January 26, 2015

Dear family,

It has been another great week here!  B was baptized this week!  That is probably the most exciting news from this past week.  We taught him several times this week and finished all of the lessons.  The baptism went really well and everything ran smoothly.  There was a great turn out from the ward and we had the baptismal service in the chapel.  His parents, his aunt and uncle, and a family friend came.  He was telling us earlier in the week that his parents were not happy with his decision, but would support him.  It was amazing what happened at the baptism.   His family sat right behind him in the second row.   The incredible part was that afterwards when he hugged his dad, his dad was crying.  Sometime during the baptism his father felt the spirit.  It's amazing how the spirit can soften hearts.  After the baptism, we could tell his family was very proud of him and happy with the decision he made.  They ended up staying for refreshments and talking to several of the members there.  It was an amazing baptism and he received the priesthood the next day in church.  I'm hoping that his family will have interest and start coming to church.

We had a couple lessons with A this week.  He also came to B's baptism and really enjoyed it.  He is still trying to figure out what day he is going to be baptized.  He wants a specific person to baptize him so they are trying to figure that out.  It will definitely be in February and hopefully before Elder Rich goes home.  He is super prepared and ready to be baptized.  He has been coming  to church for so long.  We taught the word of wisdom and he said he is already keeping it.  We also taught him about praying often and studying the scriptures daily, and he is already doing that.  We have a lesson with him tomorrow and we will find out the day for his baptism.  

We also taught the over age youth, and she is doing great.  We have been teaching her several of the commandments.  It's always fun to teach someone young and teach everything simple.  It's also fun to use pictures and things like that.  The grandfather is an active member of the church and is going to come into town to do the baptism.  They are also not sure what day will work for them.  They said it will probably be close to the end of February.  

We haven't been able to contact our other investigator.  Her friend that first introduced her to the missionaries has been able to talk to her about it.  She still wants to be baptized and knows it is special, but has started school and is working a lot.  We are still praying for her.

Yesterday we participated in a small fireside that one of our stakes put together.  They had the missionaries put together a musical number.  We helped rake leaves for a single sister in one of our wards.  We had a choir practice for the mission choir.  They stopped doing it around Christmas time for several reasons.  It was a great chance to take investigators to the Mesa temple Christmas lights instead.  They started it up again, and we will have a choir concert once a month at the church right next to the Gilbert temple.

It's great to be a missionary!  I learn so much every day.  It's amazing to see the gospel of Jesus Christ change our brothers and sisters lives.  It's amazing all the small tender mercies that we see every single day (1 Nephi 1:20).  Our Heavenly Father is aware of us and knows everything about us and He wants us to be happy.  It's amazing to see His hand in our lives.  Thanks for all of your prayers and all that you do for me.  I love you all so much!

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

January 18, 2014

Dear family,

It has been another great week!  It has been a busy week with many different activities this week like zone conference.  

Our investigators are doing very well.  B. is ready and excited to be baptized on Saturday.  We have a couple more lessons to teach him and he will be all ready.  He has made quite of few friends in the ward so we are expecting quite a few youth from the ward to be there at his baptism.  This ward hasn't had a baptism for quite a while so we are hoping that many of the adults come to.  This ward has a lot of youth so even if just the youth came there would be a lot of people there.  We are also hoping that his parents will come.  They are not very supportive, but said they might come.  

Our investigator in the singles ward is doing great.  He said he wants to be baptized, but just doesn't know when.  We invited him to be baptized on February 14th, but that weekend might not work for him.  It will probably be the week before or after.  He has been to church for several months and he says he already feels like a member.  

The over age youth that we have been teaching, came to church for the second time in a row.  They even came early! We had a lesson with them this week and they are doing great.  They are really trying to pray every night and read their scriptures.  There is a family just a couple doors down that started to fellowship them recently and they have helped a lot helping them come to church.  She is currently on date for January 31st, but that might change to a later week.  

One of our other investigators is still not wanting to meet with us right now, but many members in the ward are praying for her and reaching out to her.  She wants to be baptized, but wants to wait and doesn't want to meet with us right now.  We hope to have a lesson with her this week.  

We had a great zone conference this week!  Pres. Nattress focused on the words ask, seek, and knock as it says many times in the scriptures.  He talked about the importance of prayer and relying to the spirit to know where to go and who we need to go by.  We also talked about literally knocking on doors.  We don't tract a lot in this mission, but they committed us to knock on ten doors a day.  That is not very many doors, but it adds up.  We talked about a lot of other things along with that.  It was a great zone conference!

This week we were asked to help with a combined young mens and young women's activity on Wednesday.  For the activity they were writing their testimonies in the cover of a Book of Mormon and writing letters to missionaries in their ward.  They asked us to come and teach them how to give a Book of Mormon to someone and to talk about the importance of writing to missionaries.  It was a lot of fun to interact with the youth in the ward.  One of the best ways to prepare to leave on a mission is to become a missionary before you leave.  

It has been a great week and I'm sure this week will be another amazing week.  It is just great to be a missionary.  I'm so grateful for this chance to serve our Heavenly Father.  I know this is Christ's church and that we have a prophet on the earth today.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  Our mission started another Book of Mormon read.  We are going to read it in three months.  It is amazing the spirit that comes into our lives as we read from the Book of Mormon.   Thank you for all of your prayers and all that you do for me!  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy 

January 12, 2014

Dear family,

It has been another great week here in Gilbert!  We had transfers this week and we have quite a few new missionaries in the zone.  It will be fun getting to know them and serving with them. 

There were some exciting things that happened in our area this week.  One of our investigators is still on date to be baptized on the 24th.  We were able to have a couple lessons with him this week.  He and his fellowship have been telling everyone about his baptism.  They also announced it in the ward on Sunday.  He is really excited to be baptized.  He has an interesting situation and so he will be baptized in our ward instead of the ward his parents live in.  It will be the first baptism in this ward in a long time.

Another investigator is still on date to be baptized on February 7th.  She still has some concerns about not knowing enough before her baptism, but most investigators have that concern.  She is still doing well.  We were also able to invite an over age youth to be baptized this week. She is almost nine and her mom is less active and her dad is not a member.  The missionaries have been teaching her for a while, but she hasn't been baptized because they haven't come to church.  We invited her to be baptized on January 31st and invited them to church.  They came to church for the first time yesterday!  She will be turning nine a couple days before her baptism so she will technically be a convert.  

We were also able to meet with a new investigator in our singles ward.  He has been coming to church with his girlfriend for about ten months now.  We accidentally pocket dialed him earlier this week and he called us back.  When we answered the phone we were a little surprised not knowing that we called him, but we ended up setting up a lesson with him.  We had a lesson with him and invited him to be baptized in February and he said he would pray about it.  He said he was actually thinking about be baptized and was glad when he saw that we called him.  We have another lesson with him on Wednesday.  If everything works well with all of these investigators we will have quite a few baptisms this transfer!

We had a zone meeting this week and we also had our transfer meeting.  In both of those meetings we read over our call letters and talked about the prophetic promises in them.  It's amazing the blessings that come as we serve our Heavenly Father and become instruments in His hands.  If you get the chance, I would recommend reading a call letter.  It truly is an incredible opportunity to be a missionary and to be a representative of Jesus Christ.  Pres. Nattress also received a letter from the presidency of the Seventy asking us to work with the ward council to teach over age youth (or children 9 and older who have not be baptized.)  We also talked about that in both meetings this week.  Elder Rich and I get to talk to the stake presidents in our zone and this week we were able to meet with Pres. Lines in the Val Vista stake.  We were telling him about the things Pres. Nattress trained us on and he jokingly said he was going to have everyone wait for their kids to turn 9 to baptize them to have more convert baptisms.  He added that he doesn't think that would go over too well.  It's a great blessing to work with all of the leadership in these stakes and wards.  We learn a lot from them.

This week we met our newest convert and a member in the ward helped her start her family history.  She was able to prepare to take her father's and mother's name to the temple.  We won't be going to the temple with her this week, but most likely the following week.  Elder Rich had a recent convert go through the temple to receive their endowments and since Elder Rich was able to go with him and I obviously had to tag along.  It truly doesn't stop at baptism.  Baptism is the first covenant we make, but it is not the last.  After they're baptized the next step is getting them to the temple. 

There were some other things that happened this week.  We helped a less active/recent convert take down their Christmas tree and Christmas lights.  We had a lesson with another less active member about prayer.  We took one of our investigators to a devotional on Sunday.  There was also a representative from Salt Lake that came to talk to the Highland West stake about what they have been doing in family history.  I guess they have been doing really well as a stake doing their family history.  He came and spoke in our ward on Sunday.  There are many blessing that come as we do family history.

Thank you for all that you do for me and all your prayers.  I'm grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary.  It has blessed me is so many ways.  I know this is Christ's church on the earth.  I know He is our Savior.  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

P.S. It's good to hear about the audition for BYU.  It will be exciting to see what happens.   (Note from Gayleen:  Joshua received word from BYU this week that he made it through the first stage of the selection process for the vocal performance program for fall semester.  He prepared an audition video before his mission and it will be used again during the second stage of the auditions.)

January 5, 2015

Dear family,

It has been another incredible and crazy week!  Just to let you know, we moved to a new apartment in the same apartment complex this week.  The lease in our apartment was ending, but the church had another apartment that was vacant so they decided to have us move to that one and close the other apartment.  We knew we were going to move at some point, but last Monday the housing coordinators called us and said we had to be out by Saturday.  We had mini missionaries for the beginning of the week so we decided to not start until they went home.  So we did a lot of cleaning and moving this week along with all the missionary work.  I have lived in three different apartments in the same complex.  Also we have transfers this next week and I'm staying with Elder Rich.  It is going to be his last transfer.

We had an incredible experience with the mini missionaries this week.  They stayed with us until Tuesday evening and it ended with a testimony meeting.  It was amazing to see them grow and have their testimonies strengthened in just the few days we were with them.  We seemed to see a lot of miracles with them.  One day we went to a park in our area and street contacted with them.   I went with one of the mini missionaries and Elder Rich went with the other.  Usually we don't find too much success in finding people at this park, but there are always people to talk to there.  We thought it would be a great experience for them.  It started really rough and people didn't even stop for us.  As we were walking back to where we were going to meet the other missionaries I saw someone over by the lake fishing, and I felt we needed to talk to him.  Talking to fisherman is always the best because they can't walk away from you.  We were able to briefly teach him about the restoration and give him a Book of Mormon.  He seemed genuinely interested and wanted to learn more.  He doesn't live in our area (not even our mission) and he didn't want missionaries to come by right now, but I feel we were able to teach him and help him feel the spirit.   We also stopped by one of the mini missionaries non-member friends.  They were not interested, but they were very nice.  We had a short lesson with them and they told us about how much they liked the church and told us that we could stop by the mother's sister.  So we didn't start teaching them, but we got a referral. While they were with us we were also able to put two people on date to be baptized.  It was just awesome to have them with us. 

One of our investigators was baptized on Saturday!  The baptism went very well.  The most exciting part was her non member husband came to the baptism and her confirmation at church the next day.  We were not sure how supportive he was of her decision and we didn't know if he would come.  He was surprised to see how many people were there to support his wife.  I think he felt the spirit and his heart was softened.  We hope that he will want to sit in on the new member lessons.  We had a lesson with another investigator this week and she is set on being baptized on February 7th.  I think she is excited for it.  We also had two lessons with another investigator this week.  We invited him to be baptized and he had some concerns about what his family will think.  Later on in the week his fellowship texted us and told us that he decided to be baptized and that he was going to talk to his family.  We had a lesson with him yesterday and his parents are not excited about it, but are supportive.  He also seems really excited with his decision.  He doesn't live in our ward so we will try to transition him to his home ward. 

New Years Eve was a normal day for the most part.  We had a short zone activity after dinner and everyone had to be in at 8:00.  Other than that it was a normal day.  We had a meeting with President Nattress a couple days before and he read to us Luke 2:52.  It is the only scripture in the scriptures (that he can think of) that talks about Jesus' growth.  He told us that his family would make goals every year for all four of those things mentioned in that scripture:  wisdom, stature, favour with man, and favour with God.  So that is something to think about when setting goals for this new year. 

It is amazing to be a missionary.  I'm very grateful for this opportunity to be here and to do this.  Every time we have a lesson it is reminds me of how exciting it is do be apart of missionary work.  This truly is the Lord's work and he will help us every step of the way.  I'm grateful for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know it's true.  It has blessed me in more ways than I know.  Thank you for all of your prayers and all that you do for me.  I love you all so much! 

Have another wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

P.S. Daniel, what are some things that are working well in the singles ward?  Is the missionary work going well in your ward?

December 29, 2014

Dear family,

It has been an amazing week!  It was great to talk to you on Christmas.  I'm glad that everyone was able to be there.  It has been a great Christmas season and it's going to be a great start to a new year!  It seems like a lot has happened this week so hopefully I remember everything. 

We had a couple lessons with one of our investigators.  We are finishing teaching her lesson five, so we taught about the temple and family history and also about service.  We hope to get her to the temple really soon after her baptism.  She had her baptismal interview and she is already to be baptized this Saturday.  Her family is not too supportive so we are hoping they will come to the baptism.  We had a lesson with another investigator this week and she accepted the invitation to be baptized!  We tried to set an earlier date, but she wanted to do it in February.  She is on date for February 7th!  I'm really excited to continue to teach her.  We also had a lesson with a kid that has been coming to church with his friend.  We taught him the restoration lesson and he had a lot of questions.  He didn't accept the invitation to be baptized, but we have another lesson with him today. 

On Friday we found out that we were getting a couple mini missionaries on Saturday.  So what happens is several youth from a stake in our mission come with the missionaries for a couple of days.  They stay with us at our apartment, they follow all of the mission rules, and do everything that we do for a couple days.  So we have a couple youth from the Highland West stake staying with us until Tuesday evening.  We have two of them so we can split up.  It is almost like we are on splits most of the day.  The mini missionaries are seniors in high school and are planning on serving missions.  It is a great experience for them to see what it is like to be a missionary and it will hopefully get them excited to do missionary work before their missions.  They are some awesome youth and are doing great.  We try to involve them as much as we can.  So one of them actually extended the invitation to be baptized to the investigator who is planning to be baptised in February.  That would have been cool to do that before my mission.

Christmas eve and Christmas day went really well.  We went caroling on Christmas eve with our district.  It was a lot of fun!  We stopped by a recent convert in our area and she was having a hard day.  She was really grateful that we came.  It makes just one visit like that to make it all worth it.  We had a different kind of white Christmas.  We had a couple of baptisms in the zone on Christmas day.  Everyone was a little worried that no one would come because it was on Christmas, but we had to move into the chapel because there wasn't enough room in the relief society room.  The whole stake presidency was also there.  It was a really great baptism and the spirit was really strong there.  What a perfect way to celebrate Christmas by being baptized.

It is amazing to be a missionary!  It's not always easy, but it is most definitely worth it!  I'm so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know it brings so much joy, peace, and hope into our lives.  I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.  Thank you for all your prayers and all that you do for me.  I love you all so much!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy

P.S.  I met someone the other day that knew dad in high school.  It's a small world.

P.P.S.  Steve Young's brother lives in one of our wards and he was visiting this week, so I shook Steve Young's hand at church on Sunday.

December 22, 2014

Dear family,

We have had a busy week!  On Thursday we had a mission temple trip.  All of the missionaries in the mission went to the temple in the morning and afterward we took a picture as a mission in front of the Gilbert temple.  Right after the temple trip we had interviews with President Nattress.  On Friday we had our Christmas mission conference.  They made us dinner and we had a couple activities.  After that we had a devotional that was really amazing.  I'll have to tell you more about what we did when I call on Christmas. 

We were also able to have quite a few lessons this week.  It is always really exciting when you have many opportunities to have lessons.  We had a couple lessons with M. this week.  She is just preparing for her baptism on January 3rd.  We are almost done teaching all of the lessons.  She also came to a baptism of someone else that was being baptized in the stake.  We also have another investigator and we had our second lesson with her.  She said she was thinking about being baptized in February.  February is a little far away, but at least she is thinking about it.  She came to church on Sunday with her twin boys who are 5.  She also came to a baptism of someone in the stake on Saturday.  So we actually went to two baptisms on Saturday.  We also had a couple unexpected lessons with friends of youth in the ward.  One youth invited a non member friend for dinner when we came for dinner.  Another youth invited their friend to a fireside our mission had on Sunday.  We also had a lesson with a less active member in the singles ward.  He hasn't been to church in probably ten years.  He has a lot of questions and he takes notes in our lessons.  It is really cool to teach him because you can tell that he really wants to learn and know for himself.  He is so sincere in wanting to learn. 

That fireside that I mentioned was something that our mission does every month.  They have a couple recent converts speak and a member of the mission presidency speaks.  They are always really great, even when everyone is nervous that the recent convert is going to say something strange.  One of the converts we taught earlier in my mission actually was one of the recent converts that spoke this time.  It was really cool to hear him speak again like he did in stake conference a little while ago. 

This is going to be one of my shorter emails.  We don't have as much time today to email.  I'll talk to you on Christmas though and tell you more.  I was typing fast so hopefully my grammar isn't too bad. It is amazing to be a missionary and I'm grateful every day for this opportunity.  There isn't anything I would rather be doing.  It's a wonderful time of the year to teach about Jesus Christ and the gift that He is from our Heavenly Father.  Thank you for all of your prayers.  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy 

December 15, 2014

Dear family,

It has been another great week!  It has also been a very busy week.  We always seems to be busy which is always a good thing.  We had Elder Packer come to the mission on Thursday and Friday.  On Thursday he had a meeting with all the leadership in the mission.  He asked all the leaders what was one thing that would be helpful to train on.  So we went around the room and everyone gave their answers.  He had someone make a list and he used that to make his training for the next day.  On Friday we had a meeting with him in the morning.  Oh my did we learn a lot!  Sister Packer talked about ways to make sure we have the spirit with us, like cleaning our apartments, getting rid of all contention especially in the companionship, being exactly obedient, and doing family history.  Elder Packer talked about creating a culture in the mission since the mission is still relatively new.  He talked about a lot of other things, but one thing that I learned is how important it is that we act on our faith.  It is when we are truly converted that we act on what we believe.  That is why it is so important that we invite our investigators to read and pray and to act on the things that they are learning.  They will not only receive a testimony, but will be truly converted and will not fall away.  I wish I could tell you everything that he said, but I don't have that much time.

We had several lessons this week.  We had another lesson with our investigator M.  She is still on date to be baptized in January.  We also went with a recent convert and her non member son and mother to the Mesa temple Christmas lights.  They do a really good job at those temple lights.  Not as great as the lights at temple square, but they are pretty great.  They really enjoyed the temple lights and want to come back to the visitor center there when it is not as busy.  I also ran into Sis. Willahan at the visitor center and I ran into another person that I went to high school with that is now serving in the Mesa mission.  I wasn't expecting to see anyone that I knew when I went.  We have been showing the He is the Gift video to as many people as we can.  We showed it to a part member family and also a couple families with youth that have not been baptized.  Not any new investigators yet, but hopefully soon.  We have also been working with a couple less active members.  One of them came to church yesterday.  We were not expecting her to come so we were really excited when she came.  Another less active member came to a Christmas concert one of the stakes put on.  It was similar to the one that our stake would do with each ward choir performing and singing songs in between.  This stake went all out.  They took the first couple benches out of the chapel and had a full orchestra.  It was impressive.

We did a couple of service projects this week also.  We helped a non member put up their Christmas lights.  As a group of missionaries we also helped the town of Gilbert set up a community activity.  There is a place called the Riparian Preserve with several lakes in it.  They set up lights around the lake and we helped put up luminaries all the way around the lake.  It was an interesting service project, but it was fun. 

One of our wards had their Christmas party.  They had it on a Saturday afternoon and they had someone come and put snow outside on a hill next to the church building.  The snow looked so out of place on the green grass, but all the kids had a blast in the snow.  I'm not quite sure how they got the snow there, but somehow they did.

It has been a great week and I'm excited for this next week.  We were going to have interviews this week, but they got rescheduled to this week because of Elder Packer's mission tour.  We are also having a mission temple trip on Thursday and a mission Christmas devotional on Friday.  I'm sure it is going to be another busy week!  I'm grateful for this chance to be a missionary!  I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior.  I'm grateful for this time a year.  It is a perfect time to share the gospel with others.  Thank you for all of your prayers.  I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Joshua Gandy