Ok, have to explain. Yes, I am impatient, BUT I only opened the [birthday] packages that day because we were in the house. Yes, Elder D** had an ingrown toenail this week, so in the end he decided to have it taken out and so then we were in the house all day wednesday, then the afternoons on Thursday and Friday and Saturday so that it wouldn´t get infected in the extreme heat. So I got the packages on Thursday and I swear I was going to wait, BUT we were in the house....... so we had to do it while I had the chance to actually enjoy the process haha!
But thanks! Everything was there and what?! That camera is awesome!!! So..... we´re taking more pictures and have a couple more to send later today. And, as it turns out, the pension (which is our branch president and his wife) have their own little internet café in their house and they just so happen to have wi-fi too so I can send them right during lunch! THANK YOU!
Yes. I do need a shoulder bag. The backpack that I had in the beginning has long since been destroyed haha (since March I think). Backpacks just get torn up so fast. But I bought another one, and that worked out well and it was just barely starting to die when it was made a mission rule that we aren´t allowed backpacks because they make us look like we´re going hiking or something like that... oh well. So yes, I really do need one, please.
Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes, including everyone´s from the packages and Nori too! We´re saving the Reeses ¨cake¨ haha for Saturday after we clean the chapel so that´ll be fun, but other than that, nothing special. But that´s ok we already had our fun day opening everything in the house with Elder Z** and Elder P** because they were there too for other reasons. But yup, thanks a ton for everything! It really made my day, de verdad [really].
We won´t be having any baptisms on Saturday.... oh well. El hermano that was in La Banda in Brazil still hasn´t returned, but his 20 days ends on tuesday or wednesday, so he should be back sometime soon. His
wife is doing good and she´s now going to sell some food from her house that the relief society helped her buy. Then she´s going to make her own money and todo bien [all good]. We haven´t been able to find the hermano that the witch was at his house for a week now. He´s always had to work a lot, but Brazil and the Beni have had some bad problems with the economy for the past couple weeks and everyone´s working a lot more to make up for it. That´s been hard because it´s really affected a lot of our investigators and the members so it´s been a little harder lately, but we´re still trying to find el hermano with the witch in his house because he´s awesome and always has really really good questions and is starting to see the changes in his life as he starts living the gospel.
There´s also another family that we´ve been teaching for awhile and 2 of their sons are going to get baptized on November 9th. They´ve been coming to church every week for more than a month and a half, but their parents have never come. They´re a little bit duro de corazón [hard-hearted] right now and we were going to start focusing a lot more on their teenagers so that they can get baptized, but the dad surprised us yesterday when we started focusing on his kids and he straight up changed what we were talking about because he wanted an answer to what we were talking about and wasn´t sure if he had already received an answer or not. Yes. The 2 sons are still getting baptized on the 9th, so we´ll see when the rest of their family decides to follow. Really excited about that!
Also, cool story. So we were late for an appointment the other week and were walking extremely fast to get to this one investigator that´s been really hard to find recently (once again, the economy isn´t on our side haha), when we passed a couple walking with their 2 little kids down the street. We quickly waved hi and continued on. Then half a second later it was like someone punched me, ´Stop! It´s a family! Go talk to them!´ My thoughts: ¨haha no. We´re so late and we´re going to be even later!¨ ¨No! go talk to them now! You´re so dumb! You don´t even know if the other guy´s going to be home again... Go. talk. to. that. family.¨ So I couldn´t ignore the impression I was receiving so I turned to Elder D**, ¨Elder! It´s a family! We have to talk to them now!¨ Elder D**: ¨What?! No! We´re really really late and this might be our last chance to find el Hermano! We don´t have time!¨ ¨No! Elder! We have to talk to them right now!.........(as Elder D** gives up and stops because I had already stopped....) Elder.... we need something to say to them... Quick! What do we say because we already passed them in the street and that´d be super weird to just go up to them again..... Ah! The reference! We´ll ask them where this house is that we can´t find! ¡Ya! ¡Vamos!¨ (Yes.... I was talking to myself.) So we started up a conversation and it turns out that the husband is a member AND one of the references we had received about 2 months ago, but we had the wrong address and never found him. And when I asked the wife if she too had been baptized, she looks at me and says, ¨Todavía, Elder¨ (Basically she´s saying that it hasn´t happened yet but she´s thought about it before.) So we set an appointment to teach them and continued on our way. (The other appointment that we were late for had left the city earlier that day....)
So then in our appointment with this family..... Awesome. Got to know them. They cried. We didn´t. She doesn´t know much about the church. He does. She wants to know more. He was already helping her. They were both attending regularly in Cobija. Yes. Golden family. We left them a pamphlet of the Restoration and a Book of Mormon because el Hermano wanted to start reading it again and didn´t have one. Returned for our next appointment 3 days later... We ask them how their reading was going... The Hermana ¨I´m in 2nd Nephi! Oh and we read the entire pamphlet together after you all left the other night.¨ Haha WHAT?! Yes. She was already in 2nd Nephi. And she told us the entire story of 1st Nefi with every detail possible. ¡Increíble! [Unbelievable!] So after a lesson that we didn´t even teach anything because she already knew it all, I was thinking that at least we could help her receive an answer and all..... ¨So hermana, did you get the chance to read the last part of the pamphlet about prayer?¨ La Hermana, ¨Oh sí [yes]! And after my prayer I felt something that I just can´t explain........¨ Wow. So then I was going to do some interview questions right there to see if she really had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Ya, she answered those questions before I had the chance to ask her. Seriously. We were shocked! AH! We didn´t even know what to say! Basically she´s getting baptized. (oh ya, her cousin: the hermano that the witch was in his house..... yup there´s so much more to this story it´s just ridiculous!)
People are prepared to hear the gospel and you can´t tell me any different because I´ve seen it happen haha.
Well, se acaba el tiempo [the time is finished]. Thanks for all of the Birthday wishes! Love you all! Go look up recipies for empanadas and salteñas to celebrate! (It´s just normal Bolivian food.... but it´s from Bolivia so you have to try it).
Con muchísimo amor [with much love],
Elder Groneman
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