First Letter of the New Year!!

Dearest All,

First off, Happy New Year!!!

Second off, Happy Anniversary to Mitch & Ashley Hayashi (if they're still married.  I wouldn't know because... well you know why)!!!

This has been a crazy week, but also a really good week.

Our awesome investigator had a revelation in the middle of a lesson on Saturday.  He was like, "DUDE!!!  What you're saying is that there is a man that talks to Jesus Christ himself and he tells him what to do!?"  I said, "yes."  He replied, "MAN!!!  That means this book (he holds up the Bible) is IRRELEVANT, we've got the source?"  I told him, "In a manner of speaking, yes.  The scriptures are important, but dead prophets cannot compare with a living prophet."  He told me that "y'all should be writing a new Bible then!  Why don't they do that!?"

Fast forward to church yesterday.
He was there.
We went to Elders Quorum and they handed out the new manual for the year from Lorenzo Snow.
I told him, "enjoy."

lol

He's moving right along.  It's definitely going to take the Spirit to reveal to his heart that this is right and true though.  We shall see!  I'm excited!

We were tracting this week in the cold rain because I like to torture my companion who is new and also be diligent in serving the Lord.  Well, he forgot his umbrella.  Strike one.  Then we were walking down some steps and he just slipped and ate it on his back, it was so classic!  I wanted to laugh really bad, but I feel like he's really fragile right now and also I'm a minister of truth so I don't have a sense of humor when I'm out and about for the day.  I felt really bad for him that day.  Sometime's that refiner's fire we always hear about is actually 40 degree rain.  Who'd have thought!?

Seriously, this weekly email is my biggest comedic relief of the week.  I make things sound a lot more casual than they actually are.  Sorry.

Funny story, I was making this 'roast' last week out of various ingredients that we had on hand.  Well, I only had ground beef.  So I put a solid block of ground beef in the crock pot.  It wasn't until 5 hours later that I realized, that was really really dumb, you should brown the beef first and make a stew.  Well, I extracted the now cooked brains from the crock pot and put it in a frying pan and fixed it the best I could.  In the end, it wasn't done even in time for bed, so I just left it on all night.  Well, I had put an entire lemon in there, rind and all.  The next day's lunch was just a very lemony tasting stew.  I now know the secrets of crock pot cooking though, so it was a success in that sense.

Elder Eckery was a member in my district last transfer.  Anyway, we would leave voicemails when we had to call each other in different characters.  The best one was when we had to pick up he and his companion and he was calling us.  He left a voicemail pretending to be a crazy obsessive and over possessive girlfriend.  The voicemail said "GOOGLEMAPS SAYS THAT IT TAKES 7 MINUTES TO GET FROM YOUR APARTMENT TO MINE! IT'S BEEN 8 MINUTES! WHO IS SHE!?  I HATE HER!!!  but... I... I love you..."  I laughed a lot.

Every week I remember more things that I should tell you all and I try to write them down but I don't always remember, so forgive me for the enjoyment you could have, but I neglect to communicate to you.

This is the video of me burning a shirt for my year mark (I was on an exchange with Zone Leader Taggart and he's the one taking the video):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s7114f6mx2wq9n9/DSCN0700.AVI

Okay, I'll share some spiritual thought/insight now:

One of my favorite parables is in Luke 18:10-13.  It has touched me many a time and reminds to always look within and concern myself with cleansing the inner vessel and not to judge others.  As a missionary, I feel like I've been on a pride roller coaster over the past year and in the past it's been easy to think that I've been more choice than someone else because of my deeds.  Not so.  Each of us needs to worry about ourselves first and remember that no matter what we do, we cannot measure up to the stature of Christ on our own.  Thus, we are saved by grace and not works "lest any man should boast."  We have no room to boast, because nothing done in and of ourselves will exalt us in the Celestial Kingdom.  If we always remember our reliance on the Savior, Jesus Christ, we will be disposed to be humble and loving and not compare others to ourselves or vice versa.

The attached photos are a gift that my companion received for Christmas.  They're missionary action figures.  HILARIOUS!!!

Love,
Elder Grabinger