You can be sick or bless the others....

Wow the letter this week was really exciting! You guys have got to calm life down ;) Thank you for the update on Jacie.  Remember I am 60000 miles away and stuff like that freaks me out.

January 27, 2014

You can be sick or bless the others,

So this week started out in Yungay. We went to the cemetery and played a game of soccer. Your son has finally learned to smack talk in Spanish, a quality which they don’t use much in soccer… usually due to the fact you are running so much. Anyway, so I succeed with a GOAL!  You really have no choice but learn to be a good soccer player here with a mouth like mine ;) Then we walked home in the rain.

After such a powerful week last week Satan threw EVERYTHING he had at me this week, and for some days it worked. Monday and Tuesday morning, every single person we’ve been preparing for baptisms canceled all the fechas fell. Everyone. It was really hard. The family took up drinking. Stephanie’s Mom and Ingrid’s Dad changed their mind. Yeah, everything fell apart. Our district leader decided to do a work visit to try and help us out. That night I opened a package of hot sauce with my mouth literally drenching him from head to toe in hot sauce. So funny!

The next day I was sick, after a priesthood blessing I was well… healed, and we proceeded to work. The next day it came back I think just a stomach infection. I was down for a whole day and a half. But don’t worry I’m better now. I took the pills the zone leaders brought and my companion says between the English and then something about my Grandma’s cookies I was pretty funny.  I was out by Friday, I was up and chipper.  We went and built a house with adobe bricks and I made really cute (and useful) folders for our consejo de barrio because they never bring anything. They are improving by leaps and bounds though. Saturday was pretty normal trying to look for new families with little success, and Sunday was a little kick upper.

We have Yurusi and Alexandra preparing for the temple. They have done their family history and then in the middle of church we had a member come back and pull on my arm in tears. The same member who baked me a cake this week because she found out I might be leaving for transfers :) Anyway, we left and I asked her what was wrong. Through her tears she informed us she found out she has cancer and would like a priesthood blessing from two elders of God. It was a very humbling experience. The spirit was very strong.

So I guess the message this week is, you can think about yourself or just go out and serve and watch. You help others and become an instrument for God. I’m doing great with no baptisms it’s given me time to look at what I can do better. :)

Love you all,

Elder grow

Eternal families and Pancakes.... Happiness

January 20th 2014

Happiness is an eternal family, eternity is one big circle, pancakes are circles, and therefore eternal happiness is found in pancakes and family!

So this week started out with a cinnamon challenge! The whole mission participated and your son, having one of the biggest mouths in the entire mission. Won! :) A sublime chocolate bar was the reward; after that, soccer and volleyball nothing unusual.

Tuesday I talked to one of my baptisms. I asked, how’s life? She started crying. She says, “Before you came I used to hide in my room. I never came out I was never happy. Now I’m just so happy and I don’t know why! My family and I spend more time together I feel love and I just can’t stop being happy.”

What a special experience for me. This is the effect the gospel has on people, they are just happy! And this week was one of the best! We went to our ward council where I, thinking of my dad and his work, asked how many people had a recommend. 112 people have the priesthood, 80 have been to the temple, and 25 have a worthy recommend! I was shocked! We’re starting the work this month to change that. I guess I bugged him so much our old ward mission leader well…. quit! Ha-ha. He went to the bishop and said I don’t want to do this anymore, so we got a new mission leader, a returned missionary. Wow he’s so great!

Jueves was a capacitiation with the mission president, and one of the happiest days in the mission. He started it off about the families, all about families. I’ve never felt the spirit so strong, I cried more than once (real men cry) and well…. through the spirit, I understand. I understand the temple, the importance of the convents, I understand families and the eternalness of them, and I understand the importance of family home evening. I know that when I go home and find a wife who’s kept her purity and virtue I will enter the temple with her and the sealing power and we will embark on our journey to exaltation and raising a family. I get it all. I was so happy. Words cannot describe what I felt.

Afterwards I GOT BOXES!!!

Happiness is found in eternal families, but also in pancakes, Christmas candy and Shaun White gum!! It was so awesome to get that. The hardest thing in the world is learning to share ;) Ha-ha… but it was amazing I loved it so much! Our Pinchianista’s family left to go be sealed in Lima. It was a sad parting for him because if there are changes this month I might leave Huaraz, and he said I was like his only son. He cried. He wanted a tie. He wanted the one mom gave me. I told him he could pick any other but not this one, so we made a deal. In 2 years he’s coming to Utah to come to general conference with my dad and me, and he can wear that tie to see the prophet! It’s amazing what I’ve taken for granted leaving in Utah.

Anyway with them leaving, I cooked! WOW so fantastic, I made macaroni and cheese, I made pancakes!!! I made chicken with 3 cloves of garlic half a purple union and a red apples sautéed with soy sauce and butter, and then fried chicken with corn flakes!! I died and went to heaven! Sooooooooo good!

That’s pretty much my week. Sunday we had 5 menos activos familias in the capilla. We’ve instituted a new program. We stop families in the street and ask if we can visit their house to do a noche de hogar! We come and spend 10min. We start with the “if you see a frowny face” song" I’ve got the paper with the guy HAHAHAHHAHA you should see the faces of the kids and adults when we flip that paper over :) ,eyes as big as Christmas. Then we share a short message, played “Don’t Eat Pete” with candy, and then leave. Just like that…. usually looking backing seeing the kids playing with the paper or yelling NO COME PEDRO!! The parents in the door thinking to themselves “who were those masked men?” ;) It’s so much fun.

The others things that happened this week were… People think I sound like George Bush, apparently he came here a while back and I sound exactly like him! Ha-ha yeah, ok. Then they also think my Spanish sounds exactly like the monkey from lion king ;) A lady in my ward gave me 2 horseshoes, she heard they were good luck in America, I ate more tocush, and a missionary gave me his sweater vest! Lucky sweater vest is back baby ;) Life is great, I am loving it. Missing my family terribly but we can be together forever ... with pancakes :)

Frio frijoles el fantastic,
(The fantastic Cool Beans)

Elder Grow

Jed's goose egg teaches him Spanish? - At least he got the laugh he's been working for....

The Good the Bad and the Honey Lemon!

This week started out with FISHING!!!! We went to a river 2 hours south of here, and fished! No one brought bait a line or hook ha-ha.   So we dug in the dirt for worms, grabbed an old stick and tied a rock to it and put the worm on ha-ha.  The crazy thing was I actually got some bite s! But yeah didn’t catch anything ;) some things never change! But one thing that never changes for the better. I was sick the other day so my pinchanista said she’d make my something. My companion flipped thinking it was tocush so she promised to make me something else. Little to my surprise I came back to a cup of honey lemon!! I flipped! It’s the only thing here to date I didn’t eat. I refused, and so she made me rotten potatoes and well it’s helped! 

The mission got microwaves!! It was so great and a fridge! I have been indulging myself with oatmeal and mangos! And milk!!! COLD MILK! 

My companion and i have had a rough week. One of our baptisms for this week changed his mind. He went to the Catholic Church with his mom the other week and his leg (the one I was telling you about) was magically healed! He came back to the “Mormons” and well now has got problems! He took that for his answer went back to the Catholics prayed to a Santo and now he can walk. ... The power of Satan is real and a powerful opposition to our work here. Missionaries often doubt their authority and power because of instances like this but  the miracles however are real if you have faith in God. We visited one family this week torn apart by beer, sins and different beliefs. I have a testimony in the family. My companion and I after a lot of praying taught them the proclamation and well they all came to church. 2 have a date to be baptized. WE then gave talks Sunday! After a lot of praying I talked about prophets and shared the following story to start my talk off.... 

Came home the other day and my pinchanistas daughter was singing walka walka by Shakira and then next Taylor swift. I (sinning) started to sing, as a result hit my head on the stair (wasn’t looking) so hard I blacked out and fell down a flight of stairs. When I came to, my companion and pinchanista’s husband were standing over me, helping me up laughing I talked perfect Spanish! (Real story) God gives people weakness to make them strong; I guess mine is Taylor Swift.  Ether 12:27.  So I hope I still have the gift of tongues because I sure as heck still have a bump on my head. And THE WHOLE AUDIECNE LAUGHED! It was so great! I gave a great talk in Spanish and yeah finally got a laugh!!

Life is good sometimes it’s hard but there’s always a reason to laugh :)

Even if it’s at the Gringo Elder Grow

18 Kissless New Years....

Happy AÑO NUEVO! 18 kissless new years and still going strong ;)

This week started out p-day playing basketball.. first time in 5 months what a blast :) with the district. The Latinos were fun to watch. One guy kind of dolphin kicked the ball in the basket :) hahah anyway than new year’s, which was crazy, we slept until when we left for the fireworks on our roof! crazy crazy crazy fireworks, and when the neighbors got drunk and the fireworks started coming towards us we ducked for cover hahah made for a great video! :) Anyway other than that it was normal missed the mini tacos and the celebration, but they have no idea what a taco is I’d hate to blow their minds with the fact there are mini tacos! :) My companion is great we work wonderfully he’s chill! he thinks I’m a ruler ( he learned a new ingles word and uses it frequently that and "do you want to die"!) haha for the day after new year’s everyone was drunk so we came home 20 min early in the night, and our penichnista wasn’t there, so I put bananas in a blender and made a smoothie, for everyone. When they got back they said it was one of the best things they’ve ever tasted :) yeah I know :) anyway than we found 4 new personas and have four new fechas for baptism. My companion is from Equador and is dying here in the rain! so cold he’s not used to it. We had a lesson with a nievel my spiritual experience for the week and then Sunday we shattered the record fort the menos activos in the capilla with 12 and rescued 3 families! :)

My spiritual experience for the week is this- I had a lesson with aniviel, who the same kid from last week, but still hasn’t read the book of Mormon, so I asked him, I said what do you expect when you get an answer? He was kinda ho hum, like well I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. I got a little in his face and said that’s where your wrong. You read this book and pray to god with all your heart and you’re going to get an answer, you get this answer and you’re going to get baptized, because you want to. Then you go to covenant with god to serve him for the rest of your life. You’re going to go to church every Sunday, you’re going to find a nice little Mormon wife, you’re going to get married for eternity in the temple you’re going to raise a nice big Mormon family, sealed in the temple and take them to church every Sunday, than your son is going to go on a mission and do the same thing I’m doing right now trying to convince you to read this book! You read this book and it WILL change your life! I scared him a little but the spirit was strong. That night he prayed and read, and he had a dream and god came to him and told him it was true and it was time to start living the gospel. That’s the message for this week, we have the truth time to start living it :) love you all!
Your elder grow :)

So much rain!!!!