11/10/14 - The Lord's Work is Awesome

I have very little time today seeing as we had three people who could only see us on Monday :( But that's okay, they come first. We are here on the Lord's time.

We have three more baptisms this Friday: Araceli's three girls. And hopefully we can have one more next week if he's ready for it by then. Yeah, I know. This is a ton of baptisms this month! The area hasn't had a baptism in over a year and now we've had one and four more scheduled this month, with another woman we plan to put on date this week. It's so cool to see the Lord work! The only problem with the baptism on Friday is that we don't have three jumpsuits in the right sizes. Oh well, the ward is getting on that problem.

Awesome story for this week: we got in with a woman that we tracted into two months ago! We hadn't gotten in with her, we couldn't get in touch with her besides a few texts and then there was a death in the family. But for some reason, we felt like we shouldn't give up on her. Finally we were able to set up an appointment out of the blue, she was excited to see us, and was super open. And while she started off saying, "I don't care what church I go to as long as they only read from the Bible," by the end she was curious and willing to read from the Book of Mormon! And she told us next time we came over she would make sure her daughter would sit in with us as well.

Love you all!

Sister Garver

11/3/14 - Baptism!

Ryan was baptized this Saturday! His older brother, the only other member in his family, preformed the baptism, and the Spirit was so strong it could knock a horse over. Which was supremely awesome seeing as we brought Rosemary, a new investigator. Ah, I love Rosemary! I have officially adopted her as an honorary grandma :) But she loved the baptism and came to church yesterday as well! Our mission president came Sunday as well, which put a little pressure on us, but seeing as we had a confirmation, 6 investigators, and an awesome lesson in Gospel Principles this week, everything went smoothly.

Araceli and her family are just my favorite family! They all love us so much and now are waiting and asking for us when we have appointments. They come to activities and church regularly and are making so many friends. Araceli even asked us to teach her friend! (Which we can't, but we can send the Spanish Elders their way.) The three girls have a baptismal date on the 15th, and Araceli is working on stopping smoking. Her son won't meet with us, because he gets too much "girliness" just from his own family, but we set him up with the elders, and now he's coming to church too!

We had the strangest experience this week. We were tracting this one house, and started like we always do, "Hi! We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter," "Would you like to come in?" "Uh, yeah." We went in, taught the entire first lesson, committed him to reading, praying, keeping the word of wisdom, and going on Mormon.org for questions, then made an appointment for two days later. Two days later, we teach the second lesson, eternal marriage, and temples, and commit him to baptism. Wait, what?

I definitely know the Lord leads us to those ready for His message. We hardly do anything except go where He sends us, and listen to, teach, and LOVE His children. It's been an amazing week.

Love you!

Sister Garver

P.S.  It's gotten pretty cold. Not freezing, but still not my happy weather. I have started to wear layers, and I wear my leggings and boots everyday. What I suffer most from is lack of gloves, but we're going to go buy some today, so that should cease to be an issue. As for my bigger coats, yes I pulled them out, but found the black one was covered in fluff that I couldn't get off, so I took it to a dry cleaners today (which was an adventure, because I've never been to one before!).

Halloween was a bit of a let down. We had a huge bag of candy and not a single trick-or-treater knocked on our door :( plus, we didn't get to go to bed early because weekly planning took longer than we thought it would. But the extra hour of sleep on Sunday was nice! That's so cool about your Halloween though! Did you take any pictures of your pumpkins? I'd love to see them!

YES, I got your recipes and they are so awesome! Thank you a billion times! Today we are making taco soup! It made my entire week, and maybe more than that because every time I look at them, I can't help but smile! We have the basic pans, a cookie sheet, a crockpot, and we bought a muffin pan a few weeks ago. I wish we had a skillet. Have you ever tried making brownies in a muffin pan? It's brilliant! A good chunk, easy to eat, and portioned.

10/27/14-Transfers!

Transfers are coming up this Wednesday! I think Sister Stout and I will be fine, at least for one more transfer, but Elder Harward has to leave :( He is so strong and is a natural leader, so we'll be sad to see him go. But without him, the threesome of elders will become a twosome and be a bit more manageable. We'll as manageable as it can be with Elder Bronson, who classifies himself as a "one-third soulless ginger."

We have a baptism this Saturday! It didn't happen last week because his dad had to work, but this Saturday it's finally happening! Sister Stout is thrilled because she's been working with this kid for months and sees herself as his big sister. She constantly refers to him as "the punk." In a loving manner, of course. We also hope to invite Araceli's girls to come. Araceli herself can't come because she has to work then. But I'm not fretting over that too much, because she finally came to church yesterday! She was sick, but she and her girls came anyway! Plus, they came to trunk-or-treating and had a blast!

We have a new investigator this week that I just love to pieces. She's a referral from the elders and she is just amazing. She's an older woman and really struggling because her husband has dementia and early onset Alzheimer's. But she loves the Book of Mormon, immediately accepts our lessons, keeps her commitments and love us to pieces. She calls us her Little Women or sometimes Her Angels :) Every time we pull up, she's waiting for us and comes out ready for a hug. I never knew I could love people so quickly and so completely before coming out here. Seriously.

I started reading Isaiah today. It says so many times in the BoM that we need to "study the words of Isaiah" but I never did. Than today I was reading in 2 Nephi 6 and it says it again! And this time, when I read it, it was a commandment from the Lord to me. So I started. It's actually not nearly as bad as everyone says it is. Of course, I'm only on the first chapter, but I actually found it really interesting and I learned a ton just from that first chapter. I'm taking it slow, but I'm getting a lot out of it. For instance, the reason the children of Israel started to fall was because when wickedness started to enter the church and people started to go astray, nothing was done about it. The "sores and bruises" were not taken care of and in the end, everything from the "soles of the feet to the crown of the head" were sick and diseased. No wonder the church today is so quick and efficient today when coming down on false doctrine and other inconsistencies.

You asked about P-days. P-days we don't do too much. Email, clean (turns out I'm a bit of a clean freak), shop, and sleep. Last P-day we had a mini early Halloween party with all of the Sisters in the area. I've been told going to a nearby train museum is a must, and we could go hike Kennesaw Mountain (hah! Mountain! Its a bitty thing of a hill!) but I'd much rather sleep, or maybe go to the thrift store nearby. They have a ton of cool stuff. Like last P-day, I bought a glass chess and checkers set.

As for pictures, I've been trying to take pictures (without being creepy) of a lot of the houses here in Georgia. They're funny looking. Some look normal, especially the really nice ones, but some just look like a three year old designed the place, with bits and pieces stuck every which way. I've been to some really nice houses and some really poor ones. There's a bit of both here, but I almost prefer the poor ones, because they're closer together, so we can hit more houses while tracting in a shorter amount of time.

Anywho, this week has been awesome in everyway but one. I've been eating the same food/meals for over a month now and it's starting to get a bit old. I have very few recipes memorized and few to no ways to get more. Please email me some new recipes! Anything that can be made in less than a half hour to 45 minutes would be greatly appreciated!

Love you all tons!

Sister Garver