October 26, 2010 - Week 63

Good Morning Everybody!

Well another week in the Washington Kennewick Mission. The rain is finally here and I'm not sure if its going to go away now. It has been raining all week. I am sure getting good use of my coat. Well this week was Steve Gonsalves baptism. We met with him almost everyday to help him be prepared for Saturday. He is an amazing man. On Friday night we went and had a lesson with him. At the end of our lesson we read with him D&C 20:37 about the qualifications for baptism. Tears swelled up in his eyes as he realized the changes he had taken in his life and that he was truly worthy to be baptized. He just started to thank us. He said, "I hope you realize how lucky you are, to have grown up in the church. I would have been much better off if I would have had this in my life earlier. I know that my past is something that shaped me, but you are just so lucky to have had this. I want my kids to be like you. I want them to be able to not give into temptations." He then just started to sob. He grabbed the Book of Mormon in his hand and held it tightly. He said, "I know that this book is true. I know that it is true because it changed my life. It not only changed my life, but it saved my marriage. That woman (talking about his wife) means everything to me. She means everything to me and I want to be with her forever." What a great man he is. He has truly changed his life. You would not even believe what kind of life he used to live, and you would never have known it. He is one of the nicest men you will ever meet. He said that he is excited for his baptism because he can finally put his past behind him. It's buried in the water. He was even more excited for his confirmation, because he said that's when he becomes an official member of the church. He was so excited to receive the gift of the holy ghost.

So his father in law came up from Kennewick to baptize him. He got there the day of the baptism. We didn't know if he had baptismal clothes or not so we brought an extra white jumpsuit. They show up for the baptism and sure enough he doesn't have anything. We gave him the jumpsuit and he tried it on. Unfortunately it was super small on him. The baptism is supposed to start in 10 minutes. We are scrambling wondering what to do. We call the person who has all the clothing and she doesn't answer. Ah man! Time is drawing closer and we literally do not know what to do. Finally we see a guy just randomly walking in the church. He just so happened to have the same size waist as the father in law. So he ran home and grabbed his white temple pants. We started the baptism and had the talk on baptism. The pants still weren't there, so Elder Prawitt and I did a "missionary presentation." We stalled for as long as we could. FINALLY they show up with the pants and Brother Gonsalves father is able to get changed and we could proceed with the baptism. Holy cow was that stressful. I swear all baptisms are stressful. It seems like something always goes wrong at them.

Not much else happened this week. We were able to meet a couple new people and start teaching them. One is a lady named Rebecca. She is homeless right now and living with her aunt. She is so humble. I guess she had met with missionaries in the past and was going to get baptized, but her boyfriend wouldn't let her. She since has broken up with him and her whole life has just fallen apart. She has spent some time in jail and there realized that God was still there for her. Her life is still very hectic right now as she is trying to get everything figured out, but she wants to be baptized. She keeps on pleading for us to come back. We met with her yesterday and are going to see her again tomorrow. She really just wants to change her life. We also met with a lady named Rhonda. She is really cool. We have been trying to meet with her for like 3 months now, but she has always been too busy. She wanted her and her husband to meet with us, but they could never do it at the same time. Finally the husband said he just wasn't interested, so she said we could come by just to see her. We had a great lesson with her. We introduced her to the Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it. God has always been very important to her and overtime she just stopped going to church, but she realizes how much it helped her. She can see how her kids don't have the same thing she did and she really wants them to have it. This week we are having our Halloween Trunk or Treat. We are inviting everyone to it. Hopefully a lot of people show up. Guess what? We have to be in our house by 6 o clock on Halloween. BUMMER!!!!! I don't know what we are going to do. Hand out candy I guess. Oh well.

This last week we had interviews with President and Sister Greer. They are awesome. It was interesting because Elder Prawitt's interview was really short. They pretty much just asked him what he is going to do when he goes home. My interview; on the other hand, was a lot longer. President was drilling me with questions about the Zone and telling me things that need to get done. I guess they are preparing me for when Elder Prawitt leaves. All the responsibility will fall on me. Oh boy. Oh today we are going on a hike. There is this pretty cool waterfall that we are going to hike up to. I'm really excited for it and I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. Well I think that's about it for me. Hope everyone is doing well. Talk to ya later.

Love,
Elder Garrick