The Book of Mormon is a book of power

Last thursday on the 18th (Chile's independence day! Super fun! Kind of!) we had a big Mission meeting with Elder Zeballos from the quorum of the 70! it was such a great meeting! president, sister Cook, Elder Zeballos, and Sister Zeballos all spoke about the Book of Mormon! 

on monday september 8th we were told that we were going to start reading the Book of Mormon ont he 18th and finish it on December 13th as a mission! so i decided that i should finish it before that! so i spent every moment i had extra and read the book! i went from Alma 34 to the end in a week and a half! it was a lot of reading for story and now i am back to my deep study of it but it was really cool to just read it and see of the goodness of the prophets in it! Now i started and im on track to finish it by the 13th! I know without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true! And i testify of Moroni's promise that you can know to! if you read and pray you will recieve confirmation that it is a book from Heavenly Father! and you will recieve strength to bear your trials with patience! 

         

then on the 19th we celebrated the 18th with the ward! the best part was we got there adn two of our investigators were there and it was so special to see them just have a good time and smile and be with the ward! the ward did missionary work without even realizing it!!! 

       

 One of the menos activos we have been working with for a while got called to be the ward sunday school president and he is SOOOO motivated to work hard! i am so excited for him and this calling! 

        

this week we spent most of our time walking and knocking! we didn't get very many lessons... but it is motivating for me to think that its not always the number of lessons or baptisms that determines what kind of a missionary we were! it just matters how hard we work and how much we live up to our potential! 

                                   lots of love from Elder Groen!!!!

From Andrea: The next comments are from Ethan when we told him that John, Andrea, Gabe and Sydney (our cousin) are in the LDS Church's Savior of the World production this year.   Jessi has school on Tuesday and Thursday nights when we will be performing, so she couldn't participate this year. 

"oh my Goodness Dad that makes me SOOOOOO happy that you guys made it! my companion has the CD of the soundtrack and we have listned to it here and there, but when we do i only think about how much i loved that time and how much that increased my testimony! memories of wonderful friends we made always come flooding back into my head! I know it will bless the family so much and i know you will love the experience to participate in it!!!!!

ok we worked our way back up to 13 lessons this week. its hard it was still the 18th so everybody was gone on vacations... we did a lot of door knocking again! but we are excited about this week to get our numbers back up! and we can´t give out Book of Mormons on the streets because too many people smoke weed with them... so we have to be in a house teaching someone in order to give one away... oh chile... 

language is great! we get along great! and we obey all of the rules! right now we are trying to help the other two missionaries we live with be more obeidient! but we just got a new missionary in the house! Elder Torres is gone and Elder Mollado from conception Chile is here!"

There is real power in prayer!

so this week was hard because we spent most of our time walking around knocking doors and trying to contact... anyone who has tried this knows that their is a lot of work and not a lot of reward. so i began to get down hearted. then i read in the book of mormon about prayer and the power that fervent prayer has! so i decided that i was going to try this! i did this about two weeks ago! and at first we saw no change at all... but then the past four days have been incredible! first we talked two three peole during contacting that said they were interested and said we could come back!!!!! for those of you who don't know this is a miracle! chileans NEVER have time for the missionaries in thier houses!! then we got two references from a member i haven't ever gotten one before this! and finally we found more opportunites to serve this week than we have before ever! I know that the power of prayer is real and that with it we can change the world! but don't forget that after you get off your knees you have to work! this is a promise from the prophets! and i know that it is true! 

            then one more story! last night we went to visit nicole and Pato nicole is our recent convert and pato is her investigator husband. we went and they live in a big apartment building, and in these buildings you have to go to the front desk and call them before you can go up to their house. yesterday we went and they let us go straight up without calling. then when we got up there we knocked then we heard fighting. After a little bit of time they let us in and we shared a message about christ! i know that because of their willingness to let us in and to hear a message they invited the spirit back into their house and when we left they were holding hands!!!! that was an incredible tender mercy that we didn't have to call them because they probably would have just said not now! 

       

                                                               Love Elder Groen! 

p.s. i finally put some pictures up!!!

Tie anyone? 

90 lbs of ties for $44 dollars - what a deal.
(notice their bunk beds and how close they are to the ceiling).

Elder Burt & Elder Groen

Can you guess which desk is Ethan's?

how important are the members of the church? ESSENTIAL!

so this week was different first off i went on divisions with my zone leader elder Toledo on thursday and turns out he lives in daltons mission! I learned so much from him about how important it is to listen and how important it is to love the people he was an incredible example of those two things! 

        then this week we tried to find more investigators and less active members to teach. so we did a LOT of contacting! we yelled Allo! a million times this week and we didn't get one new investigator. it is hard but it requires a lot of patience! so we have been trying to find new ways to get investigators and we started asking the members in every way possible. we were given 4 new references and two possible investigators. but now in order to keep those people we need the members to keep helping us and go on visits with us so those people have a friend to help them. Without members what we do would literally be impossible! so i want to extend a challenge to everyone that reads this email! please think of every person you know that is not a member and choose one that you can invite over for dinner, family night, movie night, or anything else and then all you need is 10 minutes or more if you can to have the missionaries talk with those people while they are in a comfortable but different setting. Please find a way to get involved with this work the missionaries need you but more important the lord needs you too!!!!

      then we talked with a contact we had and met her dad and he told us all about his time spent in whales and all about some places that i'd heard of! it was so cool how a conversation about his life led us exactly into the plan of salvation and he said he would be willing to listen to our message we are SOOOOO excited to teach him!

     then this week we had a reactivation! Nicole was a member when she was a little girl but her family fell away while she was still young, so she never really was a member. so right before i got to the sector they started teaching her. and she had been truly prepared by the lord. Anything we asked her to do she did with no questions. now she is active and her husband Patricio is listening to our lessons!!!! at first he told us he wanted nothing to do with our message!!!!!!! she is so awesome and her husband has been touched by the spirit it is sooo exciting!

      well just to let you all know right after i am done emailing i am going into my house until friday morning. September 11 is independance day for chile and they blow up cars and shoot guns so tomorrow is my super deep clean of my house!!!! wahoo!!!! gotta love chile!

                                                       Love elder groen

p.s. i sure love all of you!

Another week in Chile!

last thursday was super good! we got three lessons and a member came with us for one of them! then we found out about poor Elder Delgato... my first companions trainer. he is having some serious panic attacks and has to change companions now... 

      friday it rained again! but we had an opportunity to teach Noche De Hogar! Family Night! and we chose to talk with the ward about unity in missionaries and the ward, and then about how we need to come together to make this work what it can become! and it went really well! it is very hard our ward is a little lazy... but part of the problem is they have never been taught or shown another way! this is our goal to begin to try and establish this ward to help them see what the lord needs of each of us! its not always easy or comfortable but the lord will always bless us for our service! 

     Saturday was tough there was a lot of complaining about the ward and them being lazy by the other missionaries... just remember that nothing good comes from murmuring it is bad!

    sunday we had ward conference and it was super good! and the stake president shared some awesome things with us! and that night we taught 3 lessons too so it was a really good day! 

    Monday i went on my very first splits and i went with my district leaders companion who had some big problems with rules. and it was so bad to see the way he just didn't care. it made me grateful for the missionaries i have in my house! and it made me want to give everything i have to being an obedient missionary! 

    Tuesday was really cool we woke up and got to go do service we painted some less active members house because they are moving but they promised to talk to the missionaries!!!!! then that night one of our lessons fell through so we were about to go to our plan B but i said we should go check up on our contacts from a week and a half ago because we haven't had time to do it yet. and so we did and we found out that a man named louis had his child admitted into the hospital and he is really worried so we asked if we could come back later. and we think that this gospel could really help him. i think the lord has been preparing him for us!!! and it wouldn't have happend if i didn't listen to the prompting of the spirit to go there!! 

     wednesday today!! we went to get a farda!!! it is a HUGE bag 90 pounds worth of ties we split the cost between 4 missionaries and got over 1000 ties it cost each of us 11 US dollars!!!!!!!!!! it was so cool i will send pictures when i can it was Super fun!!!!

       family remember when it rains a little it just means that a rainbow is coming! our trials will test us but what matters is how we trust in the lord during them!! and how we serve during them!!!

                                          Love, Elder Groen!!!

hey guys love ya'll

so first of all i spent almost all my time trying to figure out how to download pictures so my letter will be kind of short! and second of all the dang thing i bought so i could download pictures won't work so i didn't get any pictures up yet... please don't kill me! 

      now my week! so we have been working on an 18 year old named fransisco who is SUPER smart and he is reading and praying about baptism, but he says he hasn't felt an answer. so we are trying to help him see all of the different ways the spirit can touch us! 

Oscar another less active member has now been off of drugs for 3 weeks!!!! its a miracle he couldn't go 3 days without before he started reading the scriptures with us everyday!! 

everyday we walk So much but the cool thing is we are coming in contact with hundreds of people everyday that we are helping plant seeds. Just remember the lord needs willing servants who will be his soldiers to fight satan in these latter days!!

 oh and mom the missionaries in the ward were volunteered to be in the ward choir so... yup im back at it again! we are going to practice right after we email today!!! 

  the trainer of my old companion is having some stress problems right now and they are going through a pretty big trial. so please if you could family pray for elder delgatto and elder Curtis they could use the extra blessings! 

also everyone promise me you will read the book of mormon or any scriptures but without them you cannot feed your seed of faith and of testimony. i can't tell you how much i wish the people down here would learn that... so please do it, its so little being asked.

                                                         Love elder Groen! 

p.s.    the word of the week is sonrisa.       lift up your hearts and rejoice!     SMILE!!!

hashtag numb one

so on thursday we had our interviews with president cook! and it was so fun just to get to know him and talk with him! turns out he knows Elder Zwick really well i told him i would tell elder zwick hi for him if i ever got the chance! maybe you could help me out there Allie?!?!?! 

           Friday was my official welcome to chile day!!! so first in the morning i was doing my scripture study and i looked up out the window and a house in our ward about 5 blocks away was on fire!!!!!! then all of our plans and lessons fell through one after another so we walked for about 4 hours straight with no lessons. then while we were contacting some houses a guy stopped us and told us to come over to his house so we did and told him who we are and what we are doing and he said come in lets talk about Jesus! Right then my companion and I looked at eachother and smiled! the people of chile never invite you in unless they are ward members. so we went in and it turned into us listening to him. then we asked if we could share a message about our gospel and why we are serving missions and he told us that its more important to listen than to talk so we needed to listen... that made me chuckle a bit! then at the end he told us about his marajuana (sorry don't know how to spell that) and we aren't aloud to be in a house with marajuana and we had been there listening for about 1 hr and 45 minutes so we left him with a few words and a pamphlet and will continue to pray about what we should do with him! then we went to teach an investigator named oscar and when we got there he was fighting with his sister they are like 40 and 45 and he said not tonight and just left... so we knocked on a few more doors and went back to the house. then while we were planning we heard a ton of gun shots about 10 blocks away in our sector and the next day found out there was a gang fight with 42 gun shots fired and they think one man was killed but the police have tried to stay out of it so their is no official report, so we don't know for sure... yeah WOW what a crazy day and mom don't worry im fine and just remember the promise that the lord made to the sons of mosiah!!

            Saturday we had two pretty big service projects that took up most of the day and that was really good then we taught oscar and we ran into a lady that we think we can really help that seems to be very receptive of the gospel so we are excited about her!!!

           Sunday i gave a 5 minute talk to introduce myself and help get the ward excited about missionary work and it was really awesome even though my spanish wasn't very good i bore my testimony and after a lady in the ward told me that she thinks the world needs more young people like me and it was the sweetest thing ever!! and no i didn't understand that all at first my companion helped translate for me!!! then i attended meetings for a long time then we had lunch at 4 and went and taught 4 lessons that night!!

           Monday we had my first zone and district meetings and they were both good but in spanish and hard for me to understand!! then we went and had lunch and taught all that night!!!!

           tuesday we taught a teenager in the ward english in the morning and gave his 90 year old grandma a blessing then we went to a zone practice to practice our play for the stake primary and i got assigned the rold of John Taylor which is the only speaking part for an elder and i am the only one who doesn't speak fluent spanish in our zone... but im still way excited for that i think they will laugh at me a lot!!!! then that night we taught francisco and i extended my first baptismal invitation and he said if he recieved an answer he would get baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i know if he does the things we have asked him to do he will recieve an answer because the lord always keeps his commitments!!!!! 

     Here on the mission i have found a new love for the scriptures every morning i read 5 chapters in the BOM but then i have so much more to study i have to stop... but i have never had a desire like this i absolutely love it!!!!! my spiritual message comes from mosiah 24:15 when the people of alma were righteous but were still overcome by the lamanites and alma promises them that they must remain faithful to the lord and he will deliver them! and it says that they prayed and the lord stregthened their backs that they could cary their burdens and overcome their trials and then it says they waited with patience and cheerfulness.

              we have trials and hardships every day and not only is it important to have faith in the lord but it is important to wait with patience and cheerfullness! i am learning how important it is to be postitive always here on my mission. some missionaries seem so bummed and grumpy sometimes and it just makes the work so much harder... the power of a smile is really special!!!

                                                         Love Elder Groen because he loves you!!!! that sounds kind of funny!!

hey guys i made it!

                 well this week! where to start... oh yeah the beginning! on thursday we went on splits with some missionaries from santiago east for 5 hours and it was so incredible! i shared my testimony with a little old lady and she started crying! i didn't know i could do that in spanish!!!!!!!! it all just really settled my nerves and showed me that i can do this!!!

           friday and saturday were good we said goodbye to all of our teachers on saturday and it was sad but exciting!!! 

           sunday was normal and wonderful!! then at night President Cook came and spoke at the CCM and it was AMAZING!!!!!  "we congratgulate you for your sacrifices but we do not apoligize for them!" 

           Monday was a big long boring orientation day and we learned all about how to work with ward members!!!

           Tuesday was the big day!! we woke up at 6 and got ready to leave then we left to the mission at 8 and got there at about 9 then we took care of all of the paperwork and that good stuff! and i learned that my trainer and new companion is Elder Burt! he is really cool he is from massechusits i know i spelled that very wrong but i can't think in english sorry! and we had a really good lunch!!!! then we had a testimony meeting with all of the new elders and sisters! then we left to my new home!! it is really small and we live in the upstairs of a cute old couple that are members! it is so humbling to see what these people have and how happy they still are! count your belssings you are all living in mansions! and please serve everyone you can there is no reason not too! anyway then we went and taught the mesa family that was super hard they spoke the fastest spanish i have ever heard! but i was able to share my testimony and try to speak with them!! then we taught Oscar who is a great guy but has a problem with drugs... so we meet with him everyday to make sure he is staying out of trouble! but he is just a happy gut that wants to improve his life it is so humbing!!! 

             today was pday and we played soccer that was super fun and then we had complaetos a big hotdog with everything on it yummmm!! then we cleaned the apartment and came here!!!! 

                I know this church is true and i love it with all my heart! please, please, please serve the lord will give you opportunities all the time just take advantage of those! I love you all!!!!

                    

                                                    Love Elder Groen 

          p.s. keep on keepin on

          p.p.s. come up with lots of questions that i can answer next week!!!!

Elder Groen asleep - what a surprise! 

Missionary selfie