el 23 de Noviembre

let´s just be real for a second. saturday i completed a year since i got 
my mission call. this time last year, i was telling the whole wide world 
that i was going to nicaragua for eighteen months. and here we are, 
almost eleven full months later. i have almost been away from home 
for a year... yikes people.

i am doing great! the medicine that the doctor helped a lot, and then 

i got permission to buy a cream especially meant to treat sarna, and 

that has done miracles to clear it all up. i continue to take benadryl to 

stay on top of the itching, but i am no longer calling attention to myself 

with all the itching. our ward mission leader noticed and gave me an 

antibacterial liquid that is supposed to help with the itching as well, 

sweet man. the parasite is something that i got from the mattress in 

granada, but the mission yes, had a doctor actually look at it in person

 because the first round of medicine didn´t do anything to calm the itching. 

the rash, with all the symptons that i had, were enough evidence to know

 that i had the parasite. with the conditions that are granada, it wasn´t 

overly surprising really.

the greatest success this week, would have to include the fact that we 

completed with all the normas. thanks to some great return missionaries, 

and willing sisters, we were able to do quick spurts of divisions with the 

members to cover more ground in less time. can i please ask all those that 

can, to please do divisions or visits with the missionaries like once a week. 

having that kind of support from the ward makes such a great difference in 

all aspects of the work.

a tender mercy... we were able to teach harold and his children about prayer, 

and it just went swimmingly. harold showed up to church four sundays ago, 

looking for a church where his kids could have a realtionship with their savior, 

and where they would have the opportunity to interact with clean kids... 

something every father wants, right? well, we have been focusing on only 

teaching this family with members because it just makes such a different in 

everything. we taught them about the power of prayer, and it was great to 

see the power of the spirit that was there to help us.

a favorite scripture: philippians 4:8

::Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 

whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 

lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there 

be any praise, think on these things.::

just remember that when we think after these things, we will be able to know 

our savior better. because these are his attributes.

::

a favorite person.. let´s go with the ward mission leader. his name is ricardo, and 

he is pretty much an optime of every missionary´s dream. he goes out looking 

for references for us, and when we were wating on thursday to have our weekly 

coorelation meeting, he was contacting the people that were passing by, helping 

us work as well as giving us a larger teaching pool. what an example... he reminds 

me a lot of grandpa bingham in his ability to talk about random church history 

and deep doctrinal topics, and the ability to capture you in a conversation for an 

hour.... amazing really. i attached a picture of the great man deep in thought. (yes,

 those would be his g´s hanging out... good ol´ nica for ya)

goals this week... be a better example for my companion. something that i have 

learned on my mission is that so much of your desire to do something has to do 

with what you see around you. if your companion doesn´t go to bed on time, it´s 

harder to do it. if your companion doesn´t do exercises, it´s almost impossible to 

have the will to do it. but when you do it, they will too. 

some challenges... getting through all the normas. but like i said early, thanks to 

some great ward members, we were able to complete! also, getting our investigators 

to church, but that is something that shows through because of our lack of work 

before sunday afternoon.

we celebrated hermana quezada´s birthday with cake! delicious, whipped 

creamed iced birthday cake... yummmmmmm

i love you guys so much, and make sure to remember about the christmas wish 

i have for you!

hermana graves

el 4 de Agosto

another month! what?!

this week, i promised photos, so i will try and do the 

best i can!

the first one. his name is jose. and he's my favorite 

little vejito (how you kindly call him an old man). 

he calls us his little angelitas, and we try and visit 

him once a week. he's been a member for about two 

years, and still has a lot of questions to learn about 

the book of mormon. cute man has some weir beliefs,

 but i love him!

the next one, this is maryuri. she and i share a birthday, 

the first of many sister missionaries to visit the house 

to share one! what a privilege. her grandma made us 

lunch and it by far, was one of the best i've had here 

(even compared to sister gladis!! shhh, you didn't hear 

me say that!)

this was my birthday lunch... yumm!!

this past wednesday was an adventure. let me 

explain. almost two weeks ago, my eye started 

bugging me. bad. it felt like i had something in 

my eye, but it wasn't coming out by itself. we 

tried rinsing it with saline, to no avail, and i just 

kind of tried to deal with the pain. last sunday i 

talked with sister russell at our branch conference, 

and she and her nurse/appointment maker, made

 me a doctor's appointment in managua on 

wednesday. the doctor looked at my eye for three 

seconds, said "o, yeah, you have plastic in your eye. 

let me take that out for you. let me get a needle." 

he scrapped it out, and out came the tiniest little 

piece of plastic i have ever seen. he proceeded to 

but some medicine in my eye, and give me the 

world's largest eye patch. he told me i couldn't 

blink my one eye, so i had to stay the afternoon 

in the house. but, there wasn't another option, 

but got to work in the evening, so away we went! 

all the little kids were quite amused at my eye patch, 

but thankfully on thursday morning i was able to go 

to managua again and have it removed! thank you 

random doctor man!

sunday was a struggle bus, but we are working on it. 

completeing with our six investigators in church is 

proving to be really hard, but we will do it, if it's the 

last thing i do here in granada!

we had a zone activity today, so here's a picture of all 

of us! the matching shirts are the companionships!

my favorite person this past week... probably

 hermanita claudia. she's one of our investigators, 

soo adorable, who wants to be baptized, but her 

mom doesn't want to give us permission. prayers 

that she and her daddy and mommy can talk and can 

give us permission to make that covenant with our 

Heavenly Father.

most significant tender mercy... the power of a fast. 

i am holding out for the blessings i know we can receive 

after a faithful and worthy fast. a fast brings miracles, 

especially here in the mission.

a most favorite scripture: john 9:25

::Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing 

I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.:: 

through our faith in christ, we may be brought to the 

light that is our lord and savior, jesus christ. to have 

that personal relationship is something we should all 

strive to have, something that we have to have in order 

to be able to have that light in our lives.

goals: work harder, pray harder, strengthen my 

relationship with Him.

yo se que vive mi salvador

hermana graves

el 26 de Octubre

this week was a great bang! we went out at had a great tourist trip of granada, and the best part? we got to do it in p-day clothes! we had a great time climbing up into the bell tower of a catholic church, playing soccer, and taking 8 million pictures. sorry, there's only room to put a couple, but i'll choose the good ones:

we celebrated hermana liberato's twentieth birthday together as a district, and according to nicaragua tradition, we splattered eggs on her head ;) she was a good sport about it all, until another sister got flour involved... like a mini cake in my companion's hair... gross!

saturday we had the opportunity to have another multi-mission conference with elder snow, brother turley, and elder alonso, the church historian, one of his assistants, and the area president in respective order. it was really neat to listen and hear their words, and really realize the importance of writing in our journals. i have about two weeks of "history" to write, so i need to get to work!

a favorite person... elder agustin, who convinced our zone leaders to have the best p-day ever! yippee!! the yellow church is the church that everyone knows granada by. it's in central park, and has some beautiful architecture, but it's missing something. (oh wait, it's the spirit...)

a favorite scripture: moroni 10:33

::if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.::

some goals for this week: get better at writing at night, and not falling asleep in my chair. sleeping is for a bed, not a chair.

the next transfer date is wednesday. i'm not sure that i am going to stay in granada, because hermana liberato just finished her training. but we will just have to see!

something you all could pray for... for our success as a mission to reach our goals. we have some great goals to progress towards for november and december to finish strong the year. 

i love you all, and wish the best for all of you. thank you so much for your letters and your pictures!

lots of love,

hermana graves

el 27 de Julio

this week... i will apologize in advance. there will be no photos 
until next week. i forgot to bring me adapter for my memory 
card! whoops!

this week was different. celebrating a birthday in the mission is 

the weirdest thing, because there is no cake, no presents wrapped 

in bows or wrapping paper, and no family. but then you have 

some gems like maria, ana maria and maryuri, who love you, and 

it makes it a little bit better! maria, ana maria, and maryuri are 

grandma, mom, and daughter, respectively. maryuri has the same 

birthday as me, and amidst the torrential downpour outside, maria 

and ana maria prepared a birthday lunch, almost exactly like one 

from hermana gladiz's kitchen. i'll sent a picture next week! i 

decided to share the gummy bears i got in my birthday package, 

because who needs five pounds of gummy bears to themselves? 

not me! turns out that gummy bears are a relatively new thing to 

nicas, and it was a lot of fun to introduce them to Lisbeth, Teresa, 

Geovanny, and Moises. 

something that we are really struggling with is our companionship, 

so if you could include us in your prayers, that could be of a lot 

of help.

a sweet tender mercy? rain for my birthday. i know that sounds 

weird, but it reminded me that even when the weather is hard, 

and the streets are full of water and trash, i can still have a smile 

on my face, because i am the lord's servant. rain or shine, the work 

goes on, and there is no other option. the storm was really bad, 

and reminded me a lot of the thunderstorms we have in tennessee 

in the spring. i will miss another spring in tennessee, but the summer 

storms are almost as wonderful. it reminds me of the primary song,

:i like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain and ponder on the 

beauty of an earth made clean again. i want my life to be as clean as 

earth right after rain.
i want to be the best i can and live with god again.::

i want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain. there is no other 

better smell than the air after a good rain. the rain brings turmoil, but 

the calm after the storm is always the most comforting.

some goals... do the laundry today! and not have to work about it 

tomorrow, or during the week. also serve my companion. change the 

way i think to make it a more positive companionship and develop that 

christlike attribute of charity and love. 

i love you all more than words!

hermana graves