December 15, 2009 Week 18

Hello Everyone!

How is everyone doing this week? Well its pretty good here. It has finally snowed and we only have a few inches here, but people have no idea how to drive in the snow. They drive like crazy still! But it's been a pretty good week.

I am currently on the 2nd day of the 12 days of Christmas you guys did for me. Thanks for that. Its awesome. I love the 1st day too. A bunch of stuff I don't need haha. I actually could use some of the stuff though. I have read your letter Whit, and Markie and his families letters. They are great. Hey by the way, Happy Birthday Big A. How was it? I think that's awesome you are starting to play the guitar now. I was close to your age when I started too. You're gonna be a pro when I come home and I'm going to be horrible. You'll have to reteach me. And Cassi you will have to write me a letter in cursive some time. You guys sound real busy. Oh hey I will still send you a picture of my investigators I just have to get the baptism first.

Speaking of that, yesterday we started to teach one of our investigators sons. He was taught by other missionaries in the past, but then they changed the boundaries for missionaries to cover and he kinda got lost and forgotten. Well we taught him yesterday and he is awesome. He is about 15 or 16, but he goes to church every Sunday with his friends and he goes to seminary too. He pretty much knows and believes everything already. So I kinda put him on date to get baptized for January 2nd. He said that he would want to. The problem is when his dad got home he was pretty mad and stormed upstairs. We are hoping it wasn't because of us. We are actually teaching the dad today and I hope all goes well with him. But the son is going to talk to his parents about baptism and if they approve then he is good to go.

Also we had another great lesson with Adrian Sandavol. Our exchange was one of his best friends and it went really well. Adrian was really happy and last night he said, "I'm actually learning guys!" We committed him to read the Book of Mormon everyday. I hope he does it. That's the only thing holding him back right now. If he can gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon everything else will fall into place. But he is so close to being baptized. If all goes well we might try and set a date for him to be baptized too.

So we missed the Christmas Devotional this week. Our members recorded it and we were going to watch it with them but one of their grandkids was playing with the tv and it didn't record. I think it replays and they rerecorded it, but we have no time to watch it now. I heard it was really good. We did have a dinner with the Stake Presidency this week because we exceeded the Stake goal of 70 baptisms. We got 73. So they had all the missionaries in Pasco over for dinner. It was really good and a lot of fun. I think next week the Stake President is going to have all the missionaries over for Christmas on P day. That should be great too.

Not much else has gone on this week. Unfortunately many of the appointments we had set from last week canceled on us. It just goes to show the up and downs of missionary work. One week can be the best week of your life and the next week it can all go shooting down. But this week hasn't been that bad and we are still teaching. Another big downer is Vien kinda dropped us again for the second time. Her family is just giving her the hardest time about things and I think that's the reason she doesn't want to meet with us. She is still friendly and hopefully her neighbors can keep in close contact with her.

We have also done some tracting this week, as usual, but this week we have run into a lot of Anti-Mormons. They answer the door and we introduce ourselves, but then they all almost say, "Oh we know who you are." and then they slam the door on us. We also tracted into a guy and we said we are sharing a message about Christ. He then said, "Ya well I believe in Christ, but not the same one you do." We then asked him who he believed in and he didn't know what to say so he just slammed the door. Hopefully you guys don't feel bad. I think its funny. I am actually starting to enjoy tracting. We have some funny experiences with people. We can also have some great conversations with people right there on the door step. But referrals are still better than tracting.

Hey Lynds I did hear about that new church geneology program the church has. I heard its great. I want to get into that when I come home. Just a side note I guess. Ya that's pretty much it for me. I didn't get transferred and neither did Elder Cashin so we are here for another transfer. Still no news on my visa. Any news from you? Oh and I got a letter from Mavis Wright and the Hylands. I will be writing them today. Tell them thanks for me too.

Well that's it. I love you all and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Garrick