Merry Christmas Everyone!

December 24, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Sorry this will be kind of a short letter. This past week has been awesome though! It's such a great time of year to be a missionary.

Last week we had a temple conference and it was so good! Such a neat experience to be part of a temple session full of missionaries. The Spirit was there very strong. I didn't want to leave haha. But it was ok because after we joined up with some other zones in the chapel and had a music conference where tons of missionaries went up and sang musical numbers. That was really cool too. Overall the whole day was so incredible.

We saw some huge progress in our Ward this past week. Things are starting to come together and the feeling in the Ward is getting a lot better. It's cool to see all the work paying off. So hopefully we can get some new members added here pretty soon to keep the ball rolling. We have a guy that we were teaching a few weeks ago named Josue. We gave him over to the YSA Ward but he is getting baptized next week so that is pretty cool. We are excited for him.

Elder Hoskin got strep throat this week so we are doing our best to stay clear of it haha. That's the last thing we need. So the work has been pretty slow this week with all that's going on.

We are doing a really cool service project for a bunch of families that have been living in their cars because they recently got kicked out of their apartment complex because it got shut down. So we worked with one of the wards up here and a bunch of the members pitched in to buy the kids presents. Each kid wrote their wish lists and the members took care of them. So we wrapped all the presents for the kids and tomorrow we get to give them to the kids and see them open them up. That will be really cool.

I just wanted a share a little poem that I found earlier this week that I really liked.

Christmas is not a day or a season, but a condition of heart and mind.

If we love our neighbors as ourselves; 
if in our riches we are poor in spirit and in our poverty we are rich in grace;

if our charity vaunteth not itself, but suffereth long and is kind;

if when our brother asks for a loaf, we give ourselves instead;

if each day dawns in opportunity and sets in achievement, however small--

then every day is Christ’s day and Christmas is always near.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! Love you all! Thanks for the love and support!

-Elder Gammell

Funny video when Skyping with family on Christmas Day.

We Had Some Great Success This Week In Finding More Investigators!

Zone picture at District meeting

December 14, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

We had some great success this week! The Lord provided more investigators for us to visit this week after losing a few last week.

On Tuesday we went into the new part of our area to go visit some potentials. The person we were trying to go visit wasn't home so we just started knocking doors. It didn't take too long until we knocked on a door and met Arileni and her daughter. They were super nice and said they hadn't talked to the missionaries before but would like us to come back. She was busy during the last appointment we set, so we are heading back this Tuesday to teach the whole family. After we met them we knocked the door next to them and met a little family from Afghanistan. None of them could speak like any English except for the dad. We talked to him for a while and taught about the Book of Mormon. He showed a lot of interest so we asked if we could bring one by for his family and he said yes. So we went and got a Persian Book of Mormon from the mission office and took it to them. Second time I've given away a Persian BOM. They were very grateful for it. We challenged them to read and to pray if it was true. Hopefully they do it. We can't really teach them because of the language barrier. Plus we are Spanish missionaries but we gave them our number and told them to call if they want the English Elders to come back and visit.

Thursday was a great day! Plus it was Elder Brock's birthday. We went out and did some contacting in the park for a little while. We ended up finding a lady named Gabby and her 5 kids. She had been to church about 10 years ago in our ward. She remembered how much she liked it and said that she hasn't gone to church since she got so busy with all of her kids. She lives in North Sac but we gave her the address to the church over there. She said

Fruit cups from our new investigator Lorenzo

she would go so maybe one day when I go back and visit the Rio Tierra Ward she will be there. That would be sweet. After that we ended up running into a guy named Lorenzo that sells fruit on the corner of the street. We bought some fruit cups from him and shared the Christmas video. He liked it a lot. We added him as an investigator and he gave us a discount on the fruit so that's a bonus. :) 

Ice Cream at Leatherby's

Playing some Monopoly Deal

Later that night we went and celebrated Elder Brock's birthday at Leatherby's. It was so good! Plus our waitress was a member and she bought our ice cream. After ice cream we went home and planned out our next day. Then we finished off the night playing some Monopoly Deal. If you haven't played it, you should. It's a lot of fun. It gets pretty heated sometimes so be careful haha.

Last night we were able to go to the Live Nativity at the Sacramento Temple! It was really cool. We took Juana and Isidro and their 3 little girls. We stood out in the cold and rain for over an hour but it was worth it. They said there was around 3,000 people there last night. So it was a good turn out. The spirit was very strong there. It's so cool that so many people were able to go and remember to true meaning of Christmas. During the show they played a part of a talk by Thomas S. Monson that was really good. I can't remember it very well but

Nativity at the Temple with Juana, Isidro, Jaqeline, Juanita, and Chalita.

kind of what I got out of it was how we need to put away the things of the world and really focus on our families during this time of year. It's a time of gratitude and giving. Also a time of reflection of how we can grow closer to our Heavenly Father and receive strength through Christ's example and atonement. He also said that we should be doing these things more then just in the month of December. The spirit of Christ can and should be with us all year. And it's something we need to share. I really loved that and I know that it's true. And it's something all of us can strive to do better.

We have a temple Christmas conference this Thursday with President and Sister Jardine. It will be my first one so I am pretty excited. I've heard it is always really good. It's going to be a great week. I won't be emailing next Monday because we don't have Pday until Christmas.

Love you all!

~Elder Gammell

A Lot Happened This Past Week.

Ugly wool ties at District Meeting.

December 7, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

A lot happened this past week. We basically cleaned out a pretty big chunk of our teaching pool this week because people were either not keeping commitments or they moved away. Dropping someone is a hard thing to do to. We want them to understand and live the Gospel because we know how much it will bless their lives. But sometimes they just aren't ready for it and we understand that. It's all good though because we knew those gaps in our teaching pool would fill up soon. It's always a cool thing to see when we lose someone promising the Lord always provides someone new that needs us at that time. And even if we don't baptize them we still leave a lasting impression on them that they will always remember. We talk to so many people who tell us that they were at their absolute low when we found them and the message we shared with them helped get them through that time in their life. That's the cool thing about missionary work. We have the opportunity to share a little bit of that light to help them get through a world that is so dark. 

Dropping off all of the Elders
after the Christmas Devotional.

I really liked David A. Bednar's talk last night in the Christmas devotional. He talked about some symbolism of light in the story of Samuel the Lamanite preaching to the Nephites. Those people had been taught about Jesus Christ and they were told he would come. Even though many people forgot or didn't believe the things Samuel said, many people still remembered. And they held on to that when there were days of darkness. And that's when Jesus came and blessed them for their faith. He taught them and showed them the way to return to Him and our Heavenly Father again. So I guess that's what I got out of this past week. That even if we don't see the fruits of our labors, we can still hope that somewhere down the road it will bless them. I know for many people we have met out here it will.

We had a great experience last night. So we were going to go visit a less active member. We pulled up to his house and there were three guys sitting in the garage having them a couple beers. Normally when we see this it's probably a better idea to come back another day because it's never too effective talking to people when they are drunk. But for some reason I just felt like we should go talk to them. So we weaved our way through the mess of cars in the driveway and started talking to them. They were friends of the less active member we were there to visit. So anyway, we started talking to them and they were pretty friendly to us and they hadn't been drinking for very long so we were actually able to talk for a while. We talked about football and soccer and all kinds of stuff. Then we asked if we could show them the new Christmas video. They were up for it so we pulled out the iPad and showed them it. It was cool to watch their faces as the video went on. At the end they all said they loved it. We testified of the truth of the video and how they can come to know the Savior more by coming to church with us. They gave us their addresses and said we could come by this week and that they would try to come to church next Sunday. Too bad two of the guys didn't live in our area so we sent them off as referrals to the Sisters in our Ward. One of them did live in our area so we are excited to go back this week. Pretty cool to see the blessings we receive when we just open our mouths. And also the power of the  story of Jesus Christ's birth.

We are taking a few of our investigators this weekend to the temple to watch a live nativity. I heard they go all out on it so I'm excited for that. It's always a great experience when an investigator makes it up to the temple and feels the spirit. So we are hoping that we can invite more people this week to come as well.

Have a great week everyone! Love you all so much!

-Elder Gammell

Transfers Again This Week

Saying bye to the Hermana Webb and Thompson at transfers.

December 1, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

Transfers again this week. I will be staying here in East Sac for another 6 weeks with Elder Hoskin and Brock. I'm glad we are sticking together for another transfer. We have a lot of work to do. We did get our area combined this transfer so we are covering like double the area now. That's going to keep us even more busy which is good. I know there are a ton of good apartment complexes in that area so we are excited to get over there working this week and the coming transfer.

We had a pretty good week. Not too much new happened. I ended up getting sick on Tuesday along with my companion Elder Hoskin. So that was a long day haha. Probably longer for Elder Brock because he had to just sit around most of the day. There's been a flu bug going around to EVERYONE out here so I guess I'm glad I caught it and got it over with. Cross our fingers that's the end of it.

Can't beat ham, potatoes, 

and corn. With a little egg nog.

Thanksgiving was interesting. It wasn't a Pday for us but they told us to just go around and visit members all day and share a message with them. So we did that and it was cool because we were able to find quite a few people home that we hadn't before. We had a Thanksgiving dinner scheduled for 5 o'clock. It was with a single lady in our Ward so we had to find someone to come with us because we can't go into a home if there is only a women there. Which gets kind of tricky sometimes especially on Thanksgiving. We ended up finding a member that was able to go. We showed up at five and waited for like 30 minutes and then he texted us that he couldn't make it so that was frustrating. So we shared our lesson really quick on the front porch and she just packed up some food for us to take home to eat. Then we went and picked up some tamales that another member in our Ward made for us.

Thanksgiving dinner at 9:30

By that time we had to hurry home and change into our suits because we had a Zone Training at 7. At the training everyone was talking about how they had eaten like 3 or 4 dinners and they were so full. I was pretty jealous ha. Anyways, finally after the training we got to go home and eat at 9:30. We hounded down all the food our member gave us. We have been joking around with people saying that we fasted on Thanksgiving haha. It's all good though. It still was a great day and I was thankful for the food that we did get and the success we saw in our work that day.

Seemed like almost nobody was home towards the end of the week which was kind of frustrating. That's how it goes sometimes though. We did have one of our investigators Josue come to church on Sunday again. He is progressing really well. Hopefully he can recognize the need to be baptized again here in the next week or so and we will have a December baptism.

There is a new initiative from the church called "A Savior is Born". They have a website and a new video which is awesome. We have been sharing it with everyone we meet and it's been cool to see what has happened because of it. Excited to keep using it to bring people closer to Christ and help them recognize why Jesus Christ came to the earth specifically for them. Quick invitation for everyone back at home to share the video and their testimonies with their friends and families. It's easy to do and can leave a huge impact on others.

Love,

Elder Gammell