OOOOOO Spooky Halloween Letter!!

Hey everyone!!!

So what I meant from I don't hear anything from my sibs is that they hadn't sent me an e-mail in forever or a letter. And that was the e-mail I sent like years ago (okay, fine 2 weeks, but still).

I'm glad you love Sis. Martin because, well, I love Sis. Martin. And I'm glad you're keeping me in your prayers with my surgery and not in everything else. Haha just kidding.

Yes, I heard my cousin is engaged, Granny JoAnny told me. And I called it first. You heard it first from me. It was me that said it first. Let me direct you to what I said the last week I was in the MTC: "I saw Kelly with her future fiance today at the MTC." Yeah, I think I wrote that to dad or something. But yeah, I knew it would happen.

We have some beautiful decorations in our apartment. I think they're beautiful. And tomorrow we're decorating the apartment for Christmas!! Yay!!!

So we're doing a very good job of teaching lessons. We have had between 17 and 20 lessons per week this month. We're doing a bad job of getting investigators to church. Yesterday we had one. Last week 0. Yeah, I dunno what it is. Here, it is so easy to commit people to baptism but a huge thing to get them to actually come to church. We're working on that.

We were teaching this kid to pray and I told him that we had to be thankful for things. We had to express our thanks for things, for our food, our clothes, our house, and our money. I started giggling a little bit hehehe.

I have to tell you about Kenny, the 3 year old kid of Darwin, one of our members. Yesterday, we were asked to go and give a blessing to them. We get in there, he says "Daddy, me van a bautizar" (Daddy, they're gonna baptize me) and he puts his hands on Elder Hawke's head. We were confused and then Darwin was like "Esta diciendo que le va a dar una bendicion" (He means, they're going to be giving me a blessing). So then Kenny says "Tiene las llaves?" (Do you have the keys?). We were like dang this kid is three years old and he is asking if we have the priesthood keys to give a blessing. After a few minutes, we realized he meant an oil vial. He thought we used keys to give a blessing because normally you have the oil vial on your keychain. So he was asking if we had the "keys" when he actually meant if we had the oil on the keychain. It was pretty funny. But we gave the blessings and it was nice.

There's a thrift store we went to last Monday called "It's a Wrap!" Basically, all the movie and television studios here give all the stuff they don't auction off to this thrift store. They have stuff from like Suite Life of Zach and Cody, High School Musical, and yes, NCIS. It was a lot of fun, because since it's Halloween, they had the costumes out. Which was a lot of fun to try on. Elder Hawke bought a yamalkha.

Speaking of yamalkha, we found out yesterday why some Jews wear yamalkhas and why some Jews wear top hats. The Jews that wear top hats are European Jews that most of the time wear yamalkhas underneath. It's just sort of a tradition thing that's just kinda stuck over the years.

We have a lot of squirrels in our area. I think we might have hit one with our car. We also have a lot of Jews and Armenians, but we try not to hit those with our car. I don't think I even knew what an Armenian was when before I came here. They don't like us too much.

We were talking the other day and Elder Hawke did a lot of musical theater growing up. We talked about the King & I and a couple of thoughts ran across my mind. "My cup of tea" for Brian, and Jordan farting when Mr. Maldonado was mad.

Well, I think that's about it. Say hi to everyone.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald

I live 1/2 mile from CBS Television Studios

Dear Family and everyone else,

 

This will be a shorter e-mail because, well, I don't have much time. And I still have to e-mail president.

Actually, I may just reserve the computer for another hour and take ten minutes to finish e-mailing.

Yes, my surgery is finally scheduled. After many moons of anguish and torment, my day of deliverance is nigh. Novemeber 7th. Yay!

I knew about Jocie going to see Taylor Swift. Granny JoAnny spilled the beans to me. Glad she enjoyed it.

Sounds like everything is going great with the kids and the adults.

Kayla never sent her care package to me.... She's never getting a letter from me :p

Hooray for dad becoming YM president. I think he'll do great. We're having a big shake up in our ward with the auxilliaries. Our bishop is finally feeling ready to take out everything from the old bishop and have a fresh start with his own ideas. He's been in for about nine months now (after an emergency bishop change, so he was just kinda thrown in there without any notice). We have a new YM president, a new YW presidency and he confided in us missionaries that there are more changes on the way. He wouldn't say what though.

Well, the rumors are actually about next transfer. We already had our first transfer like 3 weeks ago, and then like the day after that first transfer, the rumors started. Kinda crazy how fast things start. But the rumors for this transfer won't be known until 3 weeks from now. And I think that more rumors will start when we have our interviews with Pres. Martin tomorrow. Fun stuff.

Mom, you would be totally shocked by my hair. You would probably say that a missionary should never have a hair cut like mine. "It's too long and shaggy." But Pres. Martin specifically stated that a 2 all the way around is too short for a missionary. So ha. Actually, I'll be getting a haircut this Thursday. Plus, I like my hair length.

This week has been one of the craziest weeks, and unfortunately, I cannot tell the stories over the internet. I know I sent a letter to dad today containing the one story that was just crazy but I don't think I should share that one.

And there are other disturbing stories. Like the time we went to a new investigators house and the 15 year old son was watching pornographic material while his mother and aunt (who is a member) was in the room. He felt so awkward and turned it off.

One of the problems we've had is getting our investigators to church. The past two weeks we've had no one at church. And it's sad. But we're trying our hardest.

We were afraid Fernanda dropped us yesterday, but we stopped by and were able to talk with her. This whole weekend she spent with her dad because it was his birthday, so she couldn't go to church.

As for Heliot, well Elder Hawke's "love affair" (as the hermanas like to call it) with him was rekindled. We're progressing really well with his daughter (no love affair there) who loves for us to come over. She's 14 and reminds me a lot of Jocie. She's normally very shy (ok, that doesn't remind me of Jocie), but always talkative when we are over. Kinda reminds me of Jocie when the missionaries are over and how she's always talkative and fli- Ok, I won't say it.

As for our other investigators, things are going really slow. We're trying to find a lot of people, but it is hard. We can't go knocking very much. There's no place to street contact. It's tough. But we're trying.

So just in case you guys were wondering, or curious, The Office is filmed about 1/2 a mile from where I live. You probably don't even know what The Office is (with Steve Carrell) but a lot of people think it's funny. And a lot of people up at BYU like it.

And NCIS is filmed at the CBS Studios in my area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be jealous.

At least I think it is.

Elder Herrera says hi.

And as I was looking at the map the other day, I noticed that North Beverly Hills is in our area. We never go down there, it's just something nice to say.

I know my area is called North Hollywood, but it's nothing like the Hollywood you think of when they say Hollywood. It reminds me more of the Lower Valley.

I was sick all day Friday. We tried to work, but about 5:00pm I couldn't do it anymore. So we came back and I took a nap. Then about 6:40pm I wanted to go work again, but Elder Hawke wouldn't let me. I tried to get him to go, but gave up around 8:15pm, then I went back to bed, and slept for 14 hours to try and get the sickness out of me.

Well, that's about it.

Love ya guys.

 

Elder Nathan Gruenewald

Survival of the 2nd Transfer

Hey ya'll,

So I'm e-mailing a little later on Monday because we had a rather big fiasco with the military ID. We went to one of the Army Reserve places in Santa Monica. Santa Monica is about 20 miles from North Hollywood. Yet it turned into a 2 1/2 hour drive when you factored in LA rush hour traffic. So we left at a little before 9 and got there at 11:15. But the lady that is in charge of the ID's decided to go home early and her back-up wasn't in that day (even though she had told us she would be in on Monday when I called her on Saturday). So then we boogied on over further south to Los Angeles Air Force base and took care of it there. We were supposed to get back at 11 and everything was supposed to be fine and dandy. We didn't get back until 3:30. But, we had a good time with Sis. Martin, and we learned a lot of fun stuff.

But funny thing. They wouldn't let Elder Hawke or Sis. Martin on the base because, well, apparently LA Air Force Base is like top-notch security stuff and they don't let anyone on ever unless they have a military ID, and even then I had to get some clearance for me. So I went in all by myself without a companion (AH!!). And as I'm sitting in there this 20, 21, 22, 23 year old girl or something like that is just looking and staring at me. And I'm thinking "Great, just what I need, me with no companion, and here we have a female trying to hit on me." Then she comes walking toward me and I'm like "Uh.... lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is..." She says hi, I say hi. And then she says "I've never seen an elder without his companion." Turns out she was a member in Glendale or something like that. So we talked a little bit about how my comp was not let on the base and it wasn't just because I left him.

Elizabeth was confirmed this past Sunday by me. Fun stuff. I had to say it in Spanish. Fun stuff. She's doing really good. Not much else to say.

We also have Fernanda, someone I don't think I have told you about yet. She's our investigator's (Natalia) daughter. Anyways, we had talked with her once but never really taught her a lesson. When we did talk to her, we had left her a Book of Mormon and told her to read 3rd Nephi 11. So we came back last Thursday for our first actual lesson. We talked for a bit and then she asked a random question out of the blue: "What time do you guys wake up in the morning?" 6:30. "Is that why you guys are always happy and smiling and everything?" "Sure....... haha no." So we talked a little more about why we are happy. And then she told us that she had read 3rd Nephi 11. And one of the things she noticed was how Jesus Christ gave Nephi the authority to baptize. Then we talked about how we have the authority to baptize, and all the first lesson. And we invited her to get baptized and she accepted the invitation. So, we have a baptismal date set with her for November 13th. We'll see how that turns out.

The poor misioneras in our district. They have just had some bad luck the past month. At the end of September they had 8 baptismal dates with people. 2 of them moved, 2 of them they found out weren't married and couldn't get married because one of them wasn't legally divorced and it would cost $6000 to get it done. 3 of them they just can't find anymore. They've just had some really really bad luck. Yet, they are the best. They work hard and always try to keep and optimistic attitude about it. Plus, they're on bike, and this past week was brutally hot (105 degrees on day).

Oh, this past Wednesday I was on a companion exchange with Elder Babcock. So I got to drive all day. Yay! Fun stuff. But actually, it was a really productive day. We actually got a lot of work done, taught 3 lessons. It was a good day.

Well, the library wants to kick me out of here 'cuz it closes at 5:30 and I haven't written Pres. Martin yet. So sorry for this shorter than usual letter.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald

Yippie...Columbus Day

Hey everyone,

Sorry this is a day late. But there was an extremely important holiday yesterday that the whole city shut down to observe this magnificent day. Columbus Day!! Yay! We had great Columbus festivities and all the libraries were closed. Ok, we didn't really have Columbus festivities. I think Columbus Day is just a way to get another day off for government workers. But whatever. Actually, my companion said that everything was closed because it was Canadian Thanksgiving in Monday (which, it is true that it was Canadian Thanksgiving; they celebrate it earlier). We had a great Thanksgiving feast with a lot of missionaries from our zone yesterday. We had mashed potatoes... that we found in our pantry that were probably from a couple of months ago. Stuffing from the Dollar Store. Corn and green beans (who knows how old those were...). French bread (is 73 cents for a loaf of french bread like the ones we always buy good, mom?). Pumpkin pie that the hermanas made. And our "turkey" ... that was actually a chicken rotisserie we bought (the chicken looked dead!!!). It was so much fun.

So it sounds like the cruise was fantastic. That will be on my to-do list for the year after I get back from my mission.... Find an esposa (wife), take a cruise... Easier said than done. Have to find the esposa first.

That's pretty cool about the bilingual wards. Here in the valley we don't even have bilingual stakes. The stake we have is an all-Spanish stake. That's actually not very common in the mission, only here in the San Fernando Valley. We have an English stake and we have a Spanish stake.

Our mission is kinda divided into four areas: The San Fernando Valley (which I am in), the Santa Clarita Valley, the High Desert, and Antelope Valley. Something like that.

Oh, so the highlight of the week. Elizabeth was baptized!! Yay. She's so happy, though in the pictures, it would seem otherwise. She didn't smile for the cameras. But yeah Elder Hawke did the baptism on Sunday. There weren't too many people, which she wanted, because it wasn't announced in sacrament meeting the Sunday before because, well, it was general conference. But she's super happy, and she really wants her daughter Karen to start getting more into the church. Right now, we're kinda teaching her but not really. We're working on that.

Our other investigators are kinda a struggle. Heliot has somewhat dropped us because of something Elder Hawke said, so we haven't seen him in a while. We haven't been able to schedule an appointment with Eduardo. Luz hasn't been keeping her commitments. But we have Natalia, who is doing well, and her daughter Fernanda. We tried to visit them today, but Natalia's autistic son Adrian had to be taken to the doctor because he was sick. And we have a couple more people we're working with but nothing seems too promising at the moment.

As for the golden investigator, well, I no longer get to work with him because that was in Elder Vazquez's area and he has his new companion Elder Herrera. But as far as I know, everything is going well with him.

We had stake conference last Sunday. And I'll be honest, none of the missionaries really paid attention. But, guess who the organist was? Yeah, me. Anyways, there were so many people there, like no room whatsoever in the gym or in the chapel and whatever. And it was the really nice organ. And they fixed it!!! So it made it even more exciting for me. It was fun playing the organ. Most of those people didn't even know what an organ sounded like. Ok, not really, but you know. I tend to overexxagerate. Oh, mom, someone told me to thank you for teaching me piano and making me take it. So I'm thanking you for "teaching me piano" and making me take it.

Our mission is very chismoso (gossipy). It's kinda funny. It's almost as bad as high school freshman girls. Rumors abound about this and that and the other. That seems to be how everyone knew everything about me before I even stepped foot into the mission. But now there are rumors abound about what will happen next transfer regarding me. First, there was the rumor that Elder Hawke would be training again and that I would be transferred to who knows where. Then, the rumor was that our south area would be re-opened to new missionaries and that Elder Hawke and I would be split up, and that he would take our north area, and I would take the south area and we would both have new companions. Now, the rumor is that I'm going to be training a greenie next transfer and that Elder Hawke is going to be transferred to who knows where. And this is all in the span of about a week and a half. So there will be other rumors. Not that I care, I don't pay much attention to it. I just think it's really funny. I'll keep you updated on the chisme (gossip).

We have one 10 year old girl, Kathy, that went to Elizabeth's baptism that really wants to get baptized but the mom won't let her. The mom is the roommate of one of our members that we visit all the time, and so the mom knows us very well and loves talking with us. She lets us teach Kathy, but will not let her get baptized, which is sad. 

I have had quite a trial with patience the past few weeks and it has nothing to do with the mission work. It has to do with the surgery. I was supposed to find out a week ago about a surgery date. So I called and asked if they had received the authorization. No, but they'd check and call me back. Didn't call me back. Called the next day- "Oh, we'll check and call you back." No call back. Called on Friday. The lady wasn't in that day. Called yesterday. "Oh we'll check and call you back." No, I wasn't about to let them do that to me. I told them to check right now and that I would call back in one hour. Called back in an hour. "Oh, uh, yeah, Mr. Gruenewald... well, you see... we didn't send it in correctly. We sent it in with only the last four digits of your father's social security number... so we need to resubmit it. But don't worry, we put it as urgent, so it should only be a couple days." Oh, the frustration. So, I'll probably be waiting another week so I can schedule a surgery date.

Oh, at Elizabeth's baptism something kinda funny happened. I was scheduled to play a solo piano piece for her baptism. Except I didn't have anything. So I called Elder Banuelos to ask if he had some music that he could bring. "Sure, I'll be over in a bit." Didn't come to bring the music until 5 minutes after the baptism started. So, he brings in this really difficult piece (it was actually a Jon Schmidt "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" arrangement) and I'm like "great, I can't practice this and I can't chicken out of it." So I sightread it. And it turned out really good. I was very surprised (and nervous).

This week we also had some food that gave me what we like to call a bad case of Jeremiah 4:19. Read that scripture and you'll understand what I mean.

My companion goes to Santa Clarita tomorrow for district leader training, so I get Elder Babcock as a companion. He's been out as long as I have. But it also means I get the car. Yay! The long skinny one is the brake, right?

I hope you're still posting these e-mails on the blog and then on Facebook.

Oh, so remember how someone asked what it was that would be a really good thing to get missionaries? Stamps. Stamps are wonderful. Stamps are what keep us aware of what is going on in the outside world. And Gillette Fusion razor blades, but those are a bit more expensive and I'm not even sure if you're allowed to ship them. But those are nice too, like for Christmas or my un-birthday or something.

So I think that's about it. I feel like I'm missing something and as soon as I send the e-mail, I'm going to remember what it is and be like "dang it." But you know, whatevers.

Send my love to everyone.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald

xxooxOoxOoXxOo (I was totally gonna do that before you e-mailed me. stole my idea)

Musings of October 3, 2011

Hi everyone, mom, dad, Brian, Jocie, Chico, punk (you don't even get your name included; you never write me something meaningful; and you get mentioned after the dog; yeah, that's right), and everyone else that is reading this letter,

Hi.

So this week was a really rough week for us. Elder Torres left (he had to leave early to Colombia because his visa ran out) and so we had Elder Vazquez in our companionship. I love Elder Vazquez. But that's beside the point. Elder Hawke and I are already working two large areas, and we also had to work Elder Vazquez' area because Elder Vazquez's companion doesn't come 'til later today. So, yeah, it was difficult working three areas.

Elizabeth!!! I love Elizabeth. Well, she's getting baptized this Sunday. She would have gotten baptized yesterday, but she drank coffee (bad teaching on our part; she thought it was okay as long as it was more milk than coffee). But she committed to not drinking coffee at all, so now we're back on track.

As for our other investigators... Well, they're not doing so good. Heliot has somewhat dropped us because he feels like we are pushing him too much. Which is somewhat true. I kinda felt like we were asking stuff of him that made him feel too uncomfortable. With him we had to take it slow, and we got a little impatient with him. So we're working on that. We weren't able to visit with Eduardo this week because of our increased work load. And I don't know if I've told you about Luz. Well, Luz was reading a lot in the Book of Mormon and now she isn't.

And we are having a lot of trouble finding new investigators. Most of our new investigators come from former investigators and potentials that have been recorded over the years. We can't really go knocking at apartment complexes. But this week, we have two focuses: 1) Find new investigators. 2) Get to know the ward more so that they feel comfortable with giving us referrals.

I loved general conference. First time that I watched all the conference talks attentively... Normally, I miss one or I fall asleep through one. It was hard with the Sunday sessions because I had to watch those in Spanish and couldn't get all of it. But I loved it! I especially loved Richard G. Scott's talk on reading the scriptures, Pres. Eyring's priesthood talk about pushing yourself beyond your limits in the service of the Lord (he spoke with more boldness that was not the usual Pres. Eyring style), and Ian S. Arden's talk about being a master manager of time. They were all really great talks. I can't wait for the conference edition of the Ensign so I can tear it apart and re-read everything.

As for the priesthood session of conference. They called us out. They really called us out. They got up in our faces. And it's funny how it can make you feel really bad but at the same time make you want to do soooo much better. I loved it. Well, at the time I was like down on myself because I felt like it was "great, I'm doing my best and it's not good enough." But then as you get to thinking about it, they just want you to push yourself a little bit more. So yeah, I loved it.

Journey... Darn, wish I had been able to go to the concert.

So I have been teaching a guy with Elder Vazquez (since he doesn't have a companion) named Orlando. He has studied theology and is very knowledgable in all major religious movements since the dawn of time. He used to be a Seventh-Day Adventist but didn't like it because of the economic stratification within the church. We were teaching him and he said: "I don't know much about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but let me tell you what little I know." He went on to explain the entire Joseph Smith story, complete with exact dates and vivid descriptions, where the church started and what day, the Book of Mormon, the pioneers, Kirtland, Missouri, everything. Nothing he said was wrong, as far as I could tell. He said he really liked the church because it did not have that economic stratification that other churches have and that it was "pretty close" to the kind of church that Jesus Christ had when he was on the earth. The only thing he had questions about was the priesthood (which later on in the week, he called us and said he found his answer in the little booklet we gave him to read), and sabbath day observance. Yesterday we taught him again, and he said: "You know, I hope I am progressing enough and I know enough to be baptized." Uh, yeah, you know more than the eternal investigator we have been teaching for a year. He really has the desire to find out more, to know that this is the true church.

To Cynthia Amaya (hopefully, mom or dad, you're putting this on facebook)- Yeah, uh, I am mad at you. End of story :p

Welllllllllllll, ummmmm, mom can you send me some developed (is that what they call it now? since everything is digital and only film is developed) photos of the family, the dog... Yes, the dog!!! A photo of El Paso, and any other pictures that are worth showing to like my investigators and my fellow missionaries. I would love, say, 20 pictures, but whatever floats your boat.

Are you rocking your soul in the bosom of Abraham? If you are, congratulations. If you aren't, please do. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a song. We have a CD of African-American gospel music sung by the Mo-Tab that we love and one is called "Rocking My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham." It has become a favorite of Elders Hawke, Vazquez and I and we love rocking our souls in the bosom of Abraham.

Time to get kicked off this library computer. Send my regards to all.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald