Week 93

Hey there y'all!! It's been another great week here in the marvelous state of Texas!! As always, I am loving the work and things are going pretty well.

This last week we saw Lauren a couple times and she is still doing really well. She had her baptismal interview on Friday and is set to go to be baptized this Saturday! I am so excited for her. She loves the church and is excited to become a part of it.

Mike is doing great. We had a good lesson with him Wednesday and invited him to watch the Priesthood Session and one of the Sunday sessions. He ended up coming to a cook-out the men were having just before priesthood and became good friends with one of the ward missionaries. He later enjoyed conference. The next day, he came to the Sunday afternoon session and loved it. I think it was a changer for him and we will hopefully see him progress rapidly form now on.

The Farquharsons are still doing well and are headed for the temple in about a month! They are extremely solid and Jared and Ashlyn are loving it as well. I am so happy for them!

Our investigator pool is slipping, but we are going to go out there and keep looking! We'll find some new people to teach.

Conference was great this last weekend. I received a lot of insight at what I am doing OK at and what I need to improve upon. I am excited to take the things I have learned and apply them to myself as well as to my investigators.

I hope y'all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 92

Hey there y'all! It's been another week here in Texas! This week was a little bit slower. We really didn't find anyone new to teach and because we baptized Jared and Ashlyn, we didn't get to teach a lot of lessons. However, we did get to meet with Lauren a couple times, and it's amazing to see the change that has taken place just in the last week. Last Saturday, she said she was a little concerned with everything, but this week we taught about baptism and what it means and had a really powerful lesson last night and she is doing really good. She is set for baptism on April 9th and we are looking way forward to it. We also got her connected with another single mom in the ward named Amy and she has been way good for her. Amy is very solid and has a lot of faith and it has really helped Lauren a lot.

That's really it for investigators, but the best and biggest news of the week is what happened on Friday night. I was able to go to the temple and see AJ and Cindy Harty sealed for tome and for all eternity in the Dallas Texas Temple. Elder Hardy and Elder Moses were there, too. President Smith and Sister Smith were also there, as they were part of their teaching process and it was great to see them there. It was so powerful. I couldn't help but smile most of the time. I did cry for a little bit, but most of the time I just couldn't stop smiling. I forgot my camera so I can't send pictures but next week I'll send a picture of everyone that was there that night. Tons of people from the Allen 6th ward were there as well in support and there was probably 40 or 50 people total! it was really cool. I love the Temple!!

Well, that's about it for this week. Have a great week y'all!!

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 91

Hey there y'all!! It's been another awesome week here in Texas! We had a lot of good things happen but best of all, we had a baptism!

Jared and Ashlyn were baptized this weekend and the Spirit was super strong, especially when Ashlyn's dad baptized her. They are now preparing to go to the temple here shortly so they can be sealed together forever as a family. I love the gospel so much.

Lauren is doing well. She came to church and had a good time but for some reason couldn't meet with us yesterday when she said she was going to be able to. We'll see her sometime this week, however, so no worries.

Sadly, there weren't any miracles this week (besides the baptism of course) but I am looking forward to this Friday because AJ and Cindy Harty will be going to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity! I can't wait for it to happen! It's going to be so cool!

I know it';s short, but that's really it this week. Check out the pictures, though!

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

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 90

Hey there y'all! It's been another great week here in Texas! We have seen more and more miracles here! First, the big news: Elder Frost and I are NOT getting transferred. We didn't get the call this go around so we'll be together for another 6 weeks! I'm actually pretty happy about it because we're getting along really well and it felt like the last 6 weeks went by way too fast.

Anywho, Jared is doing really well and he had his baptismal interview and will be baptized this week! Last week we also found out that his little sister, Ashlyn, was also not baptized and she is 9, so she's going to get baptized this week too!! It's so crazy to see how the Lord blesses us when we are diligent and obedient to His commands and expectations of us. It has been so wonderful to teach this family and they are rock solid now. They will hopefully be able to go to the temple soon after the kids are baptized and be sealed for time and all eternity!

Daniel and Genevie are kinda flaking out; she's pregnant which makes it hard and he said that he has just been way crazy busy with work and what not. We're going to keep on them, though; hopefully they'll turn around and recognize the truth.

Mike is a cool guy. He knows the scriptures really well but is pretty open and we have had a couple good lessons with him and we will be seeing him tonight to teach him the Plan of Salvation, which I think he will thoroughly enjoy.

Brent sadly works every Sunday from 7 to 7, so we won't see him at church every and he wanted to take a couple weeks to read from the Book of Mormon. He is a really inquisitive man as well and asked a lot of questions about the organization of the church with the prophet and the Apostles and seventies and etc. He has a lot of potential and we are going to keep on him. We're hoping that he will be able to switch shifts with someone else at work so he can have Sundays off, but we'll have to see what happens.

The miracle this week is a woman named Lauren. On Wednesday we were driving home from District meeting (they are normally on Tuesday but we had a leadership meeting this week) and this man named Ed called us. He lives in Tennessee but was here visiting his daughter, Lauren, because she is going through a divorce right now and it's a hard time for her. Ed joined the church several years ago but got divorced when Lauren was 4 (she's 28 now) and so Lauren never grew up with the church. He has been feeding it to her for years, however, and now she was ready to hear the gospel! It was crazy awesome. We went over and it was really powerful and spiritual and we invited her to be baptized on April 9th and she accepted! She didn't bring up any concerns about it, either. She is so prepared. She has a cute 2-year-old daughter as well named Samantha. I love it when the Lord provides!

We had a pretty funny experience yesterday. We were walking to dinner after knocking a street nearby and saw some people on the side walk and I just said, "How are y'all doing?" and they said, "Good. Are you from Texas?" Apparently I say y'all good enough and I have enough of a drawl to blend in. I told them I was from Vegas and they laughed and said they didn't believe me at first, butit was just funny. It was great. It made my day. I love Texas =D

I hope y'all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 89

Hey there y'all! It's been another great week here in Texas! There were a couple cool miracles this week and so here we go!

First, Jared is still doing great. He is so getting baptized.

Daniel and Genevie are doing good; they grew up Catholic and so we will have to help them overcome their fears of changing religions. But they have really good friends and we found out that another member in the branch grew up with her! So we will be seeing some good things happen here.

We had a good lesson with Erika, but they are hung up on a few things that we are working with right now to overcome.

This week the cool miracle happened on Tuesday. We went shopping on Tuesday because we had no food and we didn't get money until the 1st, and as we were heading to the checkout, a random guy walked up to us and asked, "Are y'all Mormons?" I didn't know what to expect. After being in Texas for this long, it's either a good thing or a bad thing. This time it was good. In talking to him, we found out he used to live in Kingsville, Texas, and that he was taught by missionaries there for a while. He had since moved but he wanted to "reacquaint himself with the Mormon church." So we taught him on Friday and we spent over an hour just talking to him about his beliefs and different doctrines. He seems like a really cool guy and is really willing to have us over. We are really excited for him.

The other cool story is a man named Brent. He is divorced with a 15-year-old daughter and we found him tracting. He was pretty open to having us over and we talked about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon with him. He said the Book of Mormon made sense because if people were an ocean away, God would speak to them just like he did people in the Bible. It was pretty sweet. We have an appointment with him Wednesday and it should be good.

Well, that's really it. My companion isn't feeling too good today, but nothing stops a missionary from emailing home! Except for maybe vomiting and other unpleasant bowel movements...but that's another story!

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

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 88

Hey there y'all! It's been another great week here in Texas! We have had an awesome time and are doing well here.

So last week went well with the referral. Their names are Daniel and Genevie and they have a 5-year-old and one on the way. We taught them the Restoration and they received it well. They committed to read the Book of Mormon but I don't think they understand the significance of it yet, so we are going to go over the Plan of Salvation tonight and tie everything in to the Book of Mormon and how it's really the key to a knowledge of the truth.

We had SWEET time with Jared. We were nearing the end of our lesson and HE said, "Elders, I want to set a baptismal date." Slight pause. Of course I just wanted to jump up and hug him and start crying, but instead I composed myself and said, "I believe we can help you with that." So he is getting baptized on March 19th. Super sweet. Super prepared. All the Lord. I love it when he blesses me like this, because sometimes I don't feel like I deserve it. But hey, it's all part of the Lord's plan.

Sadly none of the cool experiences I talked about last week went through, but that's OK. We are moving forward and we will hopefully see more this week. I think part of it was to build my testimony that the Lord can and will work miracles. I know that things happen for a reason; it is up to us to be faithful, diligent, and patient in order to receive the blessings the Lord has in store for us.

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

Love,

Elder Grondel

Week 87

Hey there y'all!! It's been another great week here in Texas! This last week we had a lot of things fall through but at the same time we have had a lot of things work out. I am loving this area so much and I am happy to be here and I know I'm going to baptize here.

Tonight we are meeting with a referral from the Melissa ward who lives in Princeton (the referral does). His name is Daniel and he seems really open to having us come over. The member who referred him, Peter, said that he is always asking him questions at work and was willing to meet with the missionaries. Peter is going to come teaching with us tonight, so we are looking forward to it and it should be a great lesson. We are hoping and will be praying that he will be baptized soon.

Tomorrow we are eating dinner with a part-member family. They are fairly active and have a 12-year-old son named Jared who hasn't been too interested in baptism before but recently may have had different feelings about that. Elder Frost went over when we were on exchanges with the zone leaders and they had a really good lesson. They just read out of 3 Nephi 11 and apparently Jared's Dad bore a really powerful testimony about baptism and how that is the first thing that Jesus teaches the people here in America. I love the Book of Mormon!! It is so simple and so plain.

This last week we had a couple of cool miracles as well. We were out knocking and between doors a lady in her car pulled up next to us and pointed to a house. "Go knock on that one. I'm a member, he's my boyfriend. He has a Book of Mormon and is interested. Don't tell him I sent you." She gave us a good luck wink and drove off. So we immediately went to his house and Albert (the boyfriend) opened the door. He said he was on his way out, but he definitely wanted to meet with us. So we got his name and number and went back the next day. He wasn't there because he had to go out of town last minute, but we called him on Saturday and we are going to call him again today to set up a time to meet with him.

Later that week (or that day...I can't remember. It all runs together now) we were knocking and we talked to a lady named Pam. She wasn't feeling good, but she said her brother was a Mormon, her sister -in-law was a Mormon, and she has an ex-sister-in-law who is a Mormon as well. She has a copy of the Book of Mormon, too! We weren't sure if she was going to want us to come back, but when we asked, she enthusiastically said yes! We got her name and her number and will be calling her this week to go see her! It was so sweet.

On Friday we were on Exchanges with the Zone Leaders (P.S. Elder Hall is one of my Zone leaders! It's so much fun!) and I was with Elder Hall. We exchanged Thursday night to be with them on Friday and so we were planning out the next day and Elder Hall asked me where to go tracting. Not really sure because I didn't know the area, I randomly pointed at a street and that's where we went (I know, I didn't think it was inspired either, but wait. It gets better). First off, the ZLs also cover a singles branch in Allen, and they have had a member of the branch presidency coming out with them a ton to try to find more people to teach in the branch. They have been praying about it and had been having a hard time. So we're knocking and we talk to a kid named Christian. When he first opened the door, I thought he was 15 at the oldest; he just didn't look that old. So we asked him how old he was and he said he was 18. We asked him if he was a senior and he said no, I'm attending Collin County Community College (quad C) in Plano. Elder Hall and I sat there for a second and then asked if we could come in and share a message about the Restoration. He let us in and the Spirit helped us to teach an awesome lesson. It was so smooth (which can be hard on exchanges) and he got it all. We invited him to be baptized when he knew it was true and he accepted. He seemed into it and he is from Peru and has only been here 6 months! It was super cool! He said the closing prayer and in it he said, "God I'm grateful that I am opening myself up to you after so many years of being closed." It was so epic! I love the Gospel so much! This whole week has helped me to build my faith in having a good attitude, working hard, and just having faith that the Lord will provide. I had no idea that Christian lived on that street. I didn't even look over the streets; I just pointed at the map! But I know that the Lord doesn't allow for coincidences. Not in the Gospel.

I love this work so much. I am loving this area and I love my missionaries that I serve. I hope and I believe every week will be as good as this one for the rest of my mission.

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

Love,

Elder Grondel

P.S. Y'all aren't going to believe this, but they are building an In-N-Out here in Allen! It should open sometime in April or May, so I will for sure be going and taking a picture in front of it!