Another Week in the Mission

Hola Amigos,

Of course I want an iPad.  Why not?  Of course I'm not allowed to have an iPad.  But it's like Jesus says "lay not up in store treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal, but lay up in store for yourselves treasures in heaven."  And since everyone knows that missions are a mini metaphor for life, that means home is heaven.  So I would just send the iPad home until I come back.

Brazeiro's was INCREDIBLE.  Everything was just top notch and... well I'm certain that I broke the word of wisdom with all the meat I ate, but it's a steakhouse so whatever.

P90X is real tough, but it's not that bad.  The difference is that I'm sore all the time.  But it feels so good.

Well, um yeah.  It's kinda difficult to make waffles on the griddle. I'm not going to try it.  But, we did try to make McGriddles this week... It's tough.  And still not good for you, even if it is homemade.

Well, Eva is off in the hands of the English elders now.  They'll take good care of her.  I'm sure she'll come around, it'll just take time though.  She's felt the Spirit so many times with us there.  It'll happen.

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FAWN!!!  I know it's a day late.  Deal with it.  It's not like I have an iPad...

Dang, I'm sorry I missed your talks.  One thing I've learned as a missionary is don't be afraid not to talk.  Just have like a moment of silence and let the Spirit sink in.  I haven't tried it myself in a talk yet, but I'm always down to try revolutionary ideas.  In fact, I actually haven't given a talk at all yet on my mission, which is pretty unusual I hear.  Don't tell anyone that though... I'm soooo good at flying under the radar.

Hahahaha, I know right?  All kinds of people have a cow now when you call it a 'farewell'.  It's funny.

I would have been right there with you on that hamburger.  I like my meat well grounded.  (that was a pun in two ways: first, terrestrial quadripeds provide the most delicious meat, and also, hamburger is usual served grounded a la 'ground beef'.)

Well, we just had a really great lesson with our investigator, Victor, this week.  After reading 3 Nephi 11 with him, he was like "Now I know that I need to be baptized again." (but he used these Spanish words instead)  It's always so cool when you see people just 'get it.' Ya know?  So we'll probably be working extra hard on him this week.

Things are just really great right now.  The Lord is always blessing us so much.  We've been finding a few new people to teach and Victor is really learning and stuff.  Shouldn't be long now...

This week, I ran into Mosiah 23:21 which was absolutely appropriate for me.  I feel like I've been working hard and trying to be better all the time for most of my mission and just was wondering why don't I ever get any baptisms.  Well, it's because 'Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.'  Don't ever be discouraged if you're doing the best you can and you still feel like things aren't going your way.  We both know that we could use a little more patience and a lot more faith.  Hang in there, you're doing great.

That's all I got for now.  Sorry.  But I love you all and I miss you and I appreciate all the mail you've sent me.  It's always good to hear from you.

Love
Elder Grabinger

Oh yeah! You betcha.

Dear Friends,

Of course that Olive Garden deal is not in my budget, and if you try to send me money, I'm going to save it for an iPad.  But I appreciate your thoughtfulness.  Okay, story time.  I'm starving myself for the time being because I got the worst news ever.  Our investigator told us that her friend thought she was meeting with us just because we have big butts.  My fat fanny is definitely my greatest insecurity.  It was game over from there.  So, anorexia is my new lifestyle after today because we're going to this Brazilian steakhouse for dinner called Brazeiro's or whatever.  Apparently it's the place to be and it costs like 50 bucks a person.  It's all about the hookups with us missionaries...

Yeah, I don't really think I look like Joseph Gordon Leavitt at all, but my companion is convinced.  Whatever.  I'm kinda liking the brown too, but I'm not going to keep buying hair day or anything.

Oh yeah, we totally have a car.  I need to get my bike fixed because... well it's a good thing to have.  But it's tough.

Also, we're doing P90X now as our workout routine (I don't remember if I had mentioned that).  The mission president approved it for our exercise time.  I'm about to kill myself with not eating and doing P90X.  Total body transformation.  Haha, it's going to be crazy/

OMGosh the griddle is the coolest thing ever.  I use it all the time.  I don't know why we even have a stove anymore.  Breakfast burritos, pancakes, Mcgriddles... the possibilities are endless.  I highly recommend it if you can get a good deal.  I still am out of luck with a waffle maker though...  can't do those with the griddle.

Well, Eva still hasn't gotten her private church tour.  But she's in the capable hands of the English elders now.  So whatever.  Yeah, the branch attendance is horrible (<--- that's a Spanish word), but membership isn't really that high either.  The branch directory is only like 2 pages.

Well, I haven't always gotten along with all my companions either, but they're all great.  I love 'em.

No, I don't believe that it is encouraged for us to go to other churches, but that's what other elders have said to me and I'm kinda like "false doctrine."  What I'm saying is, I don't think it's either encouraged or discouraged, but if you ask me, it's a waste of time.  You hit the nail on the head though, I've been thinking the same thing, are we sometimes guilty of not mentioning Christ as often as we should, really, His Atonement is the center of it all.  I will quote Joseph Smith in summarizing our beliefs, forgive if I mess up, but he says:

"The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that he died, was buried, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."  -- Joseph Smith

That kinda puts it all in perspective for me when I read/remember that quote.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  I shouldn't laugh at those things, but yeah.  "YOLO sounded so good nine months ago" is hilarious.

Oh yeah, transfers is this week, but Elder Henriquez and I are staying together.  He's going to be a district leader though.  He's so power hungry.... JK.

Doug, you're the funniest.  I forget that not everyone has had the pleasure of viewing the majesty that is the world's largest buffalo in North Dakota.  What an eye-opening experience for you.  Ah yes, the Soviet plot to assemble an dimensionally superior buffalo... one of the darker spots on our failed diplomacy with the communists in history.  For those of you that are unaware, the following is an excerpt from the informative reply that my brother-in-law sent me:

"Fun buffalo fact, the Soviet Union once sent a letter to the Jamestown chamber of commerce asking for the dimensions of the world’s largest buffalo. The Jamestown chamber of commerce decided against sending the dimensions to the soviets fearing a communist plot to build a bigger buffalo, however the closely guarded dimensions can still be found on the plaque in front of the buffalo. Moral of the story, sometimes a letter just doesn’t cut it and you need to suck it up and visit."

I was indeed also aware that "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo that buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. Another fun fact Douglas, you don't even need the 'that' in the sentence. The sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is also just as grammatically correct. Icebreaker!? Can you say Icemelter!!!? (<--rhetorical question). Thanks for the educational reminder for all of us. If you weren't already aware people, Buffalo buffalo are a real issue in the world of rambunctious wildlife....

Life is definitely at a snower pace in North Dakota (hahaha, see what I did there?).  That's for sure.

BTW Fawn and Doug: Happy Anniversary!  Aren't I so thoughtful?

I can't wait for next weeks email.  They really are riveting.  Thank you.  I love 'em.

The picture that I've attached is a puppy road block that we ran into while driving through a neighborhood.  My cute-O-meter was running off the charts and I really wanted to grab a couple of them and take them home.  But we know how the pet situation works out at our apartment...

Well, this past week we had zone conference and it was awesome.  It was all about the Book of Mormon and how we can better utilize it as the converting tool that it is in our proselyting.  Read the Book of Mormon.  If you've already done it, read it again.  It truly testifies that Jesus is the Christ and will help all of us grow closer to him as our Savior and Redeemer.  I know that these things are true.

Okay, I suppose that's about it.  I can't think of anything else.  I love you all and miss you so much.  Have a great week.

Love,
Elder Grabinger

Going for Gold

Well, I heard this week that Elder Busch and Elder Mills baptized Shay about a week ago back in Harrison Bay!!!  I'm sad I couldn't be there.  Oh well.

Yes please, I would love a video of Mom tearing it up on the mic with "Call me, maybe."

What!?  How have you not heard of it?  Is this half-price SONIC milkshake thing only going on over here on the east coast?  IT'S AWESOME!!!

No, the girls that Elder Henriquez is trying to set me up with are not cute.  Even the mom of one of the girls keeps telling me that her daughter is ugly (her daughter has been out of town, so we haven't met yet).  It's really weird and awkward cause I don't know if I'm supposed to agree with her or defend her daughter that I haven't met.  I can't go by the spirit on this one... well, because the spirit definitely isn't there.

Pics of brown hair included.

SWEET!!!  You Doug got a cutout of my face to the reception!?  Best bro-in-law ever...  Pics, or it didn't happen.

Okay, there's some stuff I finally wrote down in my planner so I know what to tell you guys about.

Tico the lizard is a pet we had.  We found him living in our apartment.  We assumed that he was living there before we were, so we thought he might know how to take care of himself.  We never fed him so he was willing to eat anything I guess.  So, he decided to bite the dust, if you know what I mean.  There is a picture included.  Tico's memorial service was wonderful.  Spirit's were really light as we tossed him out the front door.

When I disassembled my bike in Harrison Bay to bring it here, I took the bike seat off.  We'll, now I can't put it back on.  So looks like I can't ride a bike for awhile until I get that fixed.  We buttered it up and everything.  I maintain that a change in humidity caused the seat pole to expand, but I've never seen such a drastic change in aluminum alloy before.  Strange.

Okay, the second day I got here to Pleasant Ridge North, we go to dinner at a member family's home.  The first thing the 4 year old daughter says to me when I walk in is "you have to marry mommy."  I was freaking out but apparently that's normal so nobody thought anything of it.  Crazy mormons...

The father of this same family was telling us a story the other day of how his mission president was a stake president for some student wards in Rexburg a while ago.  Anyway, when the father was getting off his mission, the president gave him the whole "debriefing" speech about getting married and whatnot.  But then the president cautions him and tells him not to read scriptures with any of his dates.  Apparently, one thing leads to another and reading scriptures together used to get a lot of young couples in trouble according to his mission president who was a stake president at BYU-I.  So the father goes home and one of his first dates tries to hold his hand and he flips out (cause he just got off the mish) so then his date suggests that they read the BoM.  End of date.

Hilarious.

Also, we found a mouse trap in our apartment, so, inspired by the current olympic games, Elder Henriquez challenges me to a game of "see-who-can-grab-the-multi-vitamin-off-the-mouse-trap-without-setting-it-off."  I'll have you know that I'm a pro.

A few days later (yesterday) we come home and I actually find a mouse.  His name is Jamar.  And he did not win at all when we decided to play that game with him.  I've included a picture of Jamar's failed attempt at winning the gold (we actually used white cheese though, not gold).

I think Elder Henriquez is just girl-crazy sometimes.  During companion study, he'll just spin his pen on the table and say "Let's see who Elder Grabinger has to kiss" (like spin-the-bottle if you didn't catch that).  I worry about him sometimes.  But he's the coolest.  We have a blast all the time, as you can tell...

We go hard.

Elder Henriquez has this change jar and we call it the "treasure box."  We emptied it out and went to Taco Bell to get 2-dollar meal deals cause we didn't have any other money.  It was a blast, but we've stooped so low... I'm kinda pathetic, I guess.  But us missionaries think we're the bees knees.  It's a lot like college I think.

Ah yes, the old "r -> w" to annoy Chloe trick...  I miss you all.  Nobody understands me out here.  They don't get my jokes because I'm too good at keeping a straight face.  They just don't appreciate it.

So one experience we had this week was trying to resolve an investigator's concern and get her to come to church.  Just when we were about to give up, I was like "How about if you come with us during the afternoon one day and we give you a private church tour when no one else is there? Will you be more comfortable coming to church then?"  She loved the idea.  We're going tomorrow.  There's no substitute for the spirit.  He takes care of business when I can't do a thing.

It's like this priest in our ward says when he plays video games and 'pwns' people.  "You can't teach, clutch."  (Clutch is like an extremely improbable victory in video game vernacular).  "You can't teach, teaching by the spirit."

You may or may not be interested to know that I haven't gotten mail in a couple weeks.  I don't mean to be petty, but I really am desperate.

Well, that's been the experience in Pleasant Ridge so far.  I'm going to wrap this up and have some better news next week hopefully.

YOLO,  (<--- I hear it's the latest craze)
Elder Grabinger

Es Una Fiesta!

Dear Everyone,

My video is like 323 MB, so I dunno how I'm going to send that to you, but there's a couple pics attached.  Have fun with those.

This week was alright.  We taught a bunch of investigators in Spanish and one of them actually came to church, so progress is being made!  The attendance yesterday was more than it's been in like the past six months (or so I've heard).  The Lord is really blessing our efforts, which is cool to see.  I'm hoping to fill the font soon.  :)

It's so funny how jaded I've become to some aspects of missionary work though.  For example, my companion, who's been out for like 17 months now, will get a call from the a member that is supposed to be teaming up with to go teach an investigator or something and he'll be like sweet! So-and-so is calling to let us know he's on his way or is at our apartment to get us and I'll be like, "he's totally cancelling, I like the positivity though".  And then my comp. answers the phone and his smile turns into a frown.

That's why half price shakes after 8 have been such a blessing this summer.  Thank you Sonic... ice cream fixes everything (STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES FOREVER!!! - some of you know what that means).

Okay, I'll share the scripture Romans 8:16-17 today.  As children of God, it is our inheritance to be like him and gain all power, joy, happiness, peace, etc.  The way is through Christ, who did not eliminate all personal suffering, but if we would suffer with him, we would not have to suffer as he did.  And if we endure our sufferings with Christ, we shall also be glorified together, and receive all that the Father hath.

Feel free to use that one next time someone says we can't be like God...  JK, it'll only make them angry.  Love them to death.

Well, I hope all is well.  I'm out of stuff to say.  I miss all my friends even more now that I don't get letters anymore...

Love,
Elder Grabinger

P.S.  Elder Henriquez and I are working on our rapping skills between teaching and tracting.  I'm getting really good at beatboxing and his rhymes is dope.  We're going to convert the 'hood soon.  Maybe we'll get good enough to make a video.  ;)

Message from Fawn: The pictures Bert references can be found on his Facebook page in the album titled T KNOX Mission.