Russell M. Nelson visits Tennessee!!

Dear All,

This week was no big deal I just got to shake the hand of one ELDER RUSSELL M. NELSON OF THE QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES!!!

It was whatever...

Hahaha, no I was the 'best missionary of the month' so I get my picture on a plaque in the mission office and they flew me out to Salt Lake for a Saturday with an apostle and now I'm in the running for best missionary of the year out of the entire mission!!!

No, just kidding.  They don't do that.

But I can dream.

Okay, in all seriousness, yes, Elder Russell M Nelson came to the mission this past Saturday and I got to shake his hand and take a group photo with him and be inspired and love life and receive Christmas packages from my parents and stuff.  It was INCREDIBLE!  Really a special experience.

Elder Rich and I are both bummed because you absolutely CANNOT find Hot Cheetos with Limon in the South.  It's not their thing I guess.  So my birthday was kinda a big deal when I received some in a package.  You all are the best.  Also, no Jack In the Box out here... it's been rough.

Fun story, last Sunday a nonmember that came to church with a friend locked his keys into his car and found this out when he was leaving during third hour.  That's a mistake, you stay for the whole block!  So during third hour, you have 4 missionaries out in the parking lot with a hanger trying to bust into this car.  It was great.  The spiritual lesson is to always ask the missionaries for help like Elder Nelson said in this past general conference.  WE CAN HELP YOU!!!

Side note:  We were in charge of getting a hanger since our apartment is across the street from the church and so I tucked a wire one into my suit coat, but came running across the street proudly flailing a plastic coat hanger with a huge grin on my face.  No one had the guts to tell me how stupid they thought I was for bringing a plastic hanger because I was to pretending to have been the most helpful person ever.  It was funny.  They were relieved when I offered the wire one.

Well, I finished reading the Book of Mormon again recently and it occurs to me that I've been out on my mission around the same amount of time as the Brother of Jared and his group were in those barges being tossed in the sea.  I hadn't really realized that before.  They were in those submarines for almost a year!  That's some patience....  I think there was a lot more to those vessels than being 'tight like unto a dish' and having two airholes.  I don't care how much air you're getting, without that fresh water and food, you're not lasting for a year on the sea in those bad boys.  Just a thought....

So the work has been tough this week, but that' nothing new.  But we keep working hard, that's the important thing I suppose.  One cool experience was that we met this lady who used to visit with the missionaries like ten years ago and would have them over for dinner and stuff and then they just lost contact I guess.  Since then, she's had a stroke, but she's still all there and has the Book of Mormon and wants us to come back and continue teaching her.  She's been visiting with some members of another faith (that we often get mistaken for), but I think she'll recognize truth when she hears/sees it.

Another experience was with this guy that we met who was like "Oh yeah, I'm not really interested in talking, but I love your Watchtower publication" after introducing ourselves.  I had to explain to him that that is not a publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and told him whose it was (see above paragraph for the answer!).  We talked a little more and it turns out that he knows a little bit about the church because he was a religious studies major in college (from our first exchange though, I feel like he wasn't particularly knowledgable on the subject so I doubt that he earned a degree in that field of study).  He took a Book of Mormon though and seemed excited to read it!

I really want to share this quote though as the spiritual thought for the week (that I haven't been doing a great job at lately):

“No one knows anything about Christ’s work simply by being born a member of the Church, and often he knows little about it after years of unmotivated exposure in meetings or classes. He must learn. And learning involves self-investment and effort. The gospel should be studied ‘as carefully as any science.’ The ‘literature of the Church’ must be ‘acquired and read.’ Our learning should be increased in our spare time ‘day by day.’ Then as we put the gospel truth to work in daily life, we will never find it wanting. We will be literate in the most important field of knowledge in the universe, knowledge for lack of which men and nations perish, in the light of which men and nations may be saved”

—Elder Marion D. Hanks, First Council of the Seventy, “Theological Illiterates”, Improvement Era (September 1969): 42

Think about it....

Okay, well ya'll are great.  Happy Christmas to you, hopefully I'll get to hear from you... but if it's anything like it's been the past couple of weeks, probably not.  Have an fantastic week!

Love
Elder Grabinger