Week 49

Hey y'all! It's been another great week here in beautiful East Texas! We have had a lot of success and have seen some good things lately and will hopefully continue to see success as we continue to be diligent and humble.

This week we were able to see many of our investigators and had some really good lessons. On Tuesday we met with Andrew and had a really good lesson with him. He is a really solid guy and is always excited to talk to us. We will hopefully have a lesson with him this week. We had one set up for Sunday but he had to cancel it and we haven't set another one up with him yet, but we should see him soon. We met with Patrick and Karen as well and had a good lesson there. We answered a few of her questions and really committed her to pray about the things we are teaching her. We were supposed to see them twice last week but Patrick wasn't feeling good one of the days and so we will see him again later this week.

Wednesday we had two great appointments. The first was with Sevren, who is Cheryl's son. He is on top of things and wants to be baptized, and so we set a date with him and he will be planning to be baptized on the 25th of June! I am really excited, especially because I haven't seen a baptism since I have been here and we are excited to see one. The Lord has truly blessed us. We also met with Charles again and we reviewed the Book of Mormon with him and read out of 3 Nephi 11. We committed him to be baptized and he said yes! We are preparing him to be baptized on the 26th of June. We are not sure if that will work because of Sevren's baptism, but we will still have a baptism and it will be awesome.

Thursday we saw Carlton and had a great lesson with him. It has been amazing to see the change that has come over him as we have taught him. When we first started teaching him he said he couldn't change. Now he is trying to quit smoking and he even came to church on Sunday! He really enjoyed it and hopefully we will be able to see him again soon. I think he promised his preacher he would go to his church this Sunday, so we may not see him then but we will try. We also saw Tisha earlier that day and we had a really good lesson with her. The member we had with us reminded her a lot of her father and it really helped her to open up. She hasn't really been reading and praying like she needs to, so we hit hard on the importance of that and committed her to do so. She said yes and so we will see how it goes when we see her again on Wednesday.

Friday we went down to Jacksonville and found a bunch of new investigators. They may not all progress but we will be doing the best that we can to help them to do so. They ultimately have their agency, but we will help them the best we can. It was also my birthday and the family we ate dinner with found out so they made a big ol' cake and we had a great time. I'll send pictures.

Saturday was Elder Hill's Birthday (weird, huh?) and we helped an investigator move and had dinner/birthday celebration with a less-active family who I have come to love. They are hilarious and we had a great time. We went to a catfish fry that evening that we were invited to by a part-member family. It was good for us to contact them and the catfish was pretty good.

Sunday was good, although all our appointments fell through. We made some good contact with people, though, and made it work.

Lately I have been trying to focus on humility, and I have to say I am proud of how humble I've become ;) But seriously it is really hard to rely completely on the Lord. I have come to realize how much I just do stuff myself without really asking Him for anything. I don't know why entirely but many things I have just been able to do. I have come to realize here on the mission that I can't do it myself, and I am slowly relying on Him and my companion and those around me. It is helping, but I know it will be an ongoing process and it will take a long while.

I will hit a huge milestone this week: I will have been on my mission for a year this week. It is an amazing feeling, because I never really thought I would hit a year. I thought I was going to be a missionary forever (I know it's weird, but when you eat, sleep, and breathe missionary work 24/7 it gets to you) and I never imagined going "over the hill". It has been an eye opener to how little time I actually have left. It is a strange feeling, and I hope to be able to buckle down and endure to the end, pressing forward with a steadfastness in Christ. The past 12 months have been the greatest of my life. I have become a different person and I have seen this gospel change the lives of many. I am excited to face new challenges presented to me and I will press forward with faith.

I love and miss you all and hope y'all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Grondel