Another Letter!!!!!

Dearest Friends & Family (or Fawn, if you're the only one that still reads this)

No, General Conference was broadcasted to our local meetinghouse, so we saw it there.  Don't even remind me about having no outlets and no one to talk to.... I'm working on toning down the gossip though, even if it is true.  I will tell you that 6 missionaries in our mission were sent home last month alone because of disobedience.  Disobedience is a real issue in this mission from what I've seen thus far.  I don't know if it's like that in most other missions, but I'm really tired of hearing people think that they know better than prophets and general authorities.

Well, that keyboard is actually a good outlet when I get home in the evening.  I've memorized Canon, but I just need a little more practice to play it up to the right speed.  I'm really working on Hymn 134.  In my humble (but factual) opinion, nothing brings the Spirit faster or stronger than that hymn.  It's my favorite.  And if you want to argue about it, send me a letter and include which hymn is your favorite and why (that should get me some mail...).  Speaking of hymns though, there's this amazing artist named Kierre Lewis who does wonderful arrangements of some hymns on her album, "Horizons".  I recommend it to anyone and everyone.  Also, if you can find out how to get a copy of her CD, let me know... or send me one and I'll love you forever.

By the way, this is the first week since leaving the MTC where I have gotten no letters.  You slackers.

Haha, I hope that didn't come off mean about your wedding pics, Fawn.  I just thought it was funny.  But you're right, I didn't consider that Dev does it just as a hobby.  Also, she does AMAZING work anyway.  She can take as long as she needs.

Ya.  Bath Salts are ridiculous.  Seriously, who said "Hmmm, why don't I just put that in my body and see what happens?"? Emergency Centers are overrun in this part of the country.  One story I heard was that a girl was on bath salts and decided that a man was after her or something so she ran to her boyfriends house and, in a frenzy, set the kitchen aflame.  But wait, turns out that her 'boyfriend's house' that she ran to was just a neighbor's home.  Drugs make you do crazy stuff.

No.  We didn't go to her bathroom window.

I love the GPS.  I listen to it when I go to sleep.  Something about watching my face as the vehicle icon and hearing Doug's voice say "You have reached your destination" is just so soothing.  Thank you both sooooo much.

Well, we visited both of our investigators this week and first, Ginger hadn't read any of the Book of Mormon because she was so swamped this week.  But I could tell she was genuinely upset about not having gotten around to it.  She was going to be having a crazy Easter weekend too, so she asked us to come back a little later this week so she'd have time to investigate.  Vicki was awful when we first saw her this week.  She wouldn't even look at the Book of Mormon for fear of the curse at the end of Rev. 22 or whatever.  But, because of the Spirit, we were able to commit her to read 2 Nephi 31 by the end of the visit.  So we went back to see her yesterday and not only had she read the chapter, but she had been reading more on her own!  Again, the Spirit directed a few appropriate verses to share that had to do with whatever we were talking about and I asked her how she felt about the B of M.  She said that she had been praying, and that everything she's read so far has been true and really aligns with what she already believes (it's like the Book of Mormon and the Bible were both inspired of the Spirit from the same God or something!?  Who'd have thought) but she hasn't received a definite answer just yet.  I was so excited, progress is progress and she's going to keep reading and praying.  We'll just have to help her recognize the answer in our next visit.

We had exchanges with the zone leaders this week and... well, it was terrible.  I ended up going to the zone leaders' area and the senior zone leader popped a tire and ruined the rim on the way to exchange, so first thing the other zone leader and I had to do was go to the dealership.  They said it would take 5 working days before they could get it fixed.  So we had no car the entire exchange.  And it was the stake temple day, so any and all worthy and helpful members were off at the temple.  We had to walk to the church and get the nearby missionaries to drive us to our one appointment that evening.  We could have done better, but comp. for the day was really disheartened about the loss of the car, which I understood, but we could have overcome.  Oh well.

Okay, so on Friday night, I just had this idea to present the Book of Mormon more when talking to people and force them to realize that it's similar to the Bible by asking them some questions about what the bible was, and then telling them that that's what the B of M is too!!!  (namely, inspired writings of prophets of God that were originally written separately and then later compiled into one volume [Bible literally translates to library]).  Come to find out, that was actually revelation from the Spirit because it WORKED!!!  We only tracted for an hour yesterday and we got two new investigators!  Also, it turns out that many people don't actually know how the Bible came about... It seriously is just blind faith in what their preacher tells them many times.  I couldn't believe it when I asked "Who wrote the Bible?" and most people said "I don't know I guess."  You literally have at least 30 correct answers and they're at the top of each page in the Bible, "Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Amos, Jeremiah, etc."  COME ON PEOPLE!!!  Are you even trying? Really?

That frustrates me.

"Oh, but I go to church every Sunday."

Wonderful, what are you learning?

CHLOE AND THAT CELL PHONE!  She's always losing it.  Geez.  Sew it to her pants.

Well, I suppose that's all for this week.  I don't have my planner with me, which is where I right down my notes of interesting tidbits to share with everyone each week, because we had to help someone move and I didn't have a shirt pocket to put it in.  I'll talk to you all later I suppose.

Love,
Elder Grabinger

P.S.  One more week til transfers!  I'm excited.

P.S.S  ADAM WHITMER IS GOING TO COLOMBUS OHIO!!??  INCREDIBLE!!!  But he doesn't leave til August?  That's quite the wait...  How exciting though.  Way to go Adam.  I'm proud of you.