Mi querida familia,
Well, another week has come and gone
here in Guayanilla! And boy was it another tough week haha.. wow. But a great
experience, especially yesterday. Basically nothing short of a miracle to me.
:) We'll get there in a second though.
Mom - I'm sorry about your braces
situation and for what happened at Kohl's haha, but I'm glad everything worked
out okay! It's weird to think that a year ago I was walking around in Kohl's as
an employee. Whoa. But I hope that all worked out for you! :)
Dad - That is a great talk, I
enjoyed it! It really applies to the members here, too, because in this ward at
least, they have a hard time wanting to do missionary work. Ugh. So that talk
was really interesting to me. And yes, keep me posted on the Halloween stuff!! Oh,
and let me know how the BYU Football team does!! If I'm right, they start this
weekend, yes? Anyway, just the scores and who they played and stuff. :) Thanks!
Marilee - I will write you
separately.
Well. This week was also kind of
rough in the sense that our investigators just couldn't meet with us, and we
therefore couldn't get many member present lessons. As a mission, the goal is
to have 10 each week, and it was just so hard to even teach our investigators,
let alone with a member present. Basically all week we were contacting and
trying to find people, and we did finally find a couple of people to pass by
and start teaching this week. There's this one guy, named Antonio, who really
seemed interested and seems pretty prepared already. He wants his family to be
raised in righteousness and wants to follow Christ, and that's exactly what
we're here offering! So hopefully we'll be able to teach him more about this
Gospel and how it can help his family.
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| Sign at the beach: Entering Danger Zone - Tsunami |
But really, the great stuff happened
yesterday. At church, after a couple of weeks without an investigator in
church, we had some there!!! One was the husband of a member, who we haven't
taught yet, another was Rosa, an investigator we've been teaching for a little
while, and then Doel and Narayan, the husband and son of a member in the ward.
It was awesome!! Then after church, we went to go teach Josué, another
investigator. And it was a really great lesson. We read 3 Nephi 11 with him,
and at the end, after he had told us that he wants a new beginning and to start
over, we promised him these blessings through baptism and repentance, and then
invited him to be baptized. And he accepted!! He has a baptismal date set for
this 15th of September!! It was great. :) Then we went and taught another guy
the first lesson, and he was really accepting and open, although he didn't want
the Book of Mormon just because he doesn't read much. We'll work with that. But
overall, it was a great lesson, and he accepted pretty much everything! So
yeah, yesterday is when all the success came, after much prayer and pleading
with the Lord. I had been feeling pretty down because we ride our bikes around
all day every day looking for people to teach, and trying to teach our
investigators, but it just feels like sometimes we're not doing anything.
Nobody wants to listen and nothing happens. So when yesterday happened and we
finally had some fruits of our labors, it was really nice. It was an answer to
my prayers, and I was just so happy and thankful to my Father in Heaven who has
heard my prayers and is giving us success now in Guayanilla. Like I said,
nothing short of a miracle. :)
Oh, another interesting thing from
this week, we had a FHE at the bishop's on Friday, and you know what movie they
showed? 17 MIRACLES! And they don't make it in Spanish, so it was in English
with Spanish subtitles. I was in heaven. :) I love that movie SO much, and to
be able to see it here reminded me about everything about the pioneers from
back home, especially Trek. Such a powerful movie, and a powerful message. It
was great to be able to watch it here. :)
Anyway, a bit of a difficult week,
but we're starting to see progress here in Guayanilla. We are getting a bunch
of investigators now, and I'm hoping to see the members help us out a bit more
in the coming weeks. It's hard hard work, but it's so rewarding. :) Oh! And I
got the package with the slime and stuff, thank you so much. :) I put the slime
in my tires, so they're good to go now! Anyway, thank you so much for all that
you do, and for all your support and love. I love you all so very much, and
hope that you all are doing great!!
Con mucho
amor,
--
Elder
Kimball Ray Gardner
Puerto
Rico San Juan Mission
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