Taxing Days in Mustang (02/24/2014)

I promise this update isn't as boring as the title sounds! Everyone's just buckling down on their taxes for some reason... Doesn't that happen in April? Whatever though. I won't question Oklahoma.

 

On Wednesday I went exchanges with one of the other elders in the ward/one of my roommates, Elder Davis. I feel bad for the kid. He's still getting used to my personality. I think he felt like he was on a date for the first time or something! He's pretty talkative as a group, but he's never talked to me just with the two of us together, so that was interesting. He kept asking me for wisdom, which kinda made me blush... He's been in the area for 4 1/2 months already and he asked for help! I actually feel kinda old being around all these younger missionaries... It's a lot of fun though. That day I got to meet a lot of the members on their side of the ward boundary. And one of the members was so kind as to talk two of my broken watches to the store and fix them! Oh the blessings of being in a moderately populated city with solid ward members... Such tender mercies. Ha.

 

On Thursday we did some service at the library and...what do you know...we counted TAX PAPERS! I guess this stuff is kind of a big deal to grownups. Last week we helped someone move to a new house. Why were they moving? Because it was tax season. Then after tax season comes TORNADO SEASON! Guess where the tornado hit last year? My area. No joke, we might witness some more tornadoes! Anyway, we spent a while in the library making sure all the tax papers were all accounted for.

 

Awkward/funny story of the week: on Saturday we helped a single member move out of her sister's house. The actual person we were moving out wasn't at home, and while Elder Bolan and I were taking stuff out, we discovered some...buried treasure...in the corner of her closet. Without being overly explicit, let's just say we found some...intimate apparel. Ooops! Mom, you probably shouldn't include this paragraph in the ward newsletter ;) HA. I'm really interested to see how that conversation's gonna go down with the member and her sister...haha. Very...intriguing...to say the least.

 

New topic! Our investigators are proving to be hard to meet with. It's very "taxing" on us trying to meet with them, so we've been spending a lot of time perusing the ward menu and finding people in our area to visit. We've found a lot of part-member families with kids whose parents want them to be baptized! I guess being in Sulphur for so long really taught me skills in the part-member department. With such a small number of members in Sulphur, we had no choice but to visit all the members in our area. Now that tradition's being carried over to Mustang, and there are lots of people that both Elder Bolan and I are meeting for the first time. We've gotten some referrals from the ward, so now as soon as we can get going on setting solid appointments with the part-member families and the referrals we should see some progress in our area!

 

Things are looking better and better each day and week as our area gets more organized and put together. I'm still working on ingraining into my mind positivity and becoming more happy independently (and with the help of Heavenly Father, of course). I am definitely tested each day like you wouldn't believe. I learn about people everyday all the time, and I continue learning about Heavenly Father everyday. I just grateful for this life and the opportunity I have to continually learn and grow everyday! Have an awesome week from Mustang, Oklahoma!

 

Elder Garner

All the Single Elders (02/17/2014)

Now put your quads UP! Just kidding... Don't you guys just like my tacky song references?

 

Work in Mustang/Yukon is getting more and more exciting each and every day! Our area is finally starting to come together as we meet members and less actives and get to know them and their concerns. Elder Bolan is awesome, and we have such epic lessons and days together! We have a pretty solid investigator named Mauricio who recently moved into the area around the same time I did. The elder I replaced and one the Zone Leaders in Moore ran into him and taught him the restoration, and now we've picked him up. He's got a wife (who we KNOW will be interested) and a little daughter named Alesandra. We've visited him a couple times, and he asks TONS of questions about the gospel and is really open-minded! The other day we brought over a young married couple from the ward, the Beals, so he could meet members from the ward, and they totally clicked! Sister Beal totally wanted to babysit Mauricio's daughter! Unfortunately, he couldn't make it to church this Sunday because his daughter was sick... But as it just so happened, Mauricio decided to invite the Beals over to dinner one day, and they all ended up talking about the church for two and a half hours and had an amazing discussion with them! In short, he and his wife are getting baptized! It's only a matter of time before we set a date with them and get going on the rest of the lessons. More on that next week! 

 

On Wednesday we took a trip to the OKC temple as a zone and did a session together. We had a really enlightening and uplifting experience. We were asked by the Zone Leaders to think of a question to ask ourselves and challenged us to seek revelation for our question to help answer it. The temple is always such a good place to go to eliminate the distractions and the chaos in the world today... I always enjoy a deep thinking session in the comfort of my own brain. Anyway, neat experience.

 

Valentine's Day was pretty...lovely. <3 Haha, anyway, we had dinner at our ward mission leader's house. My FIRST involved ward mission leader I've had an my mission, I might add! He and his wife gave each other Grandma's cookies for Valentine's Day. AWE  Afterwards we took him out with us to visit a less active member. The miracle? We found out his ten-year old son hadn't been baptized! And that the member (Robert) wanted his son to be baptized! Another youth baptism from a part-member family? Let me have 'em. The Sulphur spirit hasn't died down yet! We're looking forward to more visits with them and getting to know their whole family more and bringing the gospel back into their lives! 

 

Saturday was laborious... We spent all day waiting for and putting our bunkbeds together and hauling new furniture into our apartment. Guess what we did after that? Went to an investigators house to help her and her family MOVE. Move all their FURNITURE. I didn't get to spend much time with this investigator, Catherine, but she seemed really solid. She's moving to an area with sister missionaries, so I'm sure she'll be in good hands. By the end of the day we were pretty worn out and excited for church the next day. Church was DIFFERENT. We were in an actual BUILDING. With a GYM. And an OVERFLOW. I almost got lost, I swear. It's always so different being in a regular-sized church building. I got to meet a lot of the members there. We had our ward conference, and the bishop spoke. It was an all-around good meeting. 

 

Yesterday we had our Zone p-day over at a bowling alley in Moore. I wasn't super enthused to go bowling, but I won all three games! That was my confidence boost of the day. We had an incredibly spiritual specialized training meeting on visions and creating a vision for our districts, our areas/companionships, and for ourselves. Lately I've spent a lot of time looking at this list to see what I can do to improve and help others along the way. To put a more personal twist on this update, I feel inspired to share the goals I've set for myself. I spent quite a bit of time during our temple trip and during the specialized training meeting reflecting on the past experiences I've had so far on my mission. I've come to realize that love towards the members and investigators stems from your love towards your companion. Everything you do as a missionary starts in the companionship. I've been blessed with the opportunity to serve with Elder Bolan. Luckily, having love for him isn't a challenge, but I wasn't so lucky with other companions. There's always an element of mistrust and negativity that invades my thoughts. More than anything else I've learned about myself so far on my mission, it's that my thoughts translate directly into my actions and attitudes towards something or someone no matter how hard I try or attempt to separate thoughts from deeds. It was no coincidence that during the specialized training meeting we discussed attitude and perception as a way of obtaining our visions. It all originates from our thoughts toward the vision. If we believe that we can succeed, we set ourselves up to accomplish that goal. There's absolutely no room for the thought of failure to penetrate the mind. So how I apply this to myself and with other missionaries: Can't stand your companion/siblings? Can't stand your area/school/work? Can't stand stuff that's going on with other missionaries/family/friends? Consider this: You can't change what's just happened. You can only change how you feel about it. So what do you do? You learn to love unconditionally, no matter what's happened or what someone's done. You either set yourself up for a miserable tenure in your area or companionship, or you make the most of it by switching your mindset to expect success and a homerun the moment you watch an investigator of yours get baptized or say goodbye to one of your companions. In other words, you choose whether or not to be happy. 

 

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind quite frequently lately. I hope you felt edified by that. That's another thing I'm trying to work on, edifying others. As you read what I've shared, just remember that I'm not trying to preach at you. In fact, this is me preaching to myself more than anything and hoping that someone will step in and add to what I've said to help me out! Being in Mustang is turning my leaf a different shade, and it's going to be for the better. I love this work more than words can say.

 

Nine months is already life-changing. Who wants to see 15 more months of life-changing? I do.

 

Elder Garner  

Day and Night (02/10/2014)

Transfer weeks are always so bittersweet... So exciting, yet they're so sad at the same time. This week was nothing but saying goodbye, packing up, and saying hello to all the members of the Mustang 1st ward. Much like leaving Purcell, leaving Sulphur was a lot more heartwrenching than I would have expected. Saying goodbye to our two recent converts, Thomas and Tammy, had me pretty emotional. On Monday we had an amazing dinner at Smokin Joe's with the Landers family--probably one of my favorite member families in the branch. On Tuesday we had dinner at the McElvany's, another favorite family in the branch. Saying goodbye to Tammy was probably the hardest person out of all. I never really realized how much time I'd spent in Sulphur. I finally left behind six months of a legacy of missionary work in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Now that I've arrived in Mustang I've realized how different this place is compared to my first two areas. 

 

To describe our area, it's very suburban and dense with neighborhoods. That's MY cup of tea! Just kidding...tea's against the word of wisdom. Mustang city limits are 12 square miles, and our area in actuality only covers 1 square mile of Mustang. The rest of our area covers parts of southwest OKC and the south end of Yukon, another suburb of OKC. Yukon has some incredibly nice neighborhoods--something I've yet to have in my mission. The roads are busy, and it's very easy to lost in the neighborhoods.

 

To describe the missionary work aspect of the area, it's night and day compared to serving in Sulphur in the Pauls Valley branch. I'm now leaving two companions and going back to the usual one companion, who by the way is awesome. Elder Bolan's taking over the area for the first time, so I've gotten to help him out and get things up and running for our area. In my apartment are the other set of elders serving in Mustang, Elders Davis and Woodward. They're pretty fun to hang out with, and the four of us have some pretty good times together in our frigid apartment. The more and more I walk the streets of Yukon and OKC, I realize more and more how much of a change this place is going to be compared to the first two areas I've had so far on my mission. I nearly forgot what it was like how different being in a ward with a sizeable population is. The make-up of this ward is just like any Utah ward--lots of families, youth, little kids, and a handful of older people. I never realized how much people had to work and rely on each other in a branch. It's funny how in a branch there's lots of work to do, yet at times it seems like you have so little to work with. Missionaries are actually needed in branches. Not trying to suggest anything about Mustang 1st, but the attitude is definitely different here. Still trying to figure out what that attitude is, but for now I'm looking forward to new adventures and experiences here!

Elder Garner

So Long, Sulphur (02/03/2014)

The transfer calls this week came as no surprise: I am getting transferred to the Mustang 1st Ward in Mustang, Oklahoma. For the first time on my mission I'm being sent to a suburban area. Mustang is just west of the international airport and southwest of Oklahoma City. My new companion is Elder Cody Bolan, who's been out six months. Going from a branch to a ward, going from out in the country to in the suburbs, and going from two companions to the normal one companion is signaling radical change in my missionaryhood. It only seems like I just arrived in Sulphur, but I'm excited for the opportunity I have to serve in the Mustang area! 

So now that my days are numbered in Sulphur it's time I share some final stories about Sulphur and the Pauls Valley branch. This week turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be, so I'm mildly pleased with that. On Monday we get to go to a member's granddaughter's basketball game at Sulphur High School. Her name's Chynna (pronounced like China), and she's also an investigator. She did an awesome job, and her team won! Fun fact: In girls' basketball there's only six minutes in each quarter! That's my kind of basketball. Short and sweet.

Tuesday we raked for a member in Sulphur who's celebrating her 50th birthday in Disneyworld. Guess you're never too old for Disney....? I'm definitely not! We ended up raking her yard for five hours... way longer than we expected. And we broke all three of her rakes, two of which were new. My bad....

On Wednesday we had a pretty crazy tracting experience. We knocked on an older lady's door, and when she saw us through the window she waved us off. No big deal. Two seconds later we turned around a heard a MASSIVE thud coming from inside the house! You know the little life alert commercials they have when the old lady's lying on the floor and she's like, "help! I've fallen and I can't get up!"? We pretty much witnessed that but in real life. The lady (Barbara) started screaming for help, so we barged in the door and found her lying on the floor and in tears. She slipped on a sleeping bag and fell on her hip and broke it! Now, you probably think that we're the reason why she fell and broke her hip. If we'd never knocked on her door she'd have never got up from the couch to get the door and later on slip and fall. But let's be honest, who better to help an older woman than three studly missionaries? We helped Barbara out and comforted her while her daughter raced home to check her out. We decided to call 911, and when we did we left her house. Ironically, her house number is 911. We prayed for Barbara and went on our way as we heard the sirens go down Broadway Avenue in Sulphur.

Man, what would the older women in Oklahoma do without the missionaries? Actually, the more important question is what would WE do without the older women?! They are seriously so great. They make my life sometimes. We did a thorough job at making sure all our solid investigators and our less actives with whom we're in contact were able to make it to church this week. But then Oklahoma decided to have a snowstorm over the weekend... and church got cancelled... no bueno. More Monopoly and more Uno for us!

And of course, that day on Sunday we got our transfer calls. Now it's just saying goodbye to people and packing up. The time has come for me to move on. Transfers are such an emotion-filled time. You're excited for a new adventure but sad about leaving people you've grown to love. After six months Sulphur's become home for me. My trust is in the Lord's hands, and I'm excited for what comes my way in Mustang!

Elder Garner