October 5, 2010 - Week 60

Hello Family,

Man this was such a great week. I have so much to say, but am unfortunately already running out of time. I hope that I can type fast enough. Well this week we had Zone Leader Council again. This is where all the zone leaders get together with the Mission President and discuss the needs of our mission and what we can do. We drove down with all the zone leaders on the west side of the mission on Thursday and the new zone leaders. And guess who is a new zone leader. Elder Buchanan! I hope that he does well in his new position. Also Elder Brinton got called to be a new zone leader. He is in our district right now and is a great missionary. At ZLC we always have a testimony meeting where President Greer usually asks the leaving Zone Leaders to bear their testimony. Those testimony meetings are the most spiritual meetings I have ever been to. There is such a great love for God, for missionary work, and for each other in the room. The past two ZLC's the Spirit has been so strong. It is such a great feeling.

Well I wanted to tell you really fast about Tim and Shilo. We have been teaching Tim for the past couple of weeks now. I think I talked about him in my last email. He has his own belief in God but he came to church with his recently activated girlfriend and we have been meeting with him ever since. We have had some good lessons with him. So the other day we show up to their house and Sister Carlson's, she is Tim's girlfriend, brother is there. He just got out of jail that day. As we sat down he immediately came over to us with a Book of Mormon in hand and started to ask us questions. He said that while he was in jail he went to their library and asked for a Book of Mormon. His grandma is LDS and he wanted to check it out a little bit. Well while he was in jail they took away all of his belongings. He literally had nothing except for the Book of Mormon. He considers it a sign that he should learn more. So we start to explain to him a little bit about the Book of Mormon. Then Tim jumps in and he starts teaching and testifying on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It was amazing. Our investigator is teaching another investigator about the gospel! Shilo, the brother, had studied Native American religion. We told him how the people in the Book of Mormon are the ancestors of the Native American. He was completely amazed. We are now going to start teaching Shilo with Tim. It was pretty cool.

The Gonsalves family is doing pretty well. Brother Gonsalves is solid. He knows this is true and he is leading his family out and setting the example. He has changed so much. His wife is a less active member and has more doubts and concerns right now but we are going to work with her and see if we can help her. Their family is awesome. Brother Gonsalves said that he considers Elder Prawitt and I like his sons.

Wasn't General Conference amazing. Holy cow the first session was just mind blowing. I had so many questions that I wanted answered and most of them were answered in the very first session of General Conference. By the end of Conference, all my questions had been answered. It was so great. I thought it was so cool to see at the very beginning President Monson said that we need more missionaries. I recently heard that only 30% of young men are actually going on missions. As President Monson spoke I could tell that it wasn't coming from him, it was coming from Heavenly Father. My other favorite talks were from Elder D. Todd Christopherson about consecrating yourself. I have really been trying to do that lately with my mission. He gave some great guidance that I am going to try and follow for this next transfer. And President Uchtdorf, surprise surprise. He is still my favorite. His talk on focusing on what is important was so great. The simple things are what really matter. Our relationship with God, family, others, and ourselves. That was so great. And he gave a great talk on Pride. I have really seen how that is the great stumbling block for everyone. I have seen it in investigators, members, missionaries, and sometimes even in myself haha. What a great talk. There was another talk, I can't remember who gave it, but he spoke on faith and character. He said, "We become what we want to be, when we be what we want to become each day of our lives." I loved that. I'm focusing on that everyday. Well that's it for me. I love you guys. Hope you enjoyed General Conference too. I'm always glad to hear that everyone is doing good. I love you.

Elder Garrick