Merry Early Christmas!

Hello! I hope everyone has had a great week! My week has been awesome! Arlington is truly a blessed place. Everyone actually listens to what we have to say down here! We have met a lot of people and have had such awesome experiences this week!

First off, apparently Elder Blanchard is the zone leader and I had no idea until I met him last Wednesday. So I'm a zone leader buddy! Apart of being zone leader buddy is we go on a lot of trade offs with a lot of other companionships because elder Blanchard has to go with every district leader in the zone and also one of the assistants to the president. So this week we went on trade offs with the assistants to the Presdient and I went with elder Stuart who is my grandpa on the mission! Just in case you don't know what I mean by grandpa on my mission, whoever trains you is your dad so Elder Kunde is my dad because he trained me and Elder Stuart trained Elder Kunde so he's his dad, therefore Elder Stuart is my grandpa. Elder Stuart is a fantastic missionary too! He has been a trainer, a district leader, a zone leader and now he's an assisstant to the president and he's only been out about 18 months! I learned so much from him on my trade off with him! We had such a good time and he is seriuosly the most energetic guy I've ever met! He really showed me how to get to know people we meet on the streets before we teach them or ask to teach them. It really helps them to feel more comfortable with us and more willing to listen to what we have to say because they feel almost like we are friends at the point.

Also we have a few progressing investigators who are awesome! One of them is Cierra and she is progressing really well. Her boyfriend is a member, his name is Damian, and we met with him to teach her and we were able to set up a baptism date for her on Sunday the 31st! She said that date would be easiest for her because she lives far from the church so doing it after church would be best. Plus that would be so cool getting baptised on New Year's Eve! So please keep her in your prayers so that all will go well and she can stay focused on the path to baptism. Also there is another girl named Carrie who also said she would get baptised!  We don't have a date but she seems really interested and loves reading the Book of Mormon. Also literally right after we taught her this guy drove by and stopped and rolled his window down. He said his name was John and he was meeting with missionaries with his girlfriend and they told him to start meeting with us because we were in his area where he lived. Then he said he wants to be baptised but he has to give up smoking so we'll work with him on that. It was super awesome though to literally have two people commit to baptism in a span of 5 minutes. Arlington is where it's at!

Also there is this super awesome guy down here named Calvin! I know he has the same name as me! He has some sort of special needs but he is black and loves missionaries and so he took me and Elder Blanchard to this chinese buffet and they had squid there. It was literally a small squid, not just tentacles or anything but the whole thing! And Calvin was like, "Rookies eat squid" and so I had to eat the squid! It was super nasty looking and it felt like I was chewing on a rubber squid toy but it actually didn't taste too bad. I probably wouldn't eat it again but if I were forced then maybe. But Calvin is so funny! He says I look like the joker from the show Gotham so he always calls me joker. He also has like thousands of friends on Facebook and knows pretty much all of the missionaries in the mission! He is something else! Look him up on Facebook though his name is Calvin Sonnirea. He always goes up to people and gets in there face and either starts speaking gibberish or says, "Did you miss this face?" and then he makes a funny face. He is so awesome!

There was also a really cool concert at our church called Genesis. It's where African American Mormons do a cool music concert with soulful music like in a Baptist church. It was super cool! The missionaries sang joy to the  world and Infant Holy, Infant Loly. After that there were people from other churches around the area that had there own songs and it was so awesome! At some points everyone was clapping to the rhythm of the song and standing up and shouting halleluia! It was so much fun! We all were really getting into it! There was a guy who brough a keyboard and was going crazy on it! He was amazing! It was honestly one of the best times I've had on my mission!

So far everything has been amazing in Arlington! I am seriously having the best time here and am seeing many blessings already and I know there are many many more to come. The members are super awesome even though I havn't quite met all of them but so far they are amazing! I love it here!

I love y'all! I hope all is going great! Y'all are always in my prayers! Keep on keepin' on! 

Reply to Mom's Email - giving some advice and missing Caroling!

Hi Mom - 

Thank you so much for your prayers! We had a super busy week this week like I said in my weekly but the few times we were able to proselyte, people would actually talk to us. Arlington should be a super fun place to proselyte and I hear that missionaries meet some very interesting people so I'm super excited!

I didn't think I would say this but I miss Christmas caroling! Nothing but awesome memories from when I went with you guys. Faith is definitely a very important thing to have out here. It's always important to find the little things in each day that were good. It helps a lot! 

It's great to hear Bryson's doing well! I need to email him it's been a while. Gabe never responds to my weeklys and I don't think I've sent him a personal one yet but I might have. He needs to watch those 12 steps to addiction recovery videos. I recommend showing those to the boys cuz there are some really crazy stories on there and it's really good. Maybe tonight for Family Home Evening or something show a few of them or all of them depending on time but they are super good. 

I'm so happy for Jack Berg! He's come such a long way! I can't wait to see where he goes for his mission I'm so excited! And Christian sounds great! Classic Christian too that's so funny! 

Also I opened my Christmas package cuz I wanted to open it in Fleming Island and I couldn't wait. I have no will power! I'll try really hard not to open the other one till Christmas. I'll send you the address in Arlington next Monday. Thank you so much for everything you sent! Those shoes are sweet and this keyboard I'm using is awesome and makes it so much easier to type up emails! I also used it to type up my talk for Sunday! And all that food too! I'm so happy! I never have any snacks here! That tie is super cool too! I might be able to wear that year round because it doesn't have any characters on it. 

I love you so much! Thanks for everything you do!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Christmas party and transfers!

Heyo! This week has been a very interesting, fun, and sad week. First on Tuesday we had interviews with President Lee and district meeting for pretty much the whole day. There are only 6 of us in my district! We are probably the smallest district in the mission but I'm not quite sure. Also our district is one of the last districts that President Lee visits so by the time he gets to us, he's tired out from all the interviews he's had. Everyone in my district had about 10 minute long interviews and it seemed like they all were pretty much the same. Anyways after district meeting we had an awesome district dinner at a pizza place where you get your own pizza and you tell them what you want on it. It was super good! Then we got frozen yogurt afterwards! It was an expensive but very fun night!

On Wednesday, we had did service as a district by raking this old lady's yard who is in our ward. She had a big yard and also a bunch of leaves on it so that took a while but it was fun and her caretaker gave us a bunch of soda so that made it even better! After that we set up for our mission Christmas party. It took a super long time because there were only 8 of us setting up about 30 tables and over 200 chairs! We made it fun though. After that me and Elder Roy went biking in the surprisingly cold Florida weather. We found a lot of people to talk to none of which became new investigators but are definitely people we will revisit. We had some pretty funny conversations with some people and one of them told us about their religion called eleven twenty two which is literally a rave! She said there's lazers and fog machines and Pink Floyd music with a guy reading out of the Bible. It was definitely a very different way to worship.

Thursday was the mission Christmas party! It was super awesome! First I was able to meet up with everyone from my mtc district and reunite with them! Then every zone had a 10 minute skit planned out and they were super funny! President and Sister Lee had one too with the APs which was super funny! President Lee kept forgetting his line and Sister Lee was getting super mad but was trying not to show it. It was hilarious! My zone did the 12 weeks of training (like the 12 days of Christmas). It was super funny! I don't know if they posted videos of them on the mission page but just in case they did I was in week 3 and week 9. After that we ate a lot of food! It was a classic Christmas meal but they had tons of different desserts! It was super good! Lastly we had a spiritual musical devotional. Our mission is super talented! There are so many missionaries who can sing and play instruments amazingly! There were like 12 different songs that were performed and each one brought a really strong spirit. It was honestly one of the best times on my mission so far.

Saturday was the transfer call! The results: I'm the only one in my district getting transferred. I'm getting transferred to Arlington. I really wanted to stay in Fleming Island one more transfer but the Lord needs me elsewhere so I will go where he wants me to go. My new companions name is Elder Blanchard and I'll meet him on Wednesday. I've heard that Arlington is super awesome and everyone there is super humble so it's going to be fun talking to people. I'm super excited!

On Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. It was about seeing everything through the Lord's eyes. I based it off the Elder Zwick's talk this last General Conference. It is a great talk an I suggest y'all read it. It was super hard saying goodbye to a lot of people and I still need to go say goodbye to more people these next few days. Goodbyes are hard but I'll get through them. I'm am just super excited to finally be done with training and Fleming Island was a great place to be trained! I'll miss servin here but I know I'll love Arlington and wherever I go after that because I'm doing the Lord's work by bring others unto Christ and that's all I need to be doing to enjoy my mission. The Lord blesses those who want to improve and I know that I'm improving more and more each day and Arlington will help me tremendously. I love all of you and I'm thankful for each one of you and the role y'all have played in my life. God bless.

Love,

Elder Plumb

Whole Mission at the Christmas 2017 Party

Elder Plumb on the right in costume for their skit

Your Area is As Hard As You Make It!

Hello! This week was another great one! Elder Roy and I made sure to work extra hard and try and find people to teach as much as possible! We talked to everyone we saw and car fasted (when you don't use the car.  We walked everywhere and rode our bikes) 2 days so that we could find and talk to more people. We were able to find one new investigator and got a lot of return appointments! We are going to continue to push hard and find, find, find!

We also are trying to visit some of the different churches down here so that we can see how everyone else worships. Most of the rejections we get they say they go to this certain church and we want to be able to say, " hey we visited there one time! It was great!" We are hoping that will spark some good conversations and hopefully get them to visit our church.

Next week we are going to go to a Catholic church and yesterday we went to an Anglican church Christmas devotional! It was something else. The choir was dressed up in white robes and there was an orchestra! It was a really cool experience to see how other faiths worship. We went with a sweet old lady who we call grandma Jan who lives in our apartment complex. She lives all by herself so every once in a while we will go over to her apartment with the other elders and play dominoes with her. She is super awesome and funny! When we were over playing dominoes, she would dance with us while she played Elvis and Frank Sinatra type music! It was really funny!

Also I saw another gator! It was only about 4-5 feet long but I got super close and took pictures so I'll send those!

Love you all and thanks for all the emails y'all send and the love and support!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Thanksgiving!

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! Like I said last week I love hearing from everyone so don't forget to tell me how thanksgiving was for y'all and what your plans are for Christmas!

My thanksgiving was amazing! First we had breakfast at the wheelers house with the other set of elder in our district. It was really fun! They gave us a whole bunch of food including biscuits and gravy! After breakfast they should us their VR video game set which is one of those goggle things that you put over your eyes and it's like your in the game playing! They showed us Minecraft and it was super cool! In the game we flew up high in the sky and dropped down back to the earth and it actually felt like I was free falling! It was really cool! After that, their son took us to this really cool dock that snaked through a swamp! It was raining though so we didn't see any gators or snakes but he said we could come back on a pday when it's warm outside and we could see tons of gators and poisonous snakes! I'm super excited! The dock also went out about 200 yards into the saint Johns river so we are also planning on going fishing there on a pday too!

For lunch we went to the Jarvis's house and she is a super good cook! She cooked us deep fried turkey and it was delicious! I've never had a better tasting thanksgiving! (Sorry mom) After lunch we played a few board games with them and then we played soccer in their backyard. They had a pretty big soccer field back there so it was pretty fun! For dinner we went to the Rivera's house who is our ward mission leader. They are Puerto Rican so we had some Puerto Rican food and it was really good too! We also played a fun scripture trivia game with them that really tested out knowledge bout the scriptures but I definitely learned a lot from it! He said he would bring it to our meetings and we could play a little after the meetings haha! The riveras are literally the best family ever though! They are like my parents out here in Fleming island they do everything for us. I hope he stays as ward mission leader forever while I'm here!

This whole week we've been sharing with people the new light of the world initiative this year. It's basically the same thing they did last year except with different things for each day so make sure that y'all follow the best you can to the calendar and you will see the happiness and love of Christ everyday this Christmas season which, let's be honest, is the best thing to have for Christmas. Spread the joy! Light the world! Feel the love of Christ! I love you all and I hope y'all have an amazing holiday!

Love,

Elder Plumb

It's Almost the Best Day of the Year!!!

Hello!
How is everyone doing? I love hearing from everyone every Monday! Don't stop emailing me! I may not be able to respond to everyone every week so y'all might receive emails a few weeks later.

It's almost thanksgiving! We have like 5 families who invited us over so we'll spend the whole day eatin! Also in the morning we have the turkey bowl where we play flag football with a bunch of different wards! It's gonna be so much fun!

This week a normal week of just visiting less active and trying to find people to teach along the way. I got to meet a lot of less active members but sadly none of them came to church. A lot of our ward is less active so we literally spent the whole week visiting them and we aren't even halfway done! It's gonna be fun though!

Love all of you! Keep emailing me!

Love,

Elder Plumb



This pic was posted on the Mission Facebook page.  They were helping the primary kids sing, Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam!

Yellooooooo

This week was not a very interesting week. Me and elder Roy basically just biked and knocked and got a few interesting people.

The first person we talked to was Tracy Pickens and we talked to her for a good 45 minutes on her front porch. She kept telling us how she is an apostle of Christ and we kept asking her "don't you mean disciple?" and she kept on saying that Jesus wanted her to be on of his apostles. Then she was saying how she was saved from drugs and she used to be addicted to pain pills but now she only has 4 or 5 a day! It was pretty funny. We had a member with us whose name is Tyler and he isn't all there in the head so he asked her if she had been to the psych ward down the street. And she just was like "no I went to the one in Orange park!" It was a really weird and funny experience and now she wants us to come back and she will bring her Baptist preacher so we can ask each other questions so ya. Then she said this insane prayer and talked for about 2 min about the devil! She said "And you Satan you stay away from these boys and don't lay a finger on them or else I'll get you!" It was a really fun experience to say the least!

The second one was this guy named Steven who we found biking in a neighborhood. He invited us over to his house but then when we got there he was like "oh wait I forgot I have a court case today! They keep trying to put me back in jail but they ain't gonna!" So we came back a few days later and asked him how his court case went and he said "I didn't go cuz I knew they would put me back in jail so I'm hiding out here for now so don't tell anyone!" And then he had to go to work so we'll see what happens next time we visit him.

Also we were chopping would at our bishops house and found a huge snapping turtle and we took pictures of us holding it! It was so heavy! 

That's all that really happened this week I love y'all! 

Love

Elder Plumb

November 6, 2017 - First Baptism!! First Alligator Sighting!!

Hey y'all! This week was awesome! Elder Roy is an awesome companion and a crazy hard worker! I love it! He's from the missionary factory of... you guessed it... Utah! We bike so much and it gives us so many opportunities to find people on the street and talk to them. We even spent one of our car days and biked 20 miles! I don't have to worry about gaining weight this transfer! We have already gotten a few potential investigators from biking also! I'm super excited to serve with Elder Roy he's already teaching me a lot.

I also had my first baptism this week! It was Luke Haskell and he's a 9 year old boy who's mom and brother are members but his dad isn't and used to be super against the church so that's why it took a while for Luke to get baptized. But I saw a big change in Luke's dad's heart when Michael, Luke's older brother, got his mission call to Ogden, Utah. It was a really cool experience to see the happiness grow in their family when we taught Luke and prepared him for baptism. Michael was able to baptize Luke and confirm him a member and their dad actually attended the baptism and then church the next day to see Luke receive the gift of the Holy Ghost! Hopefully we can get him to come to church on a regular basis.

Seeing the change that can happen in their life just reminds me of why I'm out here on a mission. I'm here to change people's lives for the better and bring them unto Christ. There's nothing better than doing the Lord's work and making everyone happy. I'm so blessed to be out here on a mission and also to be helping the Lord hasten his work with Facebook and technology. If it weren't for Facebook messenger video chats, we wouldn't have been able to teach Luke because of their living conditions. Yet despite everything they are going through right now they are still living the gospel and doing what they need to do and that is blessing their lives tremendously.

I also saw my first gator while biking!!! It was super cool and when I went back there the next day it was just chillin out of the water so I could see the whole body! It was a good 6 or 7 feet long! I'll send pictures!

Love y'all!

Love,
Elder Plumb

Transfers!

Oct. 30, 2017

This week was a busy week! First on Tuesday we had interviews with President Lee. Elder Kunde was super nervous for his because he was sure he was going to get transferred because he had been in Fleming Island for 7 and a half months so he wanted to ask President Lee if he could stay. As for me I didn't think my interview was going to be very long cuz I'm still a trainee but it ended up being super long! President Lee can talk! We basically just talked about how I'm doing and what's been the hardest and best thing in my mission. It was pretty cool though.

Saturday was the Trunk or Treat party at church, which was really fun! There were a lot of non members there so we talked to a lot of them. We didn't get any of them to have return appointments at their house or get any of them to church but oh well at least they had fun. Right after that was the transfer call!

This is like the a huge thing we look forward to! It's like election day, you're super excited/nervous cuz it can either be good for you or terrible. Sadly Elder Kunde got transferred to Timaquana. So I'm going to have a second trainer! His name is Elder Roy and I’ll get to meet him on Wednesday! It's good though cuz Elder Kunde is still in our zone so I'll see him on p-days! The only ones staying in my district are me and Elder Carter and Elder Carter is the new district leader and he's only been out 4 months! It's crazy! We keep joking with him about how he's going to be an assistant to the mission president soon which is a rare thing to be on a mission. Our old district leader, Elder Barnes, is done with his mission so he went to the mission home last night so Elder Carter is with Elder Kunde and I until Wednesday! So we're in a trio for a little while!

Also Elder Kunde and I had a cool 4th floor last door experience! We were knocking around a street with huge houses at like 8 pm. Not the best idea. They all answered but then slammed the door in our faces once they saw who it was. One guy said, "see that road behind you, go hit it". Then he slammed the door. It was pretty funny. We were just about to leave cuz we weren't getting anywhere and then we thought to knock one more door. His name was Greg and he was a super energetic guy! He invited us in and we showed him a video about Jesus Christ! He said he was Christian and was happy with his life but said we could come back and if God wanted him to be a Mormon he would be the best Mormon ever! So we went to see him on Saturday but he wasn't home so we'll see him another time but it was still pretty cool.

I love y'all hope all is well!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Mormon Shotgun

October 23, 2017

Hellooooooo! This week was not very interesting. We mostly knocked on doors the whole week! And no one opened their door either. But I guess that happens a lot on a mission.

A few things that did happen this week were:

1. We got a baptism date for a little 10 year old boy for Nov. 4! It wasn't very hard because his mom and brother are members and his brother is going on a mission to Ogden, Utah so we just had to teach the lessons to him and he would get baptised. I wish they were all like that.

2. I gave a lesson in gospel principles class on Sunday and it was probably the easiest lesson I've ever given. Our ward mission leader is Brother Rivera and him and his wife LOVE to talk! So I would ask a question and they would take up about 15 min. just talking about it and basically they taught the lesson for me so that was pretty awesome! Lol.

Other than those me and Elder Kunde got a lot of food from an old man who isn't a member but loves missionaries and always helps them out. So he gave us this huge thing of coke cans and we didn't know what to do with all of them so we had a little fun and started shot gunning them! It was really funny! Especially when Elder Kunde went - lol! I'll send the videos!

Well I hope all is well and I love y'all!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Great Week! October 16, 2017

This week was great! It started out a little rough though with some crazy people who stopped us on our way to scripture class though. So we were biking and saw a couple walking on the sidewalk and we stopped and asked if they would like a picture of Jesus Christ. The lady said "Sorry, no. I'm sorry to tell you guys but Joseph Smith lied! He lied! He lied! He lied!" At first we were like ok it's just more crazy people who hate Joseph Smith. Then they told us they were Mormon their whole lives until a few years ago and the guy had served a mission McCallen, Texas. They just started ripping on Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and all of the apostles and President Monson. Every time we tried to talk they just cut us off. Both Elder Kunde and I were getting pissed by what they were saying and we were also late to our class by then. So we told them they were making us late to our class and we left. The worst part about it all was they were talking to us like they were trying to save us and that we were put here against our will. I was just really sad that people who experienced the blessings of being born in the gospel could fall away and attack the church like it was the great and abominable church. Elder Kunde was really upset after it had happened and our ward mission leader ended up giving him a blessing. He said that he's met people like that but that these people were different. I could tell what he meant. There was definitely not a good spirit when we talked to those people.

Aside from that we made it a goal this week on Thursday to go out with at least one member from church a day and visit less actives and go tracting. We started on Friday and had a very awesome day! There were only two people who answered their doors but they were both awesome experiences!

The first one was a lady named Nicole who has cancer. We were there to visit a less active but she answered and said that the person we were looking for didn't live there. So we told her who we were and what we did and unlike everyone else we visit she listened to what we had to say. I could tell she was very humbled because of her cancer. Then we asked her if she would like to k ow about our church and she said sure so we taught her about the restoration on her front porch! We talked for about 20 minutes and gave her a Book of Mormon. Then the member we had with us asked her if she would like a blessing and of course she said yes. So I gave her the blessing! It was my first one! And it was definitely not what I thought my first blessing would be. It was for a lady with cancer on her front porch! It was really spiritual though and I could really feel the spirit guide me on what to say. It ended up being a good 8 minutes long! I thought I would just go for like 1 minute if that. It was such a cool experience to have things to say just pop in my head! I know it's usually not like that but God definitely needed her to hear those things. After the blessing she said she felt really good and she couldn't stop thanking me. We gave her our number and told her to call us if she needed any help and asked her if we could come back and teach her more but she said she didn't live there and she is always in and out of the hospital and family members homes. She said she would never forget that experience though and she would reach out to other missionaries wherever she was if she needed anything. She was a really cool lady and hope she follows the feeling she had that day.

The other one who answered the door was a less active named brother bolen. He let us in and we just talked for about 30 minutes and then we asked if we could share a spiritual message with him. We showed him a video about how Jesus is always there with us and he waits patiently for us until we need his help. After we were done, he looked really sad and asked me to say a prayer before we leave. After I finished, he said he wanted to say a prayer so he did. He broke down in tears during his prayer and asked God to help forgive him and help him which we had no idea why. After that he just kept crying and we told him we loved him and that God loves him. He gathered himself and gave each of us hugs and told us to visit him often so we are planning this next week to visit him and help him with whatever he is going through and help him get back to church.

Other than those three experiences, this week was pretty normal. I've notice though that the more me and Elder Kunde work hard and efficiently the more the Lord blesses and helps us to find miracles each day. Even though that experience with two Mormon haters seemed like a bad experience I think the Lord put them in our path to help us because that just made us want to work harder to help people come unto Christ because we saw and felt how terrible it would be to deny this gospel from those two people. There is always a positive in every situation we have and I know those positives come from God because all good things come from God. I'm  definitely a lot more grateful for this gospel and the countless blessings I have received from it and I'm especially grateful that I can spend two years of my life helping others experience the joy and blessings that I've experienced.

New Temporary Address for Elder Plumb for about 1 month or so

Elder Calvin Plumb 

2285 Marsh Hawk Lane

Building 16

Apartment 203

Fleming Island Florida

32003

Smartphones and Facebook!       Oct. 9, 2017

Hello! This week was fantastic like always! Facebook is awesome! So far I've spent most of the time I've had on Facebook just making a profile and friending people. As y'all have already probably seen, I've posted a few things already. I've made it a goal to have at least one post a day. But other than that we really haven’t had much success with finding people on Facebook because we are just the beta testers. We are just 1 of 12 missions in the world that has Facebook and Smart phones so the first presidency told us that we need to find ways to help others come unto Christ through Facebook so that they can have other missions use Facebook and know how to use it to fulfill their purpose.

The only luck Elder Kunde and I have had was when an investigator we hadn't met Facebook messaged us and introduced himself because none of us had met him because apparently he hadn't met with the missionaries for a while because he has to babysit a lot. So we told him we could FaceTime him through Facebook and teach him through that and he agreed so on Saturday we have a lesson with him!

Smart phones are so useful because now we have a hot spot everywhere we go! The Lord is really trusting us with these new things. You don't know how many times I've wanted to look up football scores on Facebook but I know that if I'm exactly obedient then miracles will happen and that is definitely something I need for Facebook because it is really hard to find ways to get new investigators on there.

Also keep my MTC companion, Elder Hatch, in your prayers. He's had a lot of back problems his whole life and now he has to go home because of back spasms he had. But he said he wants to come back out if and when he gets better so pray for him to get better.

Well I hope y'all are doing well! I love all of you!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Letter between Elder Plumb and Dad on his Spiritual Change & Thank you for being tough!

Elder Plumb,

Mom, Bishop Cottle, Sister Cottle, Brother Weaver... those that know you well can't help but see the mighty change that has happened to you in the last few weeks. The power of the priesthood and being set apart to preach the gospel is a powerful thing as long as you accept that blessing and take action. President Kimball said "The setting apart may be taken literally; it is a setting apart from sin, apart form the carnal, apart form everything which is crude, low, vicious, cheap or vulgar; set apart from the world to a higher plane of thought and activity. The blessing is conditioned upon faithful performance." I'm grateful that you are having a good attitude and proceeding with "faithful performance," I couldn't be more proud of you.

Have a great week.

Love you,

Dad

Dad -

Ya I definitely feel different and continue to feel different while being out here. It's a good different though. That quote from President Kimball is spot on. I think just being away from any temptation to do bad or just lazy non productive things really changes my attitude and I've honestly been a lot happier and have felt the spirit with me a lot more because of it. I do still really miss football and fantasy football but when I replace that with scripture study it helps me realize I don't need football to keep me busy.

And thank you for teaching me to persevere through hard things! I got really sick in the MTC and wanted to just stay in my room and sleep but I thought about what you would say to me if I did that,so I toughed it out and went to class and learned a lot and I know I definitely wouldn't be as prepared out here if I missed that day and who knows maybe me sleeping in would have made me more sick and caused me to miss another day. But I'm grateful for you and Mom for teaching me how to not be wimp - haha. Love ya!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Letter to Mom

Mom - I haven't done too much clean up here in Jacksonville, FL because most of it has already been done and the last time we were supposed to have a full day of service, me and Elder Kunde had two baptisms to help out with so we didn't do any service that day. But I have helped rake an old lady’s yard and I did help one guy remove a big tree stump out of his yard.

Right now we haven't had any luck tracting. We try to pass out cards to people but they never take one. There is a funny story about that though. One day we were biking and ran into a cross country group and we just biked around them and handed out cards to each one of them as we passed by so that helped us a lot by getting rid of cards - haha. But there is an old lady named Grandma Jan (that's just what she told us to call her) and she has always loved the missionaries but has never wanted discussions.  However, she loves me and Elder Kunde so much that she let us talk to her on her porch and we are trying to baptize her now, so hopefully all goes well there.

The spiritual side is going awesome! Every morning I get an hour of personal study and always find something great to study. I've set a goal to write notes for everything I do in personal study so that helped me a lot in feeling the spirit more and learning more. Also when we taught Grandma Jan we really brought the spirit in I could tell she was feeling it. It was really cool cuz she wasn't really into it at first cuz she said she was just too busy to do anything like read or go to church, but then I felt out of nowhere to ask her to come to scripture class on Tuesdays at 7pm and she said that's like the only time during the week she is available. I know that was the spirit that prompted me to say that and it was a pretty cool experience.

I hope grandpa get better and I'll make sure to keep him in my prayers. And also pday ends at 6pm tonight so if everyone could right me before then that would be great if not its fine cuz I know y'all are busy. Love ya and hope everything gets better!

Love, Calvin

                           Birthday cake I sent for him to make and the candles should be 19!

General Conference and Possum!

Hey y'all!

This was an amazing week! It started out normal but got better as the week went on. Basically every day was normal actually except these last few days. Once General conference started it got a lot better.  General conference on a mission is like super bowl Sunday! We can't watch tv at all so that might be a reason why it's so hyped. So first on Saturday we went to an investigators house to watch it and they loved it. They also made some stir fry for us which was so good. After that we went to our bishop’s house for the second session and had even more food! They gave us some brownies and ice cream and their theater room was awesome! It was super dark though and it was literally impossible to not fall asleep.

My favorite talk for Saturday though was probably Elder Rasband’s. He talked about how there is no coincidence with God. Everything He does is by divine design. We will realize that some things in our lives that we thought were coincidences were actually not coincidences and that they were meant to happen. The Lord notices everything that happens in our lives. He ‘knows the end from the beginning'. He is in our lives and knows everything from a sparrow falling to the ground to the major things that happen in our lives. He is always with us no matter what.

After that we went to priesthood session but since our stake is really small they have a bbq before priesthood session and it was sooooo good! We had so much food throughout the day I probably gained at least 10 pounds. Priesthood session was also very dark and I had just eaten a lot so I fell asleep for most of it as did most of the Elders - lol.

On Sunday we went to the Mandel’s for the first session and they made us a lot of food! We had biscuits and gravy, a cheesy potato and bacon casserole, an egg, sausage, cheese, and bacon casserole, and ginger pumpkin waffles which were actually pretty good.

For the second session we went to the Sim’s house and they were really cool! They have deer heads and goat heads everywhere in their house! They said they have never eaten store bought meat! Elder Kunde had mentioned this to me days before and said that they also eat possum cuz they are really red neck. So when we got there they said they had some taco soup and I thought in my head, "yes! No possum!". But then she said that the meat she used in the soup was possum! So the good mannered Elder I am was like "oooo that sounds good" so she scooped a big bowl of it for me and I started eating it and I told them it tasted like normal meat. They didn’t say anything though so I kept eating and they were just watching me the whole time I was eating it and I thought that was kinda weird. Then when I was finally done they burst out laughing and said it wasn't possum it was just elk meat! And apparently it was Elder Kunde’s idea to tell me it was possum and told them at church to trick me. I was so nervous to eat what wasn't possum! But the last session of General Conference was super good! I loved Elder Anderson's talk. When he talked about Elder Hales and spoke his last words, I felt the spirit so strong and also when he said President Monson’s last conference words as well. Those two men both were two of my favorites every conference and I'm gonna miss hearing from them.

Overall, Conference was super spiritual and I felt like it was the best one I've ever seen but I don't know if that was because I actually paid attention most of the time this time - lol. It was also really nice to be off my bike most of the day for two days and to also eat tons and tons of food! I love all of you and hope y'all the best!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Pictures from Fleming Island, FL

Elder Plumb and Elder Kunde his trainer from Idaho Falls, ID.  Happy 19th Birthday Elder Plumb! 

Don't believe this is their bike, just a fun time playing around with a tandem bike. Elder Plumb and Elder Kunde have their own bikes. How would that be if they had this though!

                                         Fun times on the Tandem Bike! No hands!

1st Letters to Siblings- daily details

Marcus!!! I miss you bro! I wish I could play one on one with you dude no one is as good as you out here! There's no competition it sucks! I'm just kidding there's some good competition but not nearly as good as you. That's so cool you guys got a kitten! I'm jealous! I love kittens and she definitely  won't be a kitten when I get back.  But that is alright I got pet lizards and frogs and alligators out here. There are so many lizards and frogs it's unbelievable! Every door I go to me and my companion Elder Kunde count how many lizards and geckos too and frogs we see on the front porch and around the door! I haven't seen any alligators yet though but that's cuz my area doesn't have too many of them but I'll definitely see some at some point.

That's so cool that your football team is doing great! I hope you're still undefeated. It sounds like you're Antonio Brown and Aquib Talib out there, that's so cool! And also listen to the wise ways of Water Boy and picture the other team as something you hate and destroy them when you tackle them! If you don't understand that ask dad. 

That's so cool you went to a Broncos pre season game with your football team! I haven't even done that! I'm so jealous! 

I'm glad schools going great. And less homework is definitely really cool! Sounds like you've got a lot of friends to keep you busy.

My letters don't sound like me? That's cuz I'm feelin the spirit brotha! A mission is a great thing and I've only had a small piece of this glorious cake! Make sure you get yourself ready for a mission in 7 years! It's truly a fundamazing experience! Love ya buddy I hope you continue to do well in school and football!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Zhenya - It's really cool teaching real people lessons cuz now I know it's not an actor I'm teaching.  They are real people with real questions and they are trying to stump me on purpose lol. And no I don't read the safe guards booklet everyday but I did in the MTC. And so far I've only taught one investigator named Tommy who was referred to us by a youth in our ward named Connor Mendel. Tommy is pretty cool and has a lot of questions but we got him to understand the restoration and the plan of salvation pretty well! Connor is really cool too and he has helped us a lot with referrals. But ya referrals are probably the best way for us to find investigators. We have tried handing out pass a long cards and knocking doors but haven't been successful yet. We got a commitment from someone while knocking to go to church but they didn't show up so ya so far no luck. But it been fun knocking anyway and seeing peoples reactions when we randomly talk to them on the street! I'm loving it and I hope you and Chase are doing well and hopefully school is going great! Love you!

Love,

Elder Plumb

1st Letter from the Mission - He is in Fleming Island, Florida now with Elder Kunde (trainer)

Hellooooooo! I am serving in a place called Fleming island. It's not technically an island but it's surrounded by rivers so it's kind of an island. But it's a super cool area and I see lizards and frogs everywhere I go! I've gotten to know some of the members of the Fleming island second ward very well and they are really nice and interesting people. Some of them have awesome southern accents and are super funny!

My companions name is Elder Kunde and he's from Idaho falls, idaho. He's super cool and loves to hunt so he's got a few good stories about all the big bull elk he's hunted. His favorite NFL team is the Broncos too! He doesn't know like anything about them though but they are his favorite team anyway he says. He's a really good trainer and is really funny too!

My birthday was awesome! First we had a big conference call with president Lee and all of the trainers and he asked us how we were doing and what we have learned so far. Then we went to the church and did some family history stuff that was really boring and afterwards we went back to the apartment and did some studying for about 45 min. Then we heard a knock on the door and it was Brother Mecca who is really funny and has a great accent and he loves the missionaries. But we didn't know why he was here and he just said let's go! So we left with him and I asked him where we were going and he just mumbled something about his neighbor so I still didn't really know what we were doing. So we drove for a bit and then he pulled into a pizza place and I still didn't k ow what was going on until we went in and I saw his wife with a balloon at a table and I finally realized it was a surprise birthday dinner! Elder kunde had set it all up and had some pretty good acting during the whole thing. I thought he was just as confused as I was but he knew the whole time. So we had some really good garlic knots and some pizza and then afterwards we had an ice cream cake! I hadn't been so full for a long time! And then I got pranked again after that by some of the sisters in my district who called us and said one of them was unconscious from a gluten allergic reaction and they needed our help but we could tell it wasn't real. But we drove down to the church and we were right it was another surprise and they had helium balloons which were really fun to use to make our voices super high and they also had some more cake! And to top off the whole birthday was the best thing ever!

When we got home there was a mission wide conference call that our district leader said was VERY IMPORTANT!!! So we got on and president Lee talked for a long time about how technology helps us teach a lot and then he told us all that starting Monday (which is today) we are going to start using Facebook and Google plus to prosilite! And we are also getting smart phones!!! But those aren't until like two more Wednesdays but all district leaders, zone leaders, and sister training leaders get smart phones today. I'm so excited to get started on all that it will be so useful!

I love Florida so much and the people are amazing, funny and really nice it's so great! I love y'all and email me if you got anymore questions!

Love, Elder Plumb