Monday, April 4, 2011

Watching General Conference

Long awaited marriage

We pulled it off!!!

Hey Fam,
Well it never seems to fail that the week followig a sad, upsetting week... something good always happens. Luckily it happened like this for us this week. I told you all this past week that our marriage had fallen because I had a lot of doubts. However I woke up tuesday in the morning and felt that I needed to call him, I knew he was working but he always answers at work. I called him around 10 and he aswers telling me he was hoping I would call him. I just called to ask him directly if he wanted to get married and if he had prayed and recieved an answer to his prayers. He told me that yes and that he had talked to his wife (with whom we had the biggest challenge with) and he asked her direcly just the night before if she loved him, and if she loved him then she would and needed to get married with him. She said, Yes, I love you and I will get married with you but I will not be baptized in that church, he then stopped and told me... but its me that wants to get baptized in this church, and I will be baptized. When he told me that over the phone tuesday morning I couldnt had been more happy. But at the same time I was worried because tuesday was supposidly the last day to be able to turn everything in to the lawers to be able to marry them on thursday. Well we got lucky and lucky enough the lady who takes all the paperwork for the marriages knows the the missionaries really well and answered her phone at 930 at night telling us it was gonna be ok that we bring the papers and pay the dues on wednesday. To say the least me and Elder Lopez were way excited to hear that. I thought for sure all of our hard work had gone down the drain... but no, the couple you see in between me and Elder Lopez are the lucky couple Nelson and Osiris, who got married on the last day of March 2010. One long day, but well worth it... Mission Completed as nelson said as we were walking out. I ask him how he feels.. in love, or tied up, which are two words that sound almost the same in spanish and he tells me tied up, but I know they are happy, even though she doesnt show it that well.
I cant beleive its already April, in just 10 days I will have a year in the mission and it seems unreal, and unfair. Times have been tough lately with this area but Im learning so much. I feel like I say that every week but its been a huge trial/blessing for me the past 3 months. Tomorrow they will let us know whether me or elder Lopez have changes and then wednesday we will head out to wherever. I dont even know what to guess with this change, its normaly known who will go and who will stay but since I only have 6 days more then Elder Lopez so it could go either way. I have my reasons to want to go, and I have the reasons that make me wanna stay, its kinda mixed feelings. I feel pretty confident that I will see two of the baptisms that weve been working really hard on in this next change if I stay but only President and the Lord knows right now!
This past weekend was... wow one heck of a weekend. Saturday was conference and I wish I could describe our circumstances here in the south but this whole weekend, it didnt matter how we said it, us 6 North Americans, when we said we just wanna watch it in english, they took it as if we were being racist because we obviously needed our own room with TV to watch it so that everyone else could watch it in spanish. In the end we only watched the 2nd session of both days and the preistood session in englsih. You should have seen this somewhat small building fill up on sunday morning, everywhere there was space, there were people and it was a FURNACE in there. I didnt get to watch but 20 minutes of the Sunday Morning because we had problems but wow it seems like no one in this country knows that each session is different because EVERYONE left to go home after the first session sunday morning. It was quite an experience for us this weekened and I hope sometime if not in the Ensign get to read all the messages and take good notes.
If anything though, once again, this General conference was a huge testimony builder for me, I know this is the true church. Watching the Mo-Tab sing and seing that conference center FILLED with people just makes you say "How is this church NOT TRUE! Im sure many others felt the same way. You all dont know what a huge blessing it is to watch conference in the comfort of your homes, but at the same time, just the fact that we get it out here in the outskirts of Honduras is incredible. The church does everthing possible to get the words of the prophets to all the ends of the world. Its truely like the Prophet said (I think) AN ENSIGN TO THE NATIIONS. This church is true. Dont have a doubt of that! I love all of you and hope you all had an amazing and inspiring weekend as well!
Love Elder Gardner