NOT THAT LEFT! YOUR OTHER LEFT!

Hey everybody! Anotha week has gone by and it's been anotha good one. It was my first week with Elder Babcock and it has been pretty good! He's an interesting guy but we've had a good time together so far. He's been out one transfer longer than me and is from California.

General Conference was super good as always! Their was some pretty big news with Sunday services goign to 2 hours next year! Everything in that was kinda confusing to me but I'm sure it will all make more sense as the weeks go by. Of course President Nelson announced 12 new temples! He is just building those like crazy! I can't wait until he announces one for Jacksonville! I really loved the talks as well! There were a lot of really good ones! I really loved Elder Hollands of course and Elder Bednars along with President Nelsons on the name of the church. There were so many other good ones but those three were definitely my favorite. I'm so grateful that we have a living prophet on the earth today to receive revelation from God to help us in these last days. These changes going on lately are proof that the Restoration of Christ's church is still going on and that God hasn't shut His mouth on us. We will always know what to do as long as we heed the words of the Prophet and his apostles and have faith that they are God's chosen people to lead and guide His church here on the earth and prepare us for the second coming of Jesus Christ. We are so blessed!

Last week we were also able to set a baptismal date with Sara! It's for November 10th but we may have to move it because she is going to be very busy with renovating her house this week. She said she will be at church this sunday though which she actually will do unlike a lot of people out here! We are super excited for her and her daughter who is a member in Utah is super excited as well! Please pray for her to be able to meet with us often and that she will be receptive to the things we teach her.

Well that's about everything that has happened this week! I hope you all have a great week! Love yall!

Love,
Elder Plumb

1-3: Me and Afro Pat

4-5: Donuts with the district

I'm not saying Jesus is Thor but...

I hope everyone has had a good week! This week has been a little crazy and very eventful! We had interviews, the temple, and transfer call this week! Crazy stuff!

The transfer call was this last saturday night and I'm actually staying! This is now 3 transfers here in Waycross and that's never happened to me before! I'm super excited to stay because I love this area a lot! Sadly Elder Ivie is leaving and I'm gonna miss him a lot. We had a great time together! My new companion is Elder Babcock. I've heard some good things about him so I'm pretty excited to work with him. 

The temple was also this week which was easily the highlight of the week! It was of course very spiritual and all stress and worldly problems felt like they were on hold while I was there. It was very peaceful and I felt very close to God. There's nothing better than going to the temple that's for sure. It was a full day trip also because we had to drive about 4 hours to the temple from jacksonville and also back to jacksonville plus back to Georgia! We also stopped at cafe rio after the temple so that took up some time as well. It was all worth it though!

This week we had a lesson with this lady named sara who has some pretty good potential! Her daughter is a member in Utah with her foster family and wants to serve a mission so she knows quite a bit about the church and missions. So we taught her the Restoration and she loved it and also has told us that she really wants to quit smoking! She also came to church yesterday which no one seems to want to do here in Waycross but she did it! She has some interesting hippy beliefs which raise some interesting questions she has but she is still wanting to learn and it seems like she wants to be baptised! It was definitely a miracle that we found her because she said that her daughter had prayed for missionaries to find her only a few days before we did! There's no doubt God lead us to her.

I've started reading the New Testament again last week and I noticed something in Matthew that I really liked. In Matthew 1:23 it mentions that Christ would be called, in Hebrew, Emmanuel which means "God with us." In the last verse of Matthew the Savior says, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." With these two things at the beginning and end of his Gospel, Matthew may be identifying a message running throughout the Gospel of Matthew. That God will never forget us and that he is always with us. That is such a significant thing know. Whenever life gets too hard or too stressful or we feel completely alone, we always have God there to keep us comforted and to help us through whatever challenges we may face. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us more than we can comprehend and they want to help us through life. We just have to allow them too and have faith that they can.

It was a very hectic week but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world because I got to go to the temple and I was busy doing the Lord's work by helping others to come unto Christ. I love being a missionary and I love this Gospel and the opportunity I have to share it with others! I love everyone one of you so much and I wish y'all the best!

Love,
Elder Plumb

P.S.  the weekly title came from this really crazy guy that some members told us to go over to their house and teach the plan of salvation to. Probably the weirdest lesson I've had on my mission! It was very confusing and the whole time I thought it was a prank but it wasn't so...

1: A really funny sign we found!

2: I visited Colorado for a bit!

3: we found a cotton field!

4-9: The temple!

 The Gourley's (on the left) came up from Palatka, FL to go through temple with these missionaries.  They also took Calvin out for a birthday lunch on his bday!  They are amazing Saints and we are so grateful for their love and support! 

Calvin and his old companion! 

 President and Sister Lee and the year mark missionaries!

The each took a family name to the temple at their year mark Orlando Temple trip!  Calvin had Elmer Plumb

Calvin with some of his favorite missionary friends.  Elder Lamb on the right was in his district in the MTC

20th Birthday Pictures

Sister & Brother Gourley from Palatka, FL drove 2 hours up to Waycross, GA to take Calvin to lunch on his birthday and brought him a cake!  We will forever be grateful to the Gourley's love and support!  They ate at Calvin's favorite - Zaxby's - which is like Cane's but with more choices.  Also, he is wearing the new orange tie I sent but it has little gators on it and I guess you can't wear characters on your ties.  Bummer, oh well!

Blood Alone Moves The Wheels Of History!

GOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!!! How's everything going with everyone?!?! I hope it's all going fantastic! This week was fantastic for me because obviously it was my birthweek! I had such a great birthday thanks to all of you! Thank you all for wishing me happy birthday and everything you do! Now I have a ton of junk food which is both good and bad but hopefully somehow my metabolism speeds up lol! Thank you all for all the love and support!

This week we had trade offs with the zone leader but all four of us stayed in Waycross so they spent the night at our apartment. It was super fun because the Elders that stayed were Elder Andrus who I was companions with in Palatka and Elder Birch who is also super crazy dude! We had a good time though and didn't stay up too late lol! 

We also had a trade off with the Elders in Blackshear wich was really fun because I got to spend the day with Elder Berg who I served with in Fleming Island so we had a good time. We visited an old lady in their ward named Justine who has some pretty awesome stories about how she beat a guy with a frozen raccoon and also how she shot herself in the knee because she wanted someone to buy her a moonpie! She is super crazy but also super funny haha!

On my birthday we did some early morning service for the Wilkersons in our ward and helped them cut some branches off some of the trees in their backyard. After that they took us all to Jerry Js, which is a local restaurant chain in Waycross, for my birthday. And of course everyone there sang happy birthday to me! If you didn't know I'm not very fond of that! Anyway it was a very good breakfast though. Then the Gourleys from Palatka drove all the way up here from Palatka just to take me out to lunch for my birthday! They are so awesome! You can't find anyone like the Gourleys anywhere else! They're are the best! Then for dinner our ward mission leader, who we call Papa because he adopted us as his grandchildren, took us out to Dick's Wings for dinner! It was super good and he gave me a dollar to choose a song on the juke box to play! Of course I chose "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix! It was a good time! Then everyone in the district had a birthday party for me at night time which was super fun also! It was a really good birthday with a lot of really good people and food! 

We are still working really hard to find new people to teach and get those that we are already teaching to progress. Right now Melissa Corbitt seems the most interested but her and her family are in a very tough situation with her always bein in the hospital with her lung disease and her big family living in a really old and small trailer. So please pray for them and her health.

Right now we don't have anyone with a baptismal date but there are a few people who are getting baptized in the next few weeks for other missionaries in our district so we are very excited for that!

I'm so grateful for all of you and everything yall do! Thanks again for wishing me happy birthday and for any cards or gifts yall gave me! I couldn't ask for better friends and family! Keep on keepin on!

Love,
Elder Plumb

Can you feel it now Mr. Krabs?

It's been a great week!  We had a lot of success in finding new people to teach!  Other than that there wasn't too much that happened this week but it was fun non the less!

On Tuesday we found 3 people!  That never happens!  I don't know what we did but it was awesome to find those people!  So far we haven't done too much with any of them but we'll see how far they progress!

We found 3 more people the rest of the week which just shows how crazy Tuesday was!  We also had some people come to church too and it wasn't anyone we invited!  Crazy how that works out!  Anyway we are hoping to get those we found this last week to progress.

An update on how Melissa Corbitt is doing.  She is supposedly going to be released from the hospital today or maybe tomorrow and then she will be home for a month or two and then she will go back.  We are hoping to teach her and her family during that time and get them to church.  She has expressed how much she wanted to get out of the hospital so she can go to church with us so we are very excited for that!  Everyone in the ward knows her and her family because of how much they have done to help her and her family in this very tough situation they are in.  This ward does a very good job on taking care of those in need that's for sure.

Sadly we had to stop teaching the Ryals because it turns out she actually didn't believe in the Bible.  I don't know how it took this long for her to tell us this considering we had been using the Bible a lot to teach her but we just left her with the invitation to ask God if the Bible and Book of Mormon are true.  We told her that she can't just read them like she has, she has to have real intent as she does so and she also can't go into reading it with the thought of it not being true already in her head.  She said she would and that she would reach out to us or whatever missionaries are here when she gets and answer.  We told her it may take a lot longer than we expect to receive an answer but as long as she has faith that she will then she will receive an answer.

Faith is something I continuously ponder on.  It's definitely the most important thing to have because without it we literally have nothing to believe in.  None of us saw Jesus heal people or teach multitudes but with faith we can come to know our Savior and that everything he did he actually did.  It all starts with us planting that small seed of faith in our hearts and then doing the necessary things to nourish it and help it grow so that we can come to the point where our faith can't be wavered or shaken.  I love all the teachings about faith in the Book of Mormon!  Alma 32 and Ether 12 are two of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon and they are both on faith.  Every time I read those chapters and can literally feel that seed of faith grow inside me.  They really help me understand the importance of faith.  I invited you all to read those chatpers because they are very good chapters.

Also I go to the temple on the 27th so I'm super excited for that!  I love you all so much and I hope that everything is going super good!  Email me if y"all can!  Keep on Keepin on!

Love,
Elder Plumb

Toasted Flatbread Asiago Ranch Chicken Club

This week has been pretty great! We had zone conference which was pretty awesome! It was a little different though because at the end of it we usually listen to the testimonies of missionaires going home and a recap of what was talked about by President Lee but instead we had three 15 minute classes on how to eat healthy and stay fit and overall making sure we are taking good care of our bodies. I kinda liked it because it was something different. Anyway before that they talked about how important the spirit is in people's conversion and how important the Book of Mormon is as well. They also talked a lot about how the Lord is hastening hs work with technology so we need to use technology for that purpose and not get distracted by the world.

We weren't able to meet with the Ryals this week because they have been pretty busy but they said that they would meet with us this week for sure. We did however find a new family to teach as well! We just talked to the mom and taught her about the Book of Mormon. Her name is Sabrina and she said that we came at the perfect time. She had recently had some tragedies in her family and was not doing very well but she said we helped her feel peace and God's love fore her. She was very interested in learning more and so we will be seeing her on Thursday.

Also I heard there is a Hurricane coming this way so I'm kinda excited for that in the sense that I want to live through one! We'll see what happens though. 

There was also a face to face yesterday with Elder Quentin L. Cook of the quorum of the 12 Apostles and two church historians. They talked a lot about the new book called Saints that the church released and it talks a lot about Joseph Smith and his familie's life. I've started reading it and it is super good and has definitely helped me understand more about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no doubt in my mind that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I love learning more about him and the hardship he faced and more importantly the work he accomplished. 

I love you all so much and hope that everything continues to go well! Feel free to email me!

Love,
Elder Plumb 

It's been a whole year since I've seen a basement!

Wow! What a week! It was a super busy week but fun and productive none the less! It was a very good first week for our district! Everyone is working very hard and we have seen some amazing miracles because of it! The work is movin in Waycross!

First this week I was able to go on another trade off with my trainer Papa Kunde! We had a ton of fun and it brought back some really good memories of our days together in Fleming Island! It's crazy that he goes home in just a few months! Time is flying!

We were also able to meet with the Ryals which was pretty good because we were able to set some good expectations with them. We talked about the importance of baptism with them and Krystal talked about some experiences she has had in the past with that and said that she isn't ready for that at all. She said right now she just wants to go to church with her family and get some friends for her kids. That definitely showed us where they were at and confirmed to us that it may take some time to help them progress further but we are very excited for them to start coming to church!

We found a few new people to teach this week and some of them are showing a lot of interest so we are very excited about that! We were very blessed to be able to find some of these people with the very busy week that we had because we had very little time to fing this week. Lately we've been trying to get a good ward mission plan for our ward and so we've been meeting with our ward mission leader and the Bishop a lot this week. It has been very buy but very productive! Us and the sister missionaries in our ward are both working hard to strengthen the Lord's work here and we are ready for the miracles to start flowing in! I love being a missionary!

I can definitely testify that faith can really move mountains. If we have the faith to do anything and we put forth the effort then we will definitley see the fruits of our labors. God will help those that want to improve and show their faith in doing so. I seriously love being a missionary and seeing this amazing Gospel bless so many people's lives. There is nothing better than witnessing the Spirit work to completely change someones life for the better. The Book of Mormon is the key to their conversion and has been the key to my conversion as I prayerfully and faithfully read it. It truly changes lives. 

Please pray for Melissa Corbitt also! She is a mother of 5 that we have been teaching and she is in critical condition with a lung diesease so please pray for her.

I love each and everyone of you so much! Thank you all so much for all the love and support and for all the amazing advice and stories yall sent for my year mark! I loved reading each one! They made my day! This next year is gonna be the best one yet!

Love,
Elder Plumb

1-4:  We played with kittens at a members house!

5-7:  I burned my shirt! BURN BABY BURN!

8: Our area borders another mission so we walked to the border and found the line!