My Mission September 14, 2014

Amazing Wildlife Everywhere!

Hello from the Colorado, Colorado Springs Mission!

I feel like a lot more happened at home this week than what happened here in Colorado Springs! It sounds like Kaley's wedding went really well! Except for the cake in the hair thing.  So this week we got another investigator to commit to baptism! He has a date for Oct. 3rd and we are really excited for him, but I think he's even more excited! We've been spending a lot of time with him and teaching him so he will feel ready.

Last week was the first transfers and my companion and I will stay together for at least one more transfer. After that, We are getting a lot of work done in our area which is pretty exciting. My companion said he's never had this many investigators before.  The last two Sunday's we've been fasting for our investigators. The first time was for an investigator who we were trying to help him receive his answer about modern day prophets and that he would be able to find a job. He promised to go a week without breaking the Word of Wisdom and on the 7th day of his commitment, he got an interview with a company for a job. We were pretty excited for him! He still hasn't received his answer about prophets, and didn't really make the connection between following the Word of Wisdom and the blessing he received, but we're working on it!

We also learned a cool visual way to teach the 10 Commandments using your hands and it is really an effective way to help children learn the commandments.

 

On Thursday we had our Ward Mission Leader drive us to visit some potential investigators to introduce ourselves and to start teaching them the lessons. Our first stop was with a single mom (Filipino) who works night shift so she can spend the day with her kids. She's really excited about the lessons.

Later that same day we stopped by the family we helped move in a few weeks back to check in on them. The wife was home and we got to help her get a few things organized.  Note to everyone, don't ask me or my companion to help program your garage door openers.  We couldn't get all 3 doors to be programmed correctly. At one point if you pushed a button, all 3 doors moved. It actually looked like a fun house with all the doors going up and down!  After 2 hours of trying to get it programmed, we had our 5:30 dinner appointment calling us because he was waiting to pick us up. We asked if he could come help us out, so we didn't leave her in a worse position than when we got there. We finally got things working and ended up starting dinner at 7:30.  His wife was not very happy serving dinner two hours later; hahaha.

 

Our District Photo

Yesterday we had a fireside for recent converts, investigators, or newly returning less-active members. The speakers were people who recently joined or came back to church and were sharing their stories. It was a really cool experience and it makes you really appreciate how blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives.

I love you all so much! I hope everything is going well and you're all enjoying life now that it's a little less hectic.

God is Great!

Elder Gillingwater