Beautiful Rain!

How's it going everyone?!?!?! This week has been amazing! It also rained a ton yesterday so hopefully that continues! I love the rain!

So this week I got to be assistant to the president again for one day! I went on another trade off with Elder Stuart because Elder Blanchard is a zone leader so he goes on trade offs with the assistants to the president which means he is companions with one of them for a day and I am companions with the other one for that day. Elder Stuart and I had a great time just like last time! He is super funny and is excited about everything! We had a good time just hyping each other up the whole day by yelling in the car and in the apartment, "Elder we're going off!" "Let's baptize!" It was so much fun! He is a super good missionary too I learn so much from him on our trade offs.

Also we had one of our investigators Shanika come to our scripture class this week! It was so awesome because she asked a ton of questions and we had some really awesome discussions! Afterward, we waited with her while she waited for her husband to pick her up and she said that she is definitely going to get baptized and she just wants to keep praying about which date she wants to because she wants to be super committed to whatever date she chooses. She is so awesome!

Also Wayne came to church! He is so committed now to reading, praying, and coming to church! He is still working on getting those people out of his house but he's making progress.

I love hearing about how everyone's doing! I love you all! Keep on keepin on! Go Eagles!

Love,

Elder Plumb

  

Miracles and Transfers!

Hello everybody!

Wow it's been such a great week! We had transfer call this last Saturday! Elder Blanchard and I are staying in Arlington! This is my first time having a two transfer companion finally! I was so nervous because before President Lee started saying who was where, he said that there will be 61 of the 83 companionships getting split up and that there will be 13 white washes (white washes are when two missionaries get transferred into an area and neither of them had been there before). So I thought for sure that I was going to be transferred but I didn't so I'm super happy! Also Elder Lamb who is one of my best buds got transferred into my zone so I'll be seeing him a lot more now!

Thank you so much for the prayers for Wayne! Such a miracle! So bishop went to see him on Tuesday and talked to him. He gave Wayne a lot of money from a member who wanted to remain anonymous to be able to pay for a lawyer and anything else that he needs to be able to get those people out of his house! So awesome! We went and visited him on Friday and he answered the door with his Book of Mormon and he was ready to start reading with us! It was so awesome! He's right back on track!

Also we had another amazing miracle! So we were visiting someone in an apartment complex and as we were leaving we felt like we should stay and walk around for a bit. We ran into this lady walking her dog and she was smoking and drinking coffee. We said hi to her and she was like "oh hello! Sorry I know I'm not supposed to be smoking or drinking coffee!" Apparently she had met with missionaries before a while back and went to church a bunch of times. So her name is Elphie and she is a sweet old lady from Guam who really wants to come back to church and take discussions with us! What a miracle! It's so important to be in tune with spiritual promptings. We added her on Facebook and have been non stop talking to her and sending her spiritually uplifting videos and messages. She can talk forever on Facebook it's crazy! She didn't come to church yesterday though because she is watching over her baby granddaughter who is sick but she will definitely be there next week she said.

Also yesterday I gave a talk in church on prophets, seers, and revelators! I was so nervous and excited at the same time! I found some really awesome stuff on why we should obey prophets and how important they are in our time. Look up the Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet by Ezra Taft Benson. It's super good and I learned a lot from it.

So many awesome things happened this week! I'm so blessed to be out here experiencing all of this! Serving a mission is truly the best thing ever! There are a lot of frustrating moments but in the end the good out weighs the bad tremendously. I seriously love being a missionary and I love all of you so much and am thankful for everyone's example to me in my life and all that you do.

Love,
Elder Plumb

P.S. here are some sweet pictures that me and Elder Blanchard accidentally took. For some reason my tablet started taking pictures of us so we posed haha!

 

Anotha One

Yello! I hope y'alls week was amazing! My week was fantastic! There wasn't really anything super cool that happened but it was a great week!
Thank you all so much for the prayers for Phillip! He's going out of town these next two weeks and he said afterwards he is going to move in with a friend of his that he met! Once that happens he will start coming to church but it might be in another ward so we'll see once he finds out the address. I would love to keep teaching him and help him progress to baptism and prepare him for the temple.  However, if he's in a different ward and those things are still happening, I'll be happy.
We do have a recent convert though named Wayne who said he's starting to not believe in Joseph Smith being a prophet of God because he hasn't been able to feel the spirit when he reads the Book of Mormon. So about Wayne, he fully owns his house but before he was a member he let some people come and stay at his house and some of them were prostitutes. So now over the years there are a bunch of people who live there and come in and out and there are a lot of bad things that go on in that house. He quit smoking and everything else to join the church but never kicked all these people out of his house because what he said was that he verbally agreed to let them stay and apparently its against Florida law or something to go against verbal agreement. I don't know how that would work but we just think he doesn't want to kick them out because if he does then he will have a bunch of crazy people angry at him which is not a good thing. So we talked to him about how living in a place like that would not have the spirit and he should try reading in his car every night to seclude himself from all the sin and bad stuff that go on around him. Also he hasn't been able to come to church because his car his completely broken down and no one can give him a ride. We also shared with him Elder Holland's talk called "Lord, I Believe", which talks about fanning the flame of your faith by exercising it and not letting it die away and that all things are possible to them that believe. It is a super good talk and something he really needed to hear. He agreed with the message and accepted our invitation to read alone in a secluded place.
We came by another day and he said he was too busy to talk to us and that he is still doubting. He was pretty quick to get rid of us so all we could say was to not forget what he had felt at his baptism and the reasons why he got baptized. We were thinking there might be some people in that house who are probably very anti Mormon and are telling him things that aren't true but all we can do now is to be the only spiritual source he has and try our best to get him back to church and have the spirit more in his life. Please please please pray for him. Your prayers are very much needed for him.
Other than that this week has been a great week for finding! We were focusing on adding ten people a day on Facebook. We didn't quite ge to ten a day but we did a lot better than what we usually get so hopefully these people will turn into some promising new investigators.
I'm so happy I get to do these things every day out here. It's so great helping others see and understand why they are here and what God's plan for them is. There is no greater joy than to see someone's life completely 180 and to see the love of Christ work in them and make them the happiest they have ever been. I love being a missionary!
I love y'all! Thanks for all that you do and continue to strive each day to improve and become who your Heavenly Father wants you to become. Keep on keepin' on!
Love,
Elder Plumb 

Wassup!

Hey everyone! This week was another great one! It actually got cold down here! The humidity really amplifies the cold because it was only about 40 degrees and it felt like 25! One day it got below freezing and they had to close all the bridges because they all go up hill so that they are high enough for big ships to go under and so it's almost impossible to go up them when it freezes. It was pretty funny though to see basically nobody driving around that day too just because they was a tiny bit of ice. I can only imagine how everything would've been if it had snowed.

This week nothing insanely cool happened but we were able to visit Phillip and teach him about how the Book of Mormon and the Bible relate. It's really hard for us to understand him because he is Nigerian-Italian and his accent and wording are pretty crazy. He also said it's hard for him to understand us sometimes so lessons can sometimes be a long struggle with him. He has a super good testimony and already says he believes that the Book of Mormon is true and he hasn't even read it yet. Once he gets his own place he said he will come to church every Sunday so that's one thing we need prayers for. Mainly for him to get his own place and for us to be able to understand each other better. Thanks for all the prayers y'all have given already! They are much appreciated and felt!

This week was also zone conference! I love zone conference! I always learn so much, it's amazing! This one was especially amazing, President Lee is by far my most favorite mission president (and only but still)! He talked about 2 Nephi 2:14 and how as missionaries we need to act and not be acted upon. For Facebook, we as missionaries need to not let anything distract us or let ourselves be acted upon. So we need to make sure we act and do things pertaining to our purpose. Also with other things besides Facebook like TV or music or news. We also talked about something that Elder Bednar said which was that everyone always says that we missionaries are sacrificing a lot to be out by being away from family and friends. Being on a mission isn't a sacrifice, it's who we are and who we are supposed to be as missionaries and for the rest of our lives. Yes we may not be able to see our friends and family but we are not focusing on worldly things and being acted upon. Instead we are acting on the Lord's work and that is what we are supposed to do in our life here on Earth. Seriously zone conference is so awesome!

Also it was super sad to hear about Preident Monson passing away but I'm just glad he can be with his wife again. He was an inspiring man and taught a lot of great things in his life. One of my favorite quotes from him is "The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it." We need to always learn from our past mistakes so that we can know what to do now to help improve ourselves and prepare ourselves for the future. He is truly going to be missed but we will be blessed with another prophet called of God here shortly and they will lead and guide us just like President Monson.

I love y'all and hope all is well! Keep on keepin on!
Love,
Elder Plumb

Elder Plumb holding a Boa!  

Happy New Year!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone! This last week was so awesome! Actually it was really just yesterday. But this week we got Philip to commit to be baptised on February 24,  so we'll be working hard to get him ready for that! Keep him in y'alls prayers please! Also John, who was the guy who pulled up to us on the street and said he wants to get baptised, came to church with his girlfriend, who is already a member, and his friend who he said he wants to convert! We gave his friend and Book of Mormon and a Bible and he is super interested so that started yesterday off really well!

Also Cierra got baptised yesterday!!! It was so awesome! She was so happy the whole time and afterwards all she could talk about was continuing having lessons because she loves them a lot! She hasn't been confirmed yet so we'll do that next Sunday.

Last night our zone got invited to the mission home for a fondue dinner! It was super fun! We had raw chicken, shrimp, and steak that we cooked iin the oil and it was like magic! I've never done fondue stuff before so it was super cool! We also had vegetables and bread that we dipped in chesse! For dessert we had strawberries, bannanas, and angel food cake pieces that we dipped in chocolate! Seriously one of the best New Years Eves I've ever had! Afterwards we sang a bunch of hymns the Lee's style. Lee's style was just President and Sister Lee's way of singing "In our Lovely Desseret". We sang the Star Spangled Banner last which was super fun also! Yesterday was so far one of the best days on my mission!

Overall this week was pretty awesome and cold! I want it to snow so bad! I'm excited to start the New Year too! One goal for me this year is to drink no soda. We'll see how that goes! Haha! The best thing I learned in 2017 was that obedience brings many blessings and helps us have the spirit way more in our lives. I love you all so much! Keep on keepin on! 

Elder Plumb & Elder Blanchard with Cierra at her baptism on 12/31/2017

Elder Calvin Plumb & Calvin Sonnirea who is in the Arlington Ward.  He is autistic and has a big heart!

Calvin Sonnirea sent these pictures through Facebook one Sunday Morning while at church.  Made our Plumb household's day to see our favorite red head, Elder Plumb!

Merry Early Christmas Again!

Hello everyone! I hope all is well! Christmas is coming up and I'm so excited! My mission president moved pday to today because Christmas is on Monday so that's why y'all are getting an email today. This week was another great week as well and Christmas here is oing to be awesome too!

For Christmas Eve we are going to two families houses for basically the whole day and we have one hour of church where there is going to be a lot of Christmas music! I'm so excited! On Christmas we are going to two more members houses, one being our bishops house and I love their family! They are super cool! 

This week Elder Blanchard and the two district leaders had a Missionary Leadership Conference so I went with Elder Redford and Elder Louis for the day. They are both one transfer younger than me so it was kinda weird being the longest serving missionary. We had an awesome time though! Elder Louis is from Haiti and can barely speak English so he's kinda quiet but when he talks it's always somethng hilarious or really awesome! He also played football and wants to play for BYU as a safety or defensive back after his mission! Elder Redford is super cool! He played football and was a quarterback and he wants to play quarter back for either Utah or Utah State when he's done serving! Also Elder Redford was telling me that he served with an Elder from Colorado when he was in the MTC and guess who it was! It was Elder Linford! He said he hung out wih him a lot in the MTC because their rooms were right next to each other! If only he came one transfer earlier we could have served together in the MTC! It was awesome though hearing about the weird traditions that they did in that dorm that my group started!

During the trade off we only visited one person because we were in Elder Redford's area and they don't have a car so we got to bike the whole time! It was awesome except Elder Louis had a really bad bike so he couldn't go too far with it. But this lady we visited, her name is Terry, was really awesome! She asked us what we believed about Jesus and also asked us a bunch more questions. Almost everytime we answered she would tell us how wrong we were, it was great! She would tell us about what she believed and instead of making it into a Bible bash we just listened to her and let her tell us what she believed then we would tell her how awesome her testimony was about that and we would share a little bit about what we believed. It ended up turning into a really good conversation instead of a debate. At the end we got her to commit to reading the Book of Mormon and we testified how much the Book of Mormon has blessed our lives and how much it could bless her life as long as she reads and prays about it with the intent to find out if it is true. Elder Redford said that they had never been able to get her to commit to anything before and now she is showing some promise. 

Our investigators have been busy and out of town this week so Elder Blanchard and I didn't have much go on this week but we were able to still stay in contact with thhem and send them some spiritually uplifting videos and messages on Faccebook messenger. Facebook has been super useful lately! We've been using it to have lessons with people and send spiritual messages and also when we meet people on the street we've been able to add them on Facebook and send them cool videos and messages as well. I love Facebook!

I hope y'all have an amazing Christmas! I love and miss you all! Thanks for all the love and support! Keep on keepin on!

Love,

Elder Plumb