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
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