Last Christmas in Argentina

Hello again!

It was a very nice week and finished off very nicely being able to talk to you guys yesterday. Everything's well, not much has changed over the last couple of hours haha.

This week was good. Like I said it went by pretty quick, andwe were supposeed to have a baptism, but at the last minute she backed out because she was having a lot of doubts. We went and tried to help her understand and feel sure, but she wouldn't budge. But she wants to keep going to church and be baptized in the future, she just wants a little time.

We should also be having a baptism this week in the other ward that we're in charge of, which is going to be great! She's awesome and is going to progress very well in the gospel. He's a less-active that's coming back, and they're going to do great things together, that'¿s for sure.

Christmas was great! Like I said, my comp was pretty sick, so we were inside most of the two days, but the members that we were going to eat with brought us a lot of food and so we still had a good time hanging out and relaxing for a while. Yesterday we ate a super good asado and hung out with the missionaries, I'll send pictures.

Other than that everything's great! I love you all,have a great week!!!!

Elder Grondel

Pics

Louisa

Hello there family, how are you?

Everything's great here in Plottier.

This week was kind of hard, but this weeks going to be evenm better, so it's alright. The beginning of the week was great and everything was going well, we were preparing everything for the baptisms we're going to have next week. We went to Juan Carlos, and the cita was going well, but a member came into the kitchen where we were teaching to heat up his water to drink mate, and Carlos got nervous and stood up and said that he had to go to another commitment and we set up a cita for Saturday, and he didn't show up. Neither did he come to church the day afterwards, so we don't really know what's going to happen.

Our other investigador with a baptismal date, Claudia, told us this week that they aren't going to be able to come to church on Christmas day so that she can get baptized, and so they wanted to push the date back another week, which is kind of a bummer because that will be after transfers, and I could possibly be leaving. But she's great and going to get baptized, and that's the important thing.

Louisa, the grandma of a recent convert family is also doing very well! She still has her date for this weekend, and last time we talked to her, she was very excited and committed! But she couldn't come to church yesterday because she had extreme back pains... so yeah, it was kind of a tough day. We tried to go see her but didn't answer the door or the phone, but we have faith that she'll still get baptized this weekend and be able to keep going. She's an amazing woman, and so we're hoping for the best there.

Thank you all for you support and love always, it means a lot. During this Christmas season, I invite all of you to think in ways you can become more like Christ, and serve other people! When we focus on others and try to do nice things for them, our problems and troubles become a lot smaller and tend to resolve themselves. I love you all, and have a very Merry Christmas!!

Elder Grondel

3 wards

Hello family! How is everybody doing? We had a great week here in Plottier, we're seeing a lot of great things, and are excited for the next couple weeks!

This week we worked super hard with the investigators that we already have and looked for a lot of new ones, and we saw miracles. Right now, we have 3 baptismal dates for the 24th of this month! The first one is Claudia Muñoz, who lives in the other ward in Plottier, but they're aren't missionaries in her ward for now, so we're teaching her! She's great. She has a couple doubts about modern-day prophets(mostly just wy all of them are from the US) and tithing, but she said she would pray about that and get it taken care of. The most important think is that she wants to get baptized! The thing she loves more than anything is being able to be sealed to her family for time and all eternity, that's something she really wants to do, so we're focusing on that.

The second baptismal date is Louisa, who's the grandma of a recent convert family Viedma. She showed up to our Family Home Evening we had scheduled with them, and she loved it! We invited her to be baptized, and she accepted. She came to church yesterday as well to see her grandson give his first talk in sacrament meeting! It was a great experience.

The last one is a man named Juan Carlos, who is the guy that I told you about who lives in the other ward that doesn't have missionaries because it's a dangerous area (hence the subject title, working in three different wards for the first time in Argentina). He is an amazing man. His neighbor that was slightly less-active invited him to church in October, and he went, and loved it! Since then he's gone almost every week. He's about 60 years-old, and wnats to get baptized, but wants to do it right. He was a little worried about it going to fast because he'd never met missionaries before, but we explained that he's already had a lot of preparation going to church so many times, and he said he's going to pray about getting baptized next weekend! We're going to have a white Christmas here in Plottier!

We also did exchanges with the assistants this week, which was super fun. I went with Elder LeBaron, who's a really great guy and we had a good time. Taught a lot and had fun. They have a really nice apartment in downtown Neuquén, so it was fun to spend a night there.

Other than that, it's been a pretty normal week! Everything's going great! I love you all!!!

Elder Grondel

My comp finally brought his camera, so here's some pictures from the last couple weeks

In December drinking Horchata

Hello family!! This week was fantastic! Everything was great! Sorry for not writing last week, it was a packed writing day

We started December! And so did the new Christmas campaign Light the World! It's been fantastic! We've been giving out a ton of pass-along cards, we have a goal in the mission to end December without a single one of the pass-along cards! So we're trying as hard as we can to give them all out. So far it's going well! My companion and I are having a great time finding clever ways to give them out and are just having a great old time.

This week was pretty normal, not a lot of exciting things happened. But we are finding a lot of new people and having some success. The Lord is blessing us greatly. As we were visiting a recent convert this past week, Our mission president called us to inform that there is an investigator in a nearby ward of the stake that currently doesn't have missionaries because it's a dangerous area, and that he has been coming to church for about a month, and he wants to get baptized! And that he wants us to go and teach him! So we're going to be having an appointment with him pretty soon here to talk to him and get him prepared to be baptized in the next couple weeks! We're really excited and very grateful for the Lord's hand in our work.

Our zone also got even smaller. Elder Montoya from Mexico has been having problems in his shoulders and recently they found a tumor-like thing that's a not tumor in his shoulder. This week church headquarters told him he should go home to get it taken care of, so he left and his companion went to another area. So now our zone(district) is 7 missionaries ha! But we have some good missionaries and things should turn out well.

I love you all have a great week!!!

Elder Grondel

Sorry for no pictures my comp always forgets his camera haha

0 tiempo

I'm so sorry, I completely spaced the group email! Doing great had a good week, I'll write more next week!

heat

Hey everyone! This week was great!

Every week I sit down and don't remember a lot of what has happened during the week. This week we have walked quite a bit. Elder Jensen is a workhorse, and walks faster than me (which is quite a surprise). We've gotten a lot done, but it's been tiring. We visited old investigators, found less-actives, taught some progressing investigators, and contacted a whoooolle lot. Elder Jensen and I have both been working on talk with everyone a lot more, so we've been trying a lot to talk with everyone we can, and it's been going great! We're learning a lot.

We have a few investigators that are progressing pretty well, but they weren't able to come to church this week because of work/vacation, so that was pretty rough, but we're going to have some success here pretty soon. Elder Jensen is great and we're working hard so, we should see something soon.

Our zone is super tiny now, but they're doing great. We're excited for this transfer.

Basically, Elder Jensen and I are best friends. We get along super well, he's very musically talented and actually has the ukulele that my old comp Elder Sorenson had bought when I bought my guitar haha, so we've been having fun jamming together in the very little time we have to do so haha. We've been having a great time, and this transfer is going to be awesome. Loving life!!

Love you all!

Elder Grondel

Pics

1. Sat on a freshly-painted park bench

2. wut

3. When you're trying to relax after a hard day's work and your comp snaps one of you

Elder Jensen!

Hey family how are you?? Sorry I didn't write last week, things got crazy, and there was no time. But I'm doing great! This last week we had transfers, and I stayed in Plottier! And my companion left to Cinco Saltos. My new companion is Elder Jensen from Leighton, UT! We have the same time and he's great! We're going to have a great transfer together, back to another gringo! Hahaha.

This week went by quickly, but it was good. Not much happened, but we had interviews with President, and it was good. My interview was short, but nice. President Casariego is a very inspired man, and he always knows how to lift me up.

We also did intercambios with the Elders that are on the other side of the city/the other ward here in Plottier. I went with Elder Harris which was great. He's a good guy and we had fun together. In the transfers, they actually took out the missionaries in that weird, so we're going to be working a little bit in both wards for a little while. We'll see how it goes.

We're finding new people to teach, and a lot of them are families! So we're excited about that, we're definitely going to see the results of that soon.

I don't have much to say, but I'm doing well and loving life! Hope you are all well, I love you!!

Elder Grondel

My new comp and I

Happy Halloween

Hello there Everything's great here in Plottier (in spanish pronounced P-low-ti-er)

I don't really have too much to report on this week, it wasn't all too exciting. A member yesterday told me that Halloween is Satan's new year and condemned me for ever celebrating it, so that was fun.

We did intercambios with the district leader in Progreso, which is in Neuquén, and Elder Shupe came and did them with me here in Plottier. He's a good Elder that I had met when I was in San Martín and he was just starting the mission in Bariloche. He's a good guy and we get along great so we had a good time.

Also in district meeting in Senillosa we had to eat apples tied to a string blindfolded as our companions led us with their voices demostrating companionship unity. Pics will be attached.

Also, yesterday was a great day! My companion and I have been working super hard and have commited ourselves to baptize this transfer, and we haen't been seeing the success we wanted in our area. Yesterday morning we went to go pick up an investigator, Nestor, and walk to church with him, he had said beforehand he would come and was excited. But when we went to get him, there were all asleep. So we went to church, and there was another investigator that came always but needs to get married before she can get baptized. And so we kept going and I was thinking about how we hadn't seen what we wanted eventhough we had put our faith and trust in the Lord, and I said to myself. don't doubt, it'll all work out. A few minutes after that, the same investigator Nestor showed up with his less active girlfriend to sacrament meeting! (the last meeting in our area). It was an answer to my prayer almost immediately. I love being a missionary!

Love you all and hope you're well!! :)

Elder Grondel

Eating an apple blindfolded haha

rain

Hello there

It is raining very heavily as I type this message in a cyber café in a town called Plottier. But this week was fantastic.

The main highlight was the leadership council we had this Wednesday. We talked about a lot of things, but the main focus of it was faith. We talked about a couple different scriptures and did a lot of different things, but the main message was for us to have more faith. It was super spiritual, and we were able to feel a lot of good things that led us to grow our own faith, and then be able to do a similar thing with the missionaries in our zone training to lift the faith in the zone. Things aren't going too well here, and so we're trying to get it going, and I truly believe that this is going to help a lot.

I feel like I've talked about this before, but our mission President was a fantastic missionary when he served about 40 years ago. There's a talk by Elder Gene R. Cook, actually a BYU devotional from 1981, called Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in which Elder Cook talks about when he was a mission President, and there was a missionary that showed great faith and was able to accomplish many miracles in his mission. One of those miracles was being sent to Paraguay, where about 20 people a month were being baptized, in a whitewash, when two missionareis that don't know the area go there together, and baptizing 18 people in 3 weeks. He could do it because of the amazing faith he had and has in the Lord Jesus Christ. Tha missionary is our mission president. So, if anybody knows how to change things, it's him. The council was very powerful, and his wife even shared the letters that he wrote to her from that period of time when he was baptizing many people on his mission. It really helped us see that it is possible, and we're going to do it. My comp and I prayed a lot to set a goal for the rest of this transfer, and we're excited to work as hard as we can to reach it.

Other than that, it rained a lot, we found some new people to teach, and we're going to see some miracles here pretty soon, I know it.

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Grondel

sorry no pictures, I will on that this week

what

Hey guys how's it going?

Everything's great down South here. La verdad, I don't remember mucho of what happened this week, but here we go.

Basically most of the week we were looking for new people, found some good news, one of our investigators is really interested, but didn't come to church. The thing we did different this week was intercambios with Senillosa, another city much smaller than Plottier about 30 minutes more towards Chile. I went with Elder Bramell over there, and it was great! I met him in Roca about a year ago, and it was great to work with him again. He finishes this transfer, so we got him excited to get it everything he's got a make some miracles happen out in his area. He's a good guy.

Also, during our district meeting this week, my comp and I were doing a practice with oen fo the assistants about using a meeting with the bishop as a way to find new people as it says in Preach My Gospel, and it did not go well haha. Not exactly the easiest things to explain and invite someone to do the first time that you meet them. But it was fun.

Other fun things..................this week we should have the council meeting thingy with President, which is going to be great! Always I good time.

Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Grondel

PS I'm an uncle again! Woo!! Las familias pueden ser eternaaaasss :)

pics
my comp's camera isn't the greatest, but this graffiti says we are the hope of the world :)

Week number something of quite a few

Hello there

This week was pretty great! We did a lot and it went by pretty fast, but I'm getting to know my new area pretty well and I'm excited to see where this transfer goes.

Most of the week was spent just meeting new people members, investigators, less-actives, and teaching them a bit. Here in our zone we have 3 districts: one here in Plottier with another companionship of Elders, one in Progreso a bit closer towards Neuquén with 3 companionships of Elders, and another in Senillosa, which is out the other way towards the east with 2 Elders and 2 Hermanas. So we went to a few district meetings and things are going alright. The zone hasn't been doing that well recently, so we're trying our best to lift everyone up right now. But we've got some good district leaders, so things should work out.

On Saturday we also had a mini zone training. It was mini because we normally have the leadership council the first week of the transfer, get the study plans and everything from President to do the trainings, but this transfer, President is going to Ushuaia(the very very bottom of Argentina) to have a meeting with all the mission presidents in Argentina and the apostles, and doesn't get back till the 3rd week. So we're waiting till then to receive all the material. Anyway. We had a mini training about the talk by Elder Yamashita about Ambition for Christ, and it went super well! So we're excited about that.

The assistants came to the training, and we did exchanges with them her in Plottier. I went with my old comp Elder Clemens again, because he was in this area about a year ago, and it was great. We had a really good time and I learned a lot as always.

Yesterday was a normal day at church, there is an entire family that Elder Clemens found last December in the which all have gotten baptized except the parents, and they came. They're great and the parents just have to get married to be baptized, so we're working on that.

Other than that, not much too exciting has happened, I'm doing well. Love you all have a great week!!

Elder Grondel

Plottier

Hola familia!!!!

Weeeellllll I got transferred! I just got here to a city called Plottier, which is a smaller city outside of Neuquén. I was very sad to leave my favorite area up in the beautiful mountains of the Patagonia, but I'm excited for this transfer. And I finally got a latin comp! His name is Elder Juarez and he's from Buenos Aires. I met awhile ago in one of my first areas, he's a great guy and we're going to do a lot of good things together. We're zone leaders together, and the zone has a few small districts that are quite spread out, and we've got a lot of work to do to help them all out. It's going to be a great transfer.

This week went by super quick doing a lot of different things, but the highlight was definitely General Conference! It was so great, I feel like we just had it about a month ago, but time just keeps going by faster and faster. One of the talks that really stood out to me was Ronald A. Rasband's about spiritual experiences and everything. It was so great to hear his testimony of how things have gone for him as an apostle, and how he has held on to the Lord more than his whole life. I loved how he pleaded at the end that we don't forget those spiritual experiences. That is so important. I have met so many less active and inactive members and investigators that have let disputations, contentions, and other insignificant problems overpower and drown out the spiritual experiences that they have had in their lives. Our minds may forget them, but as we reflect in sincere prayer, the Lord will help us to remember those experiences that have brought us to where we are today.

Well that's enough soapboxing for today. I love you all so much, thank you for your constant support, I truly appreciate it!!!

Elder Grondel

Last picture with the zone in Bariloche

almost forgot

Sorry I have no time and I comletely forgot, but here's some pictures and stuff Love you all!!!!!

Elder Grondel

Belén se bautizó por fin

Hey guys, how are you?? Everything is great here. This week went by extremely fast, but it was great. 

At the beginning of the week, we went to El Bolsón, and it was good. We wanted to go do an interview for one of the Hermanas' investigators that had a baptismal date for this week, but she was asleep and apparentlyjust didn't want to talk to us, so didn't really work, but it was a good trip anyway. On Thursday, we went to San Martín and back again in one day to go get some equipment (signs and posters) for a chapel open house that we tried to put together on Saturday. It was very tiring, but nice to be back. The senior couple in charge of that stuff bought us a pizza, and we talked for a little while. They are the Westergard's, and are from Far West. Turns out that Grandma Grondel was her childrens' 6th grade teacher! so that was super cool

We came back and got everything ready for Belén's baptism on Saturday. We didn't have a lot of time to invite a lot of people because we couldn't plan it well with them until Friday morning, but she only wanted family to come anyway, so it worked out well. The service was nice. Simple, there was 11 of us in total, but nice. She was super happy and even started crying when she left the water. She said she felt her chest burning and was just super happy the rest of the day. The truth is that we feel that we've seen a big change in her as well. She is very converted to the Gospel, and is going to a great member all of her life.

Yesterday we had a family home evening with Belén y Pablo, and they invited a less-active family that we've tried to work with a couple of times, but they're super lazy. It turns out that the dad and pablo are super good friends since Primary, and so he invited him over to talk a bit. Pablo planned everything, said he would take care of it, and he taught and amazing lesson about prayer and bore his testimony with such intent and love towards one of his best friends, it was fantastic. Way more powerful than anything my comp and I could have ever done. He came to church yesterday, so hopefully we'll see them coming more now.

Overall that's all that happened this week, not much to report. THis transfer is evaporating very quickly, can't believe it. Here's a picture of us and Belén y Pablo (aka my Argentine family) Love you all!!!!

Elder Grondel

this week

Nothing too many exciting things happened this week, so I'm going to get right into it.

Basically, Belén didn't get baptized this week either. We understand bery poorly, and apparently she had to work this past weekend as well, so she wasn't able to be baptized. But she will be baptized this Saturday no matter what. Our other investigator Soledad is progressing very very well. We put a fecha for the 17th with her as well, so we'll see what happens there.

We also had conference with President this Thursday. My companion and I had to do a training on a lot of different things, and it went well. It was a different conference because usually President and the assistants do almost all of the training, and this time, President talked for like 20 minutes at the end, and four different companionship gave different trainings from our zone. But it was great! We had a good time and learned a lot. I explained better here in our recording!

Love you all so much!!

Elder Grondel

Pic
matching Argentine jerseys

me re olvidé

sorry guys I forgot and don't have time, but here's a recording and some pictures!!!!

waffle

is a hard life being a baller

lunch with the assistants

when you make your comp mad and have parmesean goldfish

(if you didn't get the recording through email, comment below with your email and I will forward it to you :)  - Lauren )

Belén se bautiza

Never know what to put here so

This week was really good. Super crazy because of consejo, but good. Don´t remember most of it and I'm reaaaallly tired, but it was good.

On Thursday, we had consejo (I think that's MLC in English) with all the zone leaders and everybody in Neuquén. Which means naother 6 hour bus ride in the middle of the night to Neuquén, a meeting all day, and then waiting until midnight to take another 6 hour bus back to Bariloche. So that was great. It was a really good consejo though, we talked a lot about focuesing on charity and developing love for our investigators, for missionaries, and for our companions. I liked it a lot, and there was a lot of good stuff we're going to be applying here en Bariloche. And my companion served in Neuquén about 6 months ago, and so he got in contact with one of his old investigators that was his neighbor, and we had some choripan (sausagebread, look it up the picture will describe it better than I can) with him. It was super good and fun. But we are still very tired from the trip.

The rest of the week we couldn't really find a lot of our investigators home, and we were gone for a while, so basically it was kind of rough in terms of numbers, but we did the zone training yesterday and it went really well, everybody's excited for the new plan we have in the mission.

We did have a really awesome experience, or mejor dicho- she had an amazing experience that she shared with us, last night. She's doing great as always, accepting everything, reading a ton, she even was talking to her mom about what she had been learning, and her mom was talking about she was going through a rough time, and Belén said, well it's because you're not praying right, here I'll teach you how to do it correctly. And then she explained her how to pray, and sent her a talk by Thomas S. Monson. She's a better missionary than us, and she's not even baptized! But anyways, last night we were talking, and she said she wanted to tell us about something that happened. And so she starts telling us that Pablo (the boyfriend) was showing her some mormon messages, and the last thing they watched was the bible video of Jesus talking to Nicodemus about why he needed to be baptized. He leaves to his house, and she stayed up a little longer and decided to start reading the bible. She opens up to a random page, and it just so happens to be the story of Nicodemus with Jesus, and she starts reading it without even realizing it was the same story. So she had started thinking about that and everything. Reads a little of the Book of Mormon, and then kneels down to pray. Near the end of her prayer, she starts asking for continued understanding in the things she's learning and to know what she should do, and she told us that as she was closing the prayer, she just felt a heat all over her body, and that it scared her, but she also felt good and happy. The next day she told Pable about it, and he being the capo return missionary that he is, read her from DyC 9:8 and explained to her it was an answer, a testimony of the truth. She was so excited and you could just tell that she had been convinced of the truthfulness of the gospel. She's super excited to get baptized this week! (If all works out with her work schedule) We're super happy too.

Basically, that's about all that's happened this week. Love you all soo much!!

Elder Grondel

Pics
1. Consejo old comp current comp

2. The best lasagna I've eaten in my entire life.

El nuevo miembro del barrio alto 1

Hello there everyone, how's it going?

This week was super good, full of some awesome surprises, so we're going to get right into the thick of it.

So last week, the day after our investigator said she never wanted to talk to us again, we got a call form a member named Pablo Guevara. He called us and said he had a referral for us, and that the referral was his girlfriend, and that he was going to come to church that Sunday with her to introduce us to her! So basically, she came, and she's awesome. She was raised Catholic but never went, and he is a return missionary, and had already explained a lot of stuff to her about the church, and she decided she wanted to start listening. We've gone by 4 times this week, she understands everything, and has a baptismal date for the 3rd of September! She's super great and excited and we're really pumped. She also makes an amazing lemon bread that is delicious. He is a really cool guy, and he speaks english so we always have fun saying random words in english in the lessons or just messing around. He also goes snowboarding aaaalll the time (it's still winter here in case you forgot) and we all get along well, so it's awesome.

We also have another investigator, who is the girlfriend of Pablo's nephew Sebastian. She came to church for the first time about 2 weeks ago, was a super practicing baptist, and studies the Book of Mormon better than I do. We told her to start from the beginning, and the next time we went by she had read the first four chapters, marked the book, written notes summarizing the general theme of each chapter, and then did an overall reflection of what it teaches and how she can apply it in her life. She's amazing. She also gave us some sweet Christian Rock music in english, because she's an english teacher, so that's sweet. But she lives with her boyfriend, and so we have to take care of that problemita.

So in the middle of all of this, we had to el bolsón to do a baptismal interview, and my comp and I both ate an entire pizza. It was snowing the day that we went and the road on the way was covered in snow completely, it was ridiculous how much snow there was.

Also like I said last time, this week we had transfers. I've already been in Bariloche, so I thought for sure I was leaving, I just wanted to know where I would be going. I also didn't want to leave because of the awesome new investigators that we found. So we open up the mail on Friday night, and I'm staying in Bariloche for another transfer! 6 months in the Alto 1 ward! Elder Madsen and I are super excited to work for 6 more weeks here, and see what we can do.

Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!!!

Elder Grondel

Pics
1. Ice cream

2. Cold

3 y 4 (on the way to) El Bolsón

Bolsón

Hello there everybody, how are you guys doing??

Everything's great here. Our week was crazy and went by super quick, but things are going well.Basically, two main things happened this week.

First of all, we had to go to El Bolsón for a baptismal interview on thursday. When we got there, the investigator´s nephew had passed away that morning, and the entire time we were out there, she was in the funeral and doing other things, and so we couldnt do the interview. We figured that she was having a hard time and would probably want to b baptized the next week, so we didn't worry about it and came back to Bariloche. That night, the Elders called us and told us that they talked to her and she said that she still wants to get baptized! So thenext day we took another 2 hour bus out to el Bolsón, did the interview, and got on another bus back and went back to Bariloche. And just out luck, the bus back broke down, so we had to wait another bus to make it back. So that was great. But she got baptized and everything is good now.

While we were in El Bolsón the first time, we get a text in the middle of the night from Ortencia (our investigator that was going to get baptized this week) saying that she´s not going to get baptized, and doesn't want to know anything. We were freaking out, went to talk to her the next day, and she just gave us the silent treatment. We don't not what happened, so that kind of stinks. But we're hoping that everything can work out for her.

Everything else is going great! This week we have transfers, so we're going to see what happens there, probably going to leave Bariloche, but I don't want to so that's great!
Love you all

Elder Grondel

hello there

Good morning. Or afternoon. Or whatever time it is when you actually read this.

This week was really good! To be honest it was one of the fastest weeks of my mission, and I'm not quite sure why because we didn't do anything specialy, it just went by fast. Weird.

Our main focus this week was helping Katarina get baptized, and well, it wasn't the easiest of tasks.

On Tuesday we passed over some of the last minute things are made sure she was all ready for her baptism, she said she felt good and was excited. Thursday, we had an appointment at the church, and Elder Bush came to do her baptismal interview, but about 10 minutes before, she told us something came up last minute, and wouldn't be able to make it. We were freaking out a little bit, but she said she could the next day and got everything ready. Elder Bush came again, and well first she said she would be an hour late, but actually ended up showing up around 8pm. When she had arrived we explained that Elder Bush was going to ask her a couple questions just to make sure that she was ready for her baptism and everything, and she said "oh good, because I've been thinking that maybe I'm not that ready." Let the major freak-out commence. Elder Bush took her to do the interview, and my comp and I tried to calm down by playing some ping-pong. After the longest interview I've ever been a part (hour and a half) she came out smiling and said she was ready and excited. Freak-out level back to normal. The next day we were getting everything ready most of the day, go and start filling up the font, and she calls saying she feels sick, but that she's going to come 30 minutes late. Freak-out levels quickly return to high level. FINALLY she showed up at 8 for her baptism that was supposed to start at 7 (tardiness is an issure that she struggles with). But, she showed up, was excited, and brough her sister to see it as well! It was a very small baptism, she didn't want a lot of people, and she came late so there was about 10-15 people including us. But everything turned out great! The next day she came to church, brough tartas (cake/pie things that I don't know how to explain), participated in all the classes, and even bore her testimony! It was an amazing experience. Overall, my comp and I have already noticed a huge difference in her. She always knew a lot and wanted to follow Christ, but since her baptism, she has been a lot more smiley, a lot happier and kinder with everybody! The gospel is a gospel of joy de verdad. I love this work and the opportunity I have to be able to see people completely change their lives. It's incredible.

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Elder Grondel

Pics

1-2 We found a black and white setting on my comp's camera and started taking way too many white girl selfies

3. Waiting and waiting and waiting

4. #bautizona