I’m stayin in Paris baby!!! I’m super excited to stay another transfer here in Paris and I honestly would love to stay here for 4 or 5 transfers. Unfortunately, Elder Brubaker is getting transferred so that’s really sad and I don’t want him to leave. I’ll meet my new comp on Tuesday, Elder Speyer and we’ll see how that goes haha. He seems like a dope dude and I think we’ll get along.
Monday night I was in a really good mood for some reason haha and I was ready to go street contacting. I was on an exchange with Elder Barney and we were walking in my area trying to find people. We come across this porch with like 5 people there and it smells so bad and wreaks of weed. I asked them if I could share a scripture about Jesus Christ and they just asked me if I wanted to hit a blunt. I politely declined and they were pretty adamant that we leave and stop talking to them. I thought it was pretty funny but they definitely did not want us there.
Wednesday night a leader from the Mt. Pleasant ward asked Elder Brubaker and I if we would talk to the young men about serving missions (since they had sisters in this ward). We were excited and quickly tried to plan out what we were gonna talk about. As Wednesday approached we started to get a little bit nervous, at least I did… I was super worried because I didn’t know how long I could actually talk to them or what I’d even say. But on the drive there I looked up some scriptures that really sprouted the growth of my testimony and planned on sharing those. When we got there it was super cool and all of the youth were awesome. Right before we started I was pretty nervous but as soon as I stood up I was just super excited. I introduced us and started talking a little bit about why I wanted to serve a mission. Looking at all of them and talking about my experiences putting in my papers and deciding to go was soooo cool. The spirit was so strong and I felt like I could just talk for hours. What was crazy is that Elder Brubaker and I didn’t share anything we had planned on sharing. We just talked and let the spirit tell us what the youth needed to hear. I was super worried about being able to talk for even 30 minutes but we took an hour and ended even though I had soooooo much more I wanted to say. It was really fun talking to all of the young men and even though it was my first time meeting them I felt really connected to them. When I was introducing myself one of the deacons asked if either of us could do a backflip. It was super funny because nobody has really asked me that before. I told him I could and it turns out he can too! After the activity, we got a video of us doing them at the same time. It was way fun haha.
We had a word of wisdom lesson with an investigator and I was really worried because I know she struggles with it. But it went so good and she knew she needed to hear it. She even committed to stop drinking coffee completely in 5 days and it was just so cool.
Saturday!! We got to go to the temple!!! Sister Lynn (Barbs, the one w the bull) got baptized last year and she went to the temple for her endowments and we got to go with her. She got her own and 5 other of her family members at the same which was way cool. I love the temple so much and it was sooooo good to be there. It makes me sad that we don’t actually have a temple in our mission because Dallas and Houston temple are just outside our boundaries. The Zone leaders came with us and it was so fun. While E. Siggard, E. Thompson and I went to the temple, E. Brubaker and the Clarksville elders stayed for Margie’s baptism and the funeral for a brother in our ward.
So for the past 3 months, everyone has been saving our empty water bottles for a prank. We had bags and bags of them just in the corner of the apartment. With us going to the temple and the rest of the elders at the church with the Zone Leaders car… it was perfect. While we were at the temple they filled the Zone leaders car with over 1500 empty water bottles. It was soooo funny! Elder Strain was not happy because he just wanted to go home but it was so funny to see his reaction. He’s like “You guys are so stupid” putting his face in his palms. They live in Gilmer which is like an hour and a half and it was dark by now so they called the APs and decided to stay the night with us at the apartment. 4 of us live at the apartment and we have all 4 beds in the same room so it’s already pretty crowded but then we also have Clarksville staying the night with us and now the Zone Leaders… so we had 8 people staying in one room and it was so fun!!
We got to the apartment and everyone was exhausted. We put all the beds together and all piled in and had a nice cuddle puddle haha. But we all spread out and went to bed and we had some nice pillow talk. It was literally just like the stereotypical girl’s slumber party. We were all laughing and joking around telling embarrassing date stories, first kiss stories, and awkward dates and it was just so fun.
A miracle for this week is about Alfred. He lives with his wife Norma and watch their grandson most days. He’s a hard-core Baptist and very firm in his beliefs. We were teaching his wife about Joseph Smith and he stopped us and made sure we weren’t preaching anything unless it was about Jesus Christ. So we were really worried about him because she would listen to our message but he didn’t want anything to do with it. But one night we were walking past and say him painting his house outside and we stopped by to say hello. He was super happy to see us and said he knew God sent us. He didn’t know why but he needed to hear our message. We talked about prayer and faith and even though he’s Baptist, he still has so much faith and love for Jesus Christ. He was crying and telling us about how God delivered him and how grateful he is for his grace and it was just way cool. Elder Brubaker decided to bring up the book of Mormon and I was super nervous but he totally understood that it was another testament of Jesus Christ and he actually accepted a copy. It was such a cool experience and testified to me of the miracles Heavenly Father gives us. Even though he was set in his faith, Heavenly father allowed him to feel the spirit with us and accept the book of Mormon as scripture. It was so cool.
I hope all of you look for the different miracles Heavenly Father puts in your life. He blesses us every single day and it’s so important that we acknowledge those blessings and miracles and express gratitude for them. You’re all in my prayers and I hope y’all are doing well. Love you all and look forward to reading your emails! Muchos Besos!! And remember, God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good!!
Love Elder Grubbs
