Great Week! Had More Time To Work In Our Area.

February 15, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

Making some chicken parmesan.

Great week! We had a lot more time to work in our area and that was really nice. We were able to find some new investigators for both of our wards which is something we have been struggling with. The Fijian unit only covers the Sacramento stake because it is still in the process of becoming a branch. So we can't go outside of stake boundaries to teach people. And every time we ask the Fijian members if they know someone we can visit, they always live outside the boundaries :/ it's all good though because that kind of forces our members to do their own missionary work haha. Which is the way it should be. Anyways it was really cool how we found the Fijian investigators. We were planning on Wednesday night and we decided to pull our map out and pick a place to tract. We just randomly dropped a pin on our area and we went to that street. The next day we got to the street and we only had 15 minutes to knock doors before we had to go to another appointment, so we had to hurry. The first door we knocked was Hmong. We ended up sending him off to the Hmong missionaries so that was sweet. Then as we were leaving that house we looked across the street and a lady was walking out of her house. The second we saw her we knew she was from Fiji. We walked up to her and said, "Bula!" Which means hello in Fijian. It kind of threw her off seeing two white boys speaking Fijian to her. That's pretty much all the Fijian we know though haha. So we started to talk to her and found out that she just moved her not to long ago and unfortunately is going back to Fiji at the end of March. She has heard a little bit about the church and knows quite a few members. We were able to teach her about the Book of Mormon and we gave her a copy in Fijian. She really liked it. She thanked us and said we could come back again. Then we asked her if she knew any other Fijians and she directed us to her next door neighbors. The wife there is Tongan and she is already a member. But the father and the son in law are Fijian and they aren't members! We stopped by the next day and had a good talk with them. They want us to come over to eat curry with them sometime and share a lesson. Haha pretty cool how much work can get done in 15 minutes when we are in the right place at the right time. The Lord definitely knows what He is doing.

I was able to do a couple baptismal interviews this week! I love doing baptismal interviews. The Spanish Ward has this little family they have been teaching for a couple months. The kids decided that they wanted to be baptized next week. I did the interviews for Memo and Yadira. They are 11 and 9. It's funny because they were both really nervous walking in but they relaxed as we talked. Their testimonies were so strong! They answered each question firmly and they were even able to testify how they knew. They are so ready to be baptized. No wonder we are asked to become like little children. They don't question or doubt. They just follow the spirit and believe. It was a great experience for me. I can't wait to go to their baptism this week.

Broken Bed

I'm having so much fun here in the Sacramento zone! The missionaries here are awesome. We live with Elder Talley and Elder Fudge. They serve in the Tongan and Marshallese wards. We joke around with them so much. We played the funniest prank on Elder Fudge this week. So Elder Fudge is in love with his bike. It is his baby haha. So anyway, we took his bike out of our storage room and hid it in our bathroom. Then we left the apartment to go to an appointment. As we were driving we called him and asked if he could check the front room because we forgot to lock it before we left. So we just listened as they checked the room and he found that it wasn't there. He was yelling and running all over looking for it. We let that go on for a couple minutes and then we told them to go look in the bathroom and they found it. He was so relieved haha. The funniest part is that we hid Elder Michie's go-pro camera and caught the whole thing on video. Haha it's always good to have some fun to break up the long days. Speaking of breaking, I may or may not have broken my bed this week. Haha we just got new bunk beds and I must've had a bad piece of wood because I laid down on my bed the other day and it snapped right in half. We were able to fix it with a couple 2x4's hah. They are working on getting me a new one.  

Elder Fudge challenged me to a
wrestling match the other night.
Haha!

We had an awesome Regional Conference on Sunday! It was broadcast from Salt Lake to a bunch of different stakes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada. We heard from a few members of the seventy, the young women's general president, and Elder Renland. I really liked the talk by Elder Hamula of the Seventy. He focused on staying calm through the storms of life. He shared several scriptural examples of the Lord comforting and giving peace in times of trouble. He used on of my favorite scriptures in D&C 101:16 that says, "...be still and know that I am God." I love that verse. It teaches us that no matter what is going on, we can have a perfect knowledge that our Father in Heaven loves us and He will not leave us alone. He gives us trials and hard times for a wise purpose. He does it to mold us and chisel away our imperfections. Then we are blessed as we become more and more like Him.

Have a great week!

Love,

-Elder Gammell