November 24, 2014

Dear Family!

This week was awesome...it started to rain! woohoo!  its so funny how much i love the rain here. it was really nice because it cooled down a bit, now is the rainy season, the super hot season ended, my last super hot season in Brasil! haha. the other night we were sleeping outside under this covering and it started to thunder and lightning and raining like crazy and i woke up with rain falling on me because it was leaking through the covering. haha

  But we have some awesome investigators here.  we are really excited about them.  i explained most of it in the recording.  but we have one guy that has to have some somoan or hawaiin in his blood because hes so tight! ha, and hes super big, he would for sure be a rugby or football player if he lived in the US. his wife and baby daughter went to church with us this sunday,  but i felt kinda bad because she was chasing their crazy baby the whole time at church.  but it was cool because Sister Kuceki accompanied leandros wife during relief society!!! it was perfect! ha.  we passed by last night and afterwards leandro walked a bit with us and said he really wants to get baptized the 6th!   we also have an older lady we are teaching that went and loved it and will be baptized this week!   we also have another guy we are teaching that went last week and really wants to get baptized, but didnt go yesterday, Elder Smith went in with alma 5 and we called him to repentance, in the closing prayer of the lesson he asked for forgiveness for his error. it was awesome to see how he understood, and he is really sincere and is trying really hard to change his life because he has a really tough background.  but im super pumped for him.

well me comp is super tight. he is super excited and focused. hes super chill as well. he comes from a huge fam! 13 people in his family!  you should look them up on facebook. his parents are Cameron Smith and Honica Smith.  

Well have a great thanksgiving!  I am Thankful for so many things.... i have recieved so many Blessings.   I am thankful for the gospel, i am thankful for my family, i am thankful for this oportunity to teach the truth!!!

I love you guys!

Have a great week!

-Elder Grondel

November 17, 2014

 

 

 

 go brids!!!!

 Hey FAM.

The big city of goiania is awesome!  its pretty hot here, but its really cool to be in the city.  Our area is like the heart of the city, its really big!  i am here with Elder Smith now and we are the zone leaders of the goiania zone! we are really pumped to be here! Elder novais, one of my old comps, is a district leader here, so im pumped to work with him again and i know a few of the other elders here so it should be a great transfer here!  i have so much to learn, im really thankful for the oportunity i have to help here. we share this area with elder cunha and elder silva, the two assistants.  its pretty cool to be in the same area with elder cunha again! Our ward is president kuceki´s ward. so we get to see him at church every sunday and eat lunch at his house every other week! ha. 

We started up the work this week here and it is great.  we had a family that we were teaching here and weird things were happening in their house, someone was throwing rocks in their windows, but it never happened when i was there, elder smith just old me about it and you could see it too.  and the other day we passed by and half of their house had gotten fire and they had just putten the fire out when we got there. we are trying to help, but its difficult with them. the whole thing was wierd.  

this week we found some great people that went to church and we will be teaching them this week.

thanks for the scrips to read!

miss you all a ton!  love you guys!

have a great week! 

-Elder Grondel

November 10, 2014

Hey Fam Bam!

This week was great!  We saw some awesome things happen!  The whole district baptized this week together.  It was so cool.  But unfortunately i was transfered again.  This time they told us everything before the transfer...so i already know where im going and what i will do there.....i am going to......GOIANIA! and there i will have a little bit more responsibility, my comp will Elder Smith. i dont know him but i heard he is awesome. and he is american. ha.

I loved it here!  this week a members husband that has been taught for 20 years and frequented almost every sunday for 5 years finally got baptized. almost the whole branch was the for the baptism.  i had the opportuniy to do the interview with him and it was really cool to see what he had learned and finally see him enter the waters of baptism. (remind me to tell you guys more about this after the hish) but Hes had a date for almost every week this transfer, but yesterday the other elder finally baptized him.   We also had a baptism of diego. he is 15 and loves the church. his little brother went to church and will be baptized in two weeks.  and we are helping their parents to stay moptivated to get married.  They have to get some documents and annoying things before they can mark a date but their are gtreat elders coming here to help.  My comp elder white will leave as well. he will go to anapolis!  my birth place, one year ago. haha

 

we hadnt seen thyago all week, but saturday we had an awesome lesson with him.  we talked about the priesthood with him and responded a few questions he had about it. i always love teaching about the priesthood after they are baptized because you can show them the special treats that the bible has that are a little more in depth and that basically prove what we know about the priesthood, and you can speak a little more strongly about how this is the only true church that has authority and all the others have zero authority whatsoever, are completely false, and are part of the great prostitute of the whole earth. i love it!!!! haha.

i heard from elder blake! hes back in provo and wants to say hi to you guys, you should add him on facebook, hisname is Benson Blake.  Hes the one who kept me from going insane when i got here in brasil.    and can you go on my fb and add all the people that sent me friend requests?

thank you for the spiritual thought! i will study more about this for sure!

Our president is so inspired, we had an experience about that this week as we were trying so hard to get our goals that we established based on this system that he created, we needed one more with less actives and recent converts, so we went to a recent convert, and when we got there he was drinking with his friends, and we talked with him and he was needding a ton of help, he even asked us to pass by today in the morning, and we did and it was great to see his desire to change, he will meet with the branch pres this week. I have so many experiences i will need to share with you after the mission about the revalation our president receives for us. this mission is guided by pure revaltion!  

well i love you guys! im learning a ton! i have never been soooo tired in my life as i was yesterday. every week i get more and more tired. its incredible, im amazed with how tired a human can get without dying.

this is the work of the lord, i know it, i know it, i know it!  

have a great week!

-Elder Grondel

November 3, 2014

Hey family!

Its great to hear that everyone is well!  Ha. dang bryson, us grondels gotta drink more milk to strengthen our bones!  Congrats livs!!!   dude caleb thats freakin legit bro. toe touching on the INT!    ya it was halloween this week! i bet you guys had some sweet costumes! Atta girl lex, moddest is hoddest!  Gerritt looked pretty scary, especially with the  number 35!!!  they dont really do halloween here, only have like halloween activities at school or at the church.  no one goes in the road getting candy.

Ya it´ll be tight to run provo with lex! is she thinkin about a mish?

 

 looks like dad had a blast down there in florida at hogwarts, did he learn any spells to baptize people???

Thanks for all the updates!

 Tbirds are wrecking this year, wow. 

Well this week was pretty great!   We are teaching a family that went to church and wants to get married and baptized, we are planning to go mark the wedding this week!  we will baptize their son this week, he is already participating in like all the church activities.  

Thyago went to church all by himself, we passed by before but he wasnt there and we got to church and he was already there.  he recieved the priesthood this week!  Im so excited to see him become a great leade in Rio Verde. 

President Kuceki came this week and we had like a multi zone meeting. he receieved a lot of revelations and created this new system for our mission. its pretty cool.  Elder Cunha(my second trainer) is one of the assistents, and he and the other assistent slept in our house the night before, it was cool to talk with Elder Cunha a bit because he will die the end of this transfer he told me a lot of cool stuff about the mission and how the transfers and everything is really guided by revelation.

We are working alot with the members and im loving this branch, they are all so excited to help, yesterday we had an awesome fast and testimony meeting!!!

Well i am loving this area, the people are great,

I hope all is well with you guys!

well i love you guys! miss you a ton! have a great week!

-Elder Grondel

October 27, 2014

Hey family! 

We got hit with rain here as well! its been wonderful, iwas dying in this sun!!! ha. i thought i would never beg for rain like we have been.  ive been able to sleep really good.

Well this week was great!  We had two baptisms, and 3 in our district!!!  we baptised thyago and milena.  Milena is a daught of a member here that we actually found knocking doors.  It was really cool to see here progress! we had to drop studyin early every day this week to go teach her, but thats chill because it was for a great cause.  my portugeuse is suffering a little without language study and me and my comp need to stop talking in english! haha

Thyago was a miracle, he wasnt sure about the baptism this week but we went to his house ith a member and talked with him and the lord gave us help and he accpeted the baptism and was really excited.  He is really really intelligent. one of the smartest people i know.  He made us lunch on sunday.  Satan did not want him baptized.  But obedience and faith is stronger than him.  Sunday we got at church and he wasnt there, we left and went to his house and his wife answered the door and looked like she had been crying the whole night.  They had been fighting a lot of the night and he said when he was almost leaving to church they started fighting again.  he said he would go to church the next week and that it wouldnt work this week.  but i prayed my heart out for words and we talked with them and they said they needed to make a decision and i said, yes you guys need to make a decision but thyago, i dont want you to make this decision without the holy ghost, you need his guidance, we just opened our mouths and the lords put in words and he went to church and was confirmed and afterwards we had lunch with him!     JUST MIRACLES!!! it was such a great week, i was literally dead when i fell into bed last night!

You are on so many comittees these days dad that i cant keep track! my comp like that photo, he served in florida for 7 months of his mission, he really misses it.

Thanks for the leader input dad, i really needed it. i really like that quote from dumbledore!   

do you guys have pictures of grandma and grandpa?  from both sides of the fam?  and the names of my great grandparents. it for the little green "my family" booklet  for family history.  i have some of the fam here actually so its all good.

my knees alright.  ive got strength to keep chugging along! i wear my brace every night to sleep.

Well i love you guys! miss you a ton!  less than two months till skype....

-Elder Grondel

October 20, 2014

Hey fam!

This week was pretty tight.  we reached our goal of lessons with members! i think its one of the first times that ive reached it in my mission! the members here rock!  We had a little problem here, the two other elders in the house had a problem with me and my comp and the way i was doing things and i had to resolve that stuff, its been kind of annnoying, but things are way better now, i have a ton of weekpoints, but im learning as i go.

it was super hott again this week but finaly the rain got here!!! thank goodness. i was waking up every night sweating to death.

ha. so here we had daylight savings time...sunday morning. and noone had told us,so we were gettting ready to go get investigators before church at what we thought was 730 but someone passed our house to say something to the other elderes and remindedthem about the timeand they ran in and told us it was already 830...freak. so we like ran to our investigators , and one of them came and she will be baptized this week!  but president came with his family and it was great!!!they both gave amazing and powerful talks! we have been getting alot of references from members! i think its beccause you guys are giving so many to the missionareies there.  thank you! keep it up!

Thats crazy, i dont remember her. but thats cool!  its good shes back at the church.  The spirit leaves a strong impression on people. thats why if you deny it you go to hell.

go birds!!! they are tearing it up. wow.

Dang BYU.  what the freak...

Oh, so i talked with this dude here that trained alot of fighting and stuff and knows about injuries, he told me to put on this icyhot type cream and wear my brace at night and it has been working miracles with my knee this week.  next pday we will go to his dads gym and my comp wants to wrestle and do jiu-jitsu with them but i will just work out with the wieghts there.

YEA GRANDMA!thats so great to hear. i have been praying for them a ton.  yes grandpa!  Im pumped to seehim with a nice set of teeth!  dang, grandpa is a boss, he sets world records like a fat kid eats cake!

Happy Birthday HANNAH!  the big 21!!!

Lex needs to be careful with these dudes, if they cant make a freakin tackle then they for sure wont make a good eternal companion.  MARRIAGE101 by brady.

-Elder Grondel III

October 13, 2014

It is soooooooooo HOTTT here. wow. this week i could feel my skin boiling. i dont think ive ever felt a sun this strong, maybe the sun in the carribean on the cruise. but its all good. im using sun protection.

Well this week we found a ton of people to work with.  We received a promise from our mission president that if we mark 16 baptismal dates every week, we will open the safe that is full of the blessing of heaven and baptize at least three in the month.

Sunday we had only 13 so after lunch we started knocking doors closed to the church and managed to mark 4 more and reach 17!   This sunday only tiago came to church with us, he is the guy that went to genreal conference. he said he would have to travel to goiania but at the last moment plans changed and we past his house saturday night and saw his car there and invited him and he went to church! he also came to the english class with us during the week that we do every thursday night.

Next week we have our branch conference and our mission president will be there in our branch! We are all really excited! he will also give the message in a meeting for married couples this saturday in our city! he really likes this city because its so close to moving from a district to a stake! he even said that he only sends the best missionaries to Rio Verde ;)    haha

Well congratulations Gerritt on the baptism!!! thats so cool bud!!!!! 

youre lookin good out there as a captain as well! ha. looks alot like my championship game picture!

Dang, thats really tough to hear about Grandma.  I hope she gets better. im always praying for them.  I trust the family will do everything they can to help them. and the Lord will do his part.  Theyve contributed so much to the building of his kingdom on the earth.  I LOVE YOU GRANDMA and GRANDPA!  NGUNNGU!

Well i gotta go! i love you guys!!!  have a great week!!! 

-Elder Grondel