Hello (<--- because you have to start somewhere... [hopefully you M. Birbiglia fans get that reference])
HOLY GOODNESS!!! I had no idea that Erwin was that crazy on justice! Remind me not to go tracting there... (it's out of my area anyway)
Nobody we left our number with and dropped last week has called, so teaching pool = clean.
I had the Doritos Locos Tacos like twice this week. It was delish. Yeah, Fawn, I totally wear my Doritos Locos Tacos T-Shirt ALL THE TIME. It's so awesome and really invites a special spirit while I preach gospel truth. (This paragraph is DRENCHED in sarcasm if you hadn't noticed).
But we went to Taco Bell with the sister missionaries and one of them is lactose intolerant. She asked for no cheese on her 5-layer burrito. You guessed it. There was cheese. She took it back and got it fixed though. Oh but wait, there was still cheese on the new one. She just ate it. The lesson here is, don't count on other people to fix their mistakes even when you tell them what their mistakes are because you're still going to end up in the bathroom for the rest of the evening. Or something like that....
Well, nobody is willing to change their views right when they meet us, but that guy on campus was just not even willing to hear what our views were. He just disagreed, and he didn't even know what he was disagreeing with. I was in the hospital this week minding my own business when this man walked up to me (You're thinking, awesome! A guy that recognizes you has the lighthouse beacon of truth that you are! Nope, he wanted to pick a fight. I could tell.) and basically asked me a series of questions that led me to admit that the bible was authored by the Spirit of God, and then he's like, so why did you write another book? I just had to ask him if he thought the Spirit of God could only write one book and he was like, "We'll we can stand here and argue all day and it will do no good." and he walked away. I was like, "You totally came to pick a fight and then just walked away!? How embarrassing..." Ugh, I do get soooo upset, but I'm pretty good at keeping cool. For example, A member came up to us yesterday and asked us to help her respond to a person's aggressive questions that she had been receiving on Facebook. We went to her place and she read us the questions and my comp. was ready to throw down and get into it with the scriptures, and I was like "Do you have a copy of Preach My Gospel? Let's check out Ch. 5." In ch. 5 there's a section called "Use the Book of Mormon to respond to objections" and in there we learn that ANY question or concern that anyone has about our faith relates to the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We HAVE to help everyone see that their REAL question whenever they have concerns about "spirit babies" or "becoming gods" is "Is the Book of Mormon true holy scripture and was Joseph Smith a true prophet of God?" That's it. That's the basis of our testimony of the restoration. All of the other doctrine rests on the divinity of the BofM and Joseph Smith being called of God. So, anytime someone asks a question about our faith, if they sincerely want to know the answer, answer it and then help them see that it all depends on the BofM and J.S. If you can tell that they don't really want to learn, they're just attacking you with questions, tell them that their questions indicate that they might not actually be familiar with what the Book of Mormon really is and who Joseph Smith was and invite them to learn more. That's the best thing to do. My comp. then put his scriptures away and bore testimony. 'nuff said. No one can refute a sincere heartfelt personal testimony of the restored gospel.
The keyboard is great! I've mastered Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This week will hold some new challenges, but it will be worth it once I'm a virtuoso.
Okay, so the story about sister W. (name abbreviated for anonymity) is the most Inspirational/Despairing story that happened last week. Basically, she called and had us come over and I decided we weren't being assertive enough on her WoW (not warcraft! she's not a deacon...) issues and so we got into it and I told her to read and pray daily and she'll have the strength to live the word of wisdom and I left her a reading assignment. She called the next morning and basically told me that she had a 3 a.m. revelation after reading my scripture assignment and she was going to humble herself and make it happen! We'll this happened for like three more days afterward, leaving assignments and calling me in the morning. Each day, I was trying to help her see that in order to show that she was really committed, she was going to have to remove the cigarettes from her home and she wouldn't do it. So like the fourth day this happened, she BLEW up on us and I could literally hear the voice of Satan coming out of her mouth in a fit of anger. But she gave us the cigs. So then I took out her trash. And the cigarettes too. So that was quite the experience. As you can see though, she wasn't that sincere and so, things aren't going well on that front anymore.
Okay, so there's this restaurant franchise out here called Krystal Burgers and I seriously don't know how they're in business. I've only heard of people that like their food. They're legendary, everyone else, HATES it. Apparently, they steam cook their burgers and they're awful. I haven't been yet, but you know I will. I'll let you know how it goes ;)
This paragraph is specifically for Mr. and Mrs. Mitch Hayashi who have yet to send me and semblance of correspondence despite repeated promises of writing me every Sunday. Tag them in this on Facebook if you can. Ashley, it's march. Which means SHAMROCK SHAKES!!!! I'm going to get one this year, but if you don't write me, I'm also going to hire someone to buy a shamrock shake and throw it in your face. I just miss you and Mitch so much and shamrock shake advertisements reminded me of that a few days ago. But yeah, if it hadn't been for those ads... I probably would have kept on forgetting about you two.
Well this week, the stars aligned and I was feeling confident, so when a hispanic lady (that only spoke Espanol) answered her door the other day, I just went for it and tried out my spanish door approach. It was awful. I totally butchered it. But because of the gift of tongues, we totally understood each other! Especially when she said she was a Jehovah's Witness... we left.
General Conference is going to give you guys much better advice than I will, so count on watching that this weekend and don't listen to me very much. Maybe I'll have some better experiences next time. I love you all....... for the time being.
Elder Grabinger
P.S. Congrats to Bro. Slade for shattering the previous record of "Longest Held Bishopric Calling In History." Way to go, sport.
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