2015-02-25 San Nicolas

Hey mom,

Obviously I went to the temple today [His preparation day changes when they go to the temple and his email is delayed which makes his parents worry just a little] It was awesome again.

Monterrey Mexico Temple

Do you want me to write nathaniel in spanish?

Really quick, can you put some money on my card?

Everything is going great over here, We are going to have a baptism this saturday! His name is F and he is the cousin of the director of missionary work in the ward, I already said that though. He´s been exposed to the church for a long time because of his family, and he came to church a couple times and really wanted to get baptized and such. He´s really smart, really funny, really strong (his job is a physical teacher of some sorts and he works out about 3 hours everyday) and he´s just a super cool guy. He didn´t come to church last sunday...because he went down to veracruz to visit his girlfriend, who is an active member, to go to their stake conference! how cool is that. But I have noticed that the investigators that start learning from members(not missionaries) and join the church with a friend on hand are the ones who usually are stronger in the church and stay active and such. Who can you share the gospel with this week? Mom? Dad? Nathaniel? Think about that. Oh how was FHE?

Well Since Elder J and I are such good friends, and we are working super hard and having fun doing so, this change has gone by too fast, next tuesday will be changes, and I might leave this area (And Elder J! NO!) I really hope I stay because I love the people in this ward and I love having Elder J as my companion. We will soon see what happens, but whatever it is, it will be great, I know that much.

At the Temple today, some people from another zone came up to me and said "Are you Elder Garner?"

"Yes"

"We´ve heard a lot of great things about you! You sound like an awesome missionary!"

Honestly I was pretty flattered. hahaha

Elder J and Davis

Keep reading your scriptures, keep saying family prayer, keep doing family home evening. Tell Thanny I love him and Tell dad I have some golf ties to send him (They´re really cool)

Love,

Davis 

February 16, 2015 San Nicolas

Well, Cerro de la Silla got canceled because it had been raining this week, and then we barely missed our goals too. I´m a little bummed, but elder J and I worked super hard and I´m proud of our work. We have 3 progressing investigators right now, all of which are committed to being baptized and were all references of the members!! it´s super awesome! only one will be able to be baptized in this change, but all will be baptized within a month or 5 weeks. The one that is going to get baptized is named F, he is the cousin of the director of missionary work for this ward. he started coming to church, he always listens in sacrament meeting and the lessons, and he understands everything! he´s super cool, and we couldn´t even invite him to get baptized because he cut us off and said that he wanted to. it was cool. It´s really good that the members here are finding people they know to teach, because then that will help those people have friendships in the church and someone to turn to always. Like President Hinckley said, every recent convert needs a calling, a friend, and to be nurtured by the good word of God.

E is doing better, he´s going to the earlier ward at 9 right now and is going to leave soon. O is back and ready to pass the sacrament early as always. He´s making friends in deacon´s quorum which is really good.

Guess what. I finally gave my first talk in church yesterday(yes) I blessed the sacrament because they didn´t have enough priests, and so I was sitting up there, and My companion is giving a talk. The bishop sees that they´re still going to have time, and so he asks me to bare my testimony, about 5 mintues later, the teacher sitting next to the deacon tells me five minutes, Right before i get up, he looks at me signaling at least 10 minutes.ok.  no problem. now, I don´t mean to toot my own horn, but it was a darn good talk. elder J had just finished talking about how we can do missionary work everyday and how its important to hasten the work (I don´t really remember the details, but it was a really good talk, he talked for about 17 mintues, and he really got the members attention with a couple jokes and stories [I love elder J if I haven´t told you yet]) But I just got up and built off of his talk, talking about how we can trust in the lord in knowing his sheep that need it, and how if we ask him to find people, believing that we will receive, then we will (DC 18;18) I used a lot of personal examples, some from the mission, and some from before. That worked super well mom, thanks for that advice. It is always best to hear personal examples and then talk about the principle. together, we were really able to stir the hearts of the members, capture the trust of everyone in the ward. and now they just want to help us.

I love being in this area, even if it is the smallest area in the mission.

Oh, I thought of one thing that I want for my birthday, A letter from Nathaniel.

How is FHE going and all? I got a letter from the luke skywalker and somervilles and they said that they´re gonna write missionaries once a month, that´s really cool. come up with fun activities to make FHE more fun!

Alright, I´ll talk to you next week!

I love you!

Elder Garner

2-09-2015 San Nicolas

Hey Mom! sounds like that was a good lesson! And guess what I´ve been wearing sunscreen!!!!! And flossing, but I struggle with that...don´t worry I´m getting there.

I like that picture on the question. Elder J wants me to take him all around california when We both get back home. I´d totally do it he´s already my best buddy. I told him about Pt. Mugu and all of the cool things in california. Do you think you could send me a picture of Pt. Mugu? And a picture of the lego mosaic cuz I was going to show him that. 

Looks like everything is going well up there. down here it´s been going really well. We didn´t get to go clean the temple today because of logistic problems but We´re probably going to get to hike the super famous mountain next week Cerro de la cilla! look it up, it´s a super cool mountain. We had to set some zone goals to earn the privilege to go, but we have been making the goals so I think it might happen!

A lot of cool things have happened this week. we found some good new investigators and had a lot of spiritual experiences. One of these was when we had had a really good day, and we were walking back home. We walked by a boy our age in the park, we walked about 6 or 7 steps, and then Elder J and I both got the prompting to turn around and talk to him. He was having a hard time with a lot of things,and after we had taught him a bit he really did feel a lot more at peace. The Lord really did put him there in the park so we could talk to him, and we almost passed him by so the spirit had to yank us back! We´ve seen him a couple more times this week and he wants to get baptized, but it´s going to take a while because of his situations (not married but living with someone, but don´t worry they want to get married.)

We finally found E. He´s been busy with finding and doing work so he hasn´t come to church. He said that he´s going to move to San Antonio Texas in less than two weeks so I need to get this address and all before he goes. He said he found a church up there, and I think that will be very good for him to go to church in the states because they´re really strong up there.

O didn´t come to church again, he´s still been really diligent in reading the Book of Mormon and all, but I think it´s really hard that his parents aren’t helping him go to church or anything. honestly he really doesn´t have enough support in the church and it´s making me frustrated. he´s only 13 and he needs some buddies and a lot of support, even if he is a super good kid. we´re trying to encourage the members to be more active in befriending recent converts and investigators.

WE HAD A SETENTA [a church leader from the “Quorum of the Seventy”] COME TO OUR SACRAMENT MEETING! It was super unexpected. Elder Hamula. He gave a really good talk and I could understand it all! Most of the stuff he talked about was mexico specific, but one thing he mentioned was that we should be doing more temple work, and that we should be autosufficent in that by doing temple work for our own ancestors. i can´t really do that as a missionary, but you guys can!!! :) You should go again because the LA temple is the best one.

I can´t really explore my area because it´s the smallest area in the mission, and our district doesn´t have anything great, but i´m still having a blast!

I love you guys!

Elder Garner

02-02-2015 San Nicolas

I´m gonna get some letters tomorrow, the zone leaders told me that I got some (You really only get letters once a change because the secretary of materials only goes to send all of the letters once and only goes to pick them up every six weeks, so I try to send at least one or two letters every six weeks)

Davis in the crazy coche (slang for car)

Hmm I write letters weird. oh well. 

 

"The low rider is a little higher."

Hey so this week was pretty good, It was really hard but it was really good too. We worked super hard, and we finally broke the no people in church curse that we have had for 5 weeks! We had 3 investigators in church yesterday and it was awesome because during testimonies all of the members gave their testimonies about the restoration and such (not consciously) and it was super awesome! ALSO, we gave a lesson to the members the third hour about service and how through that you can share the gospel with others. It was really good and all of the members felt inclined to do something. We are gaining a lot of the confidence of the members and they are starting to help us a lot more. Also, we got the permission from the mission president to got with the ward next monday and clean the temple(SWEET) that´s going to be super awesome! I´ll send pictures (only of the outside of the temple of course hahaha) 

Elder J and Davis riding in the back of a member's truck.

Here´s something sad. I haven´t seen E in 2 weeks, he´s kind of disappeared, looking for work I assume. It´s pretty frustrating.

Here´s good news. O is doing great and his parents are still being prepared by the Lord. They didn´t come to church yesterday (O didn´t either, but this is only the second time he´s missed church and he only misses it for a super valid reason) But when we visited O, we talked with his parents, which we hadn´t done for about 2 weeks because they weren´t progressing. Well his dad gave the closing prayer, and unlike al others that he has given it was very sincere. He asked for guidance in his day, he asked for the Lords help to help him focus on his work and his family and not to dwell in bad thoughts and hang around bad influences. He said please help me change. I almost teared up, I could feel the desire growing in him to follow the Lord´s example. We´re going to go see them again today, and we´ll see if they are truly ready to get married and baptized yet, but even if they aren´t yet , I have great faith that they will be, sometime, soon or later, they will be.

 

Davis took Elder S to the Sirloin Stockade with some of his Christmas cash.  Seriously...he's in Mexico and he chooses the Sirloin Stockade.  He could be in Thousand Oaks.

There´s so much stuff that I want to tell you but there isn´t enough time!!!!! I need to make sure that I write it all in my journal! It´s been getting difficult to do everyday but I´m still doing it!

Also, My companion has a book called ¨The Miracle of Forgiveness¨by Spencer W. Kimball. It´s SUPER GOOD.

I Love you all!!

Elder Garner