I Am A Trainer With Two Missionaries!

Cowtown Buffet with Elder Brock and Elder Hoskin

October 26, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Hey everyone! Can't believe it's already Pday again! Haha they just come and go so fast. So many great things happened this past week. I went and picked up my boys Elder Hoskin and Elder Brock on Wednesday. That was awesome! I definitely was blessed with two great companions. Here's a little bit about both of them. Elder Hoskin is from Boise, ID. He did band in high school and played the clarinet. He wants to go into the medical field studying the brain. So he is a smart kid. He is definitely fired up about the work. He is always ready to go and work. Elder Brock is from Saratoga Springs, UT. He did band as well. I'm not really sure about all the terms and stuff but from what they have talked about it sounds like he was pretty good. He played the trumpet and did drum-core. He took like 3 years of German so he is trying to transfer over to Spanish haha. He wants to be an aerospace engineer when he goes home. He has that excitement to go out and talk to people as well.

It's awesome being a trainer. I feel like I am being trained because I have learned so much this week. It feels good to go back to the basics and focus on them. We have done so much practicing together to help them feel more comfortable with contacting and teaching. We have also gone out and put it to use in the streets haha. The first night we were here we went out and walked around talking to people. We ended up finding several people that spoke Spanish that said we could come back and teach them. We also ran into one of the members of our Ward and he invited us in to eat some quesadillas and chicken haha. So they had an awesome first experience going out and working. Then on Thursday we took the bikes out. :) That was a blast! Haha we talked to some crazy people!! Also to some really cool people. My companions loved it so we are going to be biking around a lot this transfer.

Morning Glory with the Zone

So we are "shotgunning" the area so we didn't know anyone here at all. Plus we didn't have an area book until this weekend. So it was kind of tough for a couple days. We basically just tracted and talked to people. Once we got the area book we were able to see who the sisters were reaching here last transfer as well as the addresses for all of the members in our Ward. That saved our lives haha.

My Spanish is starting to come back little by little. Ha, doing my best to teach my companions how to speak it as well as learn it myself. It was funny yesterday in church we all got called up to bear our testimonies and talk for a couple minutes. Elder Hoskin and Brock were pretty nervous. They did a great job though. We have such a small ward! I think there was maybe 50 or 60 people there on Sunday. Hopefully we can add a few to the ward these next few transfers.

We met a couple named Juana and Isidro. They have been talking to the missionaries for like the past 8 months. They invited us over for lunch and we were able to share a message with them. We established a good relationship with them so hopefully we will get to see them baptized here pretty soon!

So anyway things are good here in East Sac. We are learning lot and working hard. Hoping to see some miracles here in the coming week.

Love you all!

-Elder Gammell

Well We Had Transfers This Week!

Zone Breakfast at Annie's Diner

October 20, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Hey everyone! Well we had transfers this week. I had to say goodbye to Carmichael and all the great people I met there. I had such a great experience and I feel like I learned so much from my time there. It's always hard leaving an area that you love. Elder Ross was a great comp. We had a blast and we became great friends. Wish I could've served one more transfer with him but it's all good. One thing I have learned on my mission is that there is no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone. So it will be good to have a change. This next transfer will definitely get me out of my comfort zone haha. I'm in East Sac now. I am back in Spanish work again! I have also been called to train two new missionaries. We will be shotgunning the area because none of us have served here before. So basically means we are starting everything over. It feels like a lot right now. Kind of overwhelming but I know who I am working for. Haha so I am excited to see what these next two transfers have in store. I don't have my new companions yet because they are flying in today. We will go to the mission office tomorrow morning to pick them up. It's going to be awesome.

Saying bye at the transfer meeting.

Last week was such a great week! Our investigator we found about a week and a half ago named Jill came to church on Sunday again. There couldn't have been a better Sunday to come to church. Our Stake President spoke on how to know God loves and cares for us. It was seriously one of the best talks I have heard in a sacrament meeting. Jill was listening so closely to what he was saying. Now here's the cool part. She pulled her father's wedding band out and was spinning it on her finger. She said as she was listening and looking at the ring she felt the strongest feeling come over her that everything she was hearing was true. It gave her goosebumps and she said she felt a relieving sense of peace and love. She said she has never felt the spirit that strong before. After the meeting we had to rush to go give the gospel principles lesson. We left her with our Bishop to talk for a little bit. After we came out of our lesson with her our Ward mission leader came up to us and told us some great news. He said that Jill told the bishop that she really wants to be baptized! Our jaws hit the floor haha! Elder Ross and I were so pumped. She had to leave church early so we didn't get to talk to her until later that night. When we saw her later the first thing she said was, "well did he tell you guys?" Haha. We talked to her and she told us about how she had talked to missionaries before and they shared their message and prayed for her in the streets but she never felt anything. But she said there was something very different about when we found her. She said after we left that day she couldn't stop thinking about what we told her. Then everything in her life started turning around. She was at her lowest and didn't know where to go. I think that's what prepared her to receive such a strong answer from our Heavenly Father at this time. She thanked us and told us how excited she was. Then we gave her a baptismal date for November 7th and she gladly accepted it! So that will be coming up soon! What a great way to end my time in Carmichael. Plus

right after that we went to a member's house and did a tri-tip eating challenge. Haha we beat it ;)

Last comp picture with Elder Ross.

I’m very excited for this upcoming transfer. It is going to stretch me quite a bit but I know it will help me grow. The scripture I pondered last week really helped me out. It's in D&C 101:16. It says, "Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God." I really like this scripture. It always gives me peace in knowing that God has a plan and if we trust in it everything will be ok. I think sometimes we make things harder on ourselves because we try to do everything on our own. He wants to help us. We just have to let him.

Thanks for all the love and support from back home.

Love you all!

~Elder Gammell

We Were Pretty Busy Earlier This Week...

Zaira Got Baptized

October 12, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

We were pretty busy earlier this week moving some of the other Elders in the Zone into a new apartment. We helped them move all the furniture over and cleaned the apartment out. You would be surprised how many things get left behind by missionaries. Haha years of stuff. We sifted through it and saved the good things and threw away the garbage. We ended up scoring a bench press and a bunch of weights. We were happy about that. Now we can work out with more than just one 50 lb. dumbbell!

Tuesday and Thursday we went on some exchanges. I went on an exchange with one of the office elders. One thing I learned from our exchange is that I would not like to be an office elder haha. They have to deal with so many little problems. Fixing the printer, iPads, phones, everything. It would get pretty annoying after a while. We had a really good exchange on Thursday with one of the Assistants. We ended up finding a solid investigator named Jill. We were walking through a complex and she was getting stuff out of her trunk. We started talking to her and she was so nice. It's crazy how fast people just open up to us hah. She started telling us about how her father passed away and she has really been struggling with it. We shared Alma 40:11-12 which talks about what happens after we die. It brought a lot of peace to her and we could tell she needed to hear that. We invited her to church and got her information so we could come back again. Yesterday she came to church so that was awesome! The youth did a program where they sang and gave talks. She really enjoyed it. She said she is coming back next week for sure so hopefully she keeps progressing!

Zaira got baptized this week! I was so excited to be able to go back to my old area in North Sacramento. I missed the Rio Tierra Ward and all the members. I hadn't spoken Spanish in a little over 4 months so that was cool too. I was a little rusty but it is still there. Zaira was so excited and nervous before the baptism. She has been meeting with us for over 7 months haha. She always took the invitation to be baptized very seriously. She told us when she makes this promise she wants to keep it so we are glad she took her time. The spirit was there so strong throughout the entire baptism. This will bless her life so much! Grateful I could be a part of her conversion.

Only a week left in the transfer! So I won't be emailing next Monday. Might be moving to a new area because I have been in Carmichael for 4 1/2 months. We will see.

Have a great week everyone.

Love you all!

-Elder Gammell

-President and Sister Jardine, Zaira and Ethan, Elder Ackley, Me, Elder

Poulton, Elder Tena, and Elder Radmall.

Get Week! We Saw Some Amazing Things Happen.

Cutting down some Bamboo

October 5, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Great week! We saw some amazing things happen. It all started with a training we had earlier this week. We were able to Skype with Michael Hemingway, the President of the proselyting department of the church. It was awesome! He answered any questions that we had and taught us about how to plan more effectively. It was crazy how easily he answered all of our questions and he did it all using preach my gospel. He showed us how preach my gospel really is our best tool in becoming the best missionaries possible. It definitely something that I haven't used nearly enough on my mission so far. But this week I used it more then I have in my entire mission. And guess what? We saw success in our area. Haha it must be an inspired book or something.

We also were able to prepare a training to teach the other missionaries what we learned. It was really cool. We used a cool spin on it all. We took the story of Nephi and his family leaving Jerusalem to teach all the points. Kind of hard to explain it all but it worked out so well and the missionaries really liked it. Main focus of it was Including the Lord in His work.

This week as we did that we were able to add some solid investigators. And our days just felt so much more successful. We found this little old lady named Gussy the other night. We were knocking on the door of a referral we received. As we walked away we saw a skunk in the yard next to us so of course we tried to get close to it haha. Didn't get sprayed luckily. But as we were doing that Gussy came out and asked us if we could help her. Her trash can had fallen over in the garage and she couldn't get it back up. She is probably a good couple inches shorter than 5 ft, probably around 80 years old and there was no way she could do it on her own. We went in and picked it all up for her. She was so grateful. We got talking to her and found out her husband had just died 5 weeks earlier. She had been expecting it so she didn't seem too sad about it. We shared our testimonies with her about how we knew where he was and that she would see him again. Also that families can be sealed together here on earth by the priesthood authority that is found in our church. It definitely caught her attention. She invited us back the next day. We went over and taught her more about the plan of salvation and we shared a Book of Mormon with her. The lesson went great and she said she would read it. She turned down the baptismal invite because she has been Catholic for so many years. But we feel like she will once she learns more and reads from the Book of Mormon.

We also were able to start teaching a family of 5 that the Bishop in our ward has been working with for over a year. They are his next door neighbors and they are just great people. We had a dinner over at the bishop's house with them. We shared a message about faith with them and challenged them to pray as a family every day. They really loved the lesson. We also gave him a blessing after dinner. The Spirit was there very strong. They said they could feel it. His wife was crying and they thanked us. We are going to try to stop by and see them soon. We are trying to let our Bishop work with them and go at their pace because we don't want to jump in and overwhelm them. But they said we could come by so we are so excited!

General conference was awesome! It's so amazing to see how the Lord answers our questions through his servants that he has called. They truly are working under and for our savior. I loved so many of the talks but one of my favorites was probably President Monson's talk on being an example of the believers and being in the world but not of it. He taught all the points so simply and straightforward. Sad to see him getting older but his talk was still very powerful. Henry B. Eyring's talk on the Holy Ghost was awesome! I also liked Devin G. Durrant's challenge to ponderize a scripture every week. Elder Ross and I are taking the challenge. It was cool to see the Lord call three new apostles as well. It's a real testimony builder to see that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints truly is led by Jesus Christ and it will continue to go forward.

Anyways, the work is going well out here. Hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Gammell

Glow in the dark soccer