Another great week here in Quantico!

Well this week was another great week here in Quantico! It was a little slow though for lessons because of the holiday weekend. So it seems like almost nobody was home haha. We had some beautiful weather a few days this past week though! It was in the 60's so we were in our short sleeve white shirts until the sun went down haha it was great! We spent a lit of time attempting to find new people to teach this week, which is much needed haha, most of the people we are teaching just aren't super interested right now so we are in the market for new people to teach. We spent lots of time knocking on peoples doors and asking members if they new anyone that could use a little bit of spiritual upliftment. Which I don't mind at all haha, I actually really enjoy finding for the most part and Elder Eaton does as well. The only downside though is you really start to feel like you're just spinning your wheels after awhile haha. But after some time we did end up finding a few new people to teach! So that's exciting for sure. Hopefully that continues haha. We also had our "zone training" this week where we get together with the zone and talk about changes and emphasis' in the mission rules for the upcoming transfer as well as do some sort of doctrinal lesson at the end. It went really well! We thought for sure a lot of the missionaries would freak about about some of the new rules but everybody was just fine with it haha. The part we were most unsure about though was President Riggs had told us that we needed to take away each one of the area's phones at the meeting and go through and delete any other missionaries' numbers that they weren't supposed to have in their phone haha. I guess they've been having a real problem with social phone calls around the mission so he was finally just cracking down on it for good. They were a little hesitant to give us their phones but it went better than we expected haha. It did take forever though! Each one of those phones had between 400-600 contacts in them that we had to go through! It was crazy haha. Luckily our zone is one of the smaller ones in the mission so we only had to go through 9 phones was all. There's a few zones in the mission where I'm sure they went through close to 20. We also had a meeting with all the bishops, ward mission leaders, and stake leaders last night about missionary work in the zone that Elder Eaton and I had to give a presentation at, we're both glad we're done with that haha. So it's been a busy week as always here! But I don't mind that one bit haha, busy is great! Hopefully this week it's a little more busy with lessons though! Well I hope everyone had a great valentines day this past week! Thank you to everyone who sent me packages or cards! You guys made it a great Valentines day for me as well! I love and miss you all lots!

Great week here in Quantico!

Well it's been a great first week here in the Quantico ward! Elder Eaton and I are really getting along great and little by little I'm learning my way around the area. A bummer this week though is that we lost our van! Our area had a mini-van instead of a car so that we could give missionaries a ride to transfers but there are a few missionaries down in Fredricksburg that need it to get their district to district meetings every week because they area all bike Elders besides them haha. So we got their Corolla instead and man is it beat up haha. We spent 4 hours in the shop on Wednesday getting it fixed up. It's all good now though! Besides that our week has consisted of a lot of finding efforts haha. A few of the people we have been teaching dropped us this past week so we are currently in the market for new people to teach, we spent lots of time knocking on doors and asking members if they have any friends that might be interested in meeting with us. So far not a ton of luck though haha. We are really gaining the trust of the local ward here and I'm sure in time we'll see some success! Regardless of our lack of people to teach I still love this area! We've heard that throughout this past week all the places north of us have really been getting hit hard by some snow but nothing here, a little chilly and windy, but no snow yet. A big plus to the week though was all the Valentines day packages I've gotten already! haha I was really surprised because I didn't realize just how close Valentines day is. I think that will be just a normal day of missionary work for us, President Riggs hasn't said anything about it being otherwise. So I think I'll probably just take Elder Eaton out to a romantic dinner or something haha. Well not too much to report this week unfortunatelly! Just lots of finding and meetings haha. We had a 8 hour meeting on tuesday we had to go to with all the other zone leaders about changes to be made in the mission, nothing too crazy came out of it haha. I hope everyone is having a great week wherever you are though! I love and miss you guys lots!

Transferred! Feb 4th email



Elder Gronning & Elder Skinner at Ben's baptism

 Well the inevitable happened, I got transferred haha. That was kinda expected after 6 months in my past area haha. I love it here in my new area with my new companion already though! My new companion is Elder Eaton, he was in the Centreville zone with me my first transfer there so we've met a few times and played some sports together. He is from Idaho Falls and knows where Grace is! So that was cool haha. He has been out 13 months now so only a few less than me and has been here in this area for the past 3 months. He's a great guy and we get along great. My new area is pretty unique for a few reasons haha. First off we are the Quantico ward, which means we cover the Quantico marine base and we also cover all of the young single adults for the entire Woodbridge stake. Which is super cool getting to cover another military base haha. I've now served on two of the three bases in our mission! Also, since we cover the entire stake we have a car! Actually it is a mini-van haha we are the one set of missionaries in the mission that has a van (besides the office-elders) instead of a car haha. The reason for that is that we are the Zone Leaders here in Woodbridge, which is also a first for me haha. So we keep track of all the missionary work for the Woodbridge stake and have to help people move from time to time and give them rides to transfers and stuff like that so they give us the van. The "Wood-wagon" as I call it haha. So far I love it here though. We stay very very busy all day every day now because of being in charge of helping out all the missionaries as well as still doing normal proselyting, so that's very nice. Here in our zone though we have Elder Call (my MTC roommate) and Elder McGoffin (who I was companions with back in sterling park) two very good friends of mine who I'm  excited to get to serve around again. This past Saturday was really great though. I got to go back to Centreville 1st for Ben's baptism and man it went great! He was so excited and had such great support from the ward there. He's a great kid. We have had quite a bit of snow these past few days too, but none of it has been sticking :/ we'll get about a half-inch and then as soon as the sun comes out it just all turns to wet. Hopefully we'll get a good sized snow-storm before winter is over! I attached a picture of Elder Skinner and I with Ben at his baptism Saturday, I need to take some pictures with my new companion and new apartment to send home soon. Which speaking of the new apartment, it is super super nice, one of the nicest in the mission for sure. It's like a hotel here haha. We just went and played a few games of pool in our front lobby while we were waiting for the computers to not be in use, which the pool table room/lunge has a fully stocked kitchen at all times haha. We also have a huge gym downstairs and a game room with 3 big screen tv's with a PlayStation 3, a Wii  and an Xbox  Such a bummer we can't use those though! Well I'm running out of time pretty quck due to the long email haha but I hope everyone has had a great week wherever you are! I love and miss all of you lots!