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| Floating in the air! |
Lots to talk about for me this week as well! So it'll be short replies to everything you wrote :P Also, I forgot my old SD card that had all the pictures I promised for this week. But today we went hiking up a nearby "mountain" (large hill) for P-day so I have tons of pictures from that on the SD card in my camera right now.
Holy cow the story about Jen seeing Schuyler at Priest Laurel Conference BLEW MY MIND. That is so so so so cool and I freaked out a little bit when I read it haha. I can't believe they met and became friends out of everyone else. It's because Jen and Schuyler are the two cooliest girls in the world that's why :)
Haha I honestly don't even remember Mom buying the D&C (Doctrine & Covenants) study guide or giving her grief from it. I apologize if I did that. You guys should whip it back out and study it! It has SO MUCH STUFF TO LEARN. I also recommend reading: The Life of Heber C. Kimball. There are apparently some INSANE stories in there. I can't wait to come home to read it.
For mother's day I will be ALLOWED to Skype, the only thing is, it depends on if I get transferred this transfer. There's only 2 weeks left so if I get moved to Cape Coast then I'm not sure if I'll be able to. It depends on where I go. Either way I'll be letting you know the time I can call/skype.
Yeah I actually got 3 letters from Schuyler haha. I got the one that is form the 26th of March, and then I got the one she sent me while I was in the MTC! Haha. Then I got one that she sent like February 19th or something like that. So they're all out of order haha. Now I'm confused about where our conversations are at lol. I'll just wait for a reply from the letter I sent with the bracelet to write her again. I also got a letter from Uncle Scott (the one you had told me about), so I'll reply to that one next week I think. I think I got a couple others but I can't remember at the moment.
I got the 3 packages you sent! And yes I got the SD card. IT WAS THE FIRST THING I DID! :) Thank you guys so much, and especially thank Grandma and Grandpa for me. They're the best. You're all the best. I especially love the Combos you sent. SO GOOD. And thank you for the CD! I really like that song Donny Osmond did. It's stuck in all of our heads now haha. "Whenever you're in trouble....."
Umm honestly I can barely remember many of the pictures I had back home. I have to really sit and struggle to recall things from home. Us missionaries do things like, make lists, for things we want to remember. Like I have a list that's like 5 pages long with over 200 artists/bands I can remember from home haha. I also have a list of 150 original pokemon which Mike helped me out to remember. If you could, could you just send printed pictures from my facebook of like me and my friends and events and stuff? That would be THE BEST. Also, pictures of Along These Lights live and things. Everyone thinks that it's so sweet I was in a band haha.
Thank you for that clipping of the paper! Well worded and is definitely true. Through all the hardships being here in this crazy place, we are definitely very very successful. Our religion is such a high contrast from all others here, that anyone who is willing to be serious and listen to us almost always is baptized. I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else.
Items from my week:
-Could you possibly send perfect pushups? There's a travel size one that you might be able to send. If you can't/don't want to it's fine.
-We went on splits with the Assistants this week! It freaked us out haha. They just texted us one morning; "hey guys, we're coming on splits with you today. We look forward to doing the Work with you guys! Meet us at Sofoline at 12." We were like....crap. We just dropped like 20 investigators and have 2 appointments for the whole day today....haha but it ended up going well! We did a bunch of contacting and then taught a few more lessons, 2 of which were REALLY good and spiritual and I learned a lot from watching Elder Hair (the AP that came with us) teach. However, I also realized the reason President wanted them to come on splits was most likely to figure out if Elder Slade is ready to train, or if I will train again. We'll know this saturday!
-We went tracting for the FIRST TIME EVER. We found this military barracks apartment area type thing. There are actual doors and house numbers and stuff. So we have been going door to door in that area teaching the military wives and sons and daughters. It's actually somehow successful. Lessons wise, we get plenty. Seriousness wise, not so much. But basically we knock on their door and say, "Ah go?" (Anyone there? It's weird I know but trust me, it's the polite thing to say.) They open it and before we can say anything they're just like, "OBRUNI! COME IN COME IN COME IN!" Hahaha. So then we just teach 'em.
-NEWS ON KADER: He is seriously going to be a GREAT leader someday. He called us on saturday and said he got transferred from the Sunyani branch of his bank to the Bibiani branch of his bank he works at, and he wanted to know if the church was there. It's sweet actually, because in Bibiani the Zolls baptized 30 people there in December who had been waiting for 3-5 years to be baptized since Bibiani is so far from any priesthood leaders so they all had been just waiting for it. It is now a branch and the Zolls are preparing 20 or more for baptism there now, however there is no missionary presence there yet. So I told Kader there was the Bibiani Branch he could go to and gave him the number of the Branch President. So Kader says, "Okay good good. When I get there I will greet the missionaries there for you." And I said, "Oh Kader, there's no missionaries there yet. Someday someday there will be." And he says, "Ohhh don't worry. I will be the missionary." SO BEAST. Then he called us like an hour later and apparently had met with the branch president and handed him the phone so i talked to the Bibiani president for a bit and he was like, "DON'T WORRY! We will take kader in with very happy loving arms!" It made me so happy to hear that haha. Then Kader told me a story of how he convince a guy he just saw buying cigarettes to quit smoking and the guy got rid of all the packs he had just bought. KADER IS, AGAIN, A BEAST. Then I told the Zone Leaders about what happened and they were like, "wait, was he in Sunyani before?" And I was like yeah. And they told me about how the missionaries in Sunyani met Kader at their church and he brought them like 3 referrals, and convinced a less-active to come back to church. And then, the missionaries told the Zone Leaders (our ZL's not theirs) about how "that guy" should be looked at for like a Branch President for a new area that could be opening up. SO EXCITED FOR KADER. HE IS. SUCH. A. BEAST. I'm so proud of him haha.
-Also, Selina, Kader's wife, brought Elder Slade and I to her family to give her younger sister a blessing. We went there with her and blessed her sister, then asked if we could sit down and discuss. They agreed and then both of Selina's sisters were there and her father. Her father seemed very skeptical at first, but I recited to him Joseph Smith's first vision and his countenance today changed. After I recited it and then bore a really spirit filled testimony about it (the spirit was very strong at this time), there were a few moments of silence, and then her father said very quietly, "Is there a way you could give me this man's history or writings?" I told him we could easily do so and we would bring it for him next time. He seemed very happy about it. That would make it so that I've taught 3 super solid families already! Most missionaries are lucky to get 1 family to be interested. It's usually one at a time in the families. I guess I'm just really blessed in that way. Even the Zone Leaders were like DUDE we haven't ever even baptized a family. I already have once and we are now preparing 2 more for baptism! I love the Gospel.
That's all for the week! Hopefully the internet speeds up, because I haven't even been able to load 3 pictures to send yet! And I have like 10 SWEET pictures of me floating in the air!!!! And next week I need to send you like 2309570938465 pictures from before AHHHH I HOPE I CAN CATCH UP!
-Love Elder Gagne
