So Many Cool Things Happened This Week!

February 8, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

So many cool things happened this week! We saw a ton of progress with our investigators. We should be having a few baptisms at the end of this month or the beginning of March. Praying that everything keeps going in the right direction.

Tuesday we had an awesome MLC where we learned about the importance of the spirit in missionary work and how we can use the Spirit more as we teach. We also set our mission baptismal goal for this upcoming month. 32 was the number we came up with because we hit our goal last month of 28. We are excited to see how it will push us a little further and we will keep building on it for the rest of the year.

Then on Friday morning we were able to take the things we learned at MLC and teach them to the zone. It went really well. We were able to council on the things we could do

better as missionaries and how we can change so the Lord will continue to bless us. We focused on the strengthening powers of the Atonement for a big portion of it. We did a really cool activity to give some perspective on the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us. We had a missionary in the zone volunteer to come stand in the middle of the room. We explained to the missionaries that we would be walking around and offering a cookie to each of them. If they wanted to eat the cookie then the person standing in the middle of the room had to do 5 push-ups. So we started at one side of the circle and went all the way around. As we went around to each person, the push-ups got harder and harder to do for Elder Knotts. He got to the point where he couldn't even do a single push-up but still had to fight through to get to 5 so each person could get a cookie. Even if the person said that they didn't want one he still had to do 5 push-ups for them to deny it. By the time we made it all the way around he was exhausted, sweaty, and could barely move his arms. Then we related it to how Jesus Christ has already suffered and died for each of us. It is completely up to us to use that Atonement or we can let him suffer for nothing. There are enumerable amounts of blessing for us if we just trust in Him to help and heal us. We all felt the spirit so strong. It was such a cool activity and I know we all left with a stronger understanding and testimony of the Atonement.

We were able to have some really powerful lessons this week with the part member family we have been working with. They are such an awesome family! They all have such strong testimonies. We saw some huge change in all of them this week. So on Tuesday we were able to go by and we took the young men's president with us to invite them to the upcoming events. They seemed really interested so I think as soon as we help them to make some friends in the Ward that will help them want to come to church and the activities. We also found out that the youngest son Keiran hasn't been baptized yet so we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!! So we are really excited for him. We are starting the discussions with him this week to help him prepare for it. I feel like him preparing for baptism will help boost the entire family. It is going to be awesome to see what happens. We also were able to talk with the Laura and LJ (Mom and Boyfriend) on Saturday night. That was one lesson I

won't forget. It's kind of funny because I had the worst stomach ache from dinner and felt like I needed to puke. We ate some sort of mystery meat and it just wasn't sitting well hah. AND I had to pee so bad right before we walked in so I wasn't exactly excited to go sit in their house for an hour lesson. But I just kind of ignored it and we went into the lesson. The lesson went so well!!! We really relied on the spirit to guide our questions and we were able to uncover a ton of concerns and address them. We taught about eternal families and we could tell it was just what they needed. We let them know that the whole purpose in our visits is to help them gain an eternal family. And we just kind of laid out the steps for them. LJ is very interested in learning more. He told us he would like to join in for the discussions with Keiran. So we are hoping that we get to see the both of them baptized here soon. We walked out of that lesson and we were just blown away. It was such a great feeling. Then I realized that I didn't have to pee anymore and my stomach ache went away!! As soon as we walked in they both left me I guess haha. Pretty cool how the spirit works.

I was able to go on some exchanges this week in the Spanish Ward so that was really fun! Elder Easthope and I added 9 investigators in our 24 hours together. Which is like unheard of here haha. It seemed like every corner we turned there was someone to talk to. It was neat to be able to use my Spanish again. I love speaking it. Trying my best to keep up on it so I don't lose it.

I typed this letter really fast this morning and didn't have any time to look back over it so there are probably going to be a ton of typos. If there is sorry. Hah

Love,

Elder Gammell