el 8 de Febrero

this week was a little interesting. the mission is looking to continue to grow 
in quantity as well as quality, so we upped the normas. we now have the
opportunity each day to have eight lessons with investigators, 5 lessons with 
converts or less actives, 26 contacts (or talking with 26 new people every day), 
with the goal in mind to have 7 in church. it was something new and challenging, 
but the lord has provided the way for it to all happen. 

this saturday we had a really neat experience. something that i have come to 

realize, here in el rosario, is that one day, there will be a stake made of the one 

area that we are in. that just tells you how gigantic our area is. we went to a new 

pueblo on wednesday but didn´t have too much success finding new people. we 

made a couple of appointments to come back, and saturday we found our way back

 out there. we have a list of all the heads of house in el rosario, so we usually carry it 

around when we go to new places, but i left it at home on accident. but we got onto 

the little moto-taxi and went on our way. a single name and a super vague direction 

came to mind, so i just trusted in the lord and away we went. we got off at what 

should have been the direction. the first house we called at, is the humble home

 of a less active family. all i said at the door was "buenas" and the sister immediately 

thought "los misioneros." the lord called us and directed us to all be there and it was

 special to be in that moment with them. we were able to talk with their non-member 

friend who was asking questions about the church at everything. and the greatest 

miracle, the daughters and the non-member friend went to church. all i got to say is 

the church is true.

a goal for the coming week is to keep hermana naumu more involved in the lessons. 

it´s a bad habit that i fell into when we were starting her training and it´s something that 

i have to change, like yesterday. 

a big success... one of our investigators knows that the restoration is real. the gospel

 has started taking root in her heart. again, all i can say is the church is true.

a tender mercy. i found this awesome quote by dallin h oaks:

::[A person may have] a strong desire to be led by the Spirit of the Lord but … unwisely 

extends that desire to the point of wanting to be led in all things. A desire to be led by 

the Lord is a strength, but it needs to be accompanied by an understanding that our 

Heavenly Father leaves many decisions for our personal choices. Personal decision making 

is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who 

try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will 

soon find circumstances in which they pray for guidance and don’t receive it. For example, 

this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances in which the choices are trivial or 

either choice is acceptable.

::We should study things out in our minds, using the reasoning powers our Creator has 
placed within us.Then we should pray for guidance and act upon it if we receive it. If we 
do not receive guidance, we should act upon our best judgment.::

i know that the spirit is real. he can and will direct our every footstep if we are obedient. 

i love you all. lots of hugs and kisses.

hermana graves

el 14 de Diciembre

ya´ll ready for this. the lord and president trusted me with a......

GREENGA. repeat, my new companion speaks ENGLISH. what is this!?

please welcome hermana naumu to the mission nicaragua managua 

south. and welcome to the celestial kingdom where everybody leaves this 

area well fed and well rounded.

hermana naumu is extremely quiet and half hawaiian. the people here always 

do a double take seeing to greengas, but it´s something they are going to have 

to get used to! the next three months el rosario is our kingdom.

so a favorite person, aside from my new companion... hermana powell. we have 

trained together twice now and this will be her last daughter. she´s from perry, utah 

(shout out to steph and ben) and she´s the cutest. we decided that we could be 

friends and took pictures... now to just figure out how i am going to entertain 

myself during the long training meetings we have in store...

a favorite scripture: 1 thessalonians 5:2-3

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief 

in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction 

cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

let us all be prepared for the coming of the lord. because we all know he is coming. 

stay alert my friends

a tender mercy. hermano pedro. he´s a recent convert who is no longer a recent 

convert, but who like any good nica, likes to buy us coke. on sister rodriguez´s 

last day in el rosario, i bought a round of cokes for everyone in her honor. there 

was only enough coke for the two of them, so i bought a pepsi and we started 

making jokes. two nicas and a greenga. two shorties and a tallie. two cokes and a 

pepsi. it was great... 

​

a challenge... figuring out how to teach spanish to someone who doesn´t know 

how to speak spanish, being someone who doesn´t speak spanish. your head 

hurt yet? yeah, so does mine. my mouth hurt from speaking so much english. yeah, 

that´s a new phrase for me.... so we have some companionship goals to go back 

to learning five words each day. five words that we are going to use throughout 

the day, and learning the way to apply them correctly in our vocab. these couple 

of changes will be a growing experience for me. 

i love you all and can´t wait to hear about all the christmas plans you have! 

extended family and friends. please remember i want pictures to print here in 

nicaragua of all of you! instagram pics are accepted :)

hermana graves

el 07 de Diciembre

the biggest challenge, continues to be the itching. but thanks to some 

doctor´s loving guidance, i know that i have some mosquito bites infected 

from itching and letting them stay opened. i have now repented, and am 

on a new medicine cycle for the itching, with diligent applicance of bug spray!

some goals... get used to a new house! we changed houses from a little 

room, to a cute little house with hot running water and everything. 

welcome to el rosario´s cutest little house ever. and it´s all ours for only a 

hundred a month. love it!

a scripture for you from the old testament. to go with the church´s campaign 

for christmas, a savior is born, from isaiah 9:6
::For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall 

be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 

The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.::

please go to christmas.mormon.org and share the two videos with your friends. 

the animation personally is better than the video, but they both have a powerful 

message for us this time of the year.

favorite people: the cute javiera and mariela. they are soo great to help us with 

divisions, and help us get the work done here in el rosario. especially at seven am 

on sunday mornings to bring investigators to church. such dolls!

a tender mercy... the elders who helped us move houses all without using a truck 

up until the very end. they moved almost all the heavy/hard stuff by themselves 

and gladly accepted a glass of coca cola and some cookies as recompense.

i love this time of year. make sure that you give lots of hugs to your family, because 

there will never be a christmas quite like this. i love you!

hermana graves

el 16 de Noviembre

things here in el rosario are hitting the polar ends. 

during the afternoon the sun is stronger than ever, 

because we are starting into the summer months. but, 

november and december are cooler during the evenings, 

so it's kind of bipolar. at night, it's so cool that i'm using 

my comforter to sleep! we are relatively close to the cost, yes. 

about a two hour drive to the coast. if the raineys and the 

moris were in costa rica, they were very close to where i am. 

costa rica is a place where the nicas go to find work for a 

couple of months, and then come back to support their

 families. whatever they can do to find money to put food 

on the table.

a favorite scripture from this week... the joseph smith 

translation of luke 12:57

::For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much 

be required; and to whom the Lord has committed much, 

of him will men ask the more.::

the lord know us, and has required much of those he has

chosen. the world will try and ask the more, but know that 

he has asked the most. 

mosiah 2:22

::all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments;

 and he has promised you that if ye would keep his 

commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never 

doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do 

keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.::

a favorite person.. can it be a thing? his name is aslan... 

he's a husky and the biggest playful thing ever! he and his 

companion, bella, are the two dogs of our lunch appointment, 

and it's funny. you would think that he would be the one to 

bark and bite, but it's actually bella, a cute little pitbull that you 

have to be careful around. crazy story, she is really brava, or 

aggressive. if you enter the gate, and she doesn't know you, 

she will bite. the owners say she's mormon, because whatever 

missionary that passes through the gate, she's the cutest little 

puppy ever. but if you don't have a plaque, or are a strange dog, 

she will attack. guaranteed. crazy right? power of the plaque.

a great challenge this week: completing with the normas. monday

 wasn't a great day for us, because it's p-day. there isn't a full day 

of work to do. tuesday we worked with the lovely sister hancock, 

our hermana training leader, and so there was a little bit of time 

sacrifice there. wednesday we had our planning meeting because

 thursday we had interviews with president and we passed all 

afternoon in jinotepe, waiting our turn. friday we spent all day in 

managua for my doctor's appointment, where i got diagnosed 

with escabiosis, or a skin parasite, that i most likely picked up in 

granada. this little bugger is because i have been itching myself

 for the last month, and thanks to some modern medicine,

 everything is on the way to healing. saturday and sunday it was a

 mad dash to complete with numbers, and thanks to some return

 missionaries in the ward, we were able to least get closer to 

completing. 

some goals this week: know the area, go beyond the normas, 

and work with our investigators to teach more families. it will 

be an adventure!

most tender mercy: we were in a lesson with a less active, and 

she had been without water for four days. we started with a 

prayer, and hermana rodriguez said the prayer. she asked for 

water, and then we just continued to read in the book of

 mormon with the less active. not a moment after gabriela 

said the closing prayer, the hose started to spurt water. 

the power of prayer my friends.

i love you all, and thank you so much for your letters!

have a great week!

hermana graves

el 9 de Noviembre

this week i can write you a letter, because i have a basis of questions again. 

this week i did survive. it's so amazing here. the climate is fresh, and although 

the sun is still piercing, it's accompanied by a nice wind, so it's not too bad. 

my new companion is from honduras, so there's another country to add to 

the companion map! we have found quite a few new investigators in the 

same general area of el rosario, but i would like to go adventuring into the 

other suburbs of el rosario to meet and activate converts, less actives and

 find new investigators that way. we'll see how it goes. 

my favorite person this week is hermanita rubi. she is the sister of a less 

active we baptized this weekend and she's the cutest. her mom is super 

supportive and she's kind of the next heart to change, and just, aahh! i 

love this ward! everyone is just so ready to come and help us do anything. 

thursday we did divisions twice, one time with about twenty minutes of 

notice! #inlovewithelrosario

a favorite scripture is a little bit harder to put my finger on. lets go with 

one in doctrine and covenants 33:8-12

::Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even 

as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness. Yea, 

open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves 

upon your backs, for lo, I am with you. Yea, open your mouths and they 

shall be filled, saying: Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, 

and make his paths straight; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; Yea, 

repent and be baptized, every one of you, for a remission of your sins; 

yea, be baptized even by water,and then cometh the baptism of fire and 

of the Holy Ghost. Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel;

 and remember that they shall have faith in me or they can in nowise be 

saved::

powerful right?

our biggest challenge this weekend was getting and placing fechas. for 

some reason the time just got away from us, and before we knew it, it 

was eight oclock and we were short two fechas and a couple of lessons... 

something a little bit difficult to recuperate. 

a tender mercy... divisions with members. and returned sister missionaries. 

it's so nice to be in a ward where there are four return sister missionaries. 

they are still red hot with the desire to go out and preach the gospel, so 

there are so willing to drop everything on a dime and help. they under-

stand the lessons and know how to be pushy and how to be nice. 

sooo great.....

some goals for this week... make it through the quincena with only 60 

cords. that's right. we get money on saturday and i only have 60 cords 

left. here we go penny pinching! this is what college taught me!

a picture of 

hermana hawkins 

and hermana quezada, 

the other two sisters

 in our district. we had 

lunch today so of course 

we took some crazy 

pictures. ;)

i love you all

hermana graves

OH! The picture of the old lady... This is Hermana Maria Antonia, 
the first member of the church here in El Rosario. She's 92 years 
old, and still going strong. So for all of you with a bad day, think 
of Dueña Antonia.

el 2 de Noviembre

ya'll ready for this? i had changes to..... el rosario! 

aka, the missionary's dream land: the members feed you dinner, the investigators show up to church by themselves, members show up to baptisms, and the bishop is on top of the retention of new converts. i was absolutely shocked. absolutely felt like living in a novel here. the song sleepy little town comes to mind frequently...

it was hard to leave granada, especially with all the less actives, converts, and investigators that have become such good friends, but time for new adventures. time for hermana liberato to be a big girl missionary now!

i will send this picture of me home because it's the most glamorous i took. the other ones i am half crying, half smiling. this was when i still didn't know that i was leaving granada. lady, gabriela (recent convert) and i. 

tuesday night i got to bed about midnight, packing all of my crap (i can't believe how it all multiplies!) into my three suitcases again and then at four am, it was up again! a quick changes meeting and then my zone leader, elder mataalii, and i changed zones together, again. we were in the same zone in universitaria together when he was working as the district leader and in the office, then together we went to granada, both trained together, and then both moved to jinotepe together. crazy! 

i'm now in el rosario, with sister rodriguez, a sister that started in nicaragua with me. what a treat! 

please ignore the un-makeup-ed face. it's pday.

​the best part of this weekend was helping jose danilo make the baptismal convenant with his father in heaven. he and his stepdaughter (who is only eight, so counted for the ward) were baptized saturday night, completing another family in zion! he marks baptism number 21, family number 3. i love being a missionary here in nicaragua where the fruits of repentance are relatively easy to start, but where the greatest challenge is the retention. it's great to see it all. come through here.

el rosario is a little town, where the bishop is part of one of the oldest families in the ward. almost all of the active members are endowed and the grand majority of the people are converts. the church is old enough here that there are return missionaries as converts children, and it's just amazing! aaahhh!!

a favorite scripture this week will be a modern scripture.... 

::the savior wouldn't bring you to it, if he couldn't help you through it.:: 

now my child, insert your name here, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day. alma 38:5

i love you all so much. thank you for your support. know that i pray for you, and think of you always. i am being taken care of here by the lovely sisters and brothers here in el rosario, and just hope to be here for christmas.

lots of love,

hermana graves

last week i saw hermana cornell and hermana garfield. look how much it's all changed!