California - April 9, 2012

Hello family, how are you? So I live in what is called West Sacramento, and yes, I live on a farm!!! Haha, how crazy is that? Yup, me on a farm, and what is even funnier is that I cover downtown Sacramento, but on the other side of the river is the farm, yeah, haha. We live in like a guest house behind a member's house; her name is Sister Davis, and we get along good becuase they do 4-H and FFA, and she said that I am the first missionary that has ever lived here that has done 4-H or FFA. There are kids that come to the farm and have pigs and lambs and steers, so it is awesome. We get to wake up in the morning to the smell of animals, you would not imagine how wonderful it smells after not smelling it for a year, it is awesome! But it feels really good to be on a farm, it is very calming and that has helped me a lot. Being Disrtict Leader is a lot of fun, it will be a lot of work but on the other hand it will be a lot of fun too. I have a good district and the zone is great (mi hijo Elder Cooper, his cousin is in my zone they are basically brothers he works in the Hmong ward which meets in the same building). I live with the Cambodian Elders, so that whole 'I want to serve Asian speaking' thing is pretty close! But I am very grateful for the Spanish program here, I would not want to be an Asian missionary here, there is like 2 areas and 4 missionaries in every group, Hmong, Lao, and Cambodian, so basically you would be with the same companios and the same area during your whole mission; I could handle the area part I think, but the companion part, probably not, I like new companions because you can learn something new and awesome from all your companions. Me and Elder Garcia get along good; he is very, very, very quiet, but I think I can pull him out of his shell, that's what I am hoping for because he has a lot of potential. Our area is struggling, the whole branch is (another big difference is that I was just in the bigggest Spanish ward in the mission, and now I am in a branch - big difference!). All the companionships in our district, which is our branch, are in what we call 'finding mode', and I am what you could call a 'finder'. I do very well, I guess, at finding people, which allows me to go back to my area to see lots of baptisms. We are searching for the elect, and we added a family that had investigated in the past but aren't married; we are hoping to get them married and then baptized because they really want to. We also have some part member families that are really starting to show interest, so we are excited for the potential that the area has, I am super excited to be here, I can see myself growing to love this area as well, but I have loved all my areas, all are unique and fantastic in different ways. That is another one of the many joys of being a missionary, you get to meet so many new people and see so many new places, and you grow so very fond of all of them.

Sounds like Jordan needs to pick up the social life, but I think he will be okay. JJ and Tamra with the future baby girl, that is super exciting! It is crazy that everyone is growing up and changing so fast! Jade will be graduating and putting in his papers, maybe he will be lucky enough to serve in the greatest mission on the planet, Sacramento, there is lots of places with ranches and cows, and the missionaries get to do service and help brand and stuff, but that's more English work. I haven't seen much of that area because it is covered by like 1 set of Spanish missionaries. I love working in the city, living in the city, no, but for missionary work I prefer the city, there are more people to talk to and to share the gospel with. I pretty much love it, and so far so good. city has been were I work; I live on the farm here, but most of our work is in the city. One thing that would be nice is if the people in Sacramento had done the grid system like the smart peopele of Utah; the streets out here are loco! But it's okay, we find our way around, haha! Well anyway, I love you all so much! THANKS so much for the packages Mom and Dad and Fam, and Josh and Candice and Fam, it was awesome and it brightened my day, so I want to thank you all for that.

Love Elder Jesse Grover

P.S. The shoes, the really nice brown pair, was a Christmas gift from a member and I was just carrying them around c'ause they are super nice so I was just going to save them for home. They are super nice, and I would have just worn them out out here, I have actually not bought a single pair of shoes, but I have been blessed in being given shoes by other missionaries that had shoes sent or bought that didn't fit, but fit me perfect. One day we walked into the mission office and they were like, "what size are your feet?" They asked if i was an 11 wide, and I was like, "yeah, that's my size! They pulled out a brand new pair of shoes that are very nice and said somone had them but they didn't fit, but if I wanted them, I could have them, so those are now my Sunday shoes and the shoes I wear to meetings. which I have a lot more of now, like leadership trainings and so forth. But yeah, all the stuff I was just carrying around, not really using, so I figured that since he was going to Blanding, I could just have him take it so I didn't have to worry about it at the end of my mission.