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
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