Becometh as a Child (01/27/2014)

...meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." --Mosiah 3:19

Switching things up today. We're having the spiritual thought come FIRST. It was humility week for us Sulphur elders. In fact, it was humility week for a lot of people in Sulphur. My studies this past week were all about humility. Quite honestly--as unplanned as my study choice was--there's no surprise that humility was to be my topic of study for this week. 

A couple stories: On Tuesday we visited Brian, our incredibly prepared investigator. Seriously, he's golden. Whenever we testify to him about the truthfulness of the gospel he stops us and says, "I ain't sayin' I don't believe!" It's sweet! It caught me off guard when he stopped us because we as missionaries are so accustomed to testifying to everyone to help them gain a belief and a knowledge of the truth. But Brian already knows! Anyway, we got over our biggest hurdle with him: teaching the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. He totally understood those commandments and committed to keeping them! His new girlfriend was actually going to stay the night at his house the night we taught him the law of chastity, but then he told his girlfriend she needed to stay somewhere else for the night! Hahaha you go, Brian! The last few visits we've had with him were incredibly spiritual. He really opened up to us about his feelings and why he feels depressed all the time. 

Humility story #2: Our inactive member named Mark. Remember the guy that feeds us Pizza Hut and only talks about Hawaii and fishing? Mark is that guy's son. Mark's father, Charles, is a very active member of the church. He's a good guy, but his son is the apple that fell very far from the tree. Mark loves his missionaries. He takes pleasure in stopping by our apartment and asking for professional help. A couple months ago he even called us while he was drunk and asked us to see his wife and get her to talk to him (they were fighting at that time). So you can tell that Mark can be a handful at times. This past week we worked on quitting smoking with him, along with his other word of wisdom problems. Working with him on that is trying everyone's patience. His excuse for not coming to church and not keeping the commandments is because "the scriptures tell us to act like a little child!" He was quoting Mosiah 3:19. Funny he should quote that because THAT would mean that you'd also have to submit to the Lord and keep His commandments! Not only do we teach him how to conquer his addictions, we seal off the loopholes he's made up. We had to explain to him that drinking alcohol is against the word of wisdom no matter what day of the year it is, because he thought it was okay to drink on special occasions such as New Year's Day.  So that's Mark.

Our miracle for the week: We met with two less active families this week! The Tinneys and the Riddles! We had dinner at the Tinney's home on Saturday, and we had STEAK! It was SO BIG! And I ATE THE WHOLE THING! Honestly it was the biggest steak I'd ever eaten! I felt like such a man. After dinner we had our little spiritual thought and all. Then Bro. Tinney asked for a blessing to help him with his word of wisdom problem and for the strength to make it to church! It was amazing to witness their whole family being blessed for his courage to ask for God's help. Awe man....what humility. 

In other news, the weather is bipolar! It feels like Spring one day, and then it's freezing temperatures the next. Also, transfer calls are coming up next Sunday. I've felt more and more of a feeling that it's my turn to leave.  We've really had to humble ourselves before the Lord this week We worked so hard this past week, but it felt like nothing was working and no one was progressing. In all honesty though, the work still moves forward! Have an awesome week, and don't forget to humble yourself and ask the Lord for help. 

Elder Garner

I'll Covenant With My Father (01/20/2014)

January's gonna be over before I know it.... We picked up speed this past week with investigators and finding people to teach. On my 8-month mark we spent a good five or six hours tracting one street in Sulphur. Happy 1/3rd of the mission! By the time we finished my stomach was growling and my knees were spent! I had to use Elder Linam's frozen ground beef as an ice pack for my left knee! 

Our investigators are pretty dang solid! Our family of five is a little difficult to meet with because we can never meet all of them at once. We've gotten super close with them. So close that they came to our apartment and gave us three boxes of pizza... Boy oh boy. As fun as they are, I'm a little worried that they'll convert to missionaries instead of converting to the gospel. Brandon, the youngest, has now come to church three times in a row now! And he loves it! We're praying this will get the rest of his family excited about coming to church and learning more about the gospel! They love having us over, and we teach all of them together whenever we have the chance! We have another investigator, Brian, who lives in Sulphur as well. He's definitely prepared. We taught him the Word of Wisdom the other night with absolutely no problem. He can't stand cigarettes, and he doesn't even like coffee or tea. We're having a hard time getting him to church (because of his job) and setting appointments with him. He has to flake out on appointments a lot because of family situations... But he's very incredibly receptive to the gospel! And he's learned so much from having us over! We've recently picked up another family by tracting, and we're also trying to teach all of them together. Angela has a boyfriend named Jeremy living with her (we're gonna fix that...don't worry) and a son named Isaac. They're pretty solid too! I love solid investigators.... 

On Thursday we were told that some shootings went down in Ardmore, the biggest city between us and the Texas border. There are three sets of missionaries that serve there that are in our district. Nothing happened to the missionaries down there, but we were told that at least four people were killed in that shooting. Friday put things at ease, thank goodness. The shooter was caught, and we got the chance to go to the Oklahoma City Temple! We got to see an older convert lady in our branch receive her endowments and get sealed to her late husband! That was a really cool experience. I definitely think missionaries should get to visit the temple more often. Last time I went was in July! 

To put a cap on this update I'll share a pretty funny story. So there's this deaf guy in our branch that lives in Sulphur. His wife asked us if we could dig up a sewer line in their backyard to find the leak. I really didn't put much thought into what I should wear, so I wore my Nike's to dig up a sewer line. Bad idea. Their backyard was a lot muddier than I thought it was. He was outside with us motioning to us what to do. Gosh it was such a HEADACHE. I got a huge blister on my hand from the shovel! Shoulda brought gloves... Again, wasn't thinking. Digging into that trench smelled horrible! Not only could I not sign to this member, but my sense of smell was assaulted by mudpoop! And my shoes were covered in it! When we go back on Tuesday I'm wearing boots. For sure. 

So I don't really know where the punchline to this story is, but just don't ever wear decent shoes to dig up a sewer line. And make sure you wear gloves and gain an education in American Sign Language. And maybe bring a clothespin to shut your nose. My goodness, I love service projects!

Elder Garner

I Am NOT an Okie! (01/13/2014)

Everybody gather round, it's story time...

This week was 'Tract in Wynnewood' week. For those that don't know, Wynnewood (WIN-ee-wood) is a smallish town located between Davis and Pauls Valley. I don't remember if I told you guys this, but we did a little business deal with the Pauls Valley elders and switched one of our small towns for one of their small towns. We traded the town of Stratford for Wynnewood. So lately we've done lots and lots of door-knocking there and digging up less actives that haven't been visited in a while. We knocked on a house to find a lady that thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses (which happens quite frequently). She had a granddaughter standing behind her just kinda looking at us. When we set up an appointment to visit this lady she told us to visit her on "Saturdy." Granted, in Oklahoma that's pretty normal to leave the "a" out when pronouncing your days of the week. But the lady's granddaughter wasn't HAVING it! 

"How bout Saturdy?" the lady asked us.

"NO!" her granddaughter yells. We all look at her wondering why we can't come by on "Saturdy."

"It's SaturDAY, not SaturDY!" she says. And then she literally went through all the days of the week and corrected her Grandma on how to pronounce the names of each day of the week.

"It's not Mondy, it's MONDAY! It's not Tuesdy, it's TUESDAY! It's not Wednesdy, it's WEDNESDAY! It's not Thursdy it'sTHURSDAY!" Her Grandma starts rolling her eyes and turning red at this point. "It's not Fridy, it's FRIDAY! It's not Saturdy it'sSATURDAY! And it is not Sundy, it's SUNDAY!!!" And she turns around and flounces off.

".....Okay, we'll see you on Saturday then," the lady says with a breath of exasperation. Funniest part.... Her granddaughter comes back and says:

"I am NOT an Okie!"

And so this update is dedicated to this lady's granddaughter, whose name I unfortunately do not know! That all happened on Wednesday. On Monday we had our zone P-day in Pauls Valley. Since there's only one missionary apartment with a shower, we weren't able to do anything physical and sweat-inducing, so we played Signs. Definitely a different zone P-day, but it was awesome.

Tuesday was pretty funny. We taught the ten commandments to an investigator named Alex. When we told him that commandment #7 was "thou shalt not commit adultery," he felt the need to tell us that "chemotherapy took it all right out of him" (whatever IT is!) and that he hadn't had sex in 25 years.... WELL. Law of Chastity won't be a problem then! I swear, the things people tell us missionaries...hahaha. 

So that's pretty much our week. Holidays are long over, but we're still getting a lot of cancelled appointments with investigators. We've focused a lot on teaching our recent converts, Tammy and Thomas. Our current investigators are pretty solid--just hard to meet with. I'll be sure to let y'all know when anything exciting starts happening with them!

And you know...since I've got extra time today, I'll include a little spiritual thought. I really don't do enough of those... But today I feel like sharing Helaman 5:45-47, which reads:

"And behold, the Holy Spirit of God did come down from heaven, and did enter into their hearts, and they were filled as if with fire, and they could speak forth marvelous words. And it came to pass that there came a voice unto them, yea, a pleasant voice, as if it were a whisper, saying: Peace, peace be unto you, because of your faith in my Well Beloved, who was from the foundation of the world."

I'm out here to let the people of Oklahoma know that the Holy Spirit of God teaches and adds witness to the words I speak. I'm here to share with the them the peace and comfort that comes from having faith in the Lord and keeping his commandments. And I'm here to testify of the Book of Mormon and of the Restoration through the prophet Joseph Smith and allowing them to feel that Holy Spirit of God confirm the truth to them. There's nothing like it, and it's what the Lord called me to do! I already have one-third of this mission to look back, but I look forward to the remaining time I have out here to build the Lord's kingdom!

Elder Garner 

The Year of the Mission (01/06/2014)

SURPRISE EVERYBODY! We had the exact same week this week as we did last week. . . . More holidays, more cancelled appointments. Yeah, so I'm gonna do everything I can to make this week sound more interesting than it really was.

 

So on Monday we went to the Pauls Valley Rec Center for P-day, and while I was sitting on the bleachers in the gym a couple middle school-aged lovebirds decided to sit right next to me. Okay weird. Anyway, the two of them started cuddling with each other and talking about this person and that person and how that person's ugly and this person is a jerk and basic middle school drama. It was pretty funny.... Then the girl started talking pictures of the two of them together (with me sitting behind them), so I decided to photobomb their pictures ;) Seeing those two just took me back to my days at the SoJo Rec Center and my middle school and high school days. It reminded me of how different things are being a missionary--a good kind of different! And how much better life is with the gospel... Those teenage years involve lots and lots of growing up, that's for sure.

 

On Tuesday we got a call from Tammy's dad telling us that Tammy had to go to the ER--no details were given to us. So we called and left messages and stopped by their house all this past week, but we didn't get anything from them. Luckily on Sunday we caught them home (they weren't at church), and Tammy seemed to be doing fine. We had a good discussion with Tammy's mom trying to warm her up to the idea of Relief Society and receiving a calling in the Young Womens. Gosh, Tammy is so solid. She is SO on top of making sure she and her family gets to come to church every week! She was really bummed that she wasn't there this week. 

 

So the best part about this week was our epic weekend visits! We ran around Sulphur and Davis trying to round up people to come to church. Since a lot of people down by where we live have an issue with gas, we decided to hook up some people with rides. Crazy thing was that it TOTALLY WORKED. We had a lot of new people come to church yesterday! One of the biggest miracles was finding a ride for a kid named Brandon (12) whom we've been teaching for a couple months now. We've been teaching him and his family: Bradley (14), Kali (17), Shanda (mom) and just recently Tolon (dad). We picked up Tolon this past week. They all work on Sunday, so they haven't made it to church. Brandon really wanted to come with us to church, but unfortunately due to church policy we aren't allowed to drive other people in the car besides other missionaries. So we hooked him up with a ride with Thomas--the kid we baptized in October--and his Grandma! The best part? Thomas and Brandon are TOTALLY friends now! And Brandon wants to come back! And if the kids are happy, the parents are happy.

 

We're praying hard that this will influence Shanda and Tolon to come to church along with the rest of their family. It's been hard meeting with them due to the holidays and work schedules, but they're gotten a lot out of us coming over to visit them. We are giving our best to bring them into to the church and along with it the blessings of the gospel. Our new year is looking bright, and we're ready to work hard and help reach Pauls Valley branch's goal: to become to ward by 2015. If there's anything I want to accomplish in this area, it's to leave Pauls Valley branch and the town of Sulphur, Oklahoma better than I found it. Hope everyone's having a happy new year!

 

Elder Garner