October 19, 2010 - Week 62

Hello Everyone!!

Well it is just another day here in Vancouver Washington. The sun is shining and the rain clouds are gone. This week has been pretty good for us. Not a whole lot has happened this last week, but I will hit some of the highlights. I conducted my first baptismal interview. It was an 11 year old boy, so it wasn't that difficult. And man he was rock solid. He has such a testimony of the gospel. I really liked interviewing him. It's amazing to see how much the gospel can really bring happiness into peoples lives, even an 11 year old. So I'm glad it went well. I was stressin out all week and studying up on how to conduct an interview and what I can do to help the person feel comfortable. As most of you know, interviews are usually stressful, and it is for the one doing the interview too haha. But it was not bad at all. Speaking of interviews, Brother Gonsalves had his this last week. We found out some information about him that needed to be taken care of with President Greer. Brother Gonsalves is an amazing man. I can't believe the life that he used to live. Growing up in Boston is rough. He has changed so much and now all he wants to do is do the right thing and follow Christ. Elder Prawitt and I love that guy. We had a long chat with him. He loves to talk. His baptism will be this Saturday and his father-in-law is going to come up from Kennewick to baptize him. I'm so excited for that day.

Really not much else has happened. We didn't teach as much as we usually do. There were just a lot of little things that we had to do. Its funny because we have just been so busy and we have been trying to cram in as much proselyting time as we can. We have put off some of our zone leader responsibilities because something else comes up and we have to take care of that and then we are already running behind on schedule so we just go to our next teaching appointment. We had a big realization this week that we need to slow down and get everything organized. We spent a good day just planning out what needs to be done and how we can do it. It was really good. Everything is working out now and moving smoothly. And now that we are organized we have more time to go proselyte. Its good. I came across this scripture and it really hit home Mosiah 4:27. I can't tell you how much that is true. Yesterday I went on exchanges with an Elder in our district named Elder Mcelhaney. He is such a good kid. Man does he work hard. He didn't have a lot of teaching appointments so we did a ton of tracting. He is a Spanish missionary so he did all the Spanish doors and I did all the English doors. We actually had a lot of success and got a lot of return appointments. I am realizing each and every day that everyone has their own personal conversion to the gospel. We talked a lot about how Heavenly Father gives us opportunities to grow and to learn. Many of these opportunities are things that we are going to struggle with for a while, but we can face those challenges and come out stronger, or we can blame God and just fall deeper into a hole. Elder Mcelhaney was diagnosed with cancer before he came out on his mission. He said that in high school he was doing some awful stuff. He said that he would party a lot. One day he was at the gym and noticed a small lump which he later found out was cancer. He immediately had to go through chemotherapy. He said that after that he changed his life. He should have died, but amazingly he didn't and now he is serving the Lord and doing his best everyday to make it up to him. He said that he is thankful that he got cancer, because cancer saved his life. He was going down the wrong road and now he is back on the right path. Well we had a great exchange. We had an awesome appointment with one of their investigators. Unfortunately it was all in spanish so I just sat and smiled. I could tell that it was good because the investigators were so excited to hear about prophets and the restoration. The spirit was strong too.

Well that's it for me this week. I'm not sure what we are doing for p-day today. I don't think anything special. Take care everyone and enjoy the fall.

Love,

Elder Garrick