What an INSANE week! Literally so much happened and it was just so crazy! I’ll try my best to summarize everything that happened. Tuesday night we had a spontaneous lesson with our friend Jose Cruz. He asked us a bunch of questions and we just kinda talked about what we do as missionaries, what we’re gonna do when we get home, and when we get home. He started talking about how faith is like a plant and we have to water it and nurture it, so we shared a few verses from Alma 32 which was pretty cool.
On Wednesday we had A TON of service! We helped this lady move out of her art studio. She makes and sells keys. There were so many keys in that room I can’t even fathom how many keys were in there. We told her we only had like and hour and half because we had a member that needed our help at 12:30 too. She flipped out saying she didn’t have any other help and she needed to take all this stuff to her house in Allen. All 4 of us packed everything in her truck and then she had us take almost everything out because it wasn’t the way she wanted it. So we re-did it and strapped everything down with bungie cords. Since we had to leave at 12:30 we called the other Spanish Elders to see if they could come help when we had to leave. I was calling them and she yelled at me to get in the truck because we didn’t have much time. We drove to her house in Allen, unloaded everything and got back around 12:00. It bothers me so much when we’re helping people for free when they would have to pay hundreds of dollars to pay someone to do it and they get mad at us. Like come on! We don’t ask for ANYTHING in return but they still treat us like trash. But I know she was just stressed and wasn’t trying to be rude.
So we drove over to Brother Long’s house from the 2nd ward with the other Elders. We cleaned out his house cause he’s moving out to live in arkansas or something. He hasn’t seen his son or daughter in years and he can’t get custody of them unless he’s living in their same state. So he’s just leaving everything behind to see his kids. It’s a really sad situation. Before we left he asked if we could pray with us and then offered to say the prayer. He said such a genuine pure heartfelt prayer. He has a lot of faith though and knows he needs to keep going to church, praying, and reading the book of mormon. He also told us a little bit about his conversion story a few years ago in Frisco and it was pretty cool. But keep Brother Long in your prayers, he needs a lot of help right now.
After dinner we drove up to Anna for a few stop-bys. We went by this guy named Ezequiel. He’s a member but we don’t know who he is and he hasn’t been to church here as far as we’re aware. But he was home and had his 2 sons join us for a short lesson on faith. It was a really good lesson especially because we got to know them a bit better. Before I was in tyler I served in Rowlett which was on the border of the mission. The ward boundries had changed a few years back so the members would always talk about the casa linda ward (The ward they used to attend that’s not in the mission). One of the members was the bishop in that ward too. So I’ve heard a lot about it. But Ezequiel and his sons were baptized in the Casa linda ward like 2-4 years ago. Small connection but it was still cool. After the lesson, Ezequiel asked if we could give his son a blessing. I’m pretty sure he’s 17 or 18 but just got out of jail like a week ago. We gave him a blessing and it was sick. I hope it was a spiritual experience for him.
We also had a lesson with Abñer at the church. This was our first lesson face-to-face and it was so good! We had Hermano Varela join us and he helped a ton. We ran through D&C 20:37 which is basically the requirements for baptism. We read it together and tried to show Abñer that he literally meets everything on that list. I told him that every single time we’ve met with him I’ve felt the spirit. I have seen how much faith he truly has and the sacrifices he has made to strengthen his relationship with Heavenly Father. He appreciated everything I said but just said that we only God sees his day-to-day life and basically he’s waiting for God to show him that he’s ready for baptism. Hermano Varela talked a little bit about what I was thinking which was cool. In my head I was just like, “Abñer, do you not realize that we literally live and breathe the Gospel?! We are constantly studying and trying to be intune with the spirit 24/7. Our job is to help people prepare for baptism. I would like to think that we are in-tune with the spirit enough to know if somebody is ready to be baptized!” But I know at this point it’s all up to him. We have taught him everything and done literally every single thing possible to help him prepare for baptism. Our mission president doesn’t even have anything else we can do for him. It’s basically just up to him to make the decision to be baptized. I just wish he would understand that even if there is something he’s hiding or not telling us, that baptism would help him not feel that guilt anymore. It’s literally a fresh start and now you have the guiding, dirrecting influence of the Spirit! Overall it was a really good lesson but I just want him to get baptized so bad. He has no idea the blessing it will be.
Thursday. Today is where everything went south… We started off the day with some service at Samaritin Inn which was fun and then we exchanged afterwards with the other spanish Elders. I went with Elder Gauruder to their area and then Elder Bowen and Elder Hansen were in ours. We did some facebook work and some video editing while the other Elders went to the food pantry. Elder Gauruder and I went to KF Bell (KFC & TacoBell in the same building) but before we even said a prayer to start comp study, Elder Bowen and Elder Hansen called us. It was Elder Bowen on the phone but by the tone of his voice I immediately knew something was wrong. He said that Elder Hansen had hit his head and paramedics were checking him out. Obviously that’s not good but I thought it was just like football where they look at your eyes and talk to you and then they’re like, “yeah you’ve got a concussion go home and rest” but then Elder Bowen said they had him on a stretcher and were putting him in the ambulance. I was immediately in shock. I told him to get in the ambulance with him and we would be there as soon as possible. They left their car at the food pantry so we snagged the English Elders in our district to pick it up later. We went to the hospital and the mission nurse (Sister Barton) was there with him. Elder Bowen was in the waiting room when we walked in. Everyone stayed there but they said 1 person could stay with Elder Hansen so I went in. The hospital was crazy packed so he was just on a bed in the hallway. He had blood all over his shirt and did not look good. They took him in for a CT scan so I stayed in the hall talking with Sister Barton. He came back about 30 min later. During the span of an hour and a half-ish, he asked Sister Barton how Elder Barton was doing 15 times. He also asked what happened even more times than that.
Fortunately the CT scan came back clear and he only needed 2 staples in his head. They also did and EKG and everything was normal. So basically he just has a really bad concussion. What had happened was he was unloading a big pallet from the truck to take inside the food pantry. He was doing the same thing Elder Allgaier and I were doing in the videos from my last email or the one before. They moved the pallet out of the truck and onto the platform and then lower the platform to the ground to take the pallet off. As they were moving the pallet onto the platform Elder Hansen’s shoe caught on the pallet. The pallet almost fell off the platform so he might have been trying to jump off out of the way. His foot was caught though so he tumbled onto the asphalt and hit his head. His shoe was torn apart so that’s our best guess of what happened. Elder Bowen was on the other side of the pallet so he didn’t see what happened. Elder Bowen gave him a blessing and everything before the paramedics came. Fortunately the pallet didnt fall off the truck because if it did, it would have crushed Elder Hansen probably killing him or at least severely injuring him more than he already was. We went home and let Elder Hansen rest. It was a pretty traumatic experience I’m not gonna lie. In the hospital he did not look good and it was just scary thinking about him having to go home or go through any intense procedure. But he’s all good now. Just resting and recovering.
Once Elder Bowen left we were all stuck inside until Elder Sathre came. So for 5 hours Elder Gauruder and I cleaned the apartment and got rid of a ton of crap that didn’t need to be in the apartment
That night Brittian also called his mom to get permission to be baptized. The church has a rule that both parents need to give permission to avoid any problems, lawsuits, etc. Brittian’s Dad doesn’t have full custody so we need his biological mom to give us permission. If you’ve read my emails recently, Brittian’s mom is a snake. She is manipulative in so many ways and has emotionally abused her children. There is so much I want to say about her that I know I shouldn’t. But he called her and asked for permission and she said no. He was pretty devastated. I told him to send us her number because I wanted to talk to her. I had high pretty high hopes. We gave her a call and I tried to be extrememly kind and respectful. We told her we were the missionaries and wanted to talk to her about Brittian. She told us she already told him no and that she doesn’t like the church. She literally said, “There are many problems I have with the Mormon church and at this point in your life I probably know more about your church than you”. I was taken back. Did she really just say that? THE AUDACITY!! We asked her what specific problems she had but she “didn’t want to get into it” and hungup the phone. It made me super sad because now we can’t baptize him on the 10th. We have to wait until his Dad gets full custody or wait 2 years for him to be 18 so he doesn’t need his parents’ permission.
An hour later at the end of my personal study she called us again. My heart dropped. I ran into the room with Elder Hansen and answered the phone. She asked us what we wanted to talk about specifically about Brittian. I tried to be soooooo nice and was like, “Brittian is such a great kid. He is always so kind and is constantly trying to grow his testimony of Jesus Christ and his relationship with Heavenly Father. So I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for him.” Trying to be as nice as possible. But then she goes, “What do you mean everything I’ve done?” So I told her for raising him right and teaching him the right things and helping him become the person that he is. Immediately she goess, “You’re right, my husband and I did raise him right but I don’t approve of anything he’s doing. You may think that he’s trying to get closer to God but he’s actually going to your church out of rebellion. He knows I don’t like your church so he’s going there to make me mad. Thank you for trying to help him but you’re not so stay away from him.” I was so surprised she just said that. She claimed his Dad (her ex-husband) is forcing him to go to church just like he forced her. So I told her that his dad wasn’t even going to church. Cause he’s inactive and neither his Him or his wife (Brittians step-mom) have been attending church. I tried to explain that Brittian is doing all of this on his own. Nobody is forcing him to go to church or to meet with us. This is all him and his desires. But then she got all mad that if his Dad doesn’t even want to be a part of the church then there is no readon for Brittian to be anywhere near our church or us. She FLIPPED out. I couldn’t believe everything she just said. She said she doesn’t want him meeting with us or going to church. So she asked us “will you stop talking to him? Will you respect me as his parent?” I told her we will do what we think is best for Brittian. She laughed and goes “what YOU think. Wow you’re completely ignoring me! People these days!” And hung up. Just the whole time talking to her I just felt so bad. The spirit left as soon as we started talking to her. It just blows my mind how someone can be so oblivious to the joy and happiness of the Restored Gospel. She made me so unbelievably mad. We called Brittian and talked with him for a bit because he was pretty devastated. He was like, “I was just so excited to get the gift of the Holy Ghost. And I don’t know what to do anymore.” It just broke my heart and made me so angry at his mom. The only thing that gave me comfort was thinking about the Family proclamation when it says,
“We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God”
Regardless of what happens now, what she does, or what she says, she will stand before the judgment bar of God knowing full well that she witheld blessings and saving ordinances from her son.
We have been stuck inside all of Friday and Saturday so Elder Hansen could sleep but we went to church on Sunday. His head started hurting a ton so we left after sacrament meeting. It has definitely been an interesting weekend and start to the transfer. It’s crazy to think I only have 6 weeks left. The time just keeps winding down its so insane. But life’s been crazy but good!!
I love this quote by President Nelson,
“Every day that you and I choose to live celestial laws, every day that we keep our covenants and help others to do the same, joy will be ours.”
Obviously we can’t control what happens in our lives but we can focus on the good. We can choose to be obedient to God’s commandments and receive the blessing of joy! Keeping our covenants allows us to access greater joy and happiness! I love you all so much!! Muchos besos! And remember, God is good all God time, and all the time, God is good! 
️ 
All my love,
Elder Grubbs
