Letter from January 6th

Getting my eyebrows waxed!

My companion and I 

Hello to you all!

I feel like there is never enough time to write all that I want to say, but here it goes I guess! So as some of you may know, my birthday was yesterday and I am the big 20 :D I was able to bear my testimony 4 times in the different wards in our stake, it was amazing. Yes, I did cry every time! But it was nice not having an entire day centered around me. It was full of meetings, Ward Councils specifically and then Corellation meeting with the Ward Mission Leaders from the 7 wards and then a meeting with the Stake President. Sunday's are always so eventful!

 

So the work here is finally starting to pick up. The inverstigators we had aren't necessarily progressing as much as we would like them to, but that's okay. We are still able to visit often with them. Just when it comes to teaching them, well it's kind of rough. The one investigator needs proof from the bible as I have mentioned before, that of which we can't do because that's not what has been restored and it's definitely NOT where she will find her answers. We are teaching her tonight about Revelation Through the Book of Mormon and invite her to be baptized again. Although she may not feel like she knows enough to be baptized, that's not the point. She needs to realize that it's not because she is ready that we are extending the invitation, it is because she needs to learn how to commit to something so that she can change and grow, also to increase her faith. We don't come to know that something is true until we step forward in faith and take action, then we can come to a better knowledge of truth! Any way, so that's what's going on with her.

As for the family of investigators, they don't think that they want to be a part of the church by taking the discussions.. they more so like the social side of the "Mormon Religion." Well, we are going to keep meeting with them and becoming friends with them. Honestly, that is what we have to focuse on a lot here. Majority of the people expect us as missionaries to jsut stuff religion down their throat, but that's not the case at all. We are here to love them, serve them, and help them "Come unto Christ." Yes, that may come with some time, but we can't push the issue. We have a goal that our DL set for us of 21 lessons a week, yeah that's a lot. So that means 3 lessons a day. As easy as it would be to get caught up in trying to reach our goals, we have to remember that the Lord has entrusted us to take care of these souls. So we have to embrace them with open arms, let them know we too are normal people :) And we are called to love them and to invite them to Come Unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel!

 

So, funny story...

There is a family in our ward that my companion Sister Wight ate at before and that evening she was sicker than a dog! Ever since I heard of that, we have been so careful with the food that we put in our bodies and TRULY BLESSING it that it may strengthen and nourish us.. So we went to this families house for dinner New Years Eve, we had a pot roast. It smelt delicious but didn't look too appetizing. So we looked at one another, made a face, then ate it all up. Then a few minutes late, my Companions Sister Wight looked behind me and said, "Oh look, there's a snake!" I about peed my pants, I thought maybe it was loose in the house slithering around. I turned to look and of course, it was just in a cage. So we of course began talking about that snake with the family and somehow led into what they feed to it. They actually buy frozen mice and then thaw them out, then feed it about 3 mice per week or so. Sister Wight and I thought it would be cool to watch it eat one and they said the mice don't take too long to thaw out. So their son got up from the table and said that he would go get some to thaw and then show us how it eats it. We were so excited, yes it's a silly thing to get excited about, but we were. So he said he had to go get it from the freezer, you know the freezer that I thought would be out in the garage....Oh no, not that freezer. He walked into the kitchen and open up THAT freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen, dead, white mice. Freaking gross. It was the same freezer she stored the pot roast she made for us. I was so disguisted! Ahhhh! Hahaha. Any way, it made for a funny story.. we never got sick, thank The Lord. But the funny part is that that same family signed up to feed us in a couple weeks. Be praying for us!! ;)

 

I am loving it here and I am loving my companion so much. We are gaining so much knowledge that at about half way through the day we could just fall over and sleep. But it's so worth working so hard and being blessed not only individually, but those we serve are blessed too! I am growing so much more than I ever thought I could and learning so much about myself that I would almost rather not.. haha but the area is starting to finally pick up! We are almost reaching our goals each week. The Spiritual experiences keep coming left and right and what a blessing it is to be a replacement of Jesus Christ!

 

There was a day last week where me and my companion we kind of down.. we called our District Leader to give us a blessing, so we met up and he gave one to us both. He said never before in his life has he ever given a blessing that he felt come directly from Heavenly Father. One thing I remember is that I need to grow to learn more of the Atonement and in doing so, I can begin to develope that Christ-like love for those who I am serving. Oh how the Atonement can save us all! We actually all have been saved, but Christ allowed for us to come unto Him and be forgiven and gain eternal life with Him and our Father in Heaven. The Atonement is for us all because we are ALL sinners and are all looking for a way to start clean through repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring 'til the End :)

 

I love this gospel! I love the Sandy East area! And I would love even MORE if you all would continue emailing me and writing me!

 

Ta ta for now :)

 

Sister Garretson

New Year's Post

Howdy ya'll!!

 

Okay, so there is an amazing video right now that I would love for you all to watch and it is called "The Will of God." It is a mormon message, it's amazing. Here is the link: http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages - it basically is saying how we must align our Will to the Father's will. That although our trials may have been some of the hardest ones to overcome, they make us stronger and I know for myself that I am beyond grateful for all of the trials that I have gone through.

I have learned so much in these past two years from stepping forward in faith with joining the church bcause I may have not known 100%, to stepping into a nonmember's home to share with them my Testimony of the restoration of this everlasting gospel! To just see the growth that I have made is incredible, then to see how much I am weak and how much improvement and knowledge is still left for me to gain in incomprehensible. One thing that the mission does that was hard for me to understand at first, it is that it makes known unto us our weaknesses. I never realized how weak I am and how much I truly have to rely on God to provide to me the proper strength to overcome them and be the missionary He needs me to be. It all is part of the "qualifying" me to becoming the Missionary I need to be. A scripture that came to me during personal study is from Ether 12, verse 27. It says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them." When the Savior says, "come unto me," this merely means that we have been invited to follow His example in all that we say, think, and do. By being a replacement of Jesus Christ, I am becoming more like Him each day. The weaknesses that are being made known to us and given so that we may become humble and faithful...thus becoming stronger. Any way, just a thought for you all :) Please watch the video! Ah!

 

As you all know, the area I am serving in is a square mile. That's it! I can't even explain the amount of work that there is to do here, but I can say that it isn't possible to accomplish it without the help of the members. So both my companion and I have been going around to the 7 different wards and sharing with them how they can become better every-day missionaries. Seriously, the number one thing we tell them is that they must learn to love those around them in the way that our Father in heaven loves us. That we must pray to see them how God sees them, then to extend our love the way He would like us to. Also, invitation! Inviting is so important to the inactive and nonmember's. By inviting them, we are giving them the opportunity to change and commit to something. Which is what the entire gospel is based upon...The Atonement! So that has been neat going around and sharing that. Also, we have a tonnnn of ward councils to attend on Sundays. Ahh those days are so busy! For those who don't know what that is, it's a time that we have scheduled to meet with the Ward leaders and share with them any concerns for the people and then counsel on how we can help them. What an amazing spiritual experience it has been thus far :) The members in the Sandy Granite stake are amazing! So much love is extended to us left and right. We had a family a couple nights ago that asked what we would like for dinner, we said "SALAD! SOUP! Just something healthy!" Plus, you aren't completely full when you eat something light like that. Sister Wight and I always feel like we need to eat all of the food that is on the table. And even more so do we feel this way when we eat with members that we don't know that all. So like each day, Tuesday through Sunday it is set up that the wards in alphabetical order feed us. The Ward Mission Leaders then get the sign up sheet and then text us with whom we are eating with that evening. Quite an organized system, but again...we eat too much food. Some missionaries are not blessed with the opportunity to eat every evening, but yet my companion and I find ourselves complaining because we have too much food. Haha seriously. We have a whole table dedicated just to treats that the members give to us and a fridge full of leftovers. What a temptation the sweets are though as we are "working out" in the morning. The reason I put that into quotations is because we just stretch for 30 minutes and sometimes fall asleep doing so. Yes, I just confessed of that. We are working on it, it's just too cold to go running and and and and....

 

Alright, so we have like I said before 5 investigators! They are so wonderful and we just love them to death. One of them was on date to be baptized, but that was prior to me coming. Since the invitation was extended, the missionaries hadn't met with her because she was really busy. So we are working on setting anoth date with her. She is having some issues with the history of it all, but we try to tell her that as much as we want to sit here and share with her proof from the bible that the Book of Mormon is true, she can only find that out through prayer. Because what is the gospel without faith and without hope? This reminds me of the scripture Romans 8:24, "For if we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for if a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" We can't say we have hope, that we have faith, by seeing it before our eyes in the bible. We have to pray and ASK in faith and The Lord promises that He will answer our prayers by the Power of the Holy Ghost. So slowly but surely she will come around. We sure hope so :)

 

There also apart from nonmembers, is a lot of work that we do reactivating those who have been baptized into the church but are no active at all by attending church meetings and partaking of the sacrament and so forth. There is one guy that I was just able to meet and share a lesson with on Sunday when we went by his house. He is an inactive member, but the rest of his family are active in the church and his mom actually is a convert! Any way, he is gay and let me tell you, the entire time we were there it was so so so funny!! He would talk about how the only religion he needed was called the "Cupcake religion." Haha and apparently it is made up of cake hope, icing peace, and sprinkles of forgiveness. Yes, he was dead serious. So I then shared with him and said that that is what our entire gospel is made up of. We went into detail on hope, peace, and forgiveness. It was interesting that he chose "forgiveness" instead of faith, hope, and "love." He also had some questions about our gospel that he didn't understand pertaining to Christ's resurrection and how Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. Also, he said that he would rather wait to accept the gospel once he goes to the Spirit world and not on the Earth. But then his mom stepped into the conversation and said how blessed he was to have been born in the covenant, that that is not very common and how special that is. That he did something right to have been given that blessing. So then after she hit him with that, we tried to help him understand to the best that we could and then left him some scriptures to read. We shared our testimonies and then let him know how important he is to our Father in heaven and how important the choices are that we make in this life. I shared my converison story throughout and I could really tell that something hit home with him. Then as we were leaving, he looked at me and said, "you have something special that I need to hear. And I am going to figure it out." Ahh! And we are meeting with him again this Sunday! Pray that it goes well, that his heart and mind will be opened to the words we are going to share.

 

I love being a missionary! I am not going to lie, it's hard. It is so hard! The other night my stomach was super upset and I was up all evening, like every 15 minutes going to the restroom. It was terrible. I have never felt so sick and I really was just wanting to be home so my mommy could take care of me. I bought some tums and took my airborne and I have been feeling a ton better. It wasn't something I ate, it was seriously from the stress of being here and adapting to all of these new things. It's such a big adjustment, but man is it worth it! I seriously have such an amazing companion. Her and I work so well together and are helping one another in becoming the missionaries we are called to be. She is rather patient with me at times, is so loving it's ridiculous. She is a great teacher and I am learning so much form her being my trainer.

 

Well, I have to go and write an email to my Mission President to tell him how I am doing. But I love you all and miss you all so much! I am still doing great and I am looooooving the Sandy East area. Please keep emailing me and writing me! Also, try with all of your hearts to sincerely pray to God and form a relationship with Him. I know that without this relationship that I have formed, I would not be able to make it through life's everyday challenges.

 

I love this gospel! It's so true and it is being shown to me that everyday!