Amazing ExperiencesThis Week!

Brownie Sundaes in President's Office

July 11, 2016

Hey Family & Friends,

Well I have had some amazing experiences during the week and I don't even know how I can begin to describe them in this email but I will try. We had quite a bit of opposition coming to us and the people we have been teaching. Found out that Adama has to move this week so we are scrambling with the members of the ward to try to help find her a place to stay close by so she can stay in the La Sierra Ward. The members have found her a couple of options so we are praying for one of them to be the right one. Plus her daughters Fredica and Zainab are coming back home soon and we have been waiting patiently to be able to teach them. As long as they end up somewhere where they can keep progressing in the gospel as a family that's all that matters. But we sure would like to keep them haha.

We were able to do some exchanges this past week. I had Elder Schenk up here in Carmichael with me. We hopped on the bikes and talked with absolutely every person we saw. We struck out over and over with just about everyone haha. It was a little frustrating but through all of it we found a couple people that we feel like we were able to leave a good impression on and hopefully prepare them to receive the gospel later on down the road. It was funny, after the exchange I told Elder Schenk jokingly that we would probably get a media referral sent to us later that night. We did. We got a referral for a guy named Tony. We called the number and it was disconnected. Stopped by the house and Tony doesn't live there. But we ended up talking with a guy named D'wane and he invited us right in. We shared a little bit about what we do as missionaries and a few points of the restoration and he wants us to come back and teach him and his 4 foster kids! So we are going back this coming Wednesday and hope it goes well with them.

Here is the coolest miracle of the week. So here's some background. Over a year ago I was serving in the Carmichael Ward with Elder Parker. We were on exchanges with Elder Sutch and we had some amazing things happen to us because we prayed specifically and told Heavenly Father that we would be at a certain apartment complex at a specific time. We talked to so many people that morning and ended up adding a couple of awesome new investigators. One of the people we met that morning was named Katherine. She walked up to us while I was talking to this lady in Spanish and waited patiently until we were done. Once we started talking to her we found out that she had some background with the missionaries and she went on to tell us about some of the struggles her and her family were having and she wanted us to come leave a blessing on their house. We wrote her number down and actually never ended up being able to get in contact with her and all we knew was that she lived "a little ways away, across the street from a church, in a house with a white picket fence." Fast forward over a year. Elder Greenwood and I are driving down the road next to this church in our area and I see a little house with a white picket fence and I remembered Katherine right away. We flipped around and went up to knock on the door to see if she was there. She was. She looked at me and said she remembered me. I told her that we met over a year ago and she could barely believe it. They actually ended up moving away for about 6 months and then moved back. We talked with her for a little while and it turned out that she had went to church and had a terrible experience and was so closed off to coming back to church with us. And that stunk to hear. So we bore our testimonies to her and gave her our number and told her to call us if she ever wanted changed her mind. Right after we left we got a text from her and it just said, "Hey, this is Katherine. Here's my number." And that hardly ever happens unless they are interested. :) The next day we received a text from her that absolutely blew us away! She told us that she picked up the Book of Mormon that night and couldn't stop reading it. She said it was all making a lot more sense this time and she felt more open to it. We called her and she had a couple questions and it turns out she read past 1 Nephi 8 because she was talking about Lehi's dream. We were so excited!!! Haha we are going to go back by hopefully tonight or tomorrow and see what else has changed. I know God has led us back to her for a reason so hopefully we get to see her completely accept the gospel and let it change her life forever.

One more quick miracle. This morning we were driving to the grocery store. We stopped at a red light and looked over and waved to the guy in the car next to us. Then the light turned green and we started driving away. We went for a little while and then that same guy pulled up next to us and signaled for us to pull over so we did. He was smiling while he did it so we trusted him haha. We got out of the car and so did he. He introduced himself to us. His name was Dennis. He has family that lives in Heber, Utah. He went to college there in Utah and moved out here not to long ago. He has learned about the church before and he wants to sit down with missionaries again and make the decision for real if he is going to be baptized or not. Oh, and he has 4 kids and a wife!! We got pulled over by an entire family that is hopefully prepared to receive the gospel. I guess that just verifies the promise that the Lord will lead us to those that are prepared, or he will lead them to us.

This work truly is His. And I know that we cannot do it with Him. God is in the tiniest little details of every single person's life. I know that as we seek the spirit and simply just seek for missionary opportunities, they will come.

Love each of you! Hope you all have an amazing week!

-Elder Gammell