January 30, 2012

Hello,

No, I did not visit Uncle Wayne. I knew the missionary going up to Lone Pine and I had sent them a note with him just saying hey. Guess they got it.

This week has just been a roller coaster week. We found out that Nicolas's wife isn't too happy with us because we drank some of her freshly squeezed orange juice that was apparently only for her. He didn't show up to church yesterday either so we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands. We have tried to set up a time when we can visit with both him and his wife, but we've just been unsuccessful in doing that.

We had some interesting experiences on Saturday. We were doing some visits when we had an impression to go visit a lady named Lilian (don't know if I told you about her). When we got to her complex, we saw that Isabel's door (which is in the same complex) was open, so we decided to go there instead. We get there and she said "I knew you guys were going to come over. I was going to close the door but then something told me just to leave it open for you guys. So I did." We had lunch with her. And we found out that she has a husband. The first time we visited her, we thought she was single, but she's been "married" (we're not really sure if it's really married) for 13 years. So she invited her husband to come talk to us. He seemed pretty receptive, and she's just been soaking it up. So now we're teaching them together.

Right after that, we got an impression to visit Emily. When we got there, she left, so we talked with her sister Cathy. Cathy must be a typical teenage girl (she's 18) because last time we were there, she said she wanted nothing to do with us, that she doesn't agree with anything we say, blah blah blah. So we dropped her about a month and a half ago. This time, she said that everything we have said is right, that we're great people, and the only thing she doesn't agree with is Joseph Smith. So we told her to pray about that and to go to church to find out if those things are true. She even asked one of our members for a ride. Did she go? No. But still, it was a kinda weird change of heart.

Again, we are still having a problem with getting our progressing investigators to church. I don't really know what to do because we have tried so many different things to get them to go to church. But we keep on going.

We had another baptism for our district yesterday. That was really cool because it was a lady that had been kinda putting it off for about a month and a half.

I am still in my "greeny" area. Transfer calls come up this Saturday. The chisme (gossip) around the zone is that I will be training again. I don't think I'll be going anywhere this transfer. I think I have another 6 weeks here before I get sent somewhere else.

I was thinking about what will happen when I get transferred out of here. I'll probably cry. I have such a good connection with this ward and with this area. I love my investigators so much and I love the ward members here so much. I'm just hoping I don't get transferred this weekend. I feel I still have some unfinished business to take care of here.

Can you believe that I've been out here in California for almost 5 months? And can you believe that I'll be hitting my 6 month mark this Friday? Crazy, crazy.

Well that's about it. Sounds like you all are doing great.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald