This week was absolutely INSANE. So much happened but it honestly felt pretty slow. Monday night we had FHE and had a nerf war at the church. It was such a blast! On Tuesday Sister Mohat made us breakfast for dinner. We had biscuits and gravy which was pretty good (not as good as my grandpa’s though) and she also made a fruit salad, eggs, and grits. I tried grits for the first time and I’m not a fan… But that night we had a lesson with our friend Harold. We wanted to teach the law of chastity and talk about the family proclamation because we thought he might struggle with a few things in their and didn’t want to keep teaching him and just avoid those subjects. So we taught it preparing for him to maybe drop us, but the lesson actually went super well and he agreed to following everything! It was cool!
On Wednesday we had park your car day so we couldn’t use our cars. We usually have a mission wide devotional every Wednesday with one of the Stake Presidents in the mission. It’s nice because it’s the last 30 minutes of our night and a really good way to end the day. But in the morning they told us we weren’t gonna have one. I was super bummed but it actually led to a super cool miracle.
We biked to a few apartment complexes and knocked a few doors. Door after door was slammed in our face. It was frustrating cause nobody would talk to us. We switched apartment complexes and as soon as we got there, I saw this door and said, “We need to knock that door”. We locked up our bikes and decided to knock a different door first. Nobody answered but we continued our conversation and started to walk away. I stopped, realizing we didn’t knock the door I felt prompted we should knock. Half-jokingly I said “Woah Satan really doesn’t want us to knock that door” as we walked back. We knocked on the door and saw a guy peep his head through the window and unlock the door but didn’t open it. We sat there for a second and thought maybe he locked the door instead of unlocking it. So we started to walk away but then he opened it! He invited us in and wanted to hear our message.
He had pictures of Christ and tons of statues and pictures depicting the crusifixion. His name is AB and then told us that he was from Egypt! His first language is Arabic so he doesn’t know a lot of English but said if we talked slow he could understand. He has only been in the US for 11 months but his English is actually pretty good. We sat down and after a short introduction to who he was he said, “I know you have a message for me. What is it?” So we jumped straight into the Restoration and taught him about the Book of Mormon. We taught him by using the pictures at the front of the Book of Mormon and he loved them! We shared the first vision and showed him the picture of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ visiting Joseph Smith and he was so intrigued. It was so cool!! He doesn’t quite believe in one true church but he loves what we are doing as missionaries and was really open to talk. We gave him a book of mormon and he said he would try to read it but may struggle a bit with the language barrier. It was an amazing opportunity to share with him the same promise I was given trying to learn Spanish. We expressed that a prophet of God has promised that if he read that book, his English would improve and he will better understand it as well as be better at speaking it. He asked us to pray for him and his wife and their home so I offered to pray right then. He agreed so we prayed and the spirit was super strong. After the prayer he said he wanted to come to church and that we could meet with him next week! So that was a huge miracle being able to meet him! We also realized that if we ended up having a stake president devotional, we never would have gone to that apartment complex. We would’ve had to go back home for the devotional and never would’ve met AB. It was cool to see all the little details come together for our good.
On thursday we went on exchanges so I was with Elder Magleby in the Legacy Trail ward. Not much happened during the day but after dinner I wasn’t feeling too good so we unexchanged and I went to bed. I was woken up to President calling us. He wanted all the missionaries inside because there was a huge storm coming in. It didn’t shock me too much since it’s storm season and we’ve had to stay inside a few other times too, but this one was different. When the boys got back we watched it rain for awhile and I went back to bed. I was woken up again but this time it was cause we didn’t just have a tornado warning, but the tornado sirens were going off. So I had to get out of bed and go into the bathroom and away from all windows. It was wild. I did take a few videos outside of the apartment though. It was a super cool storm. Unfortunately there was not a tornado so I don’t have a cool story. But we were freaking out because the Tyler 1 sisters were at McDonalds and they don’t have a car. It was a 45 min walk back to their apartment! Eventually they found a member to take them home but they had to stop on the side of the road a few times because the rain was so heavy and the wind was so strong. But thankfully they made it home safely.
I didn’t sleep at all that night and felt so sick. Friday morning we had a lesson with Amelia and already had President Ketcher coming. I didn’t wanna cancel the lesson plus Amelia would have murdered me if she showed up to the lesson and it was Elder Bullock and some other missionary. She specifically asked if it would be us 2 and didn’t want to be suprised by a different missionary. After taking some meds and still feeling like crap i thought, ‘the work must go on’. Which was definitely stupid of me but I just didn’t wanna cancel the lesson the morning of. So I threw on a mask and we went to the church to teach her. It was a really good lesson and helped her so much!! I was really glad that President Ketcher was there because Amelia always has a ton of questions about logistics and he could answer those super well. It blows my mind how we can tell her (or any investigator for that matter) to do something or explain something and she just doesn’t get it, but when a member says the same exact thing it just clicks. We have been telling her for weeks that if she wants an answer about Jospeh Smith and modern day prophets that she has to pray and ask Heavenly Father but she wouldn’t accept that. She wants answers now. She didn’t understand why the book of mormon came so easy and it was so clear to her that it was scriture but she couldn’t get the same direct answer with prophets. President Ketcher was like, “Amelia, have you prayed to ask Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith was a prophet?” She said no, and he invited her to do so. She agreed but I was like, “Bro what??? We’ve been telling you to do that this whole time!!!!” I didn’t actually say that but it definitely crossed my mind. But it was a really good lesson and she thanked us for answering her questions.
After the lesson I went straight to bed and didn’t wake up until like 5:30. So that was a very eventful St. Patricks day! Saturday was unbelievably hectic. We woke up and went to service but 4 Elders backed out on us so it was just us and the T1 sisters to help but then there was a baptism so we could only stay for an hour to rake leaves. We showered and were out the door in 15 min but we were late and as soon as we walked in the room they had already baptized her and they were getting out of the font. I was so sad but it was good to hear the talks afterwards and get to see Denise after being baptized. After the baptism we had like a bazillion meetings but dinner was a drop off so we got a little break which was nice. We all played catch for most of dinner and it really fun. We had another lesson with Harold too! We taught him the Gospel again and invited him to be baptized on April 8th and he accepted!!
Harold and Amelia both came to church! So 2/3 people we are teaching came to church lol. It’s been a struggle to find people honestly but we are trying to hard. After dinner we found 2 more apartment complexes to knock. We look for cars that have TJC parking pass stickers and guess based on where their car is, which apartment they live in. Obviously it doesn’t work 100% of the time but we look at their decks too. If there’s furniture or nice outside furniture it most likely isn’t a YSA. If we see LED lights inside or camping chairs on the deck, we knock those doors
Pretty smart if you ask me. But we found one complex that seemed super promising! We walked around the corner and heard a TV on inside one apartment so we decided to knock it! Big mistake. This old dude with a big ol beer belly answered the door. He immediately asked if we could tell him how to get to Heaven. We were pretty hesitant but talked about Jesus Christ. He was like “Come inside and I’ll tell you how to get to heaven.” Elder Bullock then said, “I don’t know if we’ve got time…” And he immediately cut him off saying, “Oh you have time to knock on my door and annoy me but you can’t listen to me”. Elder Bullock was trying to say we didn’t have time to talk to people who wouldn’t listen to our message but was rudely cut off. I was pretty pissed off at this point. He brought up something saying that we believe women have kids in the next life or something weird like that. I told him I wasn’t going to go into details about those things with him. He said the only way back to Heaven is through Jesus Christ and obviously we agreed. He asked who we thought Christ was. So I told him our savior and the only begotten son of God. He was like, “Mormons don’t believe Christ is the only begotten son of God”. I stopped him there and was like, “Umm I think I’m pretty sure I know what I believe in pal”. He tried to say a few other things but then just slammed the door in our faces. I was so mad. Of course it had to be our first door. I don’t understand how somebody all the sudden feels like they know more about my religion than me. Like dude, have you ever even set foot in a church of jesus christ of latter-day saints? Like who are you to tell me what I believe in? What the freak!! But we walked away and said a prayer to feel the spirit but it just didn’t feel the same. I was already upset and had a lot of things I wanted to say to that guy. The night was honestly kinda ruined and it was super frustrating. But we did knock one door that a guy named Johnny answered. We shared Helaman 5:12 because it’s just a super good scripture about our foundations on Jesus Christ and how he helps us during the storms of life. He really liked it and we talked a bit about what we do as missionaries because he was confused why we are from Utah and here in Texas haha. We didn’t really teach a whole lot but gave him a pamphlet and the church address. That was like the only good thing that happened that night to be honest.
But this week the Tyler Zone popped off!!! Last week we had 5 people on date in the whole zone. After 1 person baptized this week we now have 16 people on date!!! We literally put 12 people on date just this week!! It was nuts! We’re hoping this momentum carries into next week too and that everyone on date will actually be baptized.
For a little spiritual thought I wanted to share something from my studies in the Book of Mormon this week. I read in Alma 41 and came aross verse 10 which says, “Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you wickedness never was happiness.” There are a few things we can pick out of this verse. It’s interesting serving in Texas where most people have a Christian background. What’s so bizare to me is that so many people think that all they have to do is accept Christ as their Savior and they are automatically “saved”. But what does it mean to be “saved”? In Alma 40 we learn that “there is a time appointed that ALL shall rise from the dead” (v5) So in that aspect, yes. We will all be resurected because of the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. However, this does not mean that we will just be sinless in the next life simply because Christ died for us. There is more to repentance than just the debt being payed. Repentance is change. If there is no change wrought in the heart of the him who is repenting, the repentance process is incomplete. Going back to Alma 41, we know everything will be restored to it’s proper frame that ‘even a hair of the head shall not be lost’. This means that we will be restored to who we were. The same person. We can’t expect to make our own decisions, ignore the commandments, and then become perfected in the next life. That’s just not how it works. James 2, faith without works is dead. In the scritures we also learn that you reap what you sow. There are always consequences for your actions whether they be good or bad. D&C 88:28 says, “they who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body; even ye shall reeive your bodies, and you glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened.” This ties perfectly with the famous quote by Brad Wilcox, “Heaven won’t be heaven for people who choose not to be heavenly.” Back to the first scripture I shared, “wickedness never was happiness.” If you want to be happy, truly happy, you must love God. If you love God you will keep his commandments. I know we all will fall short. I know we all mess up and we will continue to mess up. But God is merciful and he welcomes us with open arms 100% of the time. True joy comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I love you all dearly and hope you have an amazing week! Let me know if there is anyone I can pray for!! Muchos besos! And remember, God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good 
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All my love
Elder Grubbs
