Amazing Week with a Special Visit

Dear Family and Friends,

Yeah, within the past month we've gotten a newly called bishop and elders quorum president.  Elder LeSueur was telling me that they've gotten a lot of people more excited about missionary work than they were when he first got here.  I can't imagine it was ever bad though, everyone is so nice and so willing to help.  This ward is awesome!

It's looking like Gary will be baptized this Saturday!  I'm so excited!

I've heard it's been snowing all over Arizona lately.  Is that true?

Okay, things have been going amazingly this past week.  We had decided to kind of back off of a couple of investigators that weren't showing much progress or commitment two weeks ago.  But a week ago, they called us to set up an appointment and when we went by on Tuesday, it was just incredible.  One of them told us, "We've been discussing some things, and we poured out all of the alcohol.  I want that Holy Ghost to be with me always and I know the only way is to be baptized."  So incredible.  Then we've been focusing on teaching his son who moved in with him from Florida and has a lot of questions on spiritual matters that have never really been answered for him.  He's so excited to learn with us.

Next, we visited a part-member family and talked with them about having an eternal family.  The father is sooo on board (he's the only member) and it's obvious that the most important thing to him is his family so he really wants his family to have these blessings.  They're all excited to meet with us now and learn more about being sealed.  It's so wonderful.

To top it all off, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES (maybe you've heard of them...?) visited the Knoxville stake this weekend and then also addressed us missionaries in a conference afterward.  It was just so amazing.  I shook his hand.  TWICE!  For me, his messages weren't particularly enlightening, but there is no one on earth that can inspire and uplift and motivate and drive you to resolve to do better as well as a member of the Twelve or First Presidency.  That's what I gained.  I loved it.

The blessings of the Lord are becoming so apparent.  The Spirit is taking over the world!  Awesome.

I finally understand why most of you don't write me.  There is no way that your life is as exciting as mine right now!

Enjoy.

Go ahead and try this week though, mmmk?  Love you all!

Love,
Elder Grabinger

Good News

Dear Family and Friends,

I feel like I'm finally getting on top of things here in the new area.  We're really needing to find new people to teach, but it sounds like there's been a transformation in the ward attitude toward missionary work since Elder LeSueur first got here, so we're pretty hopeful.  Really, I can't tell you much about our investigators at the moment, because we don't really have any.  It's not the first time this has happened in my mission though, I'm sure the Lord will bless us as we work hard and we'll have plenty going on very soon.

Some good news though, I've heard back in Pleasant Ridge that Gary is still doing well and will be baptized on the 2nd of March, so I'm super excited about that...

I've attached this song that was given to me by a member from a CD they obtained on their mission and the musicality is just stupendous.  This is my favorite track from the CD and I'm sure you'll love it.  Turns out, the CD was put together by Elder William Joseph Schwartz III in 1999 in the Australia Perth Mission.  He is the same artist that performs as William Joseph today.  Cool stuff...

Um, so yeah, we're just trucking along right now, working with a lot of less-actives and trying to bring them back and all their friends with them into activity.  No big deal.

Valentine's Day was great!  I received some very special packages.  :)   Thanks everybody!

Okay, I've been to McDonald's recently and they're advertising the Shamrock Shake again, but every time I've asked, they don't have it!!!  It's looking like this will be year three that I miss the elusive shamrock shake.  I swear, it's tougher to get a hold of one of those than it is a real live leprechaun.

Well, yesterday was President's Day so all the libraries were closed.  That's why I'm emailing today, but I'm out of time.  We've got to get back to work.  There's soooo much to do...  I love you though.  Have a great week!

Love
Elder Grabinger

P.S.  The iPod is sweeeeeet.

Busy, busy, busy

Dear Fawn,

Oh my... zone leading is very different.  I'm in a new area now and we had SOOO much to do right after transfers last week that I don't really know too much about who we are teaching and stuff like that.  It's been crazy.  But Elder LeSueur and I are excited to get back to work this week!

No, I haven't really heard anything about the weather over here.  The craziest thing I've heard lately is something about the Pope retiring or something.  That's a win for the Mormons I guess.

I got your Valentines Day package and I loved it.  Thanks so much.  Elder LeSueur quickly devoured those Sour Patch Kids.  He says "thank you" and he is really appreciative.

How exciting for Diego.  That sounds great!  One question: what is the 'BLM'?

I'm just excited to be in a new area and meeting new people and teaching people the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  The ward here is great.  Everyone is super friendly and really hilarious too.  They share my sense of humor so I think we'll really get along.

Elder LeSueur and I had to prepare the zone meeting last week and it was just crazy because we had this other meeting that we had to prepare for last week so we had minimal time to prepare our training for the other missionaries and whatnot.  Anyway, we were just exhausted but it ended up being a really spiritual and uplifting meeting and it was totally led by the Spirit because so many times while preparing we were just like "Oh yeah, we forgot to plan for that too."  Lots of work.

I read D&C 84:85 this morning and then thought back to Ammon's experience with beginning to teach King Lamoni.  I no longer think that it was a coincidence that they stood silent for the space of an hour... (Alma 18:14).  Also, it turns out that we learn in Alma 8:21,22 that Alma was a vegetarian.  Neat, huh?

Okay, well that's about it for this week.  I don't know how Gary is doing anymore, I'll find out next time I see Elder Rich.  We're in different zones now though.  There are four zones in the mission and this zone (the Knoxville zone) is the only one I've not served in before, so everything is really new to me.  Hopefully I'll have more for y'all next week.

Love
Elder Grabinger

Storms, Lost Keys, and Zone Leader

Dear All,

OMGoodness the weather is just out of control.  On Saturday morning I woke up to what I thought was clear skies and cold temperatures.  Next thing I know, I look out the window and everything is white.  We just got dumped on out of nowhere!  We had a couple of tornado warnings, but nothing happened.  Where at in Georgia was that tornado?  Part of the mission goes into Georgia:  Dalton and Ringgold.

I have not been transferred yet, but I will be on Wednesday.  I'll let you know where I'm at next week.  The crazy thing is, Elder 'Goofball' Henriquez has been called to be a zone leader.  I told him when we were together that I would make him zone leader material.

Prophecy fulfilled.

Once again I was off on exchange for a couple days this week.  One exciting story that happened was on my exchange with Elder Becker.  So Elder Becker and I were biking around to contact people in freezing temperatures.  Well, they weren't home so we decided to knock on the doors of nearby neighbors and preach the gospel.  After we had baptized zero persons, we returned to our bicycles which were locked up to a street sign.  Elder Becker reaches into his pocket, fumbles his keys and drops them.  I hear a tinkling and think nothing of it, but Elder Becker sighs "Oh no..."  That's when, before even looking, I knew that the keys had fallen down a storm drain.

Classic.

So as illustrated in the attached photos, we had to remove the (I'm sure it was close to) 200 lb. grate and Elder Becker climbed down to retrieve the keys.  The grate was very difficult to move.  Go to your nearest roadway and try it.  Good luck.

Okay, the greatest news is our investigator Gary is progressing so well toward baptism.  We taught him the WoW this week and it went superb.  He's going to quit smoking this week!  Also, we taught the Law of Chastity and that went very well as well.  I think that's actually the first time I've taught the Law of Chastity to a real live investigator on my mission.  Crazy.  It's not as awkward as you might think.

Fine, because I'm out of things to talk about, I'll just let you know that I'm being transferred this Wednesday to serve with Elder LeSueur!!! In South Knoxville (So really I'm just moving across the river).  Elder LeSueur and I will be zone leaders though so I'm really excited and humbled at the same time.  It's a dream come true though, Elder LeSueur and I dreamed about this day in the MTC.  I told him in the MTC that if we ever served together, we would either do nothing or we would be the greatest companionship EVER!

Pray for the latter.

AGH!  I'm out of time.  Sorry, no deep spiritual thought.  Next week though...

Love,
Elder Grabinger