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