el 8 de agosto del 2018

every once in a while, life comes running at you

and you get this funny feeling that you knew it was coming.

that's how i felt when i finally got my mission call.

it was a feeling that i didn't realize i was missing, but

one, that as soon as i felt it, knew i was looking for all along.

i was one of those people that didn't do research about my mission before setting off for the mtc.

i didn't even ask questions about what the mtc would be like. 

i decided to just go along for the ride, and let it take me where it would.

fast forward through the rollercoaster that was the mtc, 

and the first couple of weeks of my first "cambio" (or exchange) with my companion.

(for those of you who don't know, a mission is divided into sections, called exchanges,

usually six weeks long. every mission calls them something different, but 

being spanish-speaking, we called them cambios.)

my companion and i had had great success finding people to teach 

and helping people come unto christ. 

but i felt like we were lacking on something i felt like we, as missionaries,

should be taking a bigger effort to do: service for those in our area.

so we set off to an appointment one day, without really thinking too much about it.

andy, my precious andy, wasn't home, so we decided to spend some time

 meeting a few new people in the surrounding area.

we ended up behind a school not far from andy's home,

and i felt prompted to knock on a giant red door.

it was the only one on the whole street i felt like we should knock, too.

when i did, guess whose big, adorable black eyes answered the door?

andy.

andy had gone over to his grandma's house after school 

because she had been sick the last couple of days.

he would spend the afternoon in her company, 

before it got too dark and he couldn't make it back home safely.

when we got there, we spent some time with andy,

but something wasn't right. 

we felt the need to talk with andy's grandma and help her in her need.

as sister missionaries, we could only pray and ask in faith

that she would be healed, but there was something more we could do:

serve.

andy's grandma made a small comment about not being able to offer water

because all the cups and other possible cups were dirty.

that day was the day i learned the word traste,

the word the nicaraguans use to describe the dishes in general.

my companion and i spent an hour washing all of her dishes and putting them away with andy.

when we were done, she offered to make us jugo or refresco

but by then, we felt like our work there was done.

we excused ourselves, and went on our way.

little did i know, that andy's grandma was a less active member

and that andy had been begging her for months to come to church

(ever since he started taking the lessons, really).

the next sunday, guess who was sitting next to andy at church:

grandma.

in the remaining months i was there in loma linda,

grandma's health came and went. 

but andy never failed to come with grandma to church.

there are many times in my life, that i wonder what it would be like to go back to nicaragua

now that i have lived on my own again for two years.

a lot of things have changed, and a lot of things have not.

people would still view me as fachenta, or rich, because of my white female status.

i often dream though of yelling buenas over crude fences and doors of zinc.

of the smiles and cries and abrazos that would be inevitable when they recognized me.

i can't decided if i would want a party or just a few minutes at each home to catch up, pay my respects, and move on.

there really is no other way around it:

soy nica y nada me va a cambiar.

el 22 de Junio

our greatest success this week would have to be having 52
lessons with investigators, and 28 lessons with converts or 
less actives. (the standard here is 50 lessons with investigators  
and 28 lessons with less actives or converts. usually we hit 
right at the 50 and 28 mark, but this week, we surpassed it.

::a note about our daily work:: each day, we have to contact
24 people,  have 7 lessons with  investigators, 4 lessons with 
recent converts, and place a baptismal date with three people. 
that's each day. with about nine hours of work and one hour 
of break time. break that down into half hour segments into 
18 segments, and we have a full plate. but we get it all done, 
thanks to the good old man upstairs.

one thing that we are really working hard on right now, is our
retention of the new converts. latin america is famous for 
having a plentitude of baptisms, but far and in between is the 
member that once they are baptized, stays faithful all his life. 
we are working right now on making all things possible for the 
nicaragua managua south mission to have this success in 
retaining our converts; making sure all the lights are flashing 
green so that they make it to the right path.

a great tender mercy was finding gloria, a señorita who lives
alone with her oldest son and his children. we were out looking 
for a less active and we stopped to ask for directions (sounds like 
the start of a good country song, right?) and we ended up having 
a short lesson with her to introduce her to the church. we set a time 
to come back a couple of days later and her demeanor had changed. 
for the better. we found out that she is really worried about a family 
situation, and we promised her that this message would bring her 
peace and guidance. she accepted the invitation to be baptized, and 
made the promise to come to church two days later. we called her 
sunday morning and she was on her way to the church building. 
arriving with a friend! she felt the truth of the gospel light, and is 
already looking to help us with the missionary work.

my goals for this week include finding the gusto to do our morning
exercise more effectively. i love my morning stretches, but we 
should be doing more than a couple of yoga poses.... here's to good 

exercise!

this week a favorite scripture is in john 10:27

::My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me::

the lord has offered us sufficient comfort, if we are only willing to
come and follow him. all faith needs a little action.

my favorite person this week is hermana maria jose, who on short
notice allowed us to come into her home and make us food. 
hermana gladis has some family in town that doesn't like that she is 
still making  food for the missionaries (she's almost 80) and so we 
had to leave for a month while they are here. it's so weird not to 
see her and have a great ol' mama gladis hug every day!

but until next week, here is a picture of my zone!

i'm in the middle, with the yellow skirt. we are all matching
as companions, so it's easy to pick out who is with whom.

what could be my final picture with hermana gladis... tears!

until i write again, may the lord be with you

hermana graves​

el 15 de Junio

this week was an adventure, but all missionaries can testify, that it's always 
an adventure.

our biggest challenge this week was working through the rain. having the
spunk and the energy to work through torrential downpours is a little rough
on the soul, but we did it!

a big concern right now is that our teaching pool is really small, and we should
be working with more people than we are. this week will be almost pure new
investigators if we play our cards right!

a big success, helping michael make his dreams come true and get baptized
this week. also, helping roberto each day remember his promise to live the
 word of wisdom. we started out calling him each day, but by the end of the
week, he started calling us to let us know that he had stayed strong that day.
here come the baptismal waters! 

elder velasquez, the young men's president (kevin) and michael. an older
gentleman in the ward gave michael a tie, and we had to re-tie the dang
thing four times to get it to sit right. but he was soo excited for it!

my favorite person this week is president russell. we had the opportunity to
have an interview, and it was great to see the progress that i am making. it
was really hard to pray in english, and i ended up slipping into spanish in
the middle of the prayer. between the two of us, we had to think really hard
to talk in english. we looked at my numbers and talked about ways that i can
be a better companion. he thinks that i have a lot of potential to be a leader
 in the mission, and i simply told him that i am here to do the lord's work.
where he needs me, i will go. 

for a significant tender mercy, see the story above about roberto.

this week i am not looking forward to preparing to say goodbye. we find out
next tuesday if loma linda 1 will see any changes, and i really hope not. but
the feeling has been the same since i started this change, that my time is
coming to a close here in loma linda. give me two weeks and i will tell you
how close i really am to knowing myself.

the greatest scripture this week is one that has been on the back of my
planner for the past month. lucas 24:5-6

::Why seek ye the living among the dead?
He is not here, but is risen::

with the comment, seek him. 

at first, i thought it was talking about Christ, and really the intention is of that.
but it hit me with another application: our investigators. we search and search
and work and work to help people come unto Christ. but some seeds we aren't
meant to harvest. we are meant only to help them grow to a point. and like the
 parable of the forgotten harvest, to leave field for a while. why look for the
living investigators among those who aren't progressing. there aren't there,
but walk among another crowd, another field.

seek them. and we shall find.

hermana graves