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