September 7, 2010 - Week 56

Hello Everyone!

It has been a great week for Elder Prawitt and I. We did so much, I can't believe it has only been a week. I will probably only highlight a couple of the many events that took place. On Thursday we had Zone Leader Council in Kennewick. This meant that most of Wednesday we took our van, yes elder Prawitt and I drive a mini van, and some of the other zone leaders in the other Vancouver areas and drove to Kennewick. It was a blast. We picked up Elder Olsen and we got to talk and joke around the whole way down. That night we stayed at the AP apartment. It was fun. I got to talk with the 2 AP's and just get to know them. They are amazing missionaries. ZLC was great. It's where all the zone leaders in the mission get together and have a training from President and Sister Greer and the AP's. We reported on how well our zone is doing and discussed the needs of the mission and how we could improve. The best part of the meeting was at the end. President Greer asked a few missionaries to bear their testimonies. There were a couple who were going home this transfer. They told of experiences they have had, especially with teaching from these new lessons. Teaching People, Not Lessons. Its truly amazing. By the end of the meeting there was a great spirit there. We all sang, "If You Could Hie To Kolob," and there was great power in the song. We prayed and the meeting ended. Everyone just sat there. I feel so privileged to be a part of all of this now. Many of the missionaries who were there have been my leaders. They have been the ones that I have looked up to my whole mission, and now I get to work with them. I saw many of my friends there and made some new friendships. It was such a fun time.

There is a lot of reporting that we have to do as zone leaders. Its definitely something I am not used to. This week we have been working on our Stake Report on how well the missionary work is going in the stake and what improvements we would like to see. On Sunday we met with the Stake President and his councilors, President Greer and his first councilor. Man talk about spiritual giants. I felt like a little boy sitting inside of that meeting with them. They are so loving, but have a sense of power too. President Greer is hilarious too. He was cracking jokes the whole time. That was really neat. I guess I'll be doing a lot more of that in the future.

Whit you talked about in your letter how the missionaries in your ward explained how referrals work. And Lynds you said a little bit about your neighbors you just moved in. I want to tell you a story about how important members are in missionary work. Last week we talked to the the Browns in our ward. The Browns are the Samoan family who just recently got baptized. We gave a lesson on missionary work and asked if there were any neighbors they had they could invite over for family home evening. They said their next door neighbors. They didn't really know them, but they thought they would be good. We asked Brother Brown if they thought their neighbors would come. He said, "Don't worry Elders. We have faith. They will come." So the Browns went over the next day and invited them over. We had dinner on Saturday with both families. It was really fun. After we shared a message on families. Eric, the son who is preparing to go on a mission bore his testimony on how much the gospel has blessed his family. Then Sister Brown told them why she invited them over, because she wants the same thing for their family. The young couple was touched. They talked about how God is very important to them and their family. The Browns invited them to come to church this next week and encouraged them to take the lessons from the missionaries. The couple accepted. It was great. They did such a good job. So this next Saturday we are going to have a lesson with the couple and they are going to come to church with the Browns on Sunday.

Another instance of members inviting their friends. There is this new young couple who moved into the ward. They are living with their non-member cousins right now. The ward helped them move in last week and ever since their cousins have been asking a ton of questions. So we talked to them and scheduled a time we could have dessert and get to know them. We went over and started chatting. The non-member husband, Ian, was talking to us about his religious background. He said that religion has always been an important part of his life. He feels there has to be more to life than what he is doing everyday and he is searching for something. We talked about our purpose in life. We shared scriptures with them and introduced them to the Book of Mormon. We then explained that we teach people more about the Plan of Salvation and asked them if we could share more of this message with them. The wife then piped in, "Ya we want to learn more about your beliefs." They are completely ready for the gospel. They want to have God in their kids lives. We are going to start teaching them this week as well. So this week has been great. We are getting a lot of referrals from members and are working closely with them. Whit and Lynds, that is why members are so important. I can't tell you how many doors I have knocked and only a few will listen. Those who do listen, its so much harder to teach them, because they don't have a friend to help and support them.

Another fun thing you get to do as a missionary is help the companionships who are struggling. Oh boy is that fun haha. This week we had two sister missionaries who just are not getting along. We found out some information and had to resolve it. We sat down with both the sisters and talked about their companionship. What they liked about each other, what they disliked, what they could change, how they could help each other. Man I have never had to do something like that with sister missionaries. It was really good though and they are getting a long more. Last night I went on my first exchange as a zone leader. I went with a new missionary who came out with Elder Williams. It was a lot of fun. It was nice not to be a zone leader for one day and to just help this young missionary out. He had a lot of questions on missionary work and how to work with his companion. It was like I was training again. We had a good day. We found some new investigators and had great lessons with the ones we taught that day.

Well I am running out of time. I hope everyone has a great week. Hope its sunny there, because it is raining today. The rain is coming and it soon will not stop.

Love,
Elder Garrick