Normal Week

This week was normal as usual. Walking, teaching, contacting while walking, tripping while walking, laughing while walking.....more walking, more teaching. Basically it's great.

Yes, I made cookies. Our kitchen is soo small so I had to use that space that I had. That is why the cookies are in the sink;) I now have members asking for the recipe. Mom´s cookies have now entered Chile! 

Honestly there's not really anything to talk about this week. All of our investigators are out of town right now besides two and we can't find one of them (not unusual). Right now were teaching a bunch of menos activos [less actives], the majority of which are viajitas [?]. One of them that I helped activate calls me her "pulga en la oreja [flea in the ear]" because we were always passing by her house and calling her just so that she would go to church again. Well now she's active and very happy. Now we are working on converting her husband who's not a member but receptive. He's up north right now so until he returns we can't do much....

That is soo awesome that all of those people got their mission calls!!! I'm so happy for them. It's still weird thinking that basically all of my friends are either on missions right now or have their calls. Since when did a million and a half years go by? It's even weirder to think that I'm 1/4 of the way through my mission. It literally feels like I left a month ago. I guess time flies when you're in the service of the Lord.

Scripture of the Week!

2 Nephi 28:20-22   The Tactics of Satan!

1) Anger

2) Idleness

3) Flattery / Justification

All I have to say about those three things is that if you are angry, idle, or are justifying your actions - REPENT! Then use the Atonement´s enabling ability to change and be better. 

That's it for this week. Love y´all!

Elder Groneman

 

Giant Watermelons! Enough said

The Cookie Kitchen

Invitation to a ward activity. The drawing was done by one of our investigators. So yes, the missionaries are my comp and me.

 

Crazy & Calm

So this week was both crazy and calm at the same time and I have no idea why. It was a good week though. No, I still don't have my birthday package :(  But I'll get it in February. So the day of my birthday my companion and I felt like we were going to explode!! After lunch (which was giant as usual) the family brought out cake and ice cream which we ate happily until we literally couldn't eat any more. No, I didn't get my head smashed in the cake. Well, a little bit later in the day we went to one of our lessons with a family that is a little bit less active and they had a cake and food too! This wasn't just for me though. One of the sons turned 12 on the 16th so it was for both of us. This time I did get my face smashed in the cake. I have videos of both events but I cant send them so you will all have to wait for 1 1/2 more years HAHA ;P  Ya we literally were going to EXPLODE after that because we're not used to eating after lunch until 10. It's weird how fast you adjust to not eating dinner....

I'm also sending a photo of a mummified rat that we found while helping a member de-junkify his side yard. Ya that was really fun. Eliza would have died because there were a bunch a giant spiders. They're really dangerous because if you get bitten you'll die if you don't receive the anti-venom in less than 8 hours or something like that. Yep, great fun!! 

So I'm out of time now so I'll fill y'all in on other stuff the next week. Stay tuned for more adventures in Chile.

 

Elder Groneman

 

 

Working Hard

No, I won't get my package in time for my birthday. It didn't arrive in time for the ZL conference. I may get it when we have interviews with the president. That's a maybe though because the interviews are in our pension and it would be hard to bring the mail for every missionary to all the different pensiones. So most likely I'll get it in February.

HAHAHA so funny story of the week. We have a MA joven [young man] that lives with his mom and grandma. Well, his gma HATES us. Literally hates us. The first time we passed by she opened the door, said that the kid wasn't home and that we shouldn't go by again then slammed the gate door. Oh, their gate is completely metal so you can't see through it so in order to see who's at the door you have to open the gate or look through the 2nd story window. Anyways, the second time a little kid opened the window, said that the joven was there, then the gma came to the window, looked around to make sure that people were watching/listening, the began to yell at us, telling us not to go back and " stop being sticky". A different day we saw her across the street. We said hello and she literally stuck her nose in the air and started grubbling to the person next to her. Well, this last time we passed by trying to talk to the MA joven no one answered the doorbell. Thinking that they didn't hear (very common here) we rang it again. This time we heard voices whispering. Then all of a sudden water falls on our heads. HAHA the old lady threw water at us! Most of it hit the little roof thingy on the gate but a few drops got us. We literally busted up laughing once we walked away.

One of our investigators is slowly progressing but he finally went to church! When we found him (he actually talked to us first) he said that he didn't believe in God but wanted to believe. When we invited him to be baptized later he said maybe because he first wants to believe and have faith. During the sacrament we explained what everything meant and all that fun stuff then he said "okay so after my baptism then I'll take the sacrament".......uh what?? That was new. He said "MY BAPTISM" YES!!! And the next lesson was on tithing and fast offerings and he asked if you had to be a member first before you could pay fast offerings. Then he kept the envelope. He is soo close! The only downer is that we can only teach him once a week. We are praying and fasting for him a lot. We are just waiting for our next lesson with him. 

So that's been my week. Love y´all. Don't die. That would be unfortunate.

Elder Groneman

 

 

Sister Kehnlein includes birthdays on her mission website. Parker's birthday is this Saturday, January 17.

 

 

¡Me Quedé! For those of you that don't speak Spanish - I stayed!

DrumRoll please.............. ¡Me Quedé! For those of you that don't speak Spanish - I stayed! Yes, I now have a new companion but I am still in Villa Alemana Oeste in Huanhualí. Ya, definitely wasn't expecting that at all but I'm happy that I stayed because this ward is awesome. For example, as a mission we are reading the BOM in 3 months while marking a few different topics (I explained all of that the last time). Well, we decided we were going to do the same with the ward. We started on January 1st. During the testimony meeting yesterday basically everyone mentioned that challenge/goal. And last night we had a "class" on the BOM. Just something small where the members can go and share their insights and stuff like that. A lot of people went and it was awesome! The ward of Huanhualí is going to be a spiritual powerhouse at the end of March!

So a little background of my comp. Elder P**. He's from El Salvador and is 24 years old. He's a convert of 4 years along with his family. We are basically the same person so the whole time we are in the streets we are laughing. Don't worry, we are still working super hard but it's a lot of fun. 

Scripture of the Week (finally remembered;))

1 Nephi 4:5-7

Like Nephi, many times in our life we won't have a step-by-step guide to follow, rather only an end goal that we need to achieve. What God expects of us in those situations is that we do all that we know we need to do first and then He´ll start to guide us again. Nephi had no idea how he was going to get the plates from Laban but he knew he had to to it. So he started with what he knew. He had to enter the city and then start walking towards Laban, trusting that God would help him with the rest. We all know the end result, Laban received a really bad haircut.....The point is that before the Lord will guide us we first have to do all that we know we need to do.

New Years was great. We ate dinner with a family in the ward that is awesome. She is actually the Stake Relief Society President. I'll send photos that can explain it better than I can with 999 words;)

So ya. That was my week. Todo está bien [All is well]. 

¡Les Quiero! [Love you all!]

Elder Groneman

 

Christmas (la Familia B** C**)

New comp: Elder P** [Wow! Look at how blond Parker's hair looks!]

New Years (la Familia O**)

Elder P** & Elder Groneman