April 9, 2012 and the Scary Black Truck

Dear Family,

Yes, Palmdale is in my mission. I live about 10 minutes from Palmdale, and I know all the missionaries that serve in Palmdale. Not sure about Orogrande. Maybe... I'll ask around.

Elder Lisonbee and I are doing good. 

I think I've seen the video with Elder Holland about PMG.

Second Dear John. Congrats to Alex. Kayla wrote me the first Dear John my first week in the MTC.

Ok so now to our crazy week. So many crazy stories to tell...

The week before, we went knocking like the whole time. This week was visiting those people that we knocked into. And we have found some pretty legit people. 

The first one I'll mention is Ana. Ana's son is attending the Lake LA English ward (about 20 minutes away), though he is a non-member, because he is dating the bishop's daughter. Maybe I told you about her. The first time we met her, she told us she would take her son's English Book of Mormon and read out of it, but she really didn't understand the big English words, so she'd take a dictionary and translate them. So we gave her a Libro de Mormon and told her to read it.

This week, we visited her. We asked her if she had read. Yeah, she read from the title page to 1st Nephi 4. At first she was saying that it didn't feel like the Bible, that she didn't feel like she was coming close to God like the Bible made her feel. I paused for a minute and turned to 3rd Nephi 27 and shared verses 16, 17 and 20. She kept reading to verse 21 and then she said, speaking about verse 21, "I just read this in the Bible yesterday."

After that, she really opened up to us. She said that she absolutely loves the LDM, she reads it just as much as the Bible. She said that one day, her friend passed away and that she felt impressed to read the LDM. She flipped to a random page- Alma 40: Where the spirit goes after we die. It was so cool. 

We invited her to be baptized, and she said that she would when she knows for a fact it's true. She's really afraid of what her family will think (at least, that's what we feel) and so we're working on getting her unafraid of that. So that's my cool story about Ana.

Then we have Leti and Jesus. Leti is Jesus's mom and they're both really interested. Leti always passes by the Church building and wonders why it's always locked up and no one is ever there. She has a friend whose son is serving a mission. She's really curious about the LDS Church and wants to know more. We invited her to come to Church with us on Sunday. She wasn't able to (we think they already had Easter plans), but we're excited because she wants to know about the Church. Jesus is this good 16 year old kid, good head on his shoulders. He looks kinda like a punk, but he's pretty cool. He wants to go to Church and learn about Jesus Christ.  Cool story there. 

Then we have Natty, who loves us. We went over there on Saturday and on Sunday, once for her sister's birthday party and once for an Easter party (what's with Latinos and parties?) Anyways, Saturday was kinda funny because we walk in and the whole family (like lots of family: grandmas, grandpas, cousins, aunts) just moved to the other side of the room. We're sitting their with Natty and Eriberto and talking. Sunday we go and we're a little more laid back, and the family starts to trust us a little more. Then the grandma and aunt starts talking to us and we start to play with the kids. So now the whole family really likes us and the grandma wants to know more about the Church. So we're excited about that. She said she would listen next time we teach Natty.

We went up to a place called Devil's Punchbowl in our area. We were down in Juniper Hills in our area (about 12 miles from our house) and we figured since we were in the area, we might as well check out this place. It was pretty sweet. It's these cool rock formation formed by the San Andreas fault. They have owls and snakes and it's a pretty sweet place. Might be a cool place to check out if anyone is ever up here. They have some nice hiking trails. We only spent like 30 minutes there and the park ranger was interested in the Church. Pretty cool.

These next stories will give you a lot of comfort, mom.

While at Devil's Punchbowl, I found out that we live less than a mile away from the San Andreas fault. So if the fault slips, I'm one of the first ones to feel it. Don't worry, we have a plan if that ever happens. We'll run outside into the desert area that's right in front of our house. That way, nothing will squish us. 

Now for the best story of the mission. Probably the scariest thing in my life. 

So Sunday we go knocking on this one street. We park in front of this house, and we see this guy in that yard, no shirt, skinny white guy with a mullet and a beard. We're like "Whatever, this guy's not Latino, we'll just go knocking around." We go about 5 or 6 houses and we look back at our car and this guy is looking into our car, touching it and everything. So we walk back over. "Who let you park here?" We said sorry, we'll move it. Then he just goes off on us, saying that we aren't allowed to park here, he asked who sent us, to take our "piece of - car" out of there, blah blah blah. For like 5 minutes this guy is going off, and so we're just like whatever. We get in the car and drive off.

We go pick up the other elders and we go knock in another area a couple of streets down. We go knock and the other elders get done and are sitting on the car. Then this same stupid guy comes driving in this black truck and pulls up next to our car and starts talking to the other elders. We're walking up the street and this guy come charging at us in his truck. At the last second, he turns and just pulls right next to us. He starts going off on us again (I've edited out the profanity, so if you include some profane words every other word, you'll get a better picture of what he said). "I know what you guys have been doing!! You guys have been stealing money from my bank account!! I bet that backpack is full of your electronic equipment that you use to steal that stuff!!" I just say, "sir, you are more than welcome to look in my backpack and see if there's electronic stuff." "No, that wouldn't be the Christlike thing to do. You guys dressing up, pretending to be missionaries, but you're stealing my money. You guys are working with JD aren't you? Aren't you!?! Where's JD at?" We have no idea who JD is. He pulls a U-turn and starts charging at our car (keep in mind the other elders are sitting on it) and is going like 50mph towards our car. At the last second, he turns and misses our car by like a foot.

Then we go to our dinner appointment and we're knocking on the door. This same guy pulls up and he is madder than ever. I'm on the phone calling our member and he's just going off. "Get off that phone!! What are you doing, making a quick buck?" (I wish). "You better tell me where JD is at!!! I know you're working for JD!!!!" We're at this doorstep and he is just yelling at us and I'm just like whatever. Then about five minutes of yelling, and he pulls away. That was the last we've seen of him. 

The story gets better.

So then we go to Natty's and we say we're late because of that stupid guy. We tell them the story. They don't believe us, tell us we're full of it. About 15 minutes later, her cousin walks in with her husband. The husband said "You'll never believe what happened to me today while delivering pizzas. This guy in a black truck was chasing me, we were going like 80mph and running stop signs. Then he pulls up next to me and he yells "Where's JD at?!?"" We just busted out laughing. He said it was the most scared he's been in his life. And we just talked about this crazy guy. 

I gotta go. Elder Lisonbee and I are going to buy knives so if we ever run into any more crazy people and we have to fight them.

Take care. Your prayers work.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald

P.S. Forgot to mention the part where he threatened to kill us at the very end before he drove off. Yeah, this guy was on something. 

Just know I'm still alive and... well, we can't really avoid that area. But yeah, God's protecting us.

Don't freak out :) 

P.S.S. I forgot to tell you about Samuel. Samuel is a former investigator that was dropped about 3 months ago. Ever since then, he's been praying that the missionaries would come back. He loves us, and he loves the Gospel. He wants to get baptized, but he's afraid of what the family will think. He accepted a baptismal invitation. He couldn't go to Church this week because he went to Mexico but he said he really wants to go next week.

K I think that's all

April 2, 2012

Dear everyone,

Congrats to Brian about your EAC decision. That's probably the better decision. 

And cool about all the spiritual stories. 

Jocie: Yes, the Spanish test is super hard.

This week was a tough week as well, but we had a lot of fun. Most of our time was spent knocking doors, so we didn't have too much success as far as teaching lessons. 

We were able to visit the Diaz Family this week. We kinda went there on a thought that maybe we should go there, even though it was Thursday around 1:00pm and normally we visit them on Friday at 5:00pm. I've found out on my mission that anytime you go to any Latino's house around 1:00pm or 5:00pm, they will offer you something to eat, and it is very offensive to decline. So we had lunch with the mom (the kids weren't home) and Elder Lisonbee looked like he was about to die. We had had lunch at the apartment right before. In Latino work, it is extremely offensive not to eat everything on your plate. A great missionary tactic is called pocketing food. When no one is looking, you put some of the food you can't eat in a napkin and put it in your pocket. He had to do that. 

Anyways, we're glad we went, because after we finished eating, Ashley (the youngest daughter) came home and we had a great discussion with her. She's the one that's most affected by her cousin dying. She's really mad at God for taking away her cousin. She's not really sure if God loves her, and she's not really sure what happened to Christian when he died. We shared the Book of Mormon with her and told her that if she wants peace and comfort, she will read it. It was a great lesson just with her.

Natty went to general conference and she loved it.

But yeah, most of the week was knocking doors. We got chased by my first dog yesterday. That was scary but so much fun. Such an adrenaline rush. This pit bull-boxer thing is just eyeing us down from across the street, so we just run and he runs after us. He almost got hit by two cars, but he was relentless. We're running as fast as we can and Elder Lisonbee is in front of me. He climbs onto the car. The dog is a few feet behind me, and I'm sprinting full speed and I jump full speed onto the hood of the car. That was so much fun. There's now a dent in our Corolla where I jumped on. 

We really have to watch out for dogs here. We have to rattle fences in order to make sure there's no dogs. No trespassing signs don't work on us. Big dogs do. 

We found a lot of potential investigators that we set citas for this week. So we're pretty excited. 

I think I've now knocked into every major world religion. Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Protestant, Jehovah Witness, Buddhist, Atheist (is that a religion?). The only "major" world religion I can think of that I haven't is Taoist, but I don't even know if that exists anymore.

Anyways, there were a lot of fun stories this week. 

General conference was great. I really loved it. I loved Elder Scott's talk about revelation. His talks have become favorites of mine. He talks about stuff that we can really apply in our lives. I also liked Elder Holland's talk ("It's getting late." Ooooh. Sign of the times). I also really liked Elder Hallstrom's talk about the Gospel and Church. Really good. I took a bunch of notes. 

Elder Lisonbee is a great companion. He is such a great testifier. His Spanish needs some work but he can testify in whatever language he wants. And he has such an enthusiasm for the work, he's always on the go, just like me. It's fun keeping up with him. The funny thing is that he's so Utah. We were teaching a lesson in Spanish and right in the middle of the first lesson, he pulls out the Book of Mormon and says in broken Spanish "This is the Book of Mormon. I know this is a true book and that you should read it." I had to backtrack a little bit and explain what the Book of Mormon was and where it came from. After the cita, I had to explain to him "Elder, not everyone knows what the Book of Mormon is. You have to give a little bit of a lead-up when introducing the Book of Mormon." "Sorry, Elder Gruenewald. I just felt like I needed to introduce the Book of Mormon." "That's fine elder. We'll just work on that." Another funny thing was when he mentioned the dispensation of the fullness of times. "Elder, this isn't Utah. 99.9% of the non-Mormon population has no idea what that means." It's fun.

Anyways, that's my letter for this week. Still rough, but we look for the brightside in everything. 

Take care.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald