Bowling Green Beast

What up fam!?

First things first, it is FLAT over here in northwest Ohio. Like this is the flattest place I've ever been. I swear I could literally see the curve of the earth if there weren't so many trees.  It has been fun to experience the change of scenery! The farther west you go in Ohio the flatter it gets and since I've been slowly moving west it's slowly been getting more flat. 

This week has been so wonderful! It was hard to say goodbye to everyone in Akron and it was even harder to say goodbye to my baby, Sister Grimnes, but Bowling Green has been so fun and kind! 

My new companion is named Sister Bullock. She is from La Verne, California and she is funny and a hard worker and so fun to be around! We've gotten along super well with each other! This area is super fun because Sister Bullock and I are covering the Bowling Green Family ward and also we cover the Bowling Green Young Single Adult Branch! It isn't a huge ward and the YSA is like teeny weeny but they're full of wonderful people!

We have a couple of investigators that are progressing well and they've been so fun to teach! We are teaching a lot of young adults and it's fun to talk to people my age! I feel like my whole mission I've just talked to middle aged people but here we have Bowling Green State University so we get to talk to a lot of students. I've enjoyed it a lot.

We have put one investigator on date to be baptized. His name is Diego and he is so kind. He is a student at BGSU and he is just pretty quiet but he also is very sincere and he asks good questions and wants to learn. We've also met with Dan and it was fun to talk to him. He is 18, has a very strong religious background, and he started learning just to learn but he has been seeking to know that the Book of Mormon is true and he is starting to recognize that answer. He watched all the sessions of Conference on his own and enjoyed it. He also has great questions (and deep questions). He really wants to learn too! 

I've seen so many miracles in just the short few days I've been here. This place is awesome! Investigator have come to church and we have one on date.Another miracle: I gave my first church tour and we didn't plan it and we didn't know the people! We spend one hour at the church everyday to input our data from our paper area book into our phone. And we went to did that yesterday we saw a member who was there with her two cute little girls so we talked to her for a few minutes and then we saw these two men walk in and none of us knew them so Sister Bullock and I went to see who they were and we met David and Gurt. David is from Spain and he is a member of the Church. He lives in Mexico, works for a German company, and serves US clients. He also served a mission in California a number of years ago! Gurt is his co-worker and isn't a member. He is from Germany and is Roman Catholic. David and Gurt were in Bowling Green for a business trip for the day and they had a few minutes so David took Gurt to the church building to show him around.  That is one solid member missionary and friend! God timed things perfectly for us to be at the Church at the same time David and Gurt came. We were able to give them a tour of the church. We were in the chapel and we talked about how the church runs with Gurt and he just kept saying how different it is from the church he goes to at home. He really seemed to enjoy that we all participate and volunteer to help the church run. David was testifying and sharing and it was awesome! The last place we ended up was the Primary room. They have a wall of maps and it shows where all the temples are in the US so we, along with David, explained to Gurt what we do in temples and how we can be with our families forever because we can be sealed in them. David and Gurt are going to North Carolina so David said they could probably go to the temple! It was awesome! Major seeds were planted in that little bit of time we were with them! It was so cool! 

Another miracle:  The Richardson's (members of the BG ward) invited us to do service for Sister Baum (a less active member of the ward). Us and the elders went over and we were able to do yard work with her for a couple of hours! We raked leaves and cleaned up her backyard because she's moving. We did that for a couple of hours and were able to talk to her and get to know her. We were suppose to have dinner with the Richardson's the next day so we asked them if we could and they forgot and we couldn't have dinner with them but Sister Baum said we could come to her house the next day for dinner! That's a miracle! By doing service and doing kind deeds we were able to open a door! It was so great! 

Another miracle: As sister training leaders we have stake coordination every month with the zone leaders from the Toledo zone and the Toledo south zone, President Eddington (the Toledo Stake president), President Brown (the best mission President ever who I only have about 12 weeks more with him as my mission President and that just makes me so so so so so so so sad. He's just the coolest guy ever), and President Hamilton (one of President Brown's counselors who is also a really cool guy). We had that this Sunday but we didn't know we did because we didn't get a text,  so we assumed we didn't have stake coordination. We got some texts from the zone leaders during church and we realized we did have the meeting. We ended up being an hour late, but here is the miracle: President Brown wasn't there this month! Since he wasn't there we didn't get rebuked by him for being late! That was a great miracle! 

Cool thing that happened! I walked into Branch Council on Sunday and I introduced myself as Sister Grant from St. Anthony, Idaho and a member of the Branch presidency says, "Are you related to Charles Grant?" And of course I said, "Yes! That's my grandpa!" Very proudly because I love my grandpa! And Brother Viola says, "He was my mission president!" What the heck!? How awesome is that!? I knew I was gonna run into someone on my mission who knew Grandpa Grant! It was so cool! So sometime I will take a picture with him and send it home. Also Brother Viola told me that he will tell me stories about President Grant. I'm so excited!

This week has been so wonderful! I'm grateful to be in Bowling Green to serve the Lord here. I love my Savior and I know He loves us. We are currently driving with the Shurts (member of the ward who are originally from Idaho Falls ) to go to the Columbus temple. I'm so grateful for the work that is done with temples. I know we can be with our families forever and that is something I am so grateful for and I hold dear. I love my family and I want to be with them forever and I know I can! I'm grateful to be able to be on a mission to help others know how they can be with their family forever as well. I know the Book of Mormon is word of God and it helps us learn how to find true joy. I love being a missionary because I'm sharing how to receive ultimate joy and lasting happiness with the people of Ohio. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else! 

Love you! Hope yins have a great week!

Pic 1. (at the top) Sister Bullock and me! 

Pic 2Me filling a cannoli at Grandma Pat's house (she is the nicest lady and she knows Sister Reddish and Jenkins! And she is Brother Viola' s mom)

Pic 3 At the Columbus temple today