Tadd and his MTC companion see each other at a district meeting

January 26,2015

Hola familia and friends!! No speaky spanish

This week was pretty great! It was sadly my last day week of training and I will miss. 

This week we had combined district meeting which was basically zone meeting haha but we all were surprised when president walked in. No pressure on my companion who is the district leader and had to do part of the training that they had. And guess who is in my district now?! Elder Lauaki my comp from the mtc! Me and him are in like the same shoes. It is great seeing the elders and sisters that you were in the mtc with. 

There is an investigator that lives right by our church that we are teaching and we invited him to be baptized on the 14th of February and he will be preparing for that day. We walk over to the church when we have a lesson because it is a lot easier for the spirit to be there. 

We are also teaching a family who elder Holmstead previously tried to teach but the gma was really rude hah turns out that she is a member. Something softened her heart because she loves us coming by to teach her grandkids. There are 2 kids eligable for baptism Tushaun (14) and Krystasia (10) who are now preparing for baptism for the 7th of february. They love coming to church and have a great time. Krystasia told us that she wants to be a member of the church and is ready for baptism. The mother wants to learn more and so we will be teaching them a lot and preparing them as well. 

It is really funny to see the ice cream truck drive by in mid january haha. We are going golfing today so that should be fun. Yes Golfing in January. One of the other Elders in our ward is actually finishing his mission and so this is his last p day. Its crazy to think that I will be in his shoes one day. I got a long ways but it will go faster than I know.

Here is a pic of me and my Toko (Brother in tongan) Elder Lauaki.

Keith and Kamrin Ackerman baptism

a lot of Firsts

This week was amazing! We had a baptism on Saturday and it made up for all the stress this week. 

This week there were a lot of firsts. I saw my first alligator this week and yes it was real! We were driving down the road and then we look over on the golf course we were driving by and there was this huge alligator chilling right by the green! I would have taken a pic but we were on the way to an appointment. 

We had a zone training meeting on wednesday and had to drive an hour to tampa where it was. It was more of a mission training meeting because all the zones were there haha. We are now going down to 1 ipad per companionship instead of 2 because of issues they have been having I guess. That is where our areabook is and so it will make things a little harder but not impossible. We had a zone in our mission that was the highest baptizing zone that was cut off into a different mission. We lost about 50 missionaries and so that hurt a little. 

The baptism for the Ackerman family was Saturday!! Melissa is still trying to quit smoking so still keep her in your prayers but Keith and Kamrin the daughter got baptized!! I had never had the opportunity to baptize anyone before the mission. I got to baptize Kamrin the 10 year old daughter. After the baptism they took us out to eat and had lunch. Melissa shouldnt be too far behind them either. Me and Elder Holmstead did a special musical number and sang when I am baptized that is in the childrens song book. That was the first time I had ever sung infront of people. It went well, no windows shattered lol. We confirmed them yesterday as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. There is no greater experience than being able to teach someone all the lessons and then having your hard work pay off in the waters of baptism. 

I am grateful for the opportunity and am excited for more. This Gospel is real. The church is true and the book is blue! Gods a Mormon, and don't you forget it!

Elder Gardner

January 12, 2014

Well we didn't have the baptism this week because we needed to teach them more things and she slipped up again on the smoking thing so we are postponing it till this saturday, just keep Melissa the mom in your prayers because she is having a hard time getting rid of smoking. 

This week was long but it went by pretty fast. Its crazy to think that I only have 2 more weeks and then I'm done being trained. 

Me and Danielle were just on the emails at the same time and so we typed back and forth a bit which was really fun haha its great to hear from her! I love going through this experience with her where we can encourage each other and give each others pointers. 

Since my comp is District Leader I get to go on exchanges every week which means us and another companionship in the district exchange companions for a day. So that is super duper fun getting to know other elders in the district. 

So Ruben moved out of his house to another apartment in the area but we don't know where it is at and he doesn't have a phone so we aren't sure how to get ahold of him but we are trying our best to get ahold of him. 

We haven't seen Brisby for like 2 weeks because he went on vacation but he took his Book of Mormon with him so hopefully he has been reading. We are just praying that Brisby and Jason will get work off so that they can attend church with us. We have a member that is helping Jason find a new and better job so that he can come to church but that will be a while. 

We have been struggling with inviting people to church and getting people to church so we are going to try something new and go by everyones houses on saturday night that is able to come to church and remind them that it is sunday and we will see how that goes. Our Ward Mission Leader was out of town for the last like 2 or 3 weeks but now he is back and so we will be cracking down on some things for ward correlation. 

We got a senior couple from Sandy in our ward that have been out for over a year and so they will be helping out the ward by teaching less actives and preparing members to go through the temple. They are really nice and the Sister makes some gooooood cookies haha

Hopefully pics of the baptism next monday!!! 

Love you all!!

Elder Gardner

January 2015

Well another year in the books! Say goodbye to 2014 and HELLO TO 2015

This year is going to be great! I go home next year! so crazy! lol

This week was great, we had more training this week which was really fun. Sometimes it is nice to get out of the normal routine and just sit and learn more. We drove from our area about an hour to Metro Florida which is right by Tampa. Got there Thursday night and there were 4 other elders other than us and then 4 sisters as well. There were 2 elders who were training and 2 sisters who were training as well. One of the Elders training us was from San Diego California and he showed me a pic that they got like an inch of snow! haha 

The training was really great. We got trained on all around things from dress and appearance to how to work with members and how to find people to teach and how to have a proper ward correlation. We got to do a lot of roll plays with members on their missionary work and how we can help them with their missionary work to find people to teach. I learned a lot of really great things and I can apply it to the rest of my mission which is super awesome. 

We were going to an appointment this week and it fell through so had a normal day haha and then we contacted these kids that were about 17 and shared the restoration very powerfully and they could feel different when we shared the first vision. One of their dads called out behind him in spanish and told him to tell us that he wants one of our books in spanish. So we went back the next day and gave it to him. He didn't speak any english so we had a fun game of charades telling him about it haha but gave him a restoration pamphlet as well in spanish. 

We are planning on having the Ackermans baptism this week! It is Keith, Melissa and Kamrin the daughter. I am super excited. Melissa is quitting smoking and so we gave her the 15 step program that the church has and she will be doing that for this week. Keep her in your prayers please. I took some pictures on new years and of our road trip to Metro but my camera is not hooking up to the cpu so I will send those asap. 

Im super pumped my sis is in the field now and she is killing it!

Love you all! 

Elder Gardner