Progress is FUN! (06/30/2014)

Well, our week wasn't as happy-go-lucky as others, but we did have a couple highlights. Elder Watkins was on the mend this week from the previous week's food poisoning experience. We got to attend our Zone Conference over in Moore with our zone and the other zone in the OKC South Stake. We received some valuable council on baptism, and loving our neighbors, and the fun that comes from making progress. After the conference we had some powerful testimonies from missionaries I had never heard give their testimonies before. So many testimonies to the point that president almost had to tell us to keep them short! Elder Watkins shared his testimony about the strength he'd received the past week from our challenges. I felt so much love from hearing his testimony. So much companionship unity! My MTC companion, Elder Hoddy, talked about a talk that David A. Bednar gave called "The Character of Christ" and how much hearing the talk changed him. Both of us sat next to each other in the MTC auditorium listening to that same talk just over a year ago. As his MTC companion I got to be a personal witness of the change he made. I felt his desire to change for every minute and every word to came from Elder Bednar's talk. I could feel the change in me as well. When he shared that experience during the testimony meeting my nostalgia fire lit up as well as my desire to keep growing and keep progressing as a missionary. Other missionaries talked about their "mid-mission crisis," which seems to be where I'm at right now. Always thinking about the past year of the mission, always thinking about what the next year has in store. Luckily it's a good kind of crisis! 

On Friday I conducted my first exchange! With an elder named Elder Read from North Las Vegas. We got to be pretty good friends by the end of the exchange. I made one more step into the pool of district leaderhood. Being a district leader isn't so bad after all. I guess being called this transfer was as good of a time as ever.

 Earlier this week we tracted into a Vietnamese guy that doesn't speak a lick of Okie English. He was friendly enough to invite us in and speak with us through Google translate on his iPad. We communicated to him enough to where we showed him a couple mormon messages in Vietnamese. Later on in the week we brought him a Vietnamese and English Book of Mormon for him to read side by side. His biggest desire right now is to learn English. We left him with the promise that if he read both books side by side he would learn English. He was excited to read.

Sunday was easily the highlight of the week. We went to church long enough to give our talks in sacrament meeting, all of which turned out well. We spoke with a returned missionary from the ward, and he did a good job speaking. After the first hour me, Elder Watkins, and the sisters jetted off the Pauls Valley to witness the baptism of a member's mother! Sister Ryans, the lady that got baptized, had a hard time getting into the water. She needed a chair to sit down in the font, and she had two elders lower her plank position into the water. After about 20 minutes they got her in! The crowd went wild. Everyone was so thrilled to see her baptized! What a blessing it was to go back to Pauls Valley... Fun to see old faces, fun to see new faces. They had 90 people at church... Pauls Valley is very much on track to become a ward. I hope to be on the mission to see it happen. 

After the baptism we drove up I-35 towards Purcell. We took the exit and drove down Green Avenue. We meandered off into a neighborhood and stopped at a house I'd visited my first day as a missionary. Elder Watkins and I knocked on the door to find my first convert baptism, Carol, still kicking and living the gospel. I hadn't seen her since I got transferred from there August of last year. What a warm and enjoyable visit we had with her. She remembered me and talked to me just as though I'd seen her the other day. It was a much-needed visit for me and for her. Best thing that's happened in a long time.

We had lots of opportunities to witness the growth and progress of others throughout this week. In our area Rodney told us that he was 100% committed and ready for baptism. He told us he has a testimony of the gospel and knew it was true. Music to our ears! We also got to teach a lady named Jo, and she committed to be baptized as well! Yesterday we saw Sister Ryans enter into the waters of baptism, and we saw Carol growing from her living the gospel.

Like the title states, progress is FUN!

Elder Garner