November 28

Dear Everyone,

     So yes, I did remember it was mom and dad's birthday. I actually can never remember the exact days that they're on. I think dad's like the 25th or the 23rd and mom's is like the 23rd or 25th... or something like that. And Jocie's is on the 1st. I figure if I send three letters for all three of you in one envelope between all your birthdays, I'm safe. So don't be all mad with me (ichy wa-wa woo). Mail's slow...

     When you wrote about who came to the Thanksgiving thing, I thought it said the Giraffes, the Hedgehogs and the Peacocks at first. I had to read it twice...

     Thanksgiving was good. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent it doing our weekly planning and studying the scriptures. We went to one of our less active member's home and had turkey, not tamales.

     My verdecito is doing good. He's progressing everyday. The only trouble he's having is when people are talking back to him in Spanish. So I have to start talking with him a lot more in Spanish so that he can gain that comprehension. Otherwise, he's a great missionary. We have to do a lot of roleplaying, which I absolutely hated when I was a greenie (wait a second, I'm still a greenie) because it made me feel like an incompetent missionary. But I know how necessary it is. Sounds like everything is going good with your member missionary work.

     So this week was not a very good proselyting week for us. Monday was P-Day. Tuesday I had a leadership training up in Santa Clarita, and that took all day. Wednesday I had another leadership training in Santa Clarita, so that took most of the day. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and most people wouldn't be too happy if we just sorta dropped by while they were eating their stuffing and pavo (turkey). Friday was at least somewhat regular, except we had district meeting. Saturday was regular. And Sunday, well that's church (and once again we had 0 investigators at church... We're really trying to change that). But somehow, we ended up with 5 new investigators.

      One of the great stories that I have this week is that of Alejandra. We were going to a potential investigator's home when their 14 year old son (Rodolfo) opened the door for us. He invited us to sit down at the table, where Alejandra was, and then just kinda left. Alejandra was filling applications out for college (she's 18).

     Sidenote: For some reason, we have a thing where pretty much all our investigators (about 80%) are either 14-24 year old girls or the mothers of 14-24 year old girls. I think it might have something to do with the white shirt, tie, blue eyes, blonde hair, gueros guapos...

     Anyways, Alejandra was not very open to us at all at first. She was just like whatever, didn't really take us seriously and stuff like that. Then we asked her a question about her religion and she was just like "I'm Catholic and I'm one of those that's actually Catholic. I'm a Cathechism teacher." But then we felt like she didn't really know if God was there and that she had a void in her heart. We told her that and she just started crying. "How did you know? I just don't feel it." So, we told her how she could fill the void in her heart and she just kept crying and stuff like that. It was good.

     Today, a Jehova Witness came up to me today and tried to do his missionary work with me. I was just like "Oh really? I'm a missionary too! We have a great message about the gospel of Jesus Christ." He was not very happy about how I turned the tables on him and started explaining our message. He was just like "Well, can I give you this to read?" (a copy of the Lighthouse). I was just like "You know, we have some stuff that we read that we would love to share with you." He wouldn't accept our card or pamphlets and just walked out of the laundromat. It was fun though :)

Sorry, I don't have time to send individual e-mails.

     Surgery recovery is good. The only bad thing is I have a bit of a cold and sore throat, so there's a bit of coughing and sneezing. That tends to be a little painful. But other than that I'm good. Not much else to report on. Prayer is good.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald