July 28, 2014

Hello family!

This week was really good, we're still finding more people to teach which is great! Nothing happens in missionary work until you have someone to teach. Alondra's baptism was moved to August 9th because they went out of town but it's still on! We're really excited.

On Friday we went to a member's house and baked cookies with her and her husband who isn't a member. We shared a short message then got to baking! It was really fun :)

On Wednesday while I was on exchanges with Sister Dowd, we stopped at a gas station to get gas and decided to run in to get a drink, it was particularly hot. I didn't get anything because I had a water bottle in the car, while Sister Dowd was paying, two police officers walk in, sunglasses and bulletproof vests and all, very intimidating. And one of them looked at us and says "I'll buy it" We were all taking off guard and Sister Dowd says "no that's okay, thank you though." The police officer then says "no, I want to. (looks at me) and what are you getting, Sister?" I said I didn't need anything and he told me to go grab something. As soon as I opened my mouth to object he says "Now!" So I mumbled a "yes sir" and got a Gatorade as fast as I could. He turned out to be a member of the Church in another area, it was the nicest and scariest thing that happened to me that day.

We also had a conference with our mission president and he talked to us about how we could work with the members better to help the people we're teaching. I love conferences and meetings with our mission president because he gives us a ton of new ideas about how we could be working harder and smarter!

I am loving this time of my mission and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I can't believe I've already been out for nine months and only have nine more left. I still feel like I'm just starting. I am learning more and more every day and I love it!

Love,

Hermana Granado

July 21, 2014

Hello family!

This week was so good! Hermana Martinez and I went on exchanges for a day so I was with Sister Dowd. I'll be with her once a week for the next three weeks or so (just like I was with Hermana Magnusson). Sister Dowd is also my roommate (she took Sister Tauteoli's place) I'll attach a picture of us.

We got to make some cookies for our investigators and the members in our ward who are less active and the ones who are active and help us a lot. We saw a lot of success from that! One of our new investigators called us to see when we could come and teach her family, a less active family asked to set up an appointment for us to come over and a member called us to see if she could come to any appointments or help us teach any of our investigators. Not sure what we put in those cookies but we might make them again soon for some more people!

We also got to do some service at a senior center. They had some paid entertainment booked but they cancelled so we did it for free! We sang hymns- some in Spanish, some in English and a missionary sang in Samoan. Then another one of the missionaries did a violin solo- it was really cool and the lovely little ladies at the senior center loved it!

Some fun things coming up- we're having a visit from Elder Evans, who is the Executive Director of the Missionary Department for the Church. So he is basically in charge of missionary work. And he's coming to speak to us! So that is exciting. That will be on August 28th. So in order to prepare for that we're having our zone conference this Friday where we'll meet with some of our district leaders and zone leaders (who are just normal missionaries but have more leadership responsibility) and our mission president. We usually do it every 3 months or so but we're doing it a little earlier in anticipation for our visit from Elder Evans.

A little side note: remember how I showed you the tan line on my foot when we skyped on Mother's day? Well it's gotten more and more defined as the summer has gone on and my roommates or other sister missionaries, when they see my feet they always comment on it. Always. Without fail. I think it's embarrassing but they're all really impressed and jealous of it. I guess that just goes to show how little entertainment we have as missionaries.

And remember how I used to tell you how I'm self conscious about my Spanish? Well that hasn't really changed much. But last night the other sisters who are serving in our ward (they're both native speakers) were telling me that it's good! One of them said that when they heard me speaking Spanish at church she noticed that its improving. The other one told me that she called a member on the phone the other day and the member thought she was me! And She's from Mexico! That made me feel a lot better about my abilities :) I just am so grateful because I want to be able to communicate with the people I'm serving! I want to get to know them and their concerns and I want to be able to say the things that will help them. But it is something that I will have to continue to work on throughout my life. I am really grateful for this opportunity to learn the language though! When people ask how we learned so fast and we tell them that we had 6 weeks of training and then we just study an hour a day and talk to people, they're really impressed at how much we know! It is all the Spirit and I am definitely getting divine help so that I can talk to and teach the people here in California! What a blessing.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week.

Pictures:

1. Me and Sister Dowd

2. The lovely Hermana Martinez

3. Making cookies!

July 14, 2014

Hi family! I hope everything is going well, this week has been a really good one for me.

My new companion is Hermana Martinez, and she's awesome! We're getting along great and she is teaching me so much already. she goes home in September so she doesn't have much time left on the mission but she's a really hard worker which is awesome! We're already really good friends :)

Lately some of the missionaries I know have been going home before their mission is finished and it just makes me really sad because I love my mission so much! I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. It's hard, as you've probably gotten from my emails, but it's so worth it! I hope you all can tell how much I love being a missionary. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn and grow and become a better person. I'm learning so much about other people, about myself, and about my Savior. I am eternally grateful that I made the decision to come serve a mission. It is one of those things that I don't know where I'd be without it!

A little about my new companion: Hermana Martinez is from Puerto Rico, she's 21, she is almost done with her mission but really focused on missionary work which is awesome! She's so nice and funny and we just seemed to click right away. She's 4'9" so I feel abnormally tall standing next to her but I'm sure anyone would. She's just about the cutest thing to come out of Puerto Rico since those coqui frogs!

Germany won the world cup! Honestly I'm just glad it's over. Every time we'd try to visit people, they'd have it on and the last thing they wanted to do was turn it off and talk to us. Plus one of my roommates is from Germany so she was super happy.

This week is going to be great, I can just feel it. We already picked up three new people to teach, one of them came to church yesterday and really like it! An we're working on planning Alondra's baptism for the 27th. We're really excited!

Everyone try to stay cool this week, I have no hope so just soak up some AC for me!

Love,

Hermana Granado

Pictures:

1. For those of you that don't believe I'm in the DESERT 

2. Me and Hermana Martinez, my new companion!

3. One of my very BEST friends, sister Tauteoli. She was my roommate but just got transferred.

July 7, 2014

Hello family!

Happy late 4th of July! Hope you all had good, safe fun :) We had to be inside by 6pm for safety but before that we celebrated the American way! We went and got hot dogs for lunch and picked up a slurpee on our way home. Then the member that was supposed to give us dinner that night went out of town but she ordered us pizza for dinner. Overall it was a very unhealthy, greasy holiday. What's more American than that?!  I have to admit, it's a little awkward celebrating American Independence with a bunch of Mexicans/Hispanics. But they love any reason to have a fiesta so all was well :)

In other news, I'm getting a new companion on Wednesday. It transfer time again, crazy that six weeks have gone by already. Hermana Thomas is headed to San Bernardino and my new companion will be Hermana Martinez. 

Hermana Martinez goes home soon and I've met her a few times. She's from Puerto Rico and is tiny but a definitely a fire ball! I'm excited to see how we work together. This is the first time I've stayed in an area and gotten a new companion, up until now I've always been the one to move! So we'll see how I do when I have to take over!

Yesterday we had what we thought was a great idea! Until we carried it out. We decided to walk after church. Walk everywhere. And since church ends at 2pm that meant walking at the very hottest part of the day. (115 yesterday). We thought we were going to die. Finally we decided to ask someone for water. They took one look at us and handed us a cold water bottle. Then we got to talk to them for a little bit! Needless to say we got in an extra workout.

And since we've been walking a lot, we've met a lot of really interesting people. I love my mission!

Oh, and the heat? This is nothing. They said August is when it really gets bad. So I'll be here for the worst of it. It's just as hot as Arizona but I feel it more here since I'm out walking in a skirt all the time. And it's more humid here. Humidity is NOT my friend.

Everything else here is going well. We have a baptism coming up in a few weeks. Her name is Alondra and she is 10. Her mom is a member of the church but she hasn't been active for a long time. But since we've started working with them, the mom is coming back to church and is now active! and Alondra is really excited for her baptism :)

The other two we are working really closely with are Edith and Lucy. They seemed like they were really close to baptism when I got here but now they're feeling some doubts so we're still teaching them and trying to help them in any way we can.

Also, our mission is starting something called "JustServe" which is where we are going to start working with the leaders in the communities where we're serving and do community service 8-10 hours a week! Especially since the hours of 1-4 are really hard to find people at home because they're working or al school, we will take that time to do community service during the week then go teach people when they're at home! We haven't done anything with it yet because they're still trying to kick it off and find service projects for us to do. But I'm excited!

Wish me luck on this next week and on my new companion. I'll let you know how everything goes!

Love,

Hermana Granado

Pictures:

1. Hot Dogs on the 4th

2. Hermana Magnusson, who is my companion for one day a week when we do exchanges

3. Me and Hermana Thomas at the ward talent show after a long, long day of walking

4. The 4th of July - red, white and blue. (with Hermana Zamora and Hermana Pesqueira who are also serving in the same ward as me and Hermana Thomas)