Email to Mom

Hi Mom,
Man Siri is pretty sweet haha she does a pretty good job of putting the emails together for you, she messes up on a few words from time to time and the punctuation is super confusing sometimes haha but besides that it's awesome!  The weather here has been pretty miserable though, I hate humidity! So as long as people let us inside into the air conditioning it's fine haha but when we're out walking around I just sweat and sweat and sweat haha. My camelback has been very nice for keeping me hydrated though.
Man that'll be sweet having another lake powell trip this year though! I can't wait to go to one when I come home :) I'll have to take some pictures of our apartment so you can see how nice it is and then send you my SD card this week, it's been quite awhile now that I think about it haha. I only have 1 card still though since my last one broke in the mail :/ but one is good enough for the time being.
I did get some good looking short sleeve white shirts from Granny and Pa but they're too big :/ I'm stll the same size even with the extra 30 pounds haha. She sent me 16's but she included the receipt from JC Penny so we just have to make a trip up to one one of these P-days and then I'll be able to switch them for some smaller ones.
The time here seems to be flying by though but at the same time it feels like I've been here while, but I suppose that's true now that's it's almost 10 months that I've been out. Man it's so weird! I'm one of the older missionaries at most things now! Most of our mission consists of people who have been out less than a year so for the most part I've been out longer than a lot of the other missionaries haha. It's really strange. Well I hope you're having a good day at work! I love and miss you lots Mom!

Another Great Week in Ft Belvior!

Well it has been another sweet week here in Ft. Belvoir! We were blessed to have a good amount of lessons this past week with lots of different people. Unfortunately the two people that were planning on being baptised soon still haven't come to church though so we'll have to push back the baptismal date for awhile. We did have a few really good lessons with them this week though! It seems like this past week we went on quite a good amount of exchanges with other missionaries too, which are always a little hectic haha. Usually they last a full 24 hours and we just switch companions and areas for the day. So on thursday I went over to the Alexandria 3rd Area with Elder Bennet (one of the guys in my district) and Elder Kessler stayed in our area with Elder Merrill (elder Bennet's companion). That was a lot of fun, it's Elder Bennet's second transfer in the field so he's still pretty new. I love hanging out with new missionaries though, they are always so much more pumped to get out there and work haha. So we spent most of the day there on bikes and it turns out that they are currently looking for a new bike so for now they have a girls bike... so I kinda got stuck on that for the day haha. It looked like a guys bike kinda but man it was super uncomfortable! The pedals were super small and the seat and handle bars were bother super wide haha. So I almost crashed quite a few times but I survived haha. Throughout each transfer I'm supposed to go on one exchange with each companionship in my district so I'll probably have another one one day this week. Then Friday was my day to go on an exchange with the zone leaders (they cycle through each one of the district leaders every week) and that was alot of fun. I got to stay in our area this time around and Kessler went over to their area. So I was with Elder Anderson (not the one I was with before haha) for the day and we had some really spirit filled lessons with a few of the people we are teaching. Also this past week we had a lady in our ward take us to the comissary on base to buy some groceries and man that place is sweet! Everything there is super cheap compared to civillian grocery stores, even cheaper than wal-mart! It was very cool. We are going to see if she will take us at the beginning of next month too so we can buy some more stuff.
We had a really sweet experience on Saturday evening though. It was a few minutes after 9 o clock so we were heading back to our roomates car so they could give us a ride home and a lady just came up out of nowhere and was like "Hey I just felt really strongly that I needed to come talk to you guys, can you come visit with my son?" So she told us that her 13 year old son has been going through some rough times and she really wants her family to be raised on a Christian foundation so that her children can have good morals. So we went and got to know both her and her son. I mostly talked with the son, his name is Marcelis and he's a super cool kid, I talked with him about video games and drawing (which it turns out he's super good at) and about how God and prayer can really make life easier, even when we're young. While I was doing that Elder Kessler was talking to his Mom, Natasha, who was just so glad we were there and told him about how much she really just feels the spirit about us and things like that. Unfortunatelly it was pretty late and we have to be in by 9:30 if we're at a lesson (9 if we're not) so we had to get running, but man overall it was really a sweet little discussion we had with them. We left them each with their own copy of the Book of Mormon and invited them to read a chapter together and pray about it, which they said they would do and they really wanted us to come back over. Such a sweet experience! Hopefully we get to see them again this week. Also this past week I had an awesome little surprise package and card! First a card from my family up in idaho that totally made my day! and then a package later in the week from my grandparents that was full of cards made by my cousins! So cool! So it was another really sweet week here. So far I really love this area and I hope I get to stay here a long time! Well I hope everyone is having a great week wherever you are! I love and miss all of you guys!

WHAT A WEEK!

It has been an awesome past week here in Ft Belvoir! We have been blessed with quite a bit of success and I had an excellent birthday. Thank you to everyone who went out of your way to send me a card or package for my birthday! That really made it an awesome day. I was super pumped to get a package of homemade cake balls this past Wednesday too. Homemade and overnighted on Fed-Ex from my family. That was so sweet! Luckily I'm blessed with the best family in the world haha. That and what seems like it's got to be over $100 worth of beef jerky too haha. I have been such a happy camper with all my newfound food. I didn't wake up much taller or more mature like I was hoping though haha but I did weigh myself and I've officially put on 30 lbs on my mission so far! Woop woop! Which most people haven't believed so far when I tell them because they say I'm still just a stick haha but I feel like I'm almost what an average skinny person should be now. For my birthday this past week though I opened up my presents in the morning and then we went on to a normal day of proselyting haha. We did some service for a guy in the ward in the morning and then for lunch I was planning on taking us to the place called "The Green Olive" which is a seafood buffet but as we were going to leave the guy decided to take us out to lunch on him for helping him out. So he took us to his favorite resturaunt, The Green Olive haha. So we ended up getting to go for free! I was hoping they would have crab legs since it's a seafood buffet and all but I guess that must just be a Vegas thing because I can't find them on any buffet out here! It was a good buffet all around though. After that we went back to proselyting until we went to our wards bible study that they have every thursday, which it turns out Special K (Elder Kessler) spilt the beans that it was my birthday so they surprised me with a cake and a card, it was way sweet! I also got a call from President Riggs in the morning with him and his family singing me happy birthday haha so cool! So overall it was such an awesome day! As for the success we've been having this week, it's been tons of it, but it's not even success in our area for the most part haha. Our district now has a total of 12 people with a solid baptism date, with all but 2 being for August, in between the four companionships. That's a ton haha. In total 6 of those just happened this past week as well, so it's been way sweet! We contributed our little bit with one in our area. She is a lady named Jenny who we met awhile back knocking on doors. We watched "The Restoration" DVD with her and afterwards asked what she thought and she just straight up answered "oh I definately believe that it's true" haha how sweet is that? So she accepted the invitation to be Baptised on August 18th and she wants to be Baptized with her Fiance as well who we haven't met yet. She also has a son named David who seems like he might want to as well. They are such a cool family, I really hope we can continue to help bring the happiness the Gospel brings into their lives. Also we had a pretty fun experience this past Saturday. We can't really proselyte on the army base here so whatever bit of contact we can get with the people who live there is great because it's most of our area. So we got a call one night from a ward member who is retired from the Army who let us know he was signing us up for a 3 on 3 basketball tournament haha. So we went to that on Saturday and Elder Dickson and Frazier (our roomates) and Elder Kessler got to play some army guys in a few games of basketball. I was totally down for not playing though haha I've tried and triend to learn to like basketball on my mission but man the more I play it the less I like it haha. Anyways we ended up not doing very good and got eliminated about right off the bat haha. But we all wore shirts that had something to do with the church so everyone recognized us as "The Mormons" and referred to us as that throughout the tournament haha. So we at least got to let the people on base know who we were. Afterwards they had a 3 point shoot out though and Elder Dickson won that so he got a pretty sweet trophy and stuff haha so overall that was really cool. Well that's about it for the week. I hope everyone has had a great week wherever you are! Thanks again so much to everybody who helped make my birthday a great one this year!

Email to us from President Riggs 7/20

Dear Sister Gronning,

I’m not sure why the mail has not made it to your son (who is amazing, by the way).  The preferred method is to still send it to the Mission Office.  Please let me know if you need that address.  It is so important for the missionaries to receive mail and we’ve found the best and fastest means for that to happen is for the mail to come centrally to the Mission Office.

Sister Riggs and I love your son tremendously.  I called on him spontaneously during a zone conference this week to share a spiritual thought.  He was very well prepared and presented a wonderful message in an engaging manner.  We were all impressed.

With love and respect,

 Matt Riggs

President Matthew Riggs

Washington D.C. South Mission

To Mom

Congratulations on the iPhone! That's so exciting!! I'm pretty jealous haha. That's awesome you guys made it to the Albrights homecoming! They are both great speakers. We are really going to miss them here though. Wasn't that picture of the Temple awesome though?! I wanted to take a picture of it but everybody kept crowding around it so I never got the chance. The new Mission President is a great guy. That's good to hear that Ben made it back to Vegas and especially a sacrament meeting haha and very cool that Skyler is going to the MTC soon! Ben has emailed me a few times so we've been able to talk occasionally and he does seem like he's grown up a little bit just in how he talks too. Thank you so much again for the package though! I am waiting to open the presents on Thursday so it'll be a special day of sorts haha. It's crazy to think I'll be 20! That'll be awesome though because when people ask me if I'm like 14 I can respond that I'm actually 20 and that sounds lots older than 19 haha. My actual address here is: 5811 Woodlawn Gable Dr, Apt K, Alexandria VA, 22309. That would be awesome to get some fresh sweets and such! I was going to ask is it possible that you could look for me a Mogless brand tie or two? That's the kind that Granny and Pa brought me from Russia and they are so cool! I think they are only sold in Russia though so you might not be able to find any and that's okay :) I haven't gotten any dear Elders since I've been here though. Maybe somethings up with the Dear Elder Website? or maybe something with the Mission office? Who knows. Congratulations on selling the house though! That's awesome! Well I better get going. I love and miss you lots Mom! Thank you so much for being the best Mom ever! I'll talk to you next week!

Another Week in Ft Belvoir C

It's been another great week here in Ft. Belvoir C! Things are really starting to move along well. Two of our the people we are teaching have now set a date for their baptism (August 11) and one more is almost there too! The two that have set a date are a Mother and her 9 year old daughter who we have been teaching for good amount of time now, but the Mom's boyfriend really seems like he would like to be baptised as well he just is always so busy so we never get a chance to talk to him, but he loves everything we teach! We have had a good amount of success just by talking to people we meet about the gospel too though. We have been going to the gym in our apartment every morning to work out and sometimes when we get home at night as well and there are usually a bunch of foreign guys there that we talk to. I guess the big thing here in VA is for people from other countries to move over here to work as life guards for the summer to make a little extra money and experience life in America. So we've been talking to them quite a bit about the Gospel and a few of them should be coming with us to church on Sunday! We've met 1 from Jamaica, 1 from Turkey, 2 from Slovakia, and 2 from Ukraine. They are all really cool guys, the only problem is that they "vurk on Sunday at 10 of clock to 8" every Sunday haha. They were all pumped about the idea of singles ward though where they can go meet a bunch of American girls who are looking for someone to marry (the base foundation of any singles ward I believe haha). So it sounds like we might have a pretty good chance of getting them to go to that. The weeks just seem to go by faster and faster though. It feels like this past week just barely started! A very big highlight to my week though was a large surprise birthday card from this office on Saturday! Thank you so much to all of the people who signed the giant card! Especially thanks to my parents for putting it all together for me! That was a miracle of timing for sure. I was having such a rough day feeling home sick and such. Overall just was really frustrated and then good old Kessle Corn (Elder Kessler) was like "Dude Gronning you've got like a huge package sitting outside on the patio!" and all of a sudden my day was fixed haha just like that. So thank all of you guys so much! I hope everyone has a great week wherever you are! Next Monday when you hear from me I will probably be lots more mature and a bunch taller because I won't be a teenager anymore haha.

Week 2 already from Ft Belvoir 7/9/12

This is weird having this be only a few days after my last email haha. The past few days have gone really well though. We got to go to a baptism on Saturday for a lady our roommates have been teaching for awhile now, we had been over with them once to teach too and man they area a super cool family! She asked Elder Kessler and I to both speak at her baptism too so that was way cool. This morning was almost an earlier than normal wake up though but unfortunately our plans didn't work out. Myself and one of our roommates (Elder Dickson) had planned to wake up this morning about 5 and head down to the section of the Potomac River that isn't far from our apartment here and do some fishing! We had borrowed some poles and lures from a few members and were going to stop and pick up some worms at the 7/11 on the way and just bring our scriptures with us and take our morning studies down on the river bank. But we found out last night that they are really strict about fishing licences here, I guess they check people really frequently along the Potomac and it's a $200 fine and overnight in jail according to one of the local members here who is big into fishing. So we thought we'd just buy fishing licences instead, well for out of state people it turns out a 1 year license is $47 and a 5 day license is $28... A lot of money on a missionaries budget haha so since neither of us had $200 just in case and a day to waste in jail, we decided not to go :( So that was our little P-day adventure haha. The work sure is going great here though. This area has more people to find and teach than any I've been too so far. From what I hear though both of my previous areas were very very slow areas haha. So it's been nice actually getting to teach lots of lessons here. We have been doing quite a bit of tracting every day and finding some good success from it. We actually found a new person to teach 2 days in a row just from knocking on doors this past week! For tracting that is a very rare occasion haha. Oh and since my last email we have had the opportunity to meet our new mission president, President Riggs. He is awesome! He is really young surprisingly too, I think he said he's only like 46? He seems very laid back too and loves basketball. We played a few rounds with his 18 year old son Randall this past Wednesday morning for our workout at 6 and President Riggs said he's going to try and make it to the next game! How cool of a mission president is that? haha. He seems like he should be a great guy for sure. We'll see what kind of changes to the mission rules come our way soon from him too, that should be interesting haha. Well I hope everyone wherever you are has a great week! I'll talk to you guys soon!

July 5th

Well it has been one heck of a week here in my new area Ft. Belvoir C! The reason my email is so late this week is because of the crazy storm we had run through here on Friday. I've never seen anything like that before in my life! It was like the storm was happening right over our apartment! There was green, red, and blue lightening non stop outside our apartment. We (my companion and I and our 2 roommates) though for sure we were going to die or something haha. It knocked our power out immediately, us and 3 million other people, around 10 Friday night. So we all just gathered around the sliding glass door not so calmly and watched the craziness going on outside. We were pretty convinced it was either aliens, or us being invaded by the Russians or the Chinese haha. Which wasn't that far of a stretch because it was just all of a sudden we had no power, no service on our phones, the sky was like exploding, and outside people kept running out into their cars and leaving... and we have no access to any kind of news ever so we just had no idea what the heck was going on haha. We survived totally fine and completely unharmed though. Our power was out until Sunday though, which was rough for no A/C, but we got to spend Saturday doing lots of service! There were completely uprooted trees all over the roads and in peoples yards that we were able to help move. I think they said there was only 3 casualties though, 2 from trees coming down on houses and 1 from a tree coming down on a car. Craziness! On a lighter note though my new area is great so far! My new companion is Elder Kessler. He is a great guy and so far we get along great. He was the quarterback for Utah State before he came on his mission and he's from Southern California. He hasn't been out on his mission very long either though, he actually just came out with Elder Anderson. Which is crazy to think but that was almost 6 months ago now! We are on bikes though still, which I'm totally fine with haha, I like biking. We are called the Ft. Belvoir area because of our area almost entirely consisting of the Ft. Belvoir military base here in Alexandria. So that is super sweet too. The downside to that though is we aren't allowed to proselyte on base so we have to be let into the base by a member who lives there. Something very unique about this area though is we share the exact same boundaries as 2 other missionary companionships: our roommates Elder Frazier and Elder Dickson (Elder Dickson was in our zone back in McLean so that's really cool) who are Ft Belvoir A, and the Assistants to the President Elder Johnson and Elder Parker who are Ft. Belvoir B. We are the only one out of the three without a car though... not sure how that works haha. Oh something else kind of cool about being here now too though is I'm now a district leader. Which really just means that I'm in charge of keeping track of how a few companionships in our zone (my district) our doing and I have to prepare some sort of lesson every week to teach to our district every Tuesday. So all around it's an exciting new place to be! Granted it's not quite as cool as sterling, but it's still a great place! It sounds like this past week has been an exciting one for my family in Vegas with Callie, Sadie, and Gracie visiting too! Man and a bummer about this new area's library though is that it's in a new county so we have new library rules and here the computer logs you off after only 45 minutes :/ so I've got to call it good for the day but I will be able to send another email in just a few days! I hope all is well with everyone wherever you are!