California - January 2, 2012

2012, the last year of the world, oh no, haha, jk! Did you guys have the chance of setting some new year resolutions? Those are great, remember, haha. It sounds like you will be having a good day hiking around in the sun, tell dad to be safe, haha, and all the rest of you too, haha. I hope you all have fun. Today is p-day, so we will have some fun too. We just played some soccer, well we do every week, but it was pretty fun. I might be pretty good by the time I get home, who knows, I will try to learn some tricks to show off. I did get some recipes for food, I will try them out. I am working on being a hispanic cook, haha, spicy of course, but super good.

Transfers will be next week, and I think I will stay here, who knows, I am hoping to. East Sacramento has been where I have spent pretty much my whole mission, so why not? I love it over here! We just found a super legit family last night, they were taught by missionaries about 3 years ago. After we taught the lesson they were like where are you from, we told them and they were like, oh, we thought you were the same missionaries that came by last time, 3 years ago, we were like no, weird but we are going back to visit them tonight. They are super solid, they said that they were confused on which church was right cause there are so many of them, so we were like well, you remember the story of Joseph Smith, and they did, haha! We retaught it and they loved it, it was super awesome. We've got a lot of potential here, and we are hoping to see these awesome people get baptized. We are also teaching a lady who is just like your typical mormon women, takes good care of her kids, always cleaning, and just super nice, and loves to learn about God. And another lady and her son who are also super awesome. Yeah, most of our investigators are woman, haha, hispanic men are a little prideful sometimes I guess, but when they open up and realize it's true, they are super solid; they go 100% or none at all, haha.

So a little challange I want to leave with you all is this: my goal this year is to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish 2 times and in English 2 times, along with lots of other stuff in the bible and Doctorine and Covenants, but I want to challange you all to read the Book of Mormon, we will all have a race, ok :) Me in Spanish you all in whatever language you want. I will send you updates on where I am at on p-days, and you send me updates on where you are all at, esta bien? It will be a family activity we can do even with me gone, how 'bout that :)

Jade, I really want to encourage you this year in preparation for your mission that you to take at least a half hour every day for "Personal Study"; Prayer, Scripture Study(the Book of Mormon), and Preach my Gospel and then end with a prayer. I know how busy you are with school and sports, but I can promise you so many blessings. God wants to bless us, we need to do our part, and you have the potential of being a very good missionary, but preparation before hand is key! I made the mistake of thinking it would be easy and being a missionary would just bam, be there, like walking into the MTC and all of the sudden knowlege and spiritual strength just fall from the sky, no Preparation is key! I also promise that if you take at least this half hour for the Lord, you will do better in school, home work, and sports will improve, I promise this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, because through him everything is possible. Esta Bien? Love Ya!

I encourage you all to do this, cause we can receiave so many blessings from it. We can all prepare, we can all better ourselves. I have seen the blessing of studies, when I have a well balanced study and I work hard, my day is better and I am more able to follow the spirit, and the spirit is key. I love you all so much, enjoy the new year, 2012 a year full of spiritual growth for us all :) a year of Baptisms :) a year that we have to better ourselves, to strengthen ourselves against the advasary. You know how bad the world is getting, the advasary is fighting harder than ever, only because we are the ELECT of God and we have great plans of success, but Satan does not want this. Have a wonderful new year!

Les Quiero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Jesse Grover