Welcome Home!

Its been crazy!   I can't believe I am home now.   18 months seriously flew by so fast!    I got to learn so much and grow and now it just feels like it was all a dream.  

So these are just some of the things that I have learned from my service:

• To talk poorly and/or question your leaders is doubting God
• Fasting and prayer really do work!
• The Spirit can be felt in any language
• Change must start with desire
• Good visiting or home teachers can change a person's life for the better
• Listen louder than you speak (im still working on that...)
• Scripture Study (Particularly the Book of Mormon) changes lives for the better
• Take it one day at a time
• Enduring to the end takes diligence - Rome wasn't built in a day
• Love your companion, its the only way
• Make memories
• Rely on the Spirit
• I can do hard things
• Its ok to not be perfect
• If everything goes perfect we are not mortals doing the work of the Lord
• Transfers, and missions do eventually come to an end
• To keep a cake moist, add a scoop of mayo
• Always use butter and real whipping cream
• Before you barrow bikes to ride at night, make sure they have lights
• If you are going to be biking on a busy street with no bike lane, its good to know how to ride a bike first
• Asking for a "beso de agua"  is a bad idea
• Saying that an Elder is "muy suave con sus palabras"  is inappropriate and will result in funny looks and jokes
• Announcing to a Spanish branch in Tucson that you work for the boarder patrol makes the room go dead silent
• Decide NOW to keep the commandments
• Prayers are answered - no matter what they are for (even if its just for ice cream)
• The only easy day really was yesterday
• Never leave a dirty dish out - ants will attack
• Jumping the mission soccer mom jeep will throw out the alinement, but its so worth it especially when your companion gets it on tape
• Bike tire pressure should be at 40 PSI, not 10
• Write things down that you have learned
• Its much easier to just keep the commandments in the first place, than repent later
• Never have a cat!
• Don't trust the men selling perfume from their car trunk
• Everyone has their own struggles
• Trust God, he knows best, and believe in good things to come
• To change a car tire alternate what side of the rim you remove to bolts
• Hot oil + water = fire
• Don't hug a dog
• We are all children of God and all have our own journeys here on earth

Even though being home is new and strange I am real excited to see what the rest of my life can bring :)

Coming Home

Being with my mommy!

after being released what should you do? 

Jump into a pool fully clothed!

One More Week!

So this may be my last blog post as a missionary,  that’s just CRAZY!

But this week has been just insane.  On Tuesday after emailing about that car accident, I got bit by a dog!   I’m just fine now, just a bit scared of random dogs now.  So what had happened was we were at dinner at this member's house and they had the sweetest cocker spaniel, or so I thought,,,,,  So I went to give it a hug (big mistake)  and so it proceeded to bite my head.....   I have about 4 nice bite marks in my head and one on my nose.  They are mainly just scrapes and none required stitches but I get to deal with picking scabs out of my hair now.....    haha  Oh mission life!

Wednesday was crazy!  I got to be on splits which means I was just with a member as a companion instead of my normal companion  and so I felt so weird.  Then on Saturday we had a go go go kind of day.  We had things to do from 8 AM till 8 PM  with just a little time for a lunch.  But the bad part was we got to take our investigator to a baptism but it ended up being awful!  The baptism lasted an hour and a half and it really scared our poor investigator....  but it’s OK.   We will talk with her soon and we know that Heavenly Father has a plan!

Also Sunday I got to give a talk - it will be my last talk as a missionary which is kind of sad.  I spoke on why member missionary work is so important by sharing my story of being invited to church for the first time.  Then I spoke on the importance of choices.  I have learned while out that the decisions we make now really can affect us for the rest of our lives and the importance of choosing now what we will do when faced with hard trials.  My favorite quote I have found on my mission is from Elder Neal A Maxwell about Joshua 29:15  "Joshua didn't say choose you next year whom you will serve; he spoke of 'this day' while there is still daylight and before the darkness becomes more and more normal"  It’s so true we get to choose TODAY how we will react later, if we will be active in the church,  if things go bad will we stay faithful?   I have made that decision that yes  no matter what adversity may come I will stay faithful to my Heavenly Father and will remain active in the church.   

Thank you so much everyone for all the support I have been given in these last 18 months!

Love 

Hermana Grove

Note from Mom:

Suzy returns home Wednesday Aug 20.  If you want information about her flight arrival you can email me at kathygrove2@aol.com. 

Continued from yesterday

Ok so since we didn't get a ton of time yesterday this is the rest of my week:

We have been getting to have a lot of time with the members in the ward so my companion can get to know them and be comfortable with them.  We got to talk with one missionary mom who said the biggest thing she wished her son would tell her is about that he is getting fed.  So yes for the record I am getting fed, we tend to get dinner just about every night!

I did get to go on an exchange this week as well to a YSA area - it was super weird being around kids my own age who weren’t missionaries.

And then for today it’s sure a good thing we planned on extra email time because our car got backed into while it was parked!   I go my whole mission without an accident and what happens?  My last 2 weeks we get hit and aren't even in the car.....    hey it’s good though, it means we didn’t get hurt and it’s just a little paint.

Here are some pictures from the past little bit.

Hermana Grove

Dancing in the rain!

Dinner with members!  We went through a week of A LOT of pizza

We love our bikes, can't you tell?

And riding on a member's scooter!   We decided we like them better than the bikes

2 More!

Only 2 more weeks!  I'm only writing a little and will write more tomorrow.  We had to come to the Apple store to email cuz no where else had open computers....   But it’s been a crazy week and some hard times especially knowing that a lot of my friends are home today.  But  that’s just what a mission is about.

Hermana Grove

Rough Week

So this week has just been rough honestly.  We were still off with sleep because of the ER trip so we had to take a lot of sleeping time.  And then Tuesday night I got food poisoning - I learned that no matter how lazy and hungry you are week old pizza from the fridge is not a good idea.....    It was even weirder to because the Elders got sick as well so our whole ward missionaries were just out of commission.  Also my companion is not getting any better at all....

But the other thing that happened was yesterday.  We got to share the message of the Restoration with some active members and during the first vision I realized just how much I’m going to miss all this (yes there were tears - I’m becoming a cry baby again).  I have loved my mission even when there are hard times and sickness and hard companions.  But the reason I came out was because of how much I had been given as a result of this gospel and I still love getting to share that with others.   

Hermana Grove

Biking Rocks!

Well biking does rock, until it lands your companion in the emergency room.....   Ok well it wasn’t really the biking but it did make her worse.   So yep that’s what happened this week haha.     

We biked a lot on Saturday and it seemed to make my companion feel worse (she has been sick for like the past month)  and so we called the Mission President's wife Saturday night and her and President came right on over to give my companion a blessing and then we all decided that it was best we take her to the ER right then and so we did that at 10 at night. Then after much testing to find out that there was nothing they could find wrong....  got out at 3 AM!   So we got to go and spend the night in the mission home.  But the next morning was church and so I got about 6 hours of sleep (which really isn’t that bad unless you’re a missionary who just biked the day before) and since my companion had been drugged at the hospital she got to sleep all day.  So to go to church and for the rest of the day my companion was one of the Senior Sisters that works in the office here. It was definitely a crazy weekend!  But we still got a lot done and had a great time!

Gotta love missionary work!

Other thing that happened on Sunday was so crazy.  We got asked to come into Young Women’s and talk about baptism (or so I thought)  but what it ended up being was talking about our most recent convert's baptism since she is in Young Women's. So first they started with a great mormon message to which I got a little choked up, but I don’t cry so I was fine. Then they asked our recent convert to talk about her baptism to which I got a little teary eyed, but again I don’t cry. But the kicker came when the teacher asked me to tell about our recent convert's baptism and thus started the water works.  It was such a great day to remember a lot because it reminded me of my own baptism and how the spirit felt there.  Also I realized that she was it.  She was my last baptism of my mission and I just love her so much!   She was so amazing this week she even came out with us for like 4 hours and helped in our lessons just like a real missionary.  I’m gonna miss this so much.  I have learned so much from all the people we work with and I don’t want it to end but it’s going to so very soon :(

Hermana Grove

Start the Countdown!

Ok so first week of the last transfer went great!   I can’t believe I’m only gonna have 5 more blog posts!   So get ready to hear miracles!  I have decided that I am gonna just work this transfer into the ground and we are off to a good start.  We taught 29 lessons which I haven’t taught that much since I was serving in New Mexico.  And we did a whole bunch of finding activities, yep that was knocking on some doors as well as going walking down a busy street to talk to people. It was such a good week.   Every once in a while I get little freakout moments where I realize I won’t be able to do this forever.  I feel like I finally got the hang of being a missionary and now it’s almost over.  So not fair haha but o well!

This week’s lesson was the importance of following the Spirit, because we felt we needed to box knock a rather rude less active member.  He came out as we were going back to our car and apologized and invited us back anytime.  Then we also followed the spirit to know to change out plans and because of that met this cute little family that we got to share the Book of Mormon with.

Hermana Grove