i love you guys! have a great week!

-Elder Grondel