Grandpa Plumb's Passing - 1/7/2019

Calvin and Zhenya- I just found out that Grandpa died this morning. He went to the emergency because he wasn't well. Dad picked him up for church earlier and he collapsed walking to the car and dad caught him and took him back. They said he had been so weak lately. We feel awful we didnt go back after church to give him the sacrament. We are saddened by this news but comforted that he is with grandma again and what a joyous reunion that must have been!  I love this gospel! The knowledge we have from the restored gospel makes times like this more peaceful and hopeful. I am sorry this had to happened while you are away Calvin. I copied Zhenya on this email because she lost Grandma on her mission. Zhenya, maybe you can share how you dealt with that loss away from our family. Grandpa was a great man and will be missed. We will always have fun wonderful memories and stories of him and Grandma. I am so grateful for their legacy of faith they have left for us.

I love you both and will tell u when the funeral is Zhenya. 

Love, Mom

CALVIN'S RESPONSE:

Awwww man! I honestly thought he was going to live another few years. I'm really surprised. That's definitely sad and joyful at the same time. He probably wasn't having the best time spending the rest of his life in a retirement home and now he's with grandma again so I'm sure he is super happy. How's dad doing with it? That's gotta be hard losing your last parent. I'll keep everyone in my prayers. I'll definitely miss grandpa and I'm sad I won't be at the funeral but as long as he's happy in the spirit world and resting than that's all that matters to me. I'm definitely grateful for them both as well and everything they did as parents and grandparents. Till we meet again grandpa! 

Post Holiday Blues

Wassup! It's been a long time since I've written everybody! I had an amazing Christmas and New Year's! We spent pretty much the whole time bother holidays at members houses just hanging out. Mainly the Watchman's and the Smith's! They are both really awesome and fun families! Thanks to everyone who sent me something for Christmas! I really appreciate the love and support from everyone! Thanks!

This week was a pretty good week! It started with new years which was really fun! Like I said we spent the whole time with members so it was really fun! Then when the holidays were over we went right back into working hard and I had a trade off with elder Peterson who has only been out for a few weeks so it was a pretty fun trade off! We went proselyting pretty much the whole day and it reminded me about how scared I was when I first came out and talked to people! It was pretty funny making him talk to some people and then patting him on the back when he was done and seeing him smile with relief about being done talking to someone haha! We had a good time though! He actually had lived in Orange Park in the past when he was really young so he recognized some of the places we drove by. He's also on a test mission too so he is from Florida. He said he will serve for 2 transfers and then see if he can continue from there so hopefully he continues! 

Other than that it was a pretty normal week. The main people we are teaching are Milan and Nesha who both have baptismal dates and there are a few other people too who are progressing pretty well. Milan is Buddhist but wants to be Christian so he doesn't know pretty much anything about God and Jesus so we've been teaching him the really basic principles of the Gosepl but he is learning pretty quick the only problem is his parents want him focusing on school during the week and he works on Saturdays so we can only meet with him on Sundays after church. So please pray for him to continue coming to church so we can keep teaching him.

Nesha is super awesome! She really wants to get baptised she is just insanely busy with work and her kids and her mom trying to get rid of us because she doesn't like the church and she wants Nesha to be Catholic like her so its been hard meeting with her and she can never come to church cuz she always works on Sundays. So please fast and pray for her that she can somehow get work off on Sundays and not feel so overwhelmed with everything. Thank you all so much for all you do!

This week I've been studying a talk by Elder Holland called the Miracle of a Mission. He gave it at the MTC in 2000. It is an amazing talk! It's pretty much a pep talk for missionaries to be 100% missionaries and how important our calling is. It really reemphasized to me that 2 years is not long at all and that God is asking me to go all out and give him 100% for 2 years and help serve His children and bring them back into His fold. It made me feel so much more grateful to be able to serve God and be apart of His work. I can either have these two years be a few good year of my life that made me a better person or I can have these 2 years be the best two years that changed me into the person I want to be and God wants me to be. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's kingdom on the Earth and I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people that they might have everlasting life. (3 Nephi 5:13)  I'm so happy to be a missionary!

I love you all so much! I hope you all habe a fantastic week and continue to remember your Savior and His perfect example thoughout this week!

Love, 

Elder Plumb

Hammer time!

It's been a great week! We had transfer call and elder Josse and I are staying for Christmas! I'm so excited! It's gonna be a good transfer and extra long too! Last transfer was only 5 weeks and this transfer is going to be 7 weeks so it will be a little bit longer.

This wasn't a very eventful week sadly. The biggest thing that happened to us was we got super wet one day while biking and so we made a game out of it. We were so wet that we were just trying to get wet so anywhere we could find a big puddle or a lot of water we went there and got ourselves even more wet! It was super fun!

We also had the Genesis concert yesterday night which was so awesome! There were so many amazing southern baptist songs! There were also a ton of old missionary and member friends there so it was nice seeing them again! We sang joy to the world as missionaries before and after the concert which was pretty fun. 

I'm so excited for Christmas! I can really feel the light of Christ in the air and with people everywhere! So many people say God bless and merry Christmas to us all the time too! The true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and to share His love with everyone around us by serving them. I know that Christ is the Savior of the world and through Him we can all change ourselves continually in this life and progress towards eternal life. I'm grateful for Him and His example to me and there is nothing better than to be sharing His gospel with everyone. I love you all so much and I love my Savior! I hope you all have an amazing Christmas season and never forget to love and serve others before yourself! Keep on keepin on!

Love,

Elder Plumb

Here are some pics from Genesis! I got to see Afro Pat again!

Tractin' in not a winter wonderland

Oh man its been another great week! This week we had the mission Christmas party which was super fun! each zone had a skit that they did just like last year and they were all pretty funny! I was happy to be in Jax West again for the Christmas party because I thought we were going to work on the skit a lot but we literally only went over it for like 20 min. It still wasn't too bad though we just did a skit about different situations where elders get yelled at for something and sisters get praised for doing that same thing. For example, the sisters went caroling and purposefully did a bad job and the people at the door said they were amazing and invited them in. Then we went caroling and we played the tabernacle choir through the speakers and the people got mad at us and chased us off their porch. It wasn't bad for only 20 min of preparation! Then we ate food which was pretty good! There was a lot of dessert like last year which was awesome! Then we went tp the chapel and there was a lot of songs which were all super good and spiritual. Afterwards we went to Buffalo Wild Wings again! That's the third time I've gone already! It was super good like

always! Overall that was a super awesome day!

Sadly Michael, who I talked about last week, dropped us because he said he looked up who Mormons were and said he didn't want to be converted into anything that forced everyone to do things especially if we were forced to be missionaries. We told him that no one is forced to do anythign and that we are out here because we want to be out here and that there is a ton of false information on the internet about our religion. He never got back to us so hopefully one day missionaries will run into him again and he will be open to listening. 

We did however find some more people this week and we were finally able to meet with Milan who has a baptismal date for the 29th so we are very excited for him! He is really solid we just have to be able to meet with him which is hard because his parents want him to focus on school more than anything else so he can only meet with us on the weekends but we should be able to make that work! He reads the Book of Mormon a lot and we can really see that he has a true desire to want to learn more.

Also please pray for Nesha who is one of the people we are teaching because she is going through a lot with juggling three jobs and two kids and being a single mom. She told us that she is starting to lose her faith in God and that she really wants to meet with us so that we can help her not lose her faith but she is super tired and busy to even meet with us so please pray for her in all her struggles and that she can meet with us. Thanks!

Everything is going great here in Orange Park and I can't wait for Christmas! I just hope I don't get a surprise transfer right before Christmas and leave Orange Park! I would be so sad! I am super excited for Christmas though and I can definitely feel the Christmas Spirirt as we get closer and closer. Continue to Light the World this season! I love you all and thanks for everything y'all do!

Love,
Elder Plumb

Elder Josse loves to move everything around each week and this week he decided to not use his bed so I created MEGA BED!  And the rest of the pics are from the Christmas party 2018

         Mega Bed                                               President Lee and his stand up comedy

 Pres. Lee and his AP's skit

                                          Elder Plumb and Elder Evie and others

                               The whole Florida Jacksonville Mission Christmas 2018

.                                            Elder Plumb with Elder Lamb and others

              Elder Plumb and Elder Lamb came out at the same time and are good friends

B-Dubs!!

Hola! This week was another eventful one sort of. We started out the week with two trade offs! On Tuesday I was with Elder Jensen and we had a pretty good time. Rex from Palatka came up and took us to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch which was super good of course! One of my favorite places! The next day I went with Elder Peterson in Timaquana and he is a Spanish Elder so I got to listen to more people talk while I sat there trying to figure out what they are saying. It was fun but got pretty boring after a while lol! We had a good trade off though. Then we went back to Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday with the Timaquana Elders and the Oak Leaf Elders! Nothing better than B-Dubs twice in a week!

Yesterday was also the Christmas devotional which was suer awesome! Sadly the signal we had in the church got all messed up so we couldn't hear the end of President Nelson's talk! What I did hear though was really great! There was a lot of talk about service which is something that Christ did during His whole ministry. Serving others is how we can really feel the spirit of the Lord in our lives. In the Book of Mormon there is a scripture from the book of Mosiah in chapter 2 verse 17 that says, "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." If we serve others we are keeping God's commandments and doing His will. The greatest commandments are to serve God and the other is like unto it, to serve our neighbor. I have definitely felt the love of God a lot more in my life as I turn outward and help those around me. This Christmas season is a special time for us to show our love for the Savior by serving everyone around us. I love Christmas time because that's when the Light the World initiative is. The church puts out videos on mormon.org to give us ways and inspiriation on how we can go the extra mile in serving others this whole month. I invite you all to watch those videos if you already haven't and participate in lighting the world with the light of Christ by serving others and turning outward just like Christ did. I can promise that you will all feel the love of Christ in great abundance this Christmas season as you do this. Chirstmas is so awesome!

An amazing miracle that happened this week happened on Saturday night when we were biking in the pouring rain! We tried to visit some people were are teaching but none of them were answering or didn't want to answer so we decided to head home but then we got a little lost and found ourselves on a random street. We were turning around to go the right way when we got a super strong impression to knock on this one house. So we did and Michael answered the door! Michael is so awesome! We shared the light the world video with him and he loved it so much! He told us how he and his wife have been trying to find what they need to do in life and he realized right then that they need God in their lives. He said he wants us to come back when it isnt raining and when we arent soaking wet and teach them some more! We are super excited to see him again and help him and his family come unto Christ and receive the amazing blessing of this gospel.

That's about all that happened this week! I love you all so much and would love to hear from yall so please email me! Thanks for all the prayers and love and support! Keep on keepin on!

Love,
Elder Plumb

  

What are the Odds!

Oh man it was a great week this week! Of course there was Thanksgiving which was just amazing! We had so many left overs and I've been full for way too long! First this week though I went on a trade off with Elder Ballard who is a Spanish Elder and they also have a car that we got to use in our area so that was super nice! We visited as many people that we are teaching as we possibly could! We had some really great lessons! One was with Tamisha who is a mother of 5 and is really interested in our message. We taught her the Restoration and she was super into it and she said she was super excited to read the Book of Mormon! We also set up a church tour for her this last Saturday but she ended up getting called into work so she couldn't make it but we will be going back this week to teach her some more! We also talked to this lady in our ward who mainly speaks Spanish and very little English and she hasn't been to church in over 9 years! It was perfect to have Elder Ballard there to speak Spanish to her! I felt really useless the whole time because I can't speak Spanish but it was pretty entertaining trying to figure out what they were saying with the very little Spanish I knew. He told her that she would probably feel more comfortable in their Spanish ward in Timaquana and so he invited her to attend there and she said she would start going! 

Thursday was Thanksgiving and it was a super fun day! First we had the Turkey Bowl at 8 am where a lot of people in the stake and around the area go and play football! It was super fun and exhausting! Everyone was really sore afterwards! I'm still a little sore from it lol! After that we went with the Oak Leaf Elders to Mcdonald's for Thanksgiving breakfast mainly because it was pretty much the only place open! Then we went over to the Hills house from 2 to about 7! We played a lot of games with them like Uno and this cool card game called It Came To Pass which was pretty fun. They have 4 little kids so we played a lot of tag with them and we built a super cool train track around the whole house! We had a bunch of sweet bridges going around everywhere! It was so awesome! Then we ate dinner around 5 which was super yummy! We had ham, cheesy potatoes, jello with baby oranges in it, stuffing, and pretty much every other traditional Thanksgiving dishes! They also got cranberry sprite which is super good! After that we went to the Palmer's house for the rest of the night and hung out with them and ate some dessert. They had a whole bunch of different gooey slime things that they made which were super fun to play with and some magnetic sand which was super weird and fun too ha ha!

Friday Saturday and Sunday we had everyone's Thanksgiving leftovers so we pretty much had Thanksgiving for 4 days straight! It was so awesome! The Watchman's who are a young couple in our ward had to work on Thanksgiving so they had it Friday so we had lunch and dinner with them that day! The Watchman's are the funniest people I have ever met in my entire life! They are super crazy and fun! We had a good time with them!

We also went to the Smith's yesterday with a bunch of missionaries for dinner because he is the stake mission leader and we played what are the odds. So basically they asked me what are the odds I put ovaltine in my orange juice and drink it all and I said 1 out of 10 and so some counts down 3..2..1 and then we both shout out a number between 1 and 10 and if it is the same number then I have to do it and of course we both got the same number so I had to drink it and it was probably the nastiest thing I had ever had in my entire life ha ha! They made me pack it full of ovaltine! Never again!

Right now we have one person on baptismal date and his name is Milan. We don't now too much about him because he was referred to us by the sisters who were teaching him but we are going to see him this week and get to know him more. His baptismal date is on December 29 so please pray for him to be able to be baptized on that date.

That's about it for this week. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving! I was especially thankful for my family this last Thanksgiving even though I wasn't with them it is because of them that I'm a missionary. I am very grateful for the things that my parents and siblings taught me and helped me through to help me be able to serve a mission and experience some of the most amazing things I will ever experience in my life. I'm am very grateful for the knowledge that I have been so blessed to have my entire life of this Gospel and the countless blessing I have received from it. I hope and pray that we will all continue to be grateful for everything in our lives and always thank God for all that he has given us. I love you all so much and am very grateful to have all of you in my life. Keep on keepin on! Hoorah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Plumb

1-4: We got some sweet Christmas sweaters and Elder Josse's mom sent him some decorations and cool glasses for each of us so we took some modeling pics

5: Elder Josse's desk and chair ha ha! What a guy!

6: The Watchman's baby with Elder Josse's teddy bear!

Milk in my cereal box

Hellllooooo! This week was pretty sweet in Orange Park! First I had to say good bye to a lot of people in Waycross which was super sad! I'm going to miss so many people from there! I'm moving on though and have so far enjoyed it here! 

Elder Josse and I are having a super fun time! We are in a bike area so we have NO CAR! It's fun biking but constantly and all the time starts to wear you out! I'm getting more used to it though. At least I thought I was until my pants ripped one day! I was lucky it was in an unnoticeable spot so I was able to continue throughout the day. I'm excited for what lays ahead though because there are always a lot of good stories and miracles that come from bikes! 

So far I've met a few of the people we are teaching. One of them is Tristan and he has a very good knowledge of the Bible so we had a pretty good discussion on the Bible and modern day prophets. Right now he seems like he just wants to learn more about what we believe and why we believe it so we are trying our best to explain it to him. Some things he is a little stubborn about but he is still pretty open to what we share and backup from the Bible. He has come to church a few times as well and said that he will commit to reading the Book of Mormon. We simply told him that all of the speculation that he has can all be answered if he comes to know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. So we have just born our testimony about the truthfulness of it and how we can know and feel that it is the word of God. So we are excited to see him again and see how everything went.

A big thing that I've been studying lately is personal revelation. This is a very important thing for us to be able to do because it's how we can truly learn and understand everything we study. On my mission I've gotten into the habit of writing down my thoughts of the things I study into a journal so that I can go back and read the personal revelation that I have received. I've seen that when I do that I understand things better and learn faster. Personal revelation is basically what we understand about the things we read and what we receive from the spirit about the things we read. We usually don't remember everything we read so if we write it down then we can go back and refresh our memories of the things we learned about. I know that if we prayfully study the scriptures and receive personal revelation from God then we will better help ourselves understand the Gospel and help ourselves become more converted to the Gospel. I've definitely seen a difference between reading the scriptures and feasting on the scriptures!

That's pretty much everything that happened this week. I'm definitely loving it here in Orange Park! The members a really amazing and we get fed every singe day! There are a ton of members in this ward too which is pretty sweet! I'm excited for this next transfer! I love you all so much! Keep on keepin on!

Love,
Elder Plumb