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

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