Happy Easter!

Dear Family and Friends,

Nope, just the RMOs.  But, I had this INCREDIBLE experience in Sevierville the other day.  I was on exchange so Elder Pierce and I were tracting for two hours in the rain in this trailer park with many hispanics and we were having some mild success when this MIRACLE happens.  We walk up to a guy who is on his porch grilling some carne asada and he just sits us down and makes us plates and we have the most delicious mexican food since leaving Yuma.  Well, except for hispanics here tend to mix random foods together.  Like, tortillas and carne asada were served along with spicy spaghetti.  Kinda strange, but I didn't complain.  And I ate the entire grilled green chile, seeds and all.  My tummy had a category 5 hurricane brewing for about an hour afterward.

I FELT SO ALIVE!

It was a good time.  Oh yeah, and their going to go back and teach him the gospel this Wednesday or something too.  So that's good.

Okay, I think I forgot to tell this experience last week, but Elder LeSueur and I had to go to the UT hospital to administer a blessing to a member that was flown there from Sevierville.  So we go to the emergency room and she has some family there that were with her, but this lady was clearly not all there at the time and she was covered up by a blanket except for her face and she was fiddling around under the blanket with her hands.  Well, she locks eyes with Elder LeSueur and he goes over and reaches out his hand to take whatever it is that she is now offering him with her outstretched hand.

It's her IV needle.

So she's bleeding a little bit now and Elder LeSueur just flushes and he's getting super light-headed.  So he just anoints her super quick and sits down with his head between his knees and I'm kinda peeved, like "You're really gonna sit this one out, bro?"  So I give the blessing and then everyone just turns their attention to Elder LeSueur and basically forgets that we're in the emergency room for their family member.  After a couple minutes Elder LeSueur asks, did you give the blessing yet?  He seriously didn't remember it at all.  He's beginning to rethink his career choice in the medical field I think.  I had to drive home and now Elder LeSueur is famous among the Sevierville ward members because he got super woozy at the sight of blood.

Another time, we go to visit this less-active member who we've never met before with another member and we knock on his door and we get the warmest welcome I've had in a while and he lets us in.  Well, this guy was part of this program or something where he has a live-in caretaker and he's not allowed to answer the door or anything as part of the rules for this program.  So his caretaker comes in and this has just set the spark to a mess that had been building for weeks.  So we just get caught in this verbal argument between the guy and his caretaker and we just sit there for like 10 minutes because none of us know what to do.  After multiple threats to send the man to the nursing home (and what I think was a fake phone call to a nursing home to come pick him up) we politely excused ourselves and got outta there.  It was so strange.

Well, for Easter we ate dinner at the bishop's home.  They made me tell this chihuahua joke I have that's like 15 minutes long and really the biggest waste of time.  But I had told it to their priest age son on a team-up once and he just went to town with it.  He told it at his lunch table and to his parents (who immediately texted us afterward to let us know that it was the worst joke ever).  Anyway, it's pretty hilarious.  Remind me to tell it to you when I get home.  Anyway their son is into videography and they showed us this video he did called "mission man" which is a parody of the pokemon theme song.  Search for it on YouTube.  It's hilarious.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter.  Ours was busy since the missionaries got asked to teach the 3rd hour lesson and then I substituted in the Gospel Principles class.  It was fun though.  I'm just so grateful for Jesus Christ and his Atonement.  Knowing that he made that kind of a sacrifice for me and did something for me that I could never do for myself is just so humbling.  I know that He lives today and that we will all live again after this life because of Him.  The sting of death is swallowed up in His matchless love.

Love,
Elder Grabinger