Movie Night

Hey Fam,

Not sure where to start today with the short time that I have today and what I have to respond to other emails and this being the 2nd to last email before Ill be calling home! Gosh i cant believe Christmas is already here, I fell like I was just in the MTC getting snowed on but oh well! Thanks to all of you in UT for takin on all the snow for all of us missionaries here in Central America!! Its been pretty weird for me as Christmas approaches and theres no snow, for the first time in my life! Im actually not as lucky as some of the missionaries though because here in Valle de Àngeles its pretty dang cold and just ridiculous winds so it kinda stinks but it gives me a piece of what your all getting in UT i guess!

So about every crazy little thing that happened this week! On the bus ride back from Teguc last monday I started thinkin about an activity that we could do to involve not only the members but to get them to bring friends to this incredible church that we really do have! So what me and Elder Skoubye thought up is a Movie night in the church and to just watch the Restoration, or the Joseph Smith movie because we had plans to watch it with two investigators that we have anyways on wednesday but we really wanted to watch the full one and not just the 20 minute one. With time we figured that to give us enough time to make litteral invitations and get maybe a projector from the stake center in Teguc to project it all up on a wall in the church and have a big movie night basically! To make a long story short, we made a ton of invitations and passed out as many as we possibly could before friday and just hope on the fact that the branch president could get the projector from the stake center... well friday came and we were counting on a good 40 people to show up, we put 5 on the invitations so everyone would show up about 5:30 Honduras time if you know what I mean. Well at 5 we had 6 people and no investigators so we were gonna wait till the latest 5:45 and then start the movie. Well in the end we only had 30 in there when the movie started so that was a bit rough and then later our family of investigators showed up about 6 or so but luckily caught the just and purpose of the movie. It wasnt what we expected but it was fun and a way to get the members involved too as they brought about 3 or 4 new investigators or references for us to the movie which really helped and everyone loved it! After the movie we actually went with some of our investigators to walk them back to their house and to find out where they lived exactly and when we showed up, we met the mom cuz we knew if we could make a good impression with her, all of her kids who were teaching would get baptized. Turns to find out that about 2 years ago the missionaries had visited with her but nothing happened. However that night when we went over she wasnt feeling very good and as we asked if there was anything we could do, she said she would like just a prayer. Well we all know that we have something a little more powerful then just a prayer and we went in and explained about what the preistood is, and that its a power that we have, that God gave us to perform special blessings and things like that. Shortly after we sat her down and gave her a preistood blessing to get feeling better and when I finished the blessing I looked up and her 20 year old daughter that were teaching was crying, and then asked us for a blessing for her too, so by the end of the night we gave two preistood blessings and it really just made the night worth it for us! Just goes back to what I was saying last week that the lord has not only been putting people in our paths, but throwing them at us! Its been such a blessing for me and Elder Skoubye! We are loving life to say the least!

Some of the bad news of this past week is that the baptism we were suppost to have didnt happen cuz we had planned to teach the commandments on wednesday to him and when we did he told us he had drinkin coffee on tuesday so we decided to postpone till this saturday, but hes super positive and has a better understanding of keeping the commandments now!

Yesterday we got up early to get out and gather up our investigators beacuse it was the primary program and so we did all we could to get everyone there but satan got the best of us with one of them and made us late to another to pick up. Luckily this one lady that were teaching ended up leaving for the church at 8;30 to get there early and when we showed up she was there surrounded with members talking to her... just amazing to see!

Theres so much more that I could say but I think im gonna stop there and save things to talk about for Christmas....ahhhh 13 days! Cant believe it!

I hope this letter today was a testimony to all of you that are reading this that I really do know this is the true church and that Im loving life right now! This week is gonna be vital for us this week if we want to close out the year with a possibility of 5 baptisms all before christmas! Please keep us in our prayers this week that we can make it happen! It means more then the world to me to know that all of you are there supporting me! Thank you, each one of you!!

I love you all!!

The Lord just throws people in our path

Hey Fam!

Well today im sure your all waiting to find out what news we got with changes. Turns out I got me another Greengo companion. His name is Elder Skoubye, from Riverton, UT and were getting along really well. Hes a shy guy and doesnt talk much beacause spanish has been a struggle for him, but hes got almost 11 months in the mission now and were both helping each other out a lot! It sure was good to get a change so that we can all start over again in our huge area and just blow it up! In the good way!

So to start this new change off with Elder Skoubye I just told him about how it was with Elder Reyes and that I have huge plans to just start from scratch, contact as much as we can, and start working a lot more with the members. Mainly because the biggest problem was that none of the members trusted my last companion so it was kinda tough, but Its been such a great change in our area to just start over!

Well there has been a lot of amazing experiences that have happened this week starting wednesday when me and Elder Skoubye started. First of all one of the servants of Hna Cordova, named Alba, This last week at church she actually just showed up randomly, with a neice and a nephew, just from the simple things that we have done in the past weeks with giving her a Book of Mormon and teaching little by little when we had the time. Now wednesday when we showed up from Teguc from Changes, with the luggage and everything she was out front of the house and so I had been wanting to ask how it went at church and so I asked her, she said she loved it and that she wants to get baptized!!! That was just something else from me becasue I could tell sunday that she liked the church but I thought we were quite a ways away from baptism but now that is not the case! Alba wasnt able to show up to church yesterday but she is preparing to be baptized the 18th its lookin like! This week has been something else for us now that we are living litteraly in 100% obedience and I can testify from many experiences that we have had this week that when we are doing everything we can to be 100% obedient, the lord has not only been putting people in our bath, but in some experiences this week, throwing them at us!

To finish I want to basically tell you of a really great experience that we had. Saturday night we were headed up to a cita up on one of the Mountain sides in valle and quite a walk from our house but it had been just our luck that the citas right before had fallen though and we found ourselves headed up a bit early so we just figured we would open the mouth a couple times where we were and then head up. It was right then that Elder Skoubye told me, Hey lets contact right here. So we walked right up to the gate of this house and started just yelling "Buenas" like always and after a couple times a man came to the door and we introduced ourselves through his screen door, but this day we had been focussing in teaching and sharing the Plan of Salvation so we told them we just need a good 10 minutes to share this message with him not neccisarily expecting him to open up to us but only god knows why he opened the door to us after a long day of work, as a cop in Teguc. We sat down with this man and started in talking about he family and our families and he started telling us he has 2 daughters and his wife that all live there with him. Right before we asked to say a prayer these two beautiful little girls of 7 and 9 years come in and sit on both sides of him and we couldnt help but to see the love in this little family! We started with a prayer and then he started to tell us how his wife is sick and wouldnt be able to sit with us, and that she had just layed down. We said it wouldnt be a big deal and went right into the lesson. We had only started witht the 3 questions that the Plan of Salvation answers when here comes his wife into the room, tired, definately sick, and just said that she really felt like she needed to hear what we have to say! Im not sure what we said after that but basically shared that the Plan that God has for us is centered on the famlily and things like that! This sweet little wife of this cute little family started to tell us of some hard times that she has had, that her family just means the most to her, and that this ocasion with all 4 of them sitting in the living room, chatting with friends or anyone... had been the first time in over 8 years because it was almost impossible to find them all together as a family! I told her that this was not random and that the lord called us to come to her house, to share this message of a plan of happiness and that our father in heaven wants the best for them. She just began to cry, and when she started to cry, her two sweet little daughters began to cry, even to the point that this very serious, tough, and all of the above, Police, got tears in his eyes. In this moment the spirit just swarmed in this room and none of us could deny it! After we realized this plead for just a 10 minute lesson had just turned into nearly an hour, we then shared testimony, and ended with prayer and was definately one of those moments in the mission that I couldnt deny the fact that the lord sent us there that night, that this plan that we are called to teach, was at that exact time, intended for that family, and that I will never forget that moment seeing true love in a family, that I honesly havent seen in a long time in my mission! It was truely something else!

Im not sure why I felt like sharing this story and my testimony with all of you but I hope that it touched someone with the realization that God really does have a plan for us and that when there is a family that needs to hear this message, that the missionaries, like i said early, will be thrown at them. This plan that we teach, is nothing more then just a plan of happiness and that there is nothing that I love and miss more then my own family back at home. This is the true church!!

I already dont have much time cuz we gotta head back to Valle now but I want you all to know how much I love you all, and that the more we study this plan of Salvation, the more happiness we will find in our lives!

Bryson I wanna wish you a happy birthday tomorrow buddy and I hope you have a good one! Dont worry your card is on its way just running a little late! Love you!

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week, wish us luck for this saturday as we have another baptism and then maybe 3 or 4 next saturday! Keep us in your prayers! Thanks for everything! Less then 20 days and Ill be callin home.....ahhh!

Until Next week!

Love Elder Gardner