July 6, 2010 -Week 47

Here is the Walla Walla Zone with our new Mission President, President and Sister Greer
Me and Elder Buchanan next to the Welcome to Dayton sign
Me trying to do the Jolly Green Giant pose. I guess Dayton used to be the place where the Jolly Green Giant would make all his peas.

Hello Everyone,

Well I had a pretty good week last week. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Ours was pretty good. Well I guess I'll start off talking about our new mission president. On Wednesday we drove down to Walla Walla and met President and Sister Greer. It just seems so weird to me because they don't know anything about me whereas President and Sister Belnap knew everything about me. They were really nice though. They told us of their MTC experience. They were only there for about 3 days. They said that for the first 2 days they were with at least 1 member of the 1st Presidency all the time. They were trained by almost all of the Quorum of the 12 except for 2 of them. On Sunday they had sacrament meeting and the whole 1st Presidency was there. They said that there was such a power when they all walked in. You could feel the spirit as the prophet and his counselors walked in. That would be an amazing experience. Well President and Sister Greer told us about themselves. Sister Greer is awesome. She is very outgoing and funny. President Greer is great too. I think he was just on a spiritual high from the MTC because he was very emotional haha. He will be great for this mission. They did tell us that there were going to be some changes that were going to take place that are coming out from the 1st Presidency. Unfortunately, they didn't tell us what any of those changes are going to be. There is a rumor that the Mission home and office might change to the west side of our mission over in Vancouver. So if that were to happen I wonder if they would change the name of the mission to the Washington Vancouver Mission?

Later that day I went on exchanges in Walla Walla with our district leader, Elder Denny. It was way fun. We work well together. We had a good talk that night too. And I just barely finished my exchange with his companion in Walla Walla, Elder Sabe. I don't know if I ever told you guys, but Elder Sabe went to Cottonwood. We didn't know each other, but we know all of the same people. It's pretty crazy. We had a way fun time last night. Its always fun to go to a new area and be with a different companion for a while. Plus you get to see how other missionaries do missionary work.

Well stuff that has been going on lately,.....hmmm......we have been doing a lot of service. Its been really good though. Missionaries are always asking if there is anything that they can do for someone. People generally are just like, "hmm.....no I think I am okay." Well we know that there are a few people who have been needing some help around their house and yard. So we decided to go with a more direct approach. There is this less-active lady that we have been trying to meet. Her 5 year old son has epilepsy and it has been really hard on her. We want to help her, but every time she has just said, "no I'm doing fine." So the other day we go up to her and say, "Hey your dad told us that you need your drive way dug out. We have Thursday open and wanted to come help, could we come do that for you?" She was much more willing when we actually brought something up and told her we wanted to do it. So we have done that with a couple other people and it has been great because it's people that we have wanted to get in with and haven't been able to. We are able to actually talk to them while we work too. So I hope that we can get some good results from it. In other good news, Laurel Bloomfield is getting baptized this Friday!!!!! She finally made the decision. Last week we went through the baptismal interview questions and she knew everything and said that she would be willing to live all the commandments, because she already does. Her husband will be baptizing her on Friday. I'm so happy for them. They have come to church every week for all 3 hours since we met them. They have been great. I'll definitely take some pictures and send them to everyone.

Our 4th of July was pretty good. We had church that day. We had dinner with a less-active couple. Its actually the parents of the lady who's son is epileptic. They cooked us steak and salmon. It was way good. We have gotten to know them really well. The wife is having a real hard time with her grandson going through all of this. She just can't understand why god would do this to a young innocent boy. We have talked to her about it a lot. The doctors have tried everything they can for him and he just doesn't get any better. Well we were having dinner with them and we usually leave a spiritual thought. I was planning on leaving something that would strengthen their faith and give them encouragement, but I had the strongest prompting to talk about obedience to god's commandments. I talked about how they have done everything known to man for her grandson and right now they need Gods help. I brought up all the commandments and invited them to church. I pretty much called them to repentance. I have never done that on my mission before. I just had the strongest prompting that I knew I couldn't back out from it. I was pretty dang afraid to do it. Man I hope they do come to church. They really need it right now, they just don't realize it. I told how I love them and their family and how I just want the best for them. I think she started to get a little offended, but then I explained what I meant and everything was alright. Pretty intense though. Since it was the 4th of July we had an early curfew. We had to be in by 8. they were doing fireworks all over in Waitsburg so Elder Wagner and I got on our members roof and watched them for a little bit. It was pretty fun. Made me miss the fireworks back at home though.

Well we find out about transfers this Saturday. Since we have a new mission president no one knows what is going to happen. It has been that on Saturday President Belnap would send a voice message to the whole zone telling everyone the changes that were going to take place and then we would leave on Wednesday. Now it could be so different. He could tell us the night before if he wanted to. So we will have to find out. I have no idea what is going to happen to me. We always have transfer predictions in our district and everyone predicted that I would be leaving and going to the west side of our mission. I kinda hope that happens. I haven't been on the west side yet and I heard its really cool. If both Elder Wagner and I stay then I would probably be there the following transfer to get someone new going into the area. That would be about 7 1/2 months in Dayton! That would be crazy. I'm hoping that I go to the west side, but who knows. Well that's it for me. I hope everyone is doing great and having a fantastic summer. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Garrick