July 20, 2010 - Week 49

Elder Wagner, Laurel and Jim Bob Bloomfield at Laurel's baptism
On the way to the Bloomfields house with Elder Wagner

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well this week. It was a very big week for me. We finally had our transfers and Elder Wagner left for Vancouver for his very last transfer. It was really fun serving with him. And there at the transfer site was my "son," or my "greenie." Whatever you want to call him, his real name is Elder Williams. He is from Hurricane, Utah and graduated in 2009. This kid is great. He is fairly tall and a little bit heavier than me. He has such a desire to work and do all he can. It is so funny because it just reminds me of when I came out into the mission field. He keeps saying, "Man you have been out for so long. You are so experienced. I can't even imagine being out for as long as you have." It really has flown by so fast. It seems like just yesterday I was coming to this mission. He is a lot of fun to work with. We get along great. He is really down to earth and just wants to have a good time. He always says, "I am your ball of clay, so just mold me." I just tell him that is Gods role not mine haha.

It is a lot of fun being a trainer. I feel so knowledgeable right now. All the greenie's just have absolutely no idea what is going on. Its fun to be able to help them and practice things with them. We had our trainers meeting this week as well. President Greer said that one of the biggest compliments that a mission president can give his missionaries is to have them be a trainer to a new missionary. He said that he trusts us to get these missionaries started right, because it will have an impact on them for the rest of their missions.

We met with Caysie again this week. Her friend Lorns was sick so we weren't able to teach him. I think that she is so stressed right now with her daughter and her house and her fiance. I feel so bad for her. We have set a date for her to be baptized on August 14th. We set it out a little further because there is a lot that we still need to teach her. Sarah Huxoll actually knows her very well so she is going to come with us tonight to help teach. Its really cool that we are able to bring some of our recent converts out to teach our new investigators. Sarah has missed church the past couple of weeks because of vacation. I was really starting to worry about her, but she came last Sunday and when we talked with her she said that she missed church so much. She just felt so much better when she got home.

We have a couple new investigators that I don't know if I have told you about them or not. There is a couple named James and Danika. James is actually blind. He has cancer and he has some problem with his feet. They have kids together, but for reasons unknown to me right now, they have been taken away and are currently living with foster parents. One of their kids is being adopted this week and will be moving some where on the east coast. They are pretty sad about it. I guess the adoptive parents are LDS and they thought that they might as well learn more about it. We found them while we were just walking on the street and we stopped to talk to James. Even though he is blind he gets around. He has memorized the town by how many steps and turns he has to make. We have taught them a couple of times. Yesterday we had Danika pray at the end of our lesson. She said in her prayer, "I'm thankful we could have the missionaries come over and teach us more about the Mormon church. It is different from what I have been taught, but it sounds like it is the truth." Darn right its the truth. I love hearing investigators pray. It is always so sincere.

We also found a new investigator named Sam. There is an older lady in our ward that we were going to go see. They live in a retirement community. Her neighbor was out sitting on his porch so we went up and started talking to him. He said that he lived in Utah for a while. We talked to him a little more and asked if we could come back another time to meet with him. He said yes. Well Elder Williams did not have a lot of hope for Sam. He kept on saying, "Ya we can try Sam, but I don't know if he is really interested or not." I just told him you can misjudge. So we went over to his house one night. He of course forgot we were coming over but he invited us in. We talked with him for a while and then started to teach him. Poor Elder Williams forgot the first vision. He was teaching it and he goes, "And then Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. Ummm.....Elder Garrick do you want to explain what happened?" So I took over and taught the rest. Man I love being a trainer. The spirit was very strong and we asked him to read and pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He is going on vacation this week, but hopefully we can meet with him again next week. We told him that he now has reading material for his trip haha.

Well that's about it for me this week. Have a great week everyone. Hope to hear from you sometime. Take Care.

Love,
Elder Garrick