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