2nd week down in Rowlett and we’re busier than ever! This week was definitely a lot better than last week. I still miss Marshall a ton but I’m just trying to get to know the people here. It’s a whole different world being in a spanish ward. It’s crazy when most members don’t know English either so it forces me to talk more which is good. I still have a hard time understanding people sometimes but I’m definitely improving.
Tuesday was a crazy day trying to schedule a dentist appointment and then going to the bike shop for Elder Spencer’s bike. But after all them errands, we decided to go stop by some people while we were over in Rockwall for the bike shop. The person we tried to visit, their address was wrong so we walked and walked trying to find the right address but we couldn’t t find it. When we were walking back to the car, there was this guy sitting outside. So we walked over and started talking with him. He said he already had a church and wasn’t super interested but we kept talking. He thought we were JDubs and we explained who we were. He asked us a ton of questions and it was cool because I actually felt comfortable asking questions and sharing his own experiences. His wife had a brain anerism so she is paralyzed on the left side of her body. He was going to work and trying to do everything for their kids at the same time and was super overwhelmed. He was actually so stressed that he got a migraine that turned into a stroke. He’s like in his mid 40’s too. So he had to take off 3 weeks to recover and now he’s trying to work again to support his family. It was a crazy convo. He has his own beliefs but was pretty open and his beliefs almost align perfectly with ours. He asked about baby’s being baptized and little things like that. It was cool being able to teach him all these things through the book of Mormon. It was cool because he was like “as you can tell, I know my bible” which is true, he knew a lot of verses and where things were. “And I can obviously see that you know it too, but why do you keep sharing scriptures from that book?” He said pointing at my Book of Mormon. I was shocked. Like we talked a lot about things in the Bible and I was explaining where things were and stuff so he knew I knew the Bible but also noticed that anytime he had a question, I always referred to the Book of Mormon. It was super cool and I was able to talk about the book of Mormon and Moroni’s promise and everything. We even gave him a book of Mormon and invited him to read the intro and 3 Nephi 11, and he straight up told us he would read the whole book. It was pretty cool. At the end he told us he was a Sunday school teacher at the church he goes to and wanted to know more. It was a super cool miracle.
After that we went to burger King for lunch and when we’re ordering we hear this older man tell his 7 year old granddaughter “these gentlemen are on missions” we started talking with him and ended up eating lunch together talking the whole time. Apparently this guy did a ton of research on the pioneers and the groups that traveled west. He’s not even a member but wanted to know all the details for his book so he read a ton od journals feom pioneers crossing the plains. He wrote a historical fiction book (made up story, but completely historically accurate) about a wagon company heading west. We talked about family history with him and what the church does and why it’s so important to us. His book is called “A realization of a dream” by Dave Varnell. He also gave us his email so if we buy a copy he’ll sign it for us. He said he had no shame talking to people about his book because after publishing and other processes, he makes less than 10% profit on it. So he doesn’t make like anything haha. But he was cool. Also found out he speaks 14 languages fluently and can carry a decent convo in 5 other languages too. It was insane. He just started speaking Spanish to us and we were so confused. His mom only speaks spanish and is from Argentina and then as a kid he had neighbors that spoke russian. He had other neighbors that spoke cantonese and mandarine but didnt know english so he taught them and they taught him. So as a kid he coulr fluently speak 5 languages. He’s super cool.
Wednesday we had interviews which is always the best! It was good talking with president and I talked to him about Cristian (someone I taught in marshall) and how its been really hard for me not teaching him and I was worried because he didn’t want to have to meet new missionaries and open up to them. So president gave me permission to call the sisters and see what I can do to help!! I was so excited!!! I talked to him about some family struggles I’ve been dealing with and how I wanna support my family and also seek support, but I also don’t want to be distracted from the work. He had me read mosiah 18:9 and explained that “mourning” with my family or just expressing feelings and what not was a way of keeping my baptismal covenants. I thought that was cool because I never really thought about it that way. It was nice to know that I can still be a little sad and not have to hide everything or bottle up my emotions.
That night we had a stake president devotional that was straight fire. I’ll talk more about it at the end with my spiritual thought.
On our way to some lessons Thursday night we stopped by this gas station to go to the bathroom and Elder Spencer was freaking out because they had dragonfruit Fanta and starlight coke. These 2 sodas are soooo good. Starlight coke is probably the best soda I’ve ever had in my life. It’s limited edition and I have no idea how they have it there, but basically it’s coke but “galaxy flavored” the best way to describe it is coke but then you get hit with this campfire/smore taste. ITS SOO GOOD!!! I’ll include a picture of it
We gave a blessing to a kid in the ward who is getting surgery. His mom is a member, but her boyfriend isn’t and has been taught for a few months now. He’s super cool and will probably get baptized at the end of July. I talked a little bit about him last week, but his name is Mike and he is super wise and is so cool. After the blessing I told him to think about how he felt during the blessing tonight before he prays. Even though the blessing was for Nelson, you could feel the spirit so strongly as we have him a blessing through the melchizedek priesthood.
Friday was 106⁰ and I was dying. Everyone says it doesn’t get this hot until august, so it’s apparently supposed to get worse in August. Not excited. The humidity makes it feel like 112⁰ too. Not fun… We got to talk to the Miley & Xander who we’ve been teaching but I’ve never met them. We walked past their house and nobody was home so we were kinda bummed but when we barely walked to the next house and then they pulled up! They’re like 9 or 10 and want to get baptized but their parents split and they don’t come to church. So it’s been a little difficult but hopefully they’ll start coming.
We also talked to Miguel again and he was super nice and gave us water’s. We talked about the atonement with him and he loved all of it. 4th of July changed his schedule a bit this week so he has to work on Sunday but he said next week was going to try to come to church! Super stoked for him.
Saturday we woke up at 5:45 to do some service at 6. It was the worst. But they fed us breakfast and we got cinnamon rolls so it was worth it.
Our dinner appointment was with bishops family but they were having their daughters birthday party. They basically invited the whole ward so we just came and ate with everyone. It was jurassic world themed and they definitely went all out… we got these plastic safari hats and they had posters and decorations everywhere. They even paid for someone to come bring an animatronic velociraptor. It was like 8 feet tall. It was pretty cool. I’ll throw in some pice and vids.
We did some more stopbys and some scavenger hunts trying to find correct addresses. We stopped by this one lady named Noemí. Within the first 2 minutes she said she wasn’t interested. BUT we ended up talking with her for like an hour or more. It took up the rest of our night lol. She just talked and opened up to us a ton. She gave us a lot of information most of which I can’t write about haha. But she got divorced and then years later someone ended up murdering her ex-husband and it was just crazy. She has like a 19 year old daughter and has a 1 year old baby too… she was really kind though and seemed very down to earth. She was super comfortable with us and we prayed with her and have her our number if she needed service or a scripture or something. Something tells me she might give us a call later 
but idk she seemed to have a lot better attitude after talking to us and getting to know us, so hey, maybe she’ll come around and want the lessons, who knows 
Sunday was pretty fun. Hermana Philips was out of town and she usually does singing time in primary. So she asked us if we could teach the kids a song and do some actions to help them learn. We taught them the song “voy a ser valiente” so in English it’s (I am going to be valiant) I think. But I wrote the words on a poster and did actions with them and then we did another version patting our legs and clapping. It was fun being with the kids. It’s also the cutest thing hearing little kids speak Spanish haha. It’s so precious.
English classes were a hit! We had 7 people come!! It was so fun teaching them and helped me with my Spanish too trying to explain English grammer in Spanish. At the end we shared a message and there were 3 members attending the class so they were super engaged and bore their testimonies. The nonmembers liked the message too and it was cool. One lady got out her notebook to write down what bible verse we read but then the member told her it was from the book of Mormon haha. It was super cool though. Hopefully they’ll have some questions and want to talk with us!
We went out and did stop bys with the Sotos and of course every lesson canceled. But it’s okay. When we got home I called the Marshall Hermanas to talk about Cristian! So last week his whole family came to church. His girlfriend is getting really close with hermanas and with Hermana Sullivan in the ward. She even went to a ward activity without Cristian. Crazy! He is still pretty reserved and they haven’t gotten to talk with him a bunch but it’s cool that they’re able to connect with his girlfriend and kids. Keep him in your prayers please. Last week he stayed up watching half of April 2022 general conference! I couldn’t believe it. But he needs all the support and help right now to keep him heading down the right path. Also pray for Elder Wait cause his bike got stolen last night 
(it was a brand new trek bike too…)__________________________________________________
Spiritual Thought
So president Newman talked about Elder Bednar’s talk “If Ye Had Known Me” from October 2016. It was so cool because he talked about Matthew 7:22-23 and 25:10-12. In the Bible verse 23 it says, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” But the JST changes it to “you never knew me” it was super cool seeing the importance of coming to know our Savior personally. He references Mark 9:23-24 about a father that wanted Christ to heal his son. He tells Christ, “help thou mine unbelief” Elder bednar goes on to say,
“I have reflected many times on this father’s request: “Help thou mine unbelief.” I wonder if the intent of the man’s pleading was not primarily to help him believe in Jesus as our Redeemer and in His healing power. He already may have acknowledged Christ as the Son of God. But perhaps he needed help to believe the Master’s healing power indeed could be so individual and so personalized as to bless his own beloved son.He may have believed in Christ generally but not believed Christ specifically and personally. We often testify of what we know to be true, but perhaps the more relevant question for each of us is whether we believe what we know.”
I love this quote so much. As we come to know our Savior Jesus Christ personally, we will be able to truly believe in him and his power. This talk caused me to ponder on that question. Do you believe what you know? You would be surprised at how many people struggle with this. Especially missionaries. President Seitz has talked about repentance as missionaries. We cry out repentance to God’s children every single day. We teach the power and goodness of the atonement of Jesus christ. We help people see how they can change and receive forgiveness. But when we need to repent or we need to change, we feel like we can’t. We feel like the atonement doesn’t apply to us. Even as members we talk about and teach repentance all the time, but find it hard to apply those same principles in our own lives. I have a testimony of the power of repentance. I know that as we strive to personally know Jesus Christ believing in him, we will come to know that all of the principles of the gospel, all of the blessings from the atonement, and all of the promises God has given, will forever be applicable to us. To us personally. To each individual specifically. Christ lives. He is our Savior and Redeemer. He loves you. He knows you. And he wants you to know him. I end with the powerful words of Moroni in 10:32
“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
I love you all and I’m constantly praying for those I know are struggling. If you are struggling or know anybody that is, please let me know and I’d love to pray for you or them. I hope y’all have a killer week! Muchos Besos! And remember, God is good is good all the time, and all the time, God is good
All my love
Elder Grubbs