This Week Was Pretty Sweet!

February 29, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

This week was pretty sweet. We had some awesome experiences! I'll share a couple of them.  So on Wednesday we went out tracting in the afternoon for about an hour and we had no luck at all. We were on our way to another spot in our area and we stopped at a pet store for Elder Michie to use to bathroom. We walked in and he rushed into the back and I stayed by the front desk and started talking to the guy at the cash register. His name was Dave. Found out his wife is a member but hasn't been to church in a while and his step son just got back from a mission in Jacksonville. He had a ton of questions about missionary work. Elder Michie came back and we both testified of how the gospel has changed our lives and how it can bless his family. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon to see if it is true. He told us he would so that was sweet. Then he asked us if he could take us out to dinner at Chipotle the next day with his wife and daughter. Haha needless to say we had a great dinner with them the next day. ;) It was awesome!! They were a really cool family. Hopefully that experience will help them get to church again and the husband will decide to get baptized. They live up North in Roseville so we can't really teach them but it's all good. Hoping to stop by the pet store again sometime to say hi. It's so neat to see how the Lord puts people in our paths in the least expected places.

Sunday after church we went to this street where we had found a few Fijians earlier last transfer and started to walk around. Right as we got out of the car we looked across the street and saw a bunch of people walking out of a house. It was so funny when we walked up and yelled Bula to them! They started laughing and they gladly invited us into their house to eat some fruit. We talked to a lady named Liti the entire time. We talked about Fiji and the new temple that was rededicated last week. We taught her a little bit about why we have temples and how our families need to be sealed together in the temple so that we can live with them for eternity. Then we shared the Book of Mormon with her and she took it. We are going back next week to follow up with her.

Dinner with the Mule Family

We were able to set our zone vision this week. We decided together that we wanted our focus to be on the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is such a powerful book and truly is the evidence of all that we do in the Church. As we strengthen our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, we will have more power in our missionary efforts. There is a special spirit that enters our lives as we feast upon the words of Christ and strive to live by His teachings. It's an amazing blessing that we have been given. As a zone we accepted the challenge together that we all will read the Book of Mormon before the end of the transfer. I know we will be blessed because of it.  We are also going to be coming up with different challenges over the next 6 weeks to help us use the Book of Mormon more as we work.

We were able to have stake conference this weekend here in the Sacramento stake. It was my first one out here in the mission because I always got transferred right before or after stake conference in my other areas. It was so good! Elder Auna of the seventy came from Hawaii to preside over the conference. During one of his talks he pointed out something really cool to each of us. He used the scripture in D&C 87:8 that tells us to "Stand ye in Holy Places". He taught about how we can make any place we go a Holy Place. We don't need to be in a church or at the temple to feel the Spirit. We can be riding in the car, going on a hike, or talking to a friend on the street. Anywhere we go can be a holy place as we seek the Spirit through our prayers and also through our actions. I'll re-extend Elder Auna's commitment to stand in Holy Places to each of you. I promise it will bless each of our lives as we strive to do so.

That's it for last week. Looking forward to another one. Going to be a busy one with MLC and zone training again. Hope you each have a great week!

Love,

Elder Gammell