October 27, 2014

Dear family,

It has been another great week here and there are some exciting things coming up.  This Saturday both of our wards had their fall festival and trunk or treat.  There was a great turn out and several non members were at both of them.  There were some investigators and friends of some of the members.  Since they were both on the same night at the same time we had to go to half of one and half of the other.  It was kind of difficult to talk to everyone since we didn't have as much time.  We were still able to talk to most of the non members that came.  On Sunday I sang in sacrament meeting in the Crystal Shores ward and Pres. Nattress came to the Emerald Bay ward and did the third hour lesson for all the adults and youth.  It was really cool!  He showed a video about someone and asked the ward member what they would teach the person and I was asked to write the responses on the chalk board.  I don't write very well on chalk boards so hopefully it didn't look too bad.  

This week we had some great lessons.  We have a couple of investigators that we are working with right now.  We taught one of them the plan of salvation and about baptism and he has a great desire to be baptized.  Unfortunately he is living in our area temporarily and we don't know how long he will stay.  We also taught another investigator who is currently living with his sister and brother-in-law who are members.  We had a great lesson about prayer and it was amazing the spirit in the lesson as his family bore their testimony to him.  Unfortunately he is moving in two weeks.  Don't worry not all of our investigators are moving.  Our 94 year old investigator, who has been taught for quite a while now is starting to come to all three hours of church.  She has come for all three hours two weeks in a row.  Her fellowship has started to read the Book of Mormon with her too.  I believe they have read the first 22 pages so far and she is really enjoying it.  I really want to be here when she is baptized.  That would be really cool!

I went on exchanges with one of the elders in the district this week.  We had a great day!  Things seemed to work out perfectly.  In the morning we had plans to invite a couple potentials to the fall festival but we ran out of invitations so we had to change our plans.  Instead we went to help our 94 year old investigator change a porch light and we ended up meeting her neighbor who was talking to a member that lives across the street and we had a great conversation with them.  Later the non-member neighbor went inside while we were still talking with the member.  Then he came back out and offered to take us to lunch.  I wasn't really expecting that and I don't think a non-member has ever taken us out to lunch before.  We had a great visit with him and talked about his family and the church at lunch.  The next day he went to the Phoenix temple open house with the members across the street.  Hopefully we get to start teaching him soon.  

Later that day we also taught one of the flight students from England that lives in our apartment complex.  It was really cool because the elder I was on exchanges with is from England.  He said it was nice to hear an English accent again.  That night we only had enough time to go see one more person and we were about to go to another potential, but we felt we needed to go visit this flight student instead.  We had a great lesson with him and he was really gratefully that we came and taught him about the church.  He wants to go to the temple open house, but I don't know if they will be able to make it with their school schedule.

We were able to teach some members the Restoration this week.  I really love teaching that lesson.  I remember when I was in my first area being trained and we taught a lot of the members the Restoration.  It is amazing how powerful the spirit is when you teach about Joseph Smith and quote the first vision.  It's amazing!

This week is going to be amazing!  We have zone conference on Wednesday which I always look forward to.  On Friday for Halloween, they don't really want us outside at all.  Last year we just went to a members house and watched a movie as a zone, but this year we get to go to the Gilbert temple and spend the night there!  We are only able to do a session when we go once a transfer, but this time we might be able to do baptisms depending on how many temple workers are there.  We also have stake conference this next weekend.  I'm excited!

Things are going well and I love being a missionary!  Thank you for all of your prayers!  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

 

One of the members e-mailed  this photo of Joshua and his companion at the ward Halloween party.  With this comment:  Elder Gandy is at our ward Halloween party tonight. He is an awesome missionary and a great example of a disciple of Christ!