Crazy snowstorm, Awesome teaching moments and the difference between Bert and Elder Grabinger

Dear Friends,

Last week was crazy!  We had a this snowstorm on Thursday that brought like 5 inches in 5 hours (which is history in the making for Knoxville, TN).  Pics included.  It was really dangerous to drive around in the snow.  My companion was on exchange in another area and they have to travel on bicycles in that area so we were getting this sob story about how they had gotten drenched and frozen that day.  Well we were in a one ton vehicle slip-sliding all over the road at 5 mph while a huge pick-up comes careening around a bend at the life-threatening speed of 20 mph!  He was sliding right at us and I was certain that I was about to die!  What that pick-up truck didn't count on was the fact that Elder Norbert Andrew Grabinger had petitioned the Lord Almighty for safety on our perilous journey home just minutes before and the elements set that truck straight on its path for the time being in order to pass by us unharmed.

In other news, we probably bought the only two ice cream cones that Sonic sold that day...  They were delicious.

But seriously, we had to get home and just park the car for awhile because people were sliding off into ditches left and right.

I don't even remember who Bob and Bob2 are anymore, but one of our investigators is now committed to preparing for baptism on the 16 of February!!!  I'm so excited.  He's doing really well and has been studying and learning a lot and he just loves it.  So that's cool.

We went to teach our other awesome investigator yesterday and that was just cool.  She had stumbled upon an obviously anti-mormon website over the weekend and yesterday, before we could start, she was like "I have some questions I have to ask you."  So she starts telling us some stuff she read and she was like "1/3 of that I was like, well that's taught in the bible so that's not that weird and another 1/3 was just too crazy and totally opposite of what y'all had told me so I knew that wasn't true, but this other stuff..." and she starts asking us about things I can't even remember because they were just so wrong.  So we answered her questions and she looked at me and said "when I was saying that stuff, your face looked genuinely shocked, so I believe you."  She's just so awesome.

Okay, update on our investigator and his encounter with Bro. Howard.  Basically, Bro. Howard told him of such doctrines of a heavenly mother and other non-scriptural (yet true) things.  Not where I would've gone with the conversation... but cool.  I can work with that.  So that's where we are with that.

Yesterday, one investigator told me that I would make a great psychologist or doctor.  Like my coworkers at the bookstore, she says that I have to much of a personality to be involved in mathematics and computer science.  She says I have a way of making people feel good and useful.  That has me rethinking a career in medicine... on the other hand, I have to question whether that is Elder Grabinger or Bert Grabinger...  Because Elder Grabinger is kind and caring and thoughtful and showers you with love and compliments and encourages your growth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ whereas Bert Grabinger is sarcastic and critical and 'moreholierthanthou' and loves to correct your awful spelling on social media sites...  We'll see how things go over the next year.

I'm joking.

And that's why Josh tells me I should be a comedian.

Alright, I will share something spiritual now.

Mosiah 28:3 and Alma 37:32 have had special significance to me.  I try to envision myself as the sons of Mosiah, trembling at the very thought that anyone should endure everlasting torment and Alma exhorting Helaman to teach the people to have an "everlasting hatred against sin and iniquity."  I think if we could begin to experience that, then we might have an inkling of obtaining a truly deep and abiding and everlasting love for our Lord and our God.  I think those two would be equivalent.  If we could truly hate sin, then we might really be on the path to loving God.

No offense intended.

Okay, well, that's all I have to offer this week. I hope this is as entertaining to read as it was to write it.  Find out how to introduce your friends to the gospel, and then do it.  Mmmmk?  Thanks.

Love
Elder Grabinger

P.S.  I haven't gotten any post in weeks!!!