Awesome Experience

Dear Everyone,

I haven't met the interim mission president in person, but he's the real deal.  He's got big plans to whip this place into shape.  I'll be keeping my nose clean for the next few weeks... jk, lol.  He's really cool and he doesn't plan on just babysitting until President Irion gets back, he really wants to make the most of his time here and I appreciate that.  He'll be a great leader for us.

OMGoodness, it sounds like this is the perfect time for me to relate me recent adoption of beyond intense hatred for gossip.  The phrase "loose lips sink ships" is soooooo true.  And may I take the liberty to add, "ruin baptisms too"?  But that's another story that I just can't share yet.  Don't ever backbite.  In fact, let me share this quote from Thomas S. Monson:

"Complaining is not thinking.  Ridiculing is not reasoning."

Words to live by...

Also, do your civic duty and vote.  And with that I'll conclude my spiritual thought for the week.

FYI:  we don't proselyte on Halloween.  We were told to stay inside from 6-9 p.m. and do our weekly planning.

I'll miss Uncle Vance, he is soooooo awesome.

Hmmm, my only memory of Grandma (before the Alzheimer's) was when she pulled into the alley and picked us up from catching frogs with the neighborhood kids and was flipping out that we were going to get warts.  She cared about us so much... but we were too young to understand.  Also, one time I kept telling her to turn right so we could get to the park, but she couldn't get in the right lane.  Again, I was too young to understand that that was an issue and I just kept telling her to turn right until we passed the turn.  Other than that, it's all hilarious sayings that occurred as a result of the disease.  I miss her though.

Oh good, that pic by Emily Eddy is a real good one.  I'm glad that's up there.

Well, this has to be a short letter again because I'm out of time.... okay I'll share one cool experience from this week.

I was off on an exchange this week and we went to contact this referral in the other elder's area.  Well, when we got there we found out that she was a less-active member that had fallen off the radar.  So we just get to talking and it seems like she wants to get back into church and be active in the gospel again, but her husband was kinda resentful that we were there.  Well, it was only because she had never mentioned being Mormon to him much less contacting the elders and they had recently talked about finding a church to go to and everything.  Soon after talking, the lady had to leave for an appointment, but we just stayed and kept talking with her husband.  When it was time to leave, we decided to leave their family with a copy of the Book of Mormon, because she didn't have one any longer, and introduced him to it as well.  After reading the first paragraph of the introduction, he says "I'm going to make you a promise; I'm going to read every word in this book."  So that's the power of the Lord, a complete turnaround in the husband's demeanor from the time we met to the time we left.  I'm so grateful for His ever present influence in this, His work.

Love,

Elder Grabinger