August 2, 2010 - Week 51

Hello Family and Friends,

Its always good to be able to write to everyone. We are so busy it is so hard for me to write letters. I know that before I left on my mission I always said I wouldn't be the missionary who was too busy to write people, but you can get so busy sometimes. Literally working from 10 am to 9:30 pm and then we have to plan and update our records. Many nights I rarely have time to even write in my journal which is something I have really been striving to do. Many nights I just come home, plan, update, and then go to bed. I promise that I will always write back, it just may take a couple months haha.

Well this week we had a new training. There are a new set of 8 missionary lessons to help missionaries become more effective and really to strive to help our investigators. The training was so good. Probably the best I have ever had. There are new Preach My Gospel DVD's that depict the lives of 8 missionaries. Its kinda like reality tv for missionaries, but you get to see them actually teaching people and planning for the week. Its just real life. Its good because the missionaries take the training and apply it into their teaching and you get to see how much better their lessons go and how their investigators really feel the spirit and become converted themselves. There was a big focus on addressing the investigators needs and asking them questions so that we can understand them and understand what they believe so far. If they have any concerns then we can immediately address their concerns and teach specifically to help them. This has always been the goal of teaching, but there is just a higher emphasis on doing it and ways to rely on the spirit. It was good. We have zone conference in a couple weeks and I'm sure we will get the 2nd lesson for this new training. I am really excited about it. I know that it will really help our investigators.

Well we met with Caysie on Tuesday. She wasn't able to come to church again. We talked to Sara Huxoll and she said that Caysie has a lot of questions that she is asking her now. We are going to try to meet with her again even before our next appointment. That is why I titled this email the way I did. I can not believe how hard missionary work can be sometimes. To truly help investigators be converted to Jesus Christ and the Restored Gospel is not an easy task. I realize more and more everyday how important the spirit is because I do not know what I would do with out the spirits help in my teaching.

This week we also had dinner with this less active couple that we have been working with. We haven't been teaching them anything, but we have been trying to just fellowship them. We had a great dinner with them. We decided to teach them about the gospel: faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We had a really good lesson. Sister Lowe, the less active woman, is from England. Both her and Brother Lowe are hilarious. Well we are teaching them and we start talking about the Holy Ghost and how we are happier when we have the influence of the holy ghost in our lives. I ask Sister Lowe, "What can you do to have the holy ghost more in your life." She goes, "Well we can go to church!" Completely took me off guard. I thought she was going to say pray or read scriptures or something. So we invited them to church. Unfortunately they didn't come. I guess everyone has their free agency. But we did give them both a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon and committed them to read it everyday. We followed up and they said that they have been reading. It was good. I hope we can still make progress with them.

It was kind of a hard week for us. We had that great training and it got us really excited, but it was just rough. We had a lot of appointments cancel and we didn't have the best lessons with our investigators this week. We are struggling to find new people to teach. Once again, this is not easy. For some reason I have full confidence that things will start to work out for us. As long as we are trying our best and doing what the Lord wants us to do then it will work out. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do. I guess it's my faith in Christ. I guess that leads me into my scripture for the week. Its D&C 68:5-6. Just keep moving forward. It brings a whole new meaning to enduring to the end. Well I hope everyone is doing well. Hopefully your enjoying your summer. Take care.

Love,
Elder Garrick