Wednesday, November 12, 2014

November 10, 2014

Dear family,

It has been another great week here in this area.  There have been some exciting things happen this week.  Hopefully I can remember everything.

The first and most exciting thing is that we went to the temple with R. this week!  We went on Friday afternoon and one of his fellowships came with us.  We were not allowed to do baptisms with him, but we were able to go and watch.  We were able to explain to him what was going on and answer his questions.  He had an amazing experience!  On the ride back he was telling us how great it felt.  He told us that every time he came out of the water he was excited to see what the next name would be.  He was also asking questions about being sealed as a family.  He is really excited about that.  He just did temple names, but he wants to do his family history and start doing his family names.  Hopefully we can find someone in the ward that can come and help him get started and help him along the way. 

We also had a mission choir performance on Thursday.  The idea behind this one was to teach the Restoration through song.  So we sang songs about the different principles in that lesson.  There were different group numbers, solos, and they showed some short Mormon messages.  I ended up being in a quintet.  We didn't have that much practice time, but it went well.  We had an investigator come and a less active member come.  They really enjoyed it.  The less active member enjoyed it so much that she told us that we have to tell her about the next one.  We are going to do the same program again next Sunday and then we will do a Christmas one in December.

The investigator that came to the choir performance lives in the same apartment complex as us and she just recently moved her from Michigan (She doesn't like the cold).  She is an older single lady and some people call her grandma cookie.  I probably already mentioned her before in another letter.  She went to the Phoenix temple open house.  We were able to teach her the first lesson this week.  Unfortunately, I was on exchanges that day, but I heard it went great!  

I think I also mentioned in a previous letter that there are many foreigners that live in the same apartment complex as us.  They are here for flight school and come from all parts of the world.  I guess Arizona has cheap pilot training and perfect weather.  We talked to a man from China this week and he wanted to come to church.  We gave him a pamphlet (we happened to have one in Chinese) because there was a little bit of a communication barrier.  Well they came to church this Sunday!  Luckily there is a member that went to Taiwan on his mission and was able to communicate with them a little bit.  They want to come back next week so hopefully there is some way that they can be taught.  I believe there is an elder in the mission that lived in Taiwan and can teach them in Chinese.   

The members are starting to ask me if the mission president forgot I was here.  There have been some snow birds coming back from their summer homes and wondering if I have left and come back.  Most of them say I am just never going to leave and now I'm just a part of the ward.  I would be all right with that.

I love being a missionary and all the amazing miracles that we see in this amazing work!  I'm grateful for this opportunity that I have to be here.  I know that Christ lives and is our Savior.  It is an incredible blessing to know that. 

Thank you for all of your prayers.  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

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