Sprakenzie Deutsche? (09/16/2013)

Or however you spell it... that's "do you speak German?"

It's been a good week this week! Things are picking up slightly in the Sulphur area of the Pauls Valley Branch. We haven't seen Lisa all too much lately. We're hoping to see her today though. We had a miracle on Wednesday! In Branch Council last Sunday we were given a list of people that had recently moved into the area. We noticed a lady had moved into the Sulphur area, so we decided to try her out. Her name's Sharon, and she moved into the area a couple weeks ago. She lives with her daughter, Wendy, and her grandson, Thomas. Both Sharon and Wendy are divorced. Sharon is big into family history and is related to a lot of royalty and other famous figures! She's a little bit of a linguist, and she can even whistle through the gap of her teeth. She's got some spice for being in her sixties! She surprised Elder Kahawaii when she asked me "sprakenzie deutsche?" I obviously said no, but now that's all Elder Kahawaii says to me!! It's pretty funny! She's definitely is full of knowledge, and she looks out for her family. 

Right before we left we asked her if there was anything we could do for her. She asked us if we could give her daughter and her grandson priesthood blessings. Both of them were feeling pretty sick, and Wendy (who's less active) wanted to get back into church so she could set a good example for her son. Now that the three of them are living together Sharon and Wendy want her (grand)son to be taught the missionary discussions and become baptized!! We gladly obliged, and we're teaching him the third lesson today after we have dinner at their house! We've finally been able to get some member-presents! All three of them even came to church yesterday and got lots of welcome from the branch!

That's the big news. We also got to go to Norman to see Bro. and Sis. Komers have two more of their adopted kids get baptized on Saturday!! Once again it was amazing to see some people in my old area where I served. Lots of missionaries were there to support. 

Trainer calls come this Saturday... we'll find out in a few days.

Love you guys,

Elder Garner

P.S. Hope you like the picture. Elder Kahawaii and I had a watermelon chopping project. ;)

Drunks at the Artesian (09/09/2013)

September is being unusually hot right now. It's been like Satan's oven over here in Sulphur. It's like August and April and September did a three-way swap or something.

Our Zone P-day was pretty awesome. Duncan Zone's pretty cool, I guess.... ;) It's too bad how far apart all the missionaries are from each other, though. Tuesday was pretty fun too. We had to drive down to Ardmore (moderately-sized city close to the Texas border) to get our car checked out since they're the closest city with a Toyata dealership. While that was getting taken care of we got to have lunch with the Ardmore missionaries, which was a lot of fun!

Right now Elder Kahawaii and I are still trying to get in contact with our investigators. The Sledds, the deaf family that we are currently teaching, had a friend pass away, so they haven't been available. Hopefully that makes them more accepting of the Plan of Salvation! We haven't seen them in a couple weeks now, so hopefully that changes this next week.

We've kept trying Rustina when she's not working to see how she's been doing on quitting smoking, but she's never there. I finally got to meet Sara, our most seasoned investigator. Man she is SO COOL! She's currently separated from her husband, but soon to get a divorce.  Sara's boyfriend and her are kinda sorta still together. I thought they were never ever ever ever getting back together, like ever... but I guess they're still living together. She's also trying to stop smoking, and she really does want to be a member of the church! Seriously, more people smoke in Sulphur than in Purcell... ha.

We did have an interesting miracle happen to us on Wednesday. We went to go try yet another one of our investigators named James. He's an older guy with bright aqua colored eyes! I know that's kind of weird coming from another guy, but that's probably his most striking feature! His eyes kinda remind me of a fruit gusher.... Yeah I don't know where I'm going with that, but anyway, he was busy mowing lawns, so he wasn't interested in a message. Luckily one of his neighbors named Fred came over and started talking to us. We started talking to Fred for a while until another neighbor named Lisa came over. Lisa is a middle-aged woman that's a less-active Baptist and immediately fell in love with us. She's kind of interesting. She's really friendly, bold, down-to-earth, chillax, and kinda hippyish. She could be a hippy if she wanted to. Anyway, she invited us and her neighbors to take a tour of her newly remodeled house (which looks a lot nicer on the inside than on the outside). She even wanted to show us her bedroom, but Elder Kahawaii and I politely declined! By the end of the day she talked to us for a good two hours and wanted us to come back! We weren't quite sure if she was drunk or if she was just super chill. She's a single lady, yet she keeps her house really clean and even has a kid living at home.

So the next day we brought some members out with us to meet her, but when we knocked on the door her kid told us she was with James at the Artesian! The Artesian is this gigantic casino that just got built right before I showed up, and it's Sulphur's version of the great and spacious building. We called her a couple times but she didn't answer! We thought she was getting drunk and neglecting her child! Hahaha but later on she called us and told us she really did want to see us and that she was just at a meeting with James. She told us not to call Social Services on her. Elder Kahawaii laughed his head off over that. We saw her for a little bit on Friday with Elder and Sister Fairbourn. Turns out she's not really drunk, she's just really chill and... single and ready to mingle.... She offered us coffee and tea and wanted to hug us, but we told her we couldn't! She was depressed after that... haha. We're hoping to teach a lesson with her once she can pay attention to us, but we did leave her with a Restoration DVD to watch! We're definitely looking forward to seeing her this week!

She even calls us King Kamehameha and James Garner....


With 100% sobriety,
Elder Garner


PS—Here's a picture of our zone (1), the Spencer family (2), and the Gowens family (3)! I LOVE YOU!!! :)

September Begins, Time To Sleep (09/02/2013)

Ha, I wish! I really love that song "Wake Me Up When September Ends." Lately that's all that's stuck out to me with the beginning of September. It's odd to think BYU's started, Bingham's started, Elk Ridge's started... and I'm not there. As nice as it is to take a break from homework and school, it does feel weird not to be there. 

I've plunged into the second week of serving in the Pauls Valley Branch. Pauls Valley is pretty cool. It's got the modern highway look with the fast-food restaurants and the chain stores and all that. Then when you drive past the woods you arrive the small, downtown part of Pauls Valley. It's got some pretty neat historical sites, and like every other town in Oklahoma, it's got some ghetto neighborhoods. Sulphur is much the same, except we have a super Walmart (crazy), and we have natural springs that smell like boiled eggs. Supposedly the water keeps the mosquitoes off you... if you can even stand the smell of the water, that is! Sulphur is pretty nice, though. It's one of the prettier towns in Oklahoma. 

Missionary work right now is kinda like digging through sand to find your beach toys and barbie dolls. We have several upon several investigators, but most of them are hard to contact at the moment. Our most promising investigator is named Sara, who I haven't even met yet because she's helping her (ex) boyfriend move out!!! Now there isn't a chastity problem anymore! It's a blessing in disguise. She just doesn't know it. She's been taught most of the lessons already and been to church at least three times, so she's not really considered "my" investigator. Baptism seems pretty close for her. We are helping another lady named Rustina try to quit smoking. Last Tuesday (Aug. 27th) we visited this lady and I got to take the lead in teaching the Stop Smoking Workshop for the first time. Elder Kahawaii said I taught the lesson like a rockstar, so that will also be my critique. She's pretty against the Book of Mormon, so hopefully if she can stop smoking successfully than that will open up some doors. Other than that we are still trying to set up appointments with investigators.

The Pauls Valley Branch is a little... small. And quiet. And old. There are two girls in young women (from the same family) and one guy that actually just became an elder, so he's not a youth anymore! There are even less youth members here than the Noble ward! Right now I've been meeting members and less actives and trying to put names with faces. Our branch presidency is a little on the reserved side. Elder Fairbourn literally had to tell President Burnett to say hi to me when he saw me for the first time! President Burnett asked the branch to fast for member missionary work (for more info about this, look at the church's website and watch the video that happened in Stillwater, Oklahoma!!), so he's on board with that. Also, he's fixing to be released from the presidency. Yes, I just said "fixing to." Anyway, when he gets released we will also get a new branch mission leader. This branch seems a little dead at the moment.... Hopefully that will change. It might take a little more love and enthusiasm than before to actually do missionary work for the ward.

The last two days of August were brutally hot, but luckily it should be raining today. That's another reason why you guys need to wake me up when September ends. When October rolls around it'll be cooled off by then! September should be better than August though weather-wise :) Our Zone P-day is today in Duncan, so that should be fun. I finally get to meet everyone in the Zone! I miss that about Norman Zone...the close proximity all the missionaries had to each other. But I suppose that will make our Zone P-days more meaningful! At least this will make the first part of September bearable, but just wake me up when September ends! 

With love and a little bit of drowsiness,

Elder...... Gar.....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.