July 8, 2013

Hey there everyone!!!!

Wow, I can´t believe that another week has passed by already. Elder Miranda were able to get a lot done this week.

This past week officially we were apart of the Chile Concepción Mission.... it is a little different, and it seems like all of the missionaries are a little more sad or serious or something.... haha, it´s just a little more different than what I´ve been used to in the mission up until now. We had a chance to get to know our new mission President... He is from the U.S., Presidente Arrington. He is a really nice person and during the conference we had with him I recieved a confirmation from the spirit that he really is my mission President and that he has the keys of this mission during this time. I had been praying to know so that it will be easier working under a different command, but I´m happy to say that I recieved my answer, so I´m pretty excited. 

It was a bit of a rough week in general, I was really sick with a bunch of mucous and phlegmn in my throat and lungs and such, but now I am almost completely better. It only made working in the freezing cold and in the rain a few days a little more interesting, but I love every moment of it. I wouldn´t rather be anywhere else during this time. 

With our investigators, it was a tough week also... a lot of them it was so hard to find them and some of them left town because now the Chileans are entering there Winter Break... so we spent the week looking for a lot of people too. We are starting to teach a new family that is really nice and they are really excited to listen to our message, so we couldn´t be happier! ^_^ We also ended up contacting a new person that lives in our ward boundries now that in another place he had been going to church for a year and meeting with the missionaries, but he never got baptized... so we will see what happens there with him in this next week! ^_^ 

So, other than that it was a pretty normal week, teaching, trying to help others come unto Christ. Elder Miranda and I felt really good about this last week because we focused in on a few inactive families and the church asistance went from a normal 60-70 people in church to 100+... so we were really happy to see that we are doing some good in the ward here! ^_^ I also taught one of our investigators to make sushi and banana bread! It went really well! 

Well, I love you all so much! You are all so great and thank you so very much for all of your prayers and everything! It really helps out here! I know that Christ lives and that because of his Atonement we can all live better lives and change! I hope you all have a fantastic week! Never forget that prayers really are heard and answered! ^_^

con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

July 1, 2013

Hey there everybody!!

Can you believe that I´ve made it to my last cambio? 6 weeks left... I don´t want to think in that much! Haha

So, right now I don´t feel very well, I woke up not feeling that good at all. My throat hurts, but I was able to gargle some salt water and I´m feeling a bit better! I´m sure that soon I´ll feel fine, but I´m so happy to be a missionary and nothing will stop me from finishing my mission up the best I can.

This past week flew by, and we were able to see some progress with some of our investigators. There is one person we have been teaching named Nancy. She still is waiting to move out of her house to get baptized, so while she has been waiting to move out, we´ve been focusing in on the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. For the past two weeks we have been sharing about the importance of reading the scriptures and she has just never been reading, until finally we found out yesterday that she is addicted to reading the book of mormon. In the past few days she´s read a lot and she loves it! She told us that she didn´t know it would be such an emotional book! Haha, so we were so happy to hear about that!

Apart from that, we have been making some good plans to help out one of our investigators, Sylvia. She wants to get baptized but she refuses to get baptized because of things that her Mom says to her and her son hasn´t been a very good example for her as a new member of the church. So we are finding the way to help her out. We´ve been gaining her confidence by having her teach us how to knit a little and we are planning on getting her another support system in the Relief Society so that she can feel more support taking the decision of getting baptized.

Apart from that, we´ve been trying to get the Ward excited about missionary work, but it´s a little difficult without the support of our bishop, but we are doing our best to serve him and to help him out so that he can understand the importance of sharing the gospel. It rained a lot in this past week, but we had a great time in the rain, I don´t mind it one bit!

So, today officially I´m a part of the Chile Concepción Mission... my last 6 weeks I´ll be in another mission... weird. One of our Zone Leaders is from the other mission and is like a robot... he only cares about baptizing people, it is definitely a different vision than what Presidente Martinez has. But, we´ll just have to see how things go in these last 6 weeks. Elder Miranda and I are really excited to work and to help our investigators progress! We´re doing our part, so we will be blessed with the things we need! 

I hope that you are all doing well!  I love you so much! Happy 4th of July in a few days!!!! I made some sushi the other day, yum!!! :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

 

June 24, 2013

Hey there everybody!!!

Wow, what a week, it passed by quickly as always, but it was such a fun week and we were able to make a bit more progress with some of our investigators! Woot!!!

Unfortunately I don´t have much time due to a Special Mission Conference with Presidente Martinez, but I´ll get to that in a second. 

This week we had a bit of rain on the first day of Winter, it just had to happen that way. In my last district of my mission we have a few missionaries from the other mission that are now in our zone, they are a lot different, it seems like all the missionaries from our mission are a lot more happy, but hey, we´re happy to have them!

This week it was so funny. We are teaching an investigator named Sylvia. She knows that the church is true and she knows that she needs to get baptized, but she just kinda tries to ignore and neglect it, but we had an amazing lesson with her. We decided to teach her the plan of Salvation with drawings that I have made. At first she just laughed and said that she didn´t want to learn with pictures because that is what little kids do, but we taught her anyways with drawings and she understood a lot more than before and really opened up her feelings to us. So we gained a confidence boost with her and she is a little closer to taking the decision to be baptized! :) 

We also had a family home evening with another investigator and her family. It went really well and everyone, her, her kids and the member family that was with us, all participated a lot in everything! We taught about miracles and faith and in the end we heard some great news that she is looking for a job again to be able to move from her house to get baptized. It´s a complicated situation, but things are progressing, so we are happy about that. 

Other than that, we had a lot of adventures in the rain, the wind, and trying to find a lot of new people to teach. We got lost up in a hill trying to find some people to teach, but Elder Miranda and I aren´t getting our hopes down, we know that soon we will be so blessed in our sector! God will open the windows of the heavens and bless us.

Well, apart from that, I loved the big world wide leadership meeting last night... really words can´t describe how happy I felt listening to the profets and recieving inspiration from the Holy Ghost. I cried a good few times and it just makes me even more excited to work with the members and to get the Lord´s work moving. If the Chileans would just start doing what they should be doing, the church would be a powerhouse here in Chile. I´m also really excited to work in the missionary work when I get home! :) Also, to make this week complete, today we had a special meeting with Presidente and his wife. We ate lunch with them (all the missionaries that are going to the other mission) and we all said goodbye and it was amazing. He spoke final words to us and taught us things that will help us in the rest of our lives after the mission. 

So that was my week, I love you all so much, I hope you are all well and I can´t wait to see you all soon, but until then, I have to finish helping in the Lord´s work here in Chile. Take care!!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

--

                      ~Scott Garrett~                      

~Happiness is a Choice, not a circumstance!~ 

June 17, 2013

 Hey there everybody!

So, I´m down to my last 8 weeks here in Chile... today I went to the mission office to see all the missionaries that go home today... it was really weird. It was kinda a smack in the face that gave me a wake up call saying, "HEY!!! YOU¨RE GOING HOME SOON" Don´t remind me!!!! Haha, it is going to be hard to leave Chile.

Well, other than that traumatizing experience, this week was a pretty good week and even though none of our investigators showed up to church because of Father´s Day, we were able to find some new people to teach and the investigators we have are progressing a little bit more everyday! :) So I'm pretty happy about that. 

We found out that one of our investigators who won´t get baptized is really just scared that anything. She even told us that she wants to get baptized! Haha, sometimes I feel like as missionaries we are Psycologists too... One time a general authority told us that missionaries do everything, they can be anything and will do anything if it is what the Lord requires of us. It only makes me think that when there are scriptures that say that they "convinced" the people to change and accept the gospel, I feel like that they had already accepted the gospel in thier hearts, only they were confused in their heads as to take the decision! So that´s what we are doing now, just trying to help our investigators the best we can.

This week was also a really active week when it comes to excersizing! I´ve been help my comp do some pretty intense cardio excersizes because he wants to start losing a bit of weight! I tell him that he shouldn´t eat so many completos and empanadas, even if they are so delicious! :) But his legs are so sore now he tells me, haha! He will get used to it soon!  

Well, just so you know, I´m getting moved to the Chile Concepción Mission in a week or two. I´m going to stay in the same sector and with my comp, I´ll just be in the other mission for the last few weeks of my mission, so it really won´t be a big change at all. But it will be interesting! Well, that was my week! I love you all so much! We went on an adventure to a beach today! It was a lot of fun! Happy Father´s day Dad! I love you so much! You are the best Dad I could ever ask for! I hope you had a good Father´s Day! :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt

June 10, 2013

Hey there everybody,

Well, sorry I couldn´t write at all last week, we took a trip to the south end of my mission to go say goodbye to everyone in Temuco, in my sector of Llaima. It was an amazing experience and I was able to see my convert Roberto. He is doing so great and is preparing to recieve the Melquesidec Priesthood! ;) And he is preparing to go to the temple!!! Woot!!!! That made me so happy that I cried a little bit with him! Haha, you never know what kind of impact you are going to make in the lives of others.

Well, this last week we were able to get a lot done. We have been working hard to find some new people, and we found a family of about 100 bajillion people... okay, maybe not that much, but there are a lot of people who live in that house. :) So we are excited and ready to find even more people to teach and to help everyone come unto Christ.

This last week I had two meetings with Presidente Martinez. The first meeting was for all the district leaders in the north part of the mission and the second meeting was earlier today and it was for all the trainers and the newbies... kinda like a checkup. Elder Miranda and I are doing fantastic and we were able to make some great goals for these next coming weeks before I finish my mission. We are so excited to work and we want to help so many people.

Can you believe that I only have 2 more months left in the mission here in Chile? Time is going by so quickly, but I know that my mission won´t end here. I´m so excited to keep progressing in my life and to keep growing as a child of God. I´ve been learning a lot from Elder Miranda, he has taught me so much. He just finished reading the book of Mormón for his first time ever in his life. He thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. I was so excited every day to hear what he could learn while reading and it was so much fun to see how excited he got. We should all learn to love the scriptures so much in our life! If you´re not studying the scriptures everyday, do it!! There is so much power in the word of god that we need in this life! The words of our Heavenly Father and of our saviour and of the profets are there for our benifit!

I love you all so much! I hope that you all have a fantastic week! Take care!!!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Garrétt