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