What a Week!

Dear Family and Friends,

OH MY GOODNESS WHAT A WEEK!  Very first I just have to tell you about the Rocky Mountain Oysters we had for dinner at a member's home this week.  They don't taste bad at all... but they're not really that delectable either.  The texture is exactly what you would expect, like a meatball.  Next time, we'll have to try them in a spaghetti sauce...

Moving on.

So we've spent much of the week just trying to find new investigators.  Like, interested investigators.  Not just people that have nothing to do all day say they'll let us come by and talk to them, but people who are really looking for something.  It's tough.  You've really got to talk to EVERYONE.  I like it.  Nothing too crazy to report, but we did have this experience where we had tracted and tried to talk to everyone we saw like all day without really finding anyone, but then we went to our appointment that evening with a less-active returning member and he had a friend over and was like "I told her that the missionaries were coming over and that she should stay and sit in on our lesson and she's fine with it."  So we ended up talking with her of course and she just really opened up and wants to change her life and learn about the restoration and everything.  It was way cool.

Something interesting I've been thinking about lately, of course, is faith.

I was reading the lectures on faith and it was communicated to me that faith is the power of words.  Basically, this is the power by which God has and will operate eternally, the power of his word.  He speaks it, and it is done.  Jesus taught us that if we had faith as a mustard seed, we should SAY to the mountain, be though removed (or whatever) and it should be done.  Joseph Smith taught that we have got to learn to be gods ourselves.  I think this is why verbal oaths meant so much back in the day and why our word really should be our bond in modern times as well.  We need to treat our word as something that will be done; that when it is spoken, it is as good as completed.  Am I articulating my point correctly?  Sometimes I'm not so good at communicating my thoughts...  Summary:  We have to learn to be like God.  He speaks it and it is done.  When we speak, we should see that it is done.

I hope all is going well, I will keep you in my prayers.  Have a great week!

Love
Elder Grabinger

Work in Tennessee

Hey Guys,

Sorry, this takes me a lot longer and I have to be a lot more brief now because I have to write so many more people... IT'S GREAT!

Some highlights from this last week are that we moved apartments so we no longer live in the ghetto.  It will be tough to leave 'my people' but it's just to risky to be worried about getting knifed or shot all the time.  My companion woke up with his hair in corn rows one morning!

That last part isn't true.

Also, I got a shamrock shake last week.  I liked it just about as much as I thought I would (I don't really like mint, so it was kinda whatever).  But now it's done and over with.  What a relief.  Now I can focus on baptizing people again.

Speaking of baptizing people!  Still no... but Elder LeSueur and I are stepping up our game.  We're going 3 Nephi 7:18 status this transfer and just getting it done.  Two souls WILL be brought into the kingdom of God on earth in the next six weeks whether they like it or not!

Incidentally, we taught two of our investigators this past week and they committed for baptism on April 13th.  They will need a lot of help though...

I've been reading the Book of Mormon for the I-dunno-how-many-th time now (not to brag, but I really just don't know how many this will make) and I've just been getting really impressed with Nephi again.  He's such an outstanding individual.  I really think that I'm more of a Laman or Lemual when I see Nephi's example.  His faith is just incredible.  Anyway, I've been thinking about how they went to get the brass plates.  Even though it was a commandment of God, He didn't make it happen for them the first time.  Or the second.  It was only after the third attempt that he was successful, and then only after killing a guy to make it happen.  I just think of how often we are faced with challenges from the Lord and we know what he wants us to do, but then we begin to question and doubt when He doesn't make things happen on our first attempt to accomplish it.  It reminds me of a talk that Elder Bednar gave missionaries once where he asked "Do you have the faith to follow Preach My Gospel to a T... and then fail?"  To develop really strong faith in the Lord, we have to continue to trust in Him even when he doesn't make things happen on the first or second or more attempts.

We might even have to break a few commandments along the way to make it happen...

Totally joking on that last part.

Follow the spirit.

Love
Elder Grabinger

Another Week in the Mission

Dear Family and Friends,

Well uh, Gary wasn't baptized this past weekend.  Elder Rich texted me and told me that some things happened and it didn't work out. That's the way it goes as a missionary though...

Foiled again.

I was on exchange the only time that we had a lesson with those awesome investigators this week.  Elder LeSueur says it was a fantastic lesson!  I didn't see them at church though.

So this last week, one of the priests in the ward told us about the latest craze known as "gallon smashing."  It's INCREDIBLE!!!  I love it.  So hilarious...

Also, there's a member over here who allegedly beat "Snoop Lion" (the artist formerly known as "Snoop Dog") in a rap battle in his youth.  Oh Knoxville Tennessee...

I'm super excited about the 2013 edition of the LDS scriptures being released.  It's going to be INCREDIBLE!!!  I hope they have a midnight release party like they used to do for Harry Potter and stuff like that.  If you haven't heard the news, check it out on lds.org!

We went to a couple of baptismal services this past Saturday.  It was pretty difficult to keep a straight face at some of them because it was just really wild.  Things are just different here in the south.  There was applause after one of the ordinances and a lot of things were said that just shouldn't have been said.  One of them was the most casual baptismal services I had ever seen.  I couldn't stop laughing in the car.

I'm a terrible person.  I know.  Sorry.

So I've kind of been thinking a lot about faith recently and more focusing on the belief aspect of faith.  In the church, we really emphasize works when we talk about faith and I've been guilty of discrediting the importance of belief along with that.  In the scriptures, we learn "Faith without works is dead" and I'd go so far as to say the converse that "Works without faith (or 'belief') are dead" is true as well.  I've been trying not to write off the importance of belief lately.  You might be living the gospel standards, but if you don't believe in the blessings that come by faith in Jesus Christ, you aren't going to feel the Spirit as much as you ought; you may wonder why you don't have success in your trials when you live the principles without belief.

I probably did a really bad job at communicating what I wanted to with that thought, so do what you will with that.

Okay time to go, love you b'bye.

Love
Elder Grabinger

P.S.  Dang, the only thing I could think of that would be worse than a mac would be some computer brand whose product starts acting silly so you can't back it up and reboot it so you have to order a new one.  Oh wait...

P.P.S.  Haha, jk.  You know I just love to fuel the 'windows v mac' fire.