Elder Gardner

Elder Gardner will enter the MTC on Wednesday, June 23rd. We will keep this blog up-dated every week with his letters and pictures. If you would like to write to Elder Gardner, please click on the "write a letter" link on the right hand side for directions and his address. If you don't know much about Mormon Missions read the "about missions" page to learn more; it may help you understand some confusing terms in the letters.

Monday, January 31, 2011

(Cazador Week 11)

It´s been an interesting week. We had some really good success working a lot with the members. We managed to get a member to go with us to an appointment every day. It helped the people we are teaching a lot to talk to someone who is a member that isn´t a missionary and it also helped the members be more excited about missionary work. We found a lot of new people this week, here are a few of them:

Claudia and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the mom of Claudia, 21 year old girl who has a year old daughter, and Erik, an 8 year old boy. We first talked to them over a month ago but have never been able the enter the house because there isn´t a man there. After many failed atempts we finally got a member to come with us. We soon realized that they LOVE to TALK. We were there over an hour and barely said five sentences, the rest of the time they just told us practically their life story. They have had a pretty tough life, they really need the gospel to help them find peace and comfort. Saturday night Claudia´s ex-husband (they were never married but lived together) came and tried to take the baby away. He hit her but the neighbors called the police and stopped him. Apparently, he hit her bad enough Claudia had to go to the hospital. Then Sunday she went to work and got fired. Without knowing any of this, we showed up Sunday morning with a picture of Christ and a scripture written on the back that talks about how even when we feel abandoned God will never forgot about you. When we gave it to them Elizabeth asked, ¨how did you know how we felt? Are you magic?¨ We replied, ¨nope, just representatives of God.¨

Homberto Gomez. He is an old man that is all alone. His wife died and they didn´t have any kids, so he is all alone in the world now. We taught him a short lesson about the plan God has for us and then invited him to church. He said he would come so we said we would go by his house to pick him up Sunday morning. It is about a half hour walk from where we live and I wasn´t very excited because I didn´t think he would really come (o man of little faith that I am) but when we got there he was wearing a white shirt and dress pants and waiting outside. He went to church and really enjoyed it and said that next week we can just meet him at the bus station. That was amazing. I learned to never doubt in people like that again.

Silvia. Her ´husband´ is a member that we didn´t know lived here. The elders quorum president found him and invited us over to talk to them. The husband wants to bless their new born baby in church but knows he needs to change some things in his life first in order to be worthy (such as get divorced to his ex-wife and marry Silvia). We talked about how first he needs to change the small things in his life, such as reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church, and then God will help him with the bigger problems, such as finding the ex-wife to get the divorce. (It´s sad how big of a problem that is here.) We also taught Silvia about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and she really liked it. They are an amazing family.

We taught a lot more people than that but those are the most interesting. It honestly had been a pretty amazing week. My companion and I are working hard and have seen a lot of results of our efforts. The gospel is real. Christ really came to the earth two thousand years ago to pay for our sins so that we can have peace in this life and live with God again in the next. That´s why I am out there walking around in 105 degree weather with 90 percent humidity. Because He lives. There is nothing more important or as fulfilling as helping people come unto Christ.

I hope everyone has a great week. Remember, with God all things are possible.

les amo,
Elder Gardner


Toy Story! They come on the back of cereal boxes, so I bought all the cereal of them I could.

Random picture I took while walking to the internet place today. This is the sidewalk.

Another random picture I took. This is a ´chino´ - mini supermarket.

The map of the area.

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