Well hello all friends and family! This week honestly flew by which is good, but WOW being a missionary is STRESSFUL. It’s just always one thing after another dumped on my plate. It’s all good though and I’m managing.
Last Monday night we drove out to Royce CIty and had a lesson with this guy Fernando. He was a skinny Hispanic cowboy looking guy that loves his beer and cigarettes. It was a very wild lesson and I ended up teaching the first half of lesson 1, the end of lesson 2, all of lesson 3, and bits and pieces of the commandments. It was crazy. But overall he didn’t really care and just liked “hearing the good word”.
On Tuesday I had an exchange with Elder Jackson and it went very well. We shared experiences and stories from before the mission and there are a lot of things we have in common. He’s a great missionary and I love his attitude toward the work.
Thursday we had interviews! I always love interviews and look forward to them every transfer. President always has good council for me and this time he helped me to see that God needs me here despite all the inadequecies I feel. It was just some nice reassurance that I desperately needed. Sister Seitz was sick so I didn’t have an interview with her and I was kinda bummed. But I also was not feeling super great either. After interviews I ended up sleeping most the day.
Friday morning we got up at like 5:00 because Hermana Medrano teaches seminary in the mornings and asked us to help. I was pretty tired but it was fun being in there and sharing a few of my thoughts. It was weird though because it was all juniors and seniors in the class but they all looked sooooo young haha. It’s weird to think that I graduated over a year ago.
It was the last day of the month and we still had quite a few miles to use so we decided to drive out to a couples home in the bottom corner of our area. The husband is a member but his wife is not. We’ve tried to set up lessons and things but haven’t really been able to because they both work A TON. They have a massive house but work like 2 jobs each and all the time so they can pay for it. I thought there was no way they would be home at 11:30 in the morning but we had the miles so we drove out there anyways. Turns out he had put his hand in his tractor to fix something and completely tore his hand up cutting it to the bone. When we arrived at their house, to my surprise, we saw both of them just walking out the door. We stopped and talked with them and he said becaues of his injury, he can’t work for another month. He was super stressed about that but we offered to give him a blessing and he said he felt a lot calmer and peaceful afterwards. So that was really cool to see God’s timing in everything and how we needed to be there precisely at that time.
GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!
General Conference was the best! I was so excited for it! We ended up watching pretty much every session at our apartment except for one. We went to the church but Elder Reed and I wanted to listen in English so we just put headphones in. I was mindblown by Elder Rasband’s talk because just last week, President Seitz asked all of us to study the talk from President Nelson from October 2017 about the book of mormon. So I have been studying that talk for Zone conference which will be tomorrow. Then Elder Rasband started talking about it and I was so baffled. I also really loved Elder Renlund’s talk about revelation. He cleared a lot of things up and just perfectly worded everything. That was definitely one of my favorite talks from conference.
We went over to the clubhouse to try and put conference on the TV there but it wasn’t set up right. When we were in there, a lady (can’t be older than 35) and her son (probably 9 or 10) walked in both holding walking sticks. She talked to me and asked if we were in school or something because of our “uniforms”. I explained that we were missionaries and taught people about Jesus Christ. She asked what we teach and I explained how we have the book of mormon and how it’s another testament of Jesus Christ. She shook my hand and asked what my name was. Still grabbing my hand, she told me she had a prophecy for me. She said she knows Jesus and talks to him all the time. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “If you don’t stop preaching from the book of mormon, Jesus is going to come and kill you”. Then she smiled, let go of my hand and walked out. I just looked over at Elder Reed because I was just speechless. DId she really just say that? Yes, yes she did.
Sunday morning for conference we made waffles, bacon, buttermilk syrup, and biscuits and gravy! It was soooo yummy but not as good as our usual sunday morning conference breakfast back home. We did what we could and it was pretty delicious. That night we met with Rodrigo and we’re super excited because his baptism is next sunday! So that’ll be super fun and exciting thing to look forward to.
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SPIRITUAL THOUGHT
This week I studied in Mathew 10 and it’s honestly one of my favorite chapters in the New Testament. This is when Jesus Christ calls the 12 apostles and tells them some of their responsibilities. We are all disciples of Jesus Christ and have those same responsibilities. Especially as a missionary I love verses 6 & 7 which say, “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And that’s what the gathering of Israel really is, is gathering his lost sheep. Then in verse 22, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” That’s super comforting because the mission can be so dang hard sometimes. Like really freaking hard. But even when people hate us and mock us, Heavenly Father sees our efforts and will bless us accordlingly.
Then later in verse 34 it says, “think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And at first that is super confusing to me. Isn’t Christ the prince of peace? Isn’t his sole purpose to bring peace to others? Reading verses 35-37 he explains. “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father… And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” This relates to a lot of problems we come across as missionaries. People don’t want to disturb peace in the home, or go contrary to their spouse, or parents, etc. But Christ is clearly spelling out that sometimes it will be a sacrifice to follow him, but it’s what we need to do. Not everybody is going to understand the righteous choices we’re trying to make. They don’t see the blessings that come from following Christ in his restored church. Often we are reminded of the commandment, we must honor thy father and thy mother. But sometimes you have to honor your Heavenly parents more than your earthly parents. I see this all the time as a missionary. Family members don’t agree with what we teach and try to pull away. Our friends that clearly see the joy and blessings that comes from Christ’s restored church are pulled away simply because they don’t want to damage a family relationship. I couldn’t imagine having to make a sacrifice like that, but I know God will bless you more than you could even imagine.
In the conversion story of Bill Carpenter just before his baptism his parents said if he chose to be baptized, their family goes from 13 to 12 basically disowning him. He went over to the missionaries he was meeting with and said he loved his parents too much to go through with it. And they said, “I know you love your parents, but you have to understand. The greatest act of love was a father willing to separate himself from his son so that others could be blessed. Love requires sacrifice. Bill you cannot make this choice and tell your family you love them for a lifetime by honoring what they didn’t want you to do. Or you can do this and in all reality tell them that you love them for eternity. The choice is yours.” wow. That is so profound and it just amazes me the faith to make that sacrifice. But studying Matthew 10 was very eye opening to me and helped me see how I could help the people we are teaching.
Sorry the spiritual thought wasn’t very applicable to you all but it was something I’ve been pondering on this week and wanted to share. We truly don’t understand the blessings we will receive for following Jesus Christ and doing what our Heavenly Father has asked of us. I have a very strong testimony that a lot of times we don’t understand why God wants us to do something, but I know he will bless us for choosing to follow him. I love you all dearly and please let me know if there is anybody I can be praying for. Muchos besos! And remember, God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.
All my love
Elder Grubbs
