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
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