1-21-13 Drowning in Success (it's about time....)

(finally!  I've been trying to post this for several days now but blogger's darn picture upload button wasn'tworking...of course the week that Elder Crabb sends photo's!  But yay, it worked to today!)

Hey! I'm in a really good cyber cafe right now so I thought I'd take advantage and send lots of photos home! We've been having a lot of amazing things happen!

First of all, transfers are coming up next week, and I only mention in interest of full disclosure that, since I have been here for two transfers and I only have THREE transfers left, that I may just be getting transferred! We'll see.

President Cantu told us that we have a literal army of missionaries coming here. Like, he said that we'll be opening up areas just to be able to fit all the missionaries! Whoa!

Anyway, this week has been incredibly successful. Honestly, I can't even contain all the things we have to do! We have a baptism this week, her name's Sofia. I don't know if I mentioned her. She's the wife of the first counselor of the ward. One night, she just said "I wanna get baptized!" Well.....alright! She has talked to missionaries many, many times before and she knew everything, she just didn't want to stop being Catholic. One night she was just thinking about it and BOOM she decided. That's the Spirit for ya.

We also got some disturbing news about Mauricio! His friend Ana (the one who invited him to church with us) told us that his old church came over to his house, and said that there was no future for him here in our church. However, if he stayed over there in the other church, he could probably become a pastor. They're totally trying to rob him back! But I don't THINK so. We're going over there on Wednesday to talk to him well.

On Friday, a member came up to us and said "Hey, my girlfriend wants to get baptized. What do we do?" She's already been to church a few times before too! We have an appointment with her on Wednesday.

Remember Omar? We haven't heard head or tail of him. Sad. I keep praying for him....

Yesterday in church we had NINE investigators!! It was so amazing to just sit there and watch the investigators just pour in. Man, I love that feeling. It's a horrible, horrible thing when it doesn't happen, but when it DOES......you can't even describe it!

There's a LOT more to say....but there's not time to say it! Basically we're doing really REALLY well. I love it here (Mexico, the mission, my area, Culiacan, interpret it how you want, it's all true!).

Stay strong! Read the scritpures!

Mosiah 2:41

Elder Crabb

 

Photo captions!

My awesome new sweater! (and a ghost, apparently, on my left sleeve)

Some nasty fruit....Honestly, probably among the WORST things I have ever tasted in my life. It's like coffee mixed with fruit.....UGH. I don't remember what it's called, so I'll probably end up eating it again by accident.

When my companion was buying his new glasses the other day. Aren't these glasses cool?

The airplane from "One Day on a Mission"! (Our kids' activity)

Everyone in the "MTC" on "One Day on a Mission" (including the MTC instructors, MTC president....etc.

The "recreational" part of "One Day on a Mission". =)

How cold my companion was (he's from Cancun. and don't worry, he already offered a place to stay if I want to go visit! =D)

Pambazos!! These don't exist here, solo in Mexico City, but Irving went there on his mission and he knew how to make them. Ingredients: chorizo, potatoes, lettuce, cheese....and a pretty spicy salsa. OH MAN they are good! Too bad they don't exist ANYWHERE! It's an invention from those crazy Chilangos!

My companion's birthday cake (he's 24 as of this last Monday)

The fifty peso candle we bought (SO worth it, right?!)

1/15/13 "Elder....you're beautiful."

Hey! It's January 15th and I am happy to be alive! And on a mission! It's a wonderful, comfortably chilly day here in Culiacan, and I'm glad I have the chance to be here!

(All that positivity was to mask the fact that, yet again, I didn't have a chance to get to a computer. It's pretty frustrating when I only have four things to do in the whole day and I don't have time!)

Actually, I'm so uncomfortably cold, after this I'm going to buy a sweater. Look what the unnaturally hot climate has done to me!

Anyway, as for this week, we had a great time. Like I mentioned before, we found a really REALLY great investigator, Mauricio, so I'll talk about him first.

There's a woman in this ward who works at some sort of leather business (I'm honestly not exactly sure what she does), who constantly talked to this Mauricio guy. He's only 24, and he recently got out of some hard stuff in his life. Ana, the member from our ward, had been talking to him about God a little. One day, Mauricio mentioned that the church he went to had a woman as the pastor. Well, Ana was NOT happy to hear that, and she told him he should listen to us. He accepted the offer, and went as far as to go to church! In church, he obviously had a LOT of questions, so we did our best to answer him and to get appointments set to answer the things we didn't get to at church.

On Thursday, we went to his house for the first time. While there, we found out that he's pretty awesome. He's a full-time musician! He sings really well, plays the piano and the guitar, and has LOTS of instruments in his house. Before he went to the church where he goes right now, he was pretty lost in the "things of the world", I guess you could say. He decided to clean himself up, visited a few churches and decided to stick to the one where he's at right now. Well, he was pretty happy with it for the most part, except that, in this church, they never answered his questions--in fact, they just shrugged them all off! His "lady pastor" told him that he had dumb questions. Well, we did our best to answer him with the scriptures (for example, he asked us about aliens and we shot him 3 Nephi 16:1!) and we taught him about the Restoration. He was so interested that we ended up answering questions for a good two and a half hours. He wouldn't let us leave! This Sunday he came to church in a white shirt and tie. I tell ya, he's really amazing. He's reading the Book of Mormon and he understands a LOT. It's really amazing to teach him.

Other than him, we have a few other really cool investigators, who are just so awesome! We have Mireya and her sister, Isabel. They're progressing and they ask a LOT of questions. We have the Obeso family (no, they are not obese), who went to church on Sunday. And we have Yedith, who was really excited to get baptized but her husband is really jealous, so he might not let her. Let's hope not.

The subject line of this email was just something funny that happened with a member. Her mom said "Lots of missionaries leave girlfriends at home, especially when they're as beautiful as Elder Crabb." I was like......"what?" but she didn't mean it in a weird way or anything. Needless to say, I am now Elder Bonito.

We were going to baptize this week, but it turns out we'll have to wait one more week because she hasn't paid Fast Offerings yet, a new requirement to be able to get baptized. She's gonna be sad when she finds out she can't get baptized yet. We're going to see her right now.

I've come to realize that the Lord has been trying me. My whole mission, I haven't had any success when I first get to an area. And, right when I'm getting used to things, finding lots of really great people, and getting ready to baptize people, I get transferred. At first, I didn't really notice it. But now, I've started to realize that it has happened to me in every single area I've been in. It has frustrated me more than once. Here, though, I'm getting to see why. If I was there when these people got baptized, I would probably let my pride tell me "These people got baptized because of what I did. ME. ELDER CRABB." Now, I'm forced to see it for what it really is.

A blessing.

I'm so glad for the opportunity that I have to see people get baptized--here, in my district, or any other past area. I've learned that it really doesn't matter WHERE or WHO.....just that it happens!

I sent a few letters a while ago. There was one for Alessa Wade, Korinne Ivory, Lauren Page, and Curtis Stone. I have the funny feeling that they ALL got lost in the mail, since I haven't heard a peep from any of you! Probably so. At least, that's the best-case-scenario...

It's been really hard for me to write letters in these last couple of months/areas. The time just gets away from me on P-days. My companion and I wake up at 5 on P-day so that we have enough time, but it STILL isn't enough!

Speaking of awesome stuff--I want to congratulate Lauren Page and Mariah Pugmire on their mission calls! How awesome is that?! I know there are others that have probably gotten their calls that I didn't even know about, but congratulations to you too! I'm so excited for you all!

Really, being a missionary is the absolute best. I'm starting to realize that real life is awful! You have to work all day, you have stress, you have normal worries, you have to divide your time wisely....but not me! I'm just out here doing the same day every day for two years! I don't have to worry about a thing. I feel like the celestial kingdom will be something like this! I don't have many worries and I have enough time for the important stuff. The only thing that'll probably change there is that I'll be less tired and my feet won't hurt.....

Sorry once again for the lack of photos. This computer doesn't want to cooperate. I'll send some once I get the chance. But I love you all so much. Thanks for being so supportive. Every once in a while I have a dream that I'm at home, and it makes me realize how much I miss my wonderful family and friends. I'm so glad I have such great examples in my life. Who knows where I'd be without all of them! (Yes, I'm talking to you. Thanks for being awesome!)

Hasta la OTRA semana....

Elder

1-7-13 I'm Baaaa-aaaack!

Well, first of all, I want to apologize for my not writing last week (did you notice? =) ) Basically, we have to go to a cyber cafe each week to write home, but this week, because of the holiday, we couldn't! EVERY SINGLE cyber cafe was closed. We were looking for ways around it, but we just had to wait to write the next Monday. Sorry!

Unfortunately, we had pretty much the most eventful two weeks in history, so this Monday was probably the worst one ever not to write home. We had so many miracles, a huge activity, two holidays.....guess I'd better get started.

(This is also a terrible week to be sat at a painfully slow computer, without the slightest glimmer of hope of attaching a photo. Forgive me.)

First of all, talking to you guys on Christmas was great! I had a hard time transitioning my brain from Spanish to English. And it was so amazing to hear everyone...I don't really have enough words, so just leave it at that. =)

Christmas was great. We ate dinner at our mission leader's house and we got home at 10:30 (with permission, of course). Sort of uneventful, but what do you expect? We taught a couple of Christmas-themed lessons and saw the "Joy to the World" movie.

The following week, pretty much everything we did was to try and prepare for the activity we had this past Saturday. There were other things, but for lack of time....

The activity we had was called "One Day on a Mission". This ward had never done a missionary activity (not even ONCE!) so we decided to start things up. Irving, our ward mission leader, had this idea and we LOVED it. We've been trying to get it all organized since December 15th. Lo and behold, it happened.

The idea behind this activity is that the primary kids can see what it was like to be a missionary. Two weeks ago, we divided the ward into three "missions" and made a personalized call letter for each kid ("Dear Elder Martinez, you have been called to labor in the Mexico Toledo Mission. You will preach the gospel in Spanish.") and handed them all out. The kids were all SO excited, and the parents were so confused. They basically were called to be missionaries for January 5th, from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm.

When they got there, we had a short devotional with the "MTC president" then they all said goodbye to their families. The Young Single Adults were helping us out--they were the MTC instructors. They taught the kids what they would say and how they would act. Then, we got on the plane (that's right--the PLANE! Irving drew a ginormous plane on a piece of paper and stuck it on the wall outside one of the classrooms. Inside we played an awesomely authentic plane sound and handed out airplane snacks! Awesome!)

Arriving at each mission, the kids all went out and preached the gospel. We handed out about 30 Books of Mormon, 100 brochures (how do you say that in English?......100 folletos....) and about 300 pass along cards. It was so cool to watch them. They were fearless! One lady said "No, I'm Catholic." The kid walked right up to her and said, "No, but this church is the TRUE church. That's why we're inviting you." She sat there, kind of stunned, and gave us her address.

I went with my companion with one group that was absolutely hilarious. Giving out two or three brochures (folletos?) at a time to the same person, saying "I know that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon", all kinds of stuff.

The end of that day, all the kids got together to eat at the church. They were all talking about their experiences and how crazy it is to be a missionary. They all LOVED it! Then the parents came and we "released" them.

Basically, the Young Single Adults are all pumped, the kids, the Primary leaders, and above all, the missionaries! We had so much fun, and we got 35 referralls from this activity. I really wish I could show you pictures, but for now my explanation will have to do. It really made me realize that even though they're really little, they still have testimonies. And they can share them!

My time's almost up, so I'm not going to be able to share about Maurecio, who is probably one of the best investigators I have ever had or ever will have. I will definitely share that next week, because wow, Wow, and WOW! You'll definitely be hearing more about him.

I love you guys. Happy New Year. I can't believe that this is the year I'm going to go home. I can't believe I just completed 19 months. I always feel so cliché when I talk about the mission, but it really does just go by SO fast. I'm loving every minute of it. =) I miss you all. Read the scriptures! Talk to you next week!

Elder Grahv (my name in Spanish....)


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