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.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Baptize! (office week 22)

What is going on!?! How is already June! That is so crazy! I have no idea what happened to the last six months. Ever since I got here to the offices it has all just been a blur. Things are always busy and there are always new things going on so time just starts to lose it´s meaning. So, time to make the most of it and go work as hard as possible.

Cristina, the lady we helped stop smoking last week, was baptized last Saturday. It was one of those baptisms that is just a miracle that the person was ready and willing to be baptized. I feel like I didn´t do a thing, we just invited her to be baptized and stop smoking then she did it. She asked me to baptize her so I did. As we got in the water I was thinking, ¨she has long hair, I don´t want to do this baptism twice.¨ So after the prayer I made sure to push her down far into the water so that all her hair got wet. It worked; after she got out of the water one of the first things she said was, ¨¡Que fuerza que tenés!¨ I guess my daily pushups have been helping...

As for other exciting news, we had a really awesome lesson with the sister of Miguel (the man who got baptized recently). She is really shy and doesn´t like to go to the classes during church for that reason. But she told us that she has read up until Mosiah 5 in the Book of Mormon. That´s really far! One time she was reading and she felt really good so she decided to cook dinner for her dad (something she never did before). When her dad got home he was so surprised and so happy that he bought her a cell phone. So, she got a testimony of the Book of Mormon and now we have a way to communicate with her. Sounds like a win - win to me. She is still a little reluctant, but we are trying to help her feel comfortable in church. 

Now the offices... Things have been pretty calm. Without the Schoenys I´ve been in charge of getting the materials that missionaries order to them during conferences. It´s been fun, doing different things and keeping me busy. I have a lot less free time this transfer than I have had the other times. I like it better that way.

One fun story: yesterday we had to go to capital to do some paperwork and pick up some cell phones. As we got there we realized there was a protest going on in front of McDonald´s (no surprise, there is always a protest going on in capital). But that meant traffic was terrible. Fortunately, we were going the other direction so it did´t affect us too much; but we could tell that the trip back was going to be
 a nightmare. None of us three wanted to drive in that mess. So, naturally, we played nose goes. My reflexes not being the same they 
used to be, I was the last one to touch my nose and was therefor compelled to accept the challenge of the drive back. I feel like I did a good job. My leg was kind of tired from pushing the clutch in so much, but we made it back without any scratches. For some reason there are a lot of streets without any lanes painted on them. At first that really bugged me since I didn´t know where to drive. Then when we got to a street with lanes I realized that they only gave me a false sense of security. All the other cars would drive half way between the lanes anyway. I had never seen five cars next to eachother on a three lane road until now. Got to love it.

Things are going great here. I love the mission, trying to keep busy and do all I can with the time I have left.

Love,
Elder Gardner


Just one of those pictures every missionary has to have.

Yeah, I´m in a tree. 

Baptism!

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