September 8, 2015

Alright so this week was crazy!! But we had a blast! So I don't have a lot of time so I will share my spiritual experience for this week and issue my weekly challenge for you and then I will see what I can do! Sorry mom but I will have to send pictures next week.

So alright I went on splits with a guy in our ward named Brother Hunt, he runs his own company that does custom wheelchairs for the disabled! So we went and visited a lady who hasn't come to church for a while named Sister Alverez, and another less active named Wayne Searle, he hasn't come to church since 1987, but is a solid guy, Brother Hunt was with me and knows him so they hit it off and we challenged him read and pray twice this week. It was super super cool!! He accepted and I will follow up with him this week. Then Brother Hunt had a feeling which was revelation I know it was, to go and visit a lady named Sister Erickson, she is disabled and has had a lot of medical problems. Her boyfriend is a non member but comes to church all the time, so it turns out she was having a really hard night and she had some things flaring up and she said it felt like a knife in her gut, it was way bad. But we gave her a priesthood blessing and she felt so much better, she even came to church on Sunday. But what really hit me was even though she was struggling with so many different things in her life, she took the time to get to know me and make sure we were comfortable! But we are hoping to go by and start teaching her boyfriend this week!! I can't wait!! But so my challenge is this week is to take the time to get to know someone else this week, forget yourself and try thinking about someone else's needs this week. You as ward members really can make a difference and every ward member is a missionary. So this week try to be a ward missionary! Heavenly Father wants us to prepare right now to be instruments in his hands! I love you all so much and I know that as we strive this week to be better missionary's Heavenly Father will bless us and I testify that miracles will happen, so this week pray and seek out someone Heavenly Father needs you to help this week, and don't be afraid. If you are doubting look up fear in the bible dictionary, it says that fear cannot reside with a child of God or something like that. So as children of our father in heaven I know we can do all things through Christ!! 

Again I love you all and I know miracles will happen and that you will be able to help change lives, I know Christ lives I know our Heavenly Father loves us. I know that when we trust in him he will change our lives for the best! "Look unto ME IN EVERY THOUGHT DOUBT NOT FEAR NOT!" D&C 6:36! We have no need to fear when we trust in him! HE will bless you and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ Amen!

Sincerely Elder Goresbeck

August 31, 2015

Hello Idaho!!!! Alrighty so this week we have had an awesome week. So we went and visited a less active guy, the missionaries told him if he got baptized his golf game would improve, and it did! But he only came to sacrament meeting and didn't really love the others as much. So after 7 years of amazing service he fell away. He never read The Book Of Mormon so he never really developed a strong testimony.. So we visited him and talked to him about sports and then we finally got into the questions of why he isn't coming and why he liked the church. We talked to him and he is trying to pray more and i shared Ether 12:27 and told him if he read even a verse a day out of The Book Of Mormon that he would receive the answers he needed and his prayers would be more sincere. It was amazing how the spirit was there so strong! We were also able to go and visit Brother Runyan! He is a legend! He is 95 years old, he still drives us around, serves in the temple, plays golf 3 times a week and takes care of his wife who is mostly blind and pretty well deaf. Its so amazing! So this week he gave us another thing of fresh orange juice, so i will attach a picture with all of us and our manly mugs! I love that man! Then we were able to meet this really cool lady who just moved into our complex, she is single and christian and we helped her move a few things into her apartment. She even gave us all a bottle of lemon oil from doterra. So we hope we can be able to go and teach her. We also picked up another potential investigator named Brad! He is super cool he plays soccer and has long hair and massive calves probably as big as yours Ethan!!;) love yah man! So we are hoping to go and start teaching him. This week I was able to help teach a lesson to a guy from the Discovery Hills ward his name was Vincent he served as a Marine. He served two tours. He was super respectful and he was able to tell us thanks for serving. We were able to share a Book Of Mormon with him and he said he would read it. And we taught a little bit about the restoration. We had to pass him off the the YSA elders but it was way cool to finally teach my first lesson. 

Yesterday we had stake conference and they talked about where your heart is there your treasure will be also. So I thought a lot about that yesterday and then last night it hit me that I need to make sure and give my heart to the people of the San Elijo Hills ward! So after doing that my day has been amazing and I know that if we all watch out for where are hearts are and give them to the lord i know miracles will happen. So my challenge to all of you this week is to find out where your heart is find out what your spending a lot of your time doing and see where that is from the eternal perspective of things. If your spending more time with the internet then family might want to fix that. So that's the challenge for this week. I will be right along with you in striving to do it. Well I love you all and I hope you have all had an amazing week! Keep up all the amazing work and I hope we can all strive to be "Nearer My God to Thee"

Sincerly Elder Groesbeck

These are my plants an elder left they are sunflowers i think!! 

It was Elder Johnsrud's birthday so we baked him a cake. 

WE biked up a good hill to see a less active so we figured we would get a picture.

This is our orange juice from Brother Runyan. 

Email from August 24, 2015

Alright so this week has been amazing!! So some awesome stories for this week. So first off we had exchanges and I was with Elder Mardesich again, love the guy he has helped me out so much and gave me something to remember: P.A.C.E Positive Attitude Changes Everything!!!! I have been working on being positive all the time. It's helped me out so much. So we worked really hard on that day and we were able to bike into San Elijo Hills we tracted a little and were able to go and visit some people. One family we visited were the Taufa's. They are both from Hawaii and they are amazing, I love the Taufa's they all have an amazing family feel in there home and super friendly they would do anything for us. We went on splits with him and we visited some people and set up some return appointments. It was awesome, we discussed how we could get our ward more active in missionary work. So we have thought a lot about that. If anyone has any ideas we are all ears. 

Alright so second cool story for this week. We went to go and visit an older couple who were passed to us by the YSA, (weird huh) But we went to go and visit them and they were super kind, we talked to him very slowly because he only understands a little bit of English. He is from Baghdad and came here seeking refuge for his family because he is Christian. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon. He has read it, it only took him three weeks. Then we talked about modern day prophets and baptism and Elder Johnsrud invited him to a baptism that night and he also invited him to church that Sunday the following day. He went and he enjoyed it. The spirit truly is the teacher in this work. We are working on getting some Elders that speak Arabic to come and teach him from San Diego. Its been cool to see that. Then last night I met my first BASHER. HE was a hispanic guy and he was pretty nice but had some way interesting views and thought we were too young to know what we were talking about. We just said thank you for expressing to us your opinion and we talked to him for like 15 minutes, he wasn't even the guy we went to go see. We didn't bash with him but he told us that mi casa is sue casa. Really nice guy and maybe we had an effect on him. That's one thing we all don't realize is that just the little things can make a huge difference and we never know who they will effect. I love this work and I know I'm supposed to be here. 

My challenge to all of you this week is to talk to someone about the gospel, it dosent have to be huge or anything, and remember if you don't know and answer to there question say I have two friends I know that can answer that for you how about we meet them at my house sometime? I promise if you prayerfully seek a name it will come and miracles will happen. Well until next week Love you all and Hang Loose!! 

Sincerly Elder Groesbeck! 

Elder Parker who went home's shirt he left behind. I can still fit into a small shirt. 

Elder Johnsrud, Elder Wixom, Elder Groesbeck San Elijo Hills Ward, San Marcos California. 

My new flag shirt. 

August 17, 2015

Elder Groesbeck's email from August 17, 2015

So there is a picture of me on my bike
Alright so this week has been awesome, and super Crazy!! So we started this week with our zone training it was super awesome! It was about contacting and that's something I need to work on. We are also working on getting referrals through our members because really we are the teachers and the members truly are the best at finding those for us to teach! So that's my challenge for all of you this week. Pray and find out who Heavenly Father wants you to contact this week and to invite them to take the missionary lessons. I know you can do it, and I testify to you that if you pray Heavenly Father will answer you and that if you pray for them frequently you will help them to draw closer to Christ!!
So we have been challenging a lot of members to take the challenge I gave you last week. And we had a member get married this week super cool girl and she is going to do amazing things. So the crazy part of this week we had a zone leader go home and Elder Mardesich was Emergency transferred to take his place. So Elder Wixom is now the District Leader. Awesome right, well we also have Elder Johnsrude added to our companionship and now we cover the Discovery Hills Ward also!! We have all three of us in our apartment and we are covering two areas!! Its been a lot of fun but a little stressful!! Its all good though. We have it all worked out and we will be able to coordinate a lot of splits and still be effective!! I know we are supposed to be together and that we will do amazing things!! Heavenly Father truly puts people together for a reason, so I'm excited to see what miracles come as we start working together as a team!! If we truly follow Christ I know that all things are possible!!
Love you all and I hope everything is going well back home!! I pray for you and I hope that you know you're all amazing!! Well until next week, may "God Be With You Till We Meet Again"!!

Dallin with his bike. Dallin with his MTC district. Dallin with his homemade ping pong table.

Elder Groesbeck's email from August 10, 2015

Hey this is lake San Marcos!!! It's really beautiful!! It's in the bottom part of my mission and most of the people here are pretty wealthy. We did a lot of work this week. I went on exchanges with Elder Mardesich!! He is from Utah and was a lot of fun. We did some tracting, and I have been doing a lot more contacting more than ever before!! I got 16 for one day!! We have a SOE of 22 street contacts a day.
WE also were able to meet with one investigator she just broke up with her boyfriend who was investigating the church and her kids want to come so we are going to hopefully be able to start working with her. I've been doing a lot of work with meeting the ward, and we are trying to contact a lot more less active people out here. The people that are out here all are very unique. We run into a lot of people everyday who are from lots of different places, somedays I wish I could speak Spanish so I could contact people who speak it. It's really hard talking to them when they don't speak your language, but it's ok. We can still try and talk to them about the missionaries!! So while on exchanges I was able to give away my FIRST BOOK OF MOROMON!!! With Elder Mardesichs help, he started talking to her and I talked to her about the Book of Mormon, and it was amazing!!! I know the church is true more than ever!! So being a missionary and sharing a little about our week this week I want to offer a challenge. So the challenge I'm sure many of you have done this many times. I do it all the time out here. So I want you to think about something that is bothering you or is causing stress and pray and ask Heavenly Father to answer your prayer by you opening your scriptures and pointing or looking at a scripture. I did it this morning and read the account of the Brother of Jared!! I learned so much!! After you finish ponder what you have read apply it to your life and think about how it applies to you!! Then thank heavenly father for what he has done for you, then most importantly ACT act on what your learned make the change, or use what he taught you. This will all be different for everyone so no one will have the same experience!!! I can testify that the Book of Mormon is true it does and will answer all your questions you have, Heavenly father wants to bless all of us he is waiting for us to take a step towards him and to be able to learn and grow on the earth!! While there is now growth in the comfort zone there is no comfort in the growth zone!! I'm way out of my comfort zone and thats why I'm growing I know Heavenly Father hears and answers all our prayers and loves all of us!! I know that Joseph Smith did talk to our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ in the sacred grove!!! I know that no matter what we go through Heavenly Father is there to help us along. I know that His Grace is sufficent to save all!! Thank you all for everything you have done I can't thank you all enough I admire each one of you and look up to you!! Thank you all for the amazing people you are and I know that you are all going to do amazing things!!!
Love Elder Groesbeck
P.S. If you are alright with sharing your expreiences with me I would love to hear them!! Sorry the letter is a little short.

Elder Groesbeck's email August 3, 2015

Aloha!!
So yep im in the San Ellijo Hills Ward!! It is an amazing ward everyone has been super nice!! So I will get you pictures next week i forgot my cord so sorry!!:/ So this week was kinda tough contacting is a lot harder than i thought it would be but its all good. I have fasted and im not worrying about what other people say. The area is beautiful and the members are great at giving us rides. We have walked almost everywhere, but there is an old bike i will be using from the last elders so i don't know if i will need to buy a bike. Thanks for transferring that though. The members feed us very well and everyone around is pretty satisfied with how they are in there lives so we ask them if there is anything we can do to help them we ask 22 people everyday and so thats 154 a week or so. So i have meet a lot of the memebers so far and by far had the most memorable dinner appointment yet. So we go to the halgrens and Elder Wixom tells me he is a less active Jehova's witness, and i was tired so didn't think much of it. We go in and they have two boys who are shredding on there guitars and ones upstairs playing drums it was cool. I played a little!!!:D So the father wasn't home yet so we were waiting and talking to sister Halgren and he gets there with his friend who is kinda a big guy that has glasses on and a grave shirt on, so he talks to me and says he is divorced and that he spends a lot of time in the temple. And then Mr. Halgren comes in with a bottle of corona 1 i was kinda like OK whats going on here. And so all of a sudden we pray and we start eating and the guy i was just talking to takes a shot of the corona1. And then we sit down and start eating the food was amazing lots of fruit and chicken and stuff like that it was great. Then Mr. Halgren says ive been thinking a lot about what you have taught me last time about Joseph Smith and i think im ready to be baptized! He said I will do it if we all take a shot! I say sorry I can't do that...... and then the peer pressure starts and he said come on Elder Wixom and he urges him and says you know how hard it is to get a baptism here. This was on our second or third day as companions and then Elder Wixom thinks about it I left the room for seconds and come back and I keep saying no. And then Elder Wixom wipes the top off and takes a shot and says yuck that was gross!! All I could think was oh no what did I get myself into!! Then everyone starts laughing!! I was just shaking my head and then Mr. Halgren stands up shakes my hand and says HI I'm Brother Halgren and welcome to the ward. Turns out cream soda looks a lot like Corona 1!!! So I swore my revenge and I'm gonna think something up to get even!!! I love their family now though so we will see!! We haven't had any lessons yet, but I will be here for like 12 weeks so I will deffinetly work on helping move the work along!! I have been reading a lot in the scriptures and in the adjusting to missionary life packet, I'ts really cool to read that it helps out so much!! The area is great people are tough I might be a little darker when I come home, but I have seen miracles here and I'm so so happy to be here this is where im supposed to be!! I just want to say that mircales can be just little things like praying to here from someone and getting a text right after you say Amen, Getting all your contacts in on the hardest day of the week, or helping you overcome your fear of contacting and talking to people!! I testify that Christ Lives and is mindful of all of us!! I'm doing great!!
I Just hope you all know how much i Love all of you!!! You are all amazing and all have amazing gifts from our father in heaven I look up to all of you!! I just want to challenge you to read D and C 6 this week as a family i love the last couple verses!! I also challenge you to pray and ask him what he would like you to do to help someone else this week!! I know that with exact obedience miracles come!!
I also meet a man who is 95 years old and still drives us around he is a pro!! I also have seen some awesome cars here, there are a bunch of new jaguars mustangs, crazy trucks, and etc!!! I have been able to bare testimony to a ton of members while ive been here. Thanks for the last package it has been amazing to eat all of it!! I went shopping to day and we have an albertsons right next to our apartment and also Taco Train is the best mexican place around!! Love it!!
Love yah!! Hang 10 and hang loose!!
Sincerely Elder Groesbeck

MTC - July 27, 2015

OK so the MTC!!!! I truly have come to love my zone!! It has been one of the hardest things I have ever loved to do!! Just because it is hard to think about being away from such an awesome family, and making sure you are always on the exact schedule can be a little tough when room mates are running behind!! But the first thing they told us when we got here is there is no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone. So if you have to step out of your comfort zone in the MTC it's all the way!! But I truly have grown!! It has been a testimony builder like you wouldn't believe. We had class two times a day except for Monday and Elder Higginson and I have thought 9 lessons in the MTC!! You truly come to love others, I challenge you to try and love everyone around you more!! I am working on it! One thing I challenged myself to do is to talk to 10 people tomorrow and share my testimony to who ever he tells me to! As a missionary you truly get to feel the saviors love and understand the scriptures in a whole new way its amazing! You also realize that when your family isn't here your district becomes your family!! Although they can't replace you they can help and come close!! We have amazing teachers Brother Call and Sister Draney they have been amazing teachers love them so much and am so grateful for all the help they gave us! 

I have a quote for Ethan that I think could help: When your heart aches it stretches and when it stretches it helps you to be able to grow and learn more!! Miss Idaho like crazy, and I miss all of you and I miss driving and everything but my heart has been able to grow so much!! I hope my heart can be able to grow closer to the aviors!! A crazy change is that I can actually talk to people now not professionally but I can communicate a lot better!! I've come to know my Savior so much more and I've been able to learn so much from others!! 

I gave an ordinance lesson in priesthood meeting and I have been able to write two talks while I was here!! I Have also been able to write in my journal more I wish I could just send it home but I will when I finish it maybe!! 

OH and HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!!! LOVE YAH SO MUCH LITTLE SIS!!! YOU'RE AMAZING< KEEP ON SMILING YOU HAVE BEEN AN AMAZING EXAMPLE TO ME SO FAR YOUR AWESOME!!!:) 

Sorry to hear about grandma! I send my regards and my love!! Glad she joined the team though!!  Tell Uncle Duff sorry i go on Monday's to the temple!! I dont have a phone card so its all good dont worry!! Let everyone know I'm doing great and that I love and appreciate them!! All the people back home have had a huge impact in my life even that crazy old running coach!! My flight is at 8 A.M, but I have to be up at 3:30. I will take a bus to a train station and ride the electric train to the airport. I'm probably going to just check both of my bags. Mom could you put a little money in my account the church should refund you. I should be at the mission home at about 11 tomorrow and I will hopefully be put to work right away. The MTC is letting me get all my energy out so I'm excited to go run and work!! I love you all and I will talk to you tommorow probably around  7 or so!! I will call the house first!! Love you all and I will talk to you tomorrow!! 

Sincerely Elder Groesbeck

P.S. mom can you pay the bishop my tithing and tell him i will send my other one i have in my scriptures via the mail!! Also Either 12:6 for my missionary scripture!! so love you!! 

On our way to the Provo MTC. July 15, 2015

One last hug for mom.

All of the missionaries headed to Carlsbad.

Elder Groesbeck's District

Roomates - L to R Elder Miles, Elder Raddon, Elder Groesbeck and Elder Higginson

Carlsbad Missionaries - July 2015