Week 41: Powerful Experience

Hey everybody, 

This week was amazing, and filled with a lot of crazy times. I'll start with the spiritual and make my way to the funny. This Friday I found the truth behind Doctrine and Covenants 100:6 6  For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say. Me and my companion out of the blue decided to pass by an investigator we hadn't visited in over a month. She was always skeptical about baptism, her husband and 2 of her kids are active members, and so she had been taught for about 1.5 years, and we weren't sure what to teach her. We made a plan to teach her the restoration. But we sat down, and as we opened our mouths the Lord had other plans, the words came out in abundance as we went off a 30 minute spiritual roller coaster. Me and my companion had no communication, but we taught in the same direction, we had scriptures pop into our head, and the spirit was with us. I was on the brink of bawling, my companion had tears in his eyes, and our investigator felt the spirit so strong she couldn't even speak when we asked her how she felt, but instead just cried. Verse 8 of that same chapter was also fulfilled 8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost 

shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.  I know the lord filled my mouth, with the things I needed to teach, and then testified unto our investigator through the power of the holy ghost and that each of you can feel this power of the Holy Ghost when you live worthily! 

Also this week, we had out multi-zone conference with president, my very last one with president Rasmussen. I also got a shot for Influenza, and that left my arm hurting for a few days. 

Funny story, so me and my companion had been eating a lot of food, and our stomachs had been hurting us a lot, so we came up with the brilliant idea, lets just buy laxatives, and it will just clean us out. So we get to the pharmacy, and we both forgot the word for laxative. So me and my companion for about 5 minutes tried to explain to the poor lady what we were looking for. And she didn't understand anything. We just kept asking for pills that help clean your stomach, or pills for when you eat a lot of food and get rid of it. After 5 minutes she brought out these pills and said they were the ones, we didn't understand anything on the box but thought they looked right, so we bought them and took them... they worked. 

Also we have a DVD player in our room, and I used it to watch a Mormon message then just left it sitting there, and then came the DVD logo that slides around the screen, hitting the edges. And it reminded me of the office episode when they all just sat there waiting to see it hit the corner. So I very quickly got addicted, and sat their staring at the screen, then I got my companion addicted, and for 10 minutes during our study we watched the screen, and it finally hit the corner and we lost our minds, it was fun. 

Today we had a fun experience, we were sitting in a moto, driving to the car place to return back to pueblo nuevo, and all of the sudden another moto pulls of in front of us, and we tried stopping but we ended up t-boning the side (at probably 30 km). It was quite the experience. The drivers exchanged a few unpleasant words, and were both on their way, both with significant damage.  

I also had to give a talk this Sunday, it turned out pretty well, talks are always really fun! 

Also world cup fever here is off the walls, everybody is watching of talking about it. It is very hard to avoid the games, especially when everything is crazy. Renaldo with a hat trick and a free kick in the 91st minute. Argentina tying, and Messi missing the penalty. Peru losing but missing the penalty kick. Brazil not winning, Russia winning 5-0. and Germany losing. Everybody is off the walls, I love it! 

That's about it for the week, everyday was the best day ever!! 

#ARRIBA PERU #VAMOS POR LA GLORIA #RUSIA2018 #GANAREMOS #FRANCIA MORIRA

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber! 

Week 40: Nine Months

Hey everybody!! 

This week I hit my 9 months in the mission, crazy how the time is flying, but yet also feels like its been an eternity by now. The coolest moment of the week happened Saturday night. It was close to 8:30 and all our appointments had fallen and we didn't quite have anything to do. So we were standing on a street corner, looking over our planning and trying to figure out where we needed to go. When I had this weird thought to find an 8 year girl named Angel. We talked to her about 4 weeks ago as we walked down the street. We wrote down the street where she lived, and what her door looked like and kind of forgot about her for the 4 weeks. But as we were standing on the corner I was reminder of her and had the thought to go there. Not knowing exactly where she lived, but had a rough idea. We went knocking doors trying to find her and her family when we knocked on a door that fit the description she gave us an older gentleman opened the door and let us in, we were able to teach him about the Restoration of the gospel. He seemed pretty interested and even has family who are members. Sure it wasn't exactly who we were looking for, but it was exactly who the Lord wanted us to find. It was really cool, how the spirit guided us to his house, through the thought I had of finding Angel. The spirit works in strange and often in very quite ways. It reminded me of Moroni 7:13,  "But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.". I invite you all to follow the prompting that you receive, no matter how small it is! Everything that is good, comes from God!! 

Also this week we received new changes in the mission rules, as we get ready for the new mission president, some rules are changing. Mainly we can no longer watch any movie that doesn't have the church stamp on it, so good bye Disney movies, and we can no longer listen to cool music, good bye greatest showman sound track and Disney music. On p-days we can only listen to music from EFY :´(. So if you guys could hit me up with some EFY sound tracks that would be awesome!! 

This week I became a freak animal in a zoo, me and my companion were sitting in the park studying when out of nowhere about 10-15 kids came up, and stood about 5 feet in front of us, and stared at us with eyes wide up, and jaws to the ground just pointing and laughing with their friends. And they just stayed their watching for about 3 minutes until me and my companion had to shew them away.  Then later in the week me and my companion were walking in the street when a kid in an oncoming moto stuck his head out and yelled "Habla Payaso!", which directly translates to "Speak Clown!"

This week I also had my last interview with President Rasmussen, very sad, he was by far the best mission president ever! 

Funny story for mom. Our pensionist had her 8 month old daughter (names Meghan) at church, and came up to us, and we made funny faces at Meghan to get her to smile. But our pensionist said "Meghan isn't smiling, so she has a fever, I'm probably going to bring her to the doctor". She was 100% convinced her daughter was running a fever just because she wouldn't smile. Me and my companion had to hold in the laughs. It reminded me of stories mom would come back from work with and thought she would like this one. 

That's about it, everyday here is the best day ever!!!! 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber