Elder Gemperline was able to utilize his talents this week (Sept 8, 2014-Redmond 1st)

"This is a strong spider web! Or is it a hair? Yup.. its a hair.." - Elder Gemperline ‏


This past week has been a phenomenal week!  We were able to see lots of miracles, such as...

 

We met with Randy, the investigator I have been referring to as a "young man", yesterday.  He was unable to come to church and we hadn't met with him for about a week and a half.  We were a little worried since it had been so long but he had called us each time to reschedule and didn't just leave us hanging.  We met with him and despite a number of interruptions (due to teaching him at a public library) we were able to invite the Spirit and felt strongly prompted to invite him to be baptized.  He has committed to prepare to be baptized on October 11th!!  What a miracle! We will be meeting with him again this week.  Please keep him in your prayers!

 

We had a very wet day on Tuesday.  It rained like a monsoon (which we got caught riding in) and had some pretty hefty winds, but despite all of that, we were able to meet with Rosie (our Hispanic investigator) and she had plenty of questions for us.  We haven't been able to consistently teach her due to an unexpected visit from her family, but the fact that we were able to keep in contact and she is still pondering the things we have talked to her about and is coming to us with questions is a miracle.

 

We received a referral this week for a family of 7 to be taught!! The family consists of a single mother with 6 kids, 4 of which are over the age of 8.  What a great blessing for us!  This family is super solid and the ward they were being taught in was very sad to see them go but their Ward Mission Leader is making the best efforts in making this a smooth transition for the family.  He plans to bring them to church next Sunday despite the hour long drive it will be for him to get from the ward he lives in to this ward.  This family absolutely loves the missionaries and have been attending for a while already.  They are truly being prepared.

 

Last but not least, Elder Gemperline was able to utilize his talents this week.  We visited a potential we had a return appointment with who is a French Horn teacher.  Elder Gemperline is an amazing French Horn player seeing as he got a scholarship to BYU to play French Horn.  He brought his mouth piece with him to this return appointment and he was able to play the French Horn with her and then we shared a message after she had really warmed up to us.

 

Overall, this week was really a miracle filled week.  I could really see the blessings of the Lord in our work and I am very excited to continue working with those who we have found this last week as well as those whom we have been working with.  Thank you so much for your prayers.  Keep prayin'! I know its helping.  Love y'all!

 

Love,

Elder Connor Marshall Garriss

 Exchanges

 Elder Hodsen

 Elder Gemperline french hornin' it up!

 

 

I'll touch on just the miracles (Sept 1, 2014-Redmond 1st)

"This carpet is WILD!" - Elder Gemperline ‏

We had a pretty good week this week!  We had a great dinner at the Harris' last Monday which is a blast as always! We were able to teach a few people this week as well and I'll touch on just the miracles.

 

We had a lesson with Randy scheduled for Wednesday at 11 at the Library.  We showed up expecting Randy to be early seeing as his pattern so far has been to be early.  He wasn't there.  We waited longer... and he never showed up.  We called him and his phone consistently went to voice mail.  He doesn't have an address and if we couldn't contact him by phone, that would mean we lost our most promising investigator.  Depressed, we left the library and headed toward home, lunch on our minds. We accidentally took the longest way, consistently missing the turns we needed to take to get home faster.  We finally caught the turn we needed after waiting for a traffic to clear and, here is Randy walking with his Girlfriend.  We biked up to him and he apologized for missing our appointment.  His phone had broke and he had a doctor's appointment, so we rescheduled for that evening at 5:30 back at the library.  We found Randy on a street we never travel, taking the longest way home to our apartment.  The Lord had truly blessed us. Randy came to church on Sunday but left before we could schedule another appointment.

 

Sunday was a great day to be at church.  The talks were fantastic! We taught the Youth for their 5th Sunday combined lesson and surprised them with Roleplaying sharing the Gospel, teaching lessons, studying Preach my Gospel and having fun.  There was much laughing and learning in that 3rd hour.

 

Searching through our Area Book, we found a former whom we decided to go visit.  Seemed like a good investigator and we couldn't quite understand why they had dropped the previous missionaries.  We visited them.  Turns out, they were investigators from Elder Gemperline's old ward that he served in about 8 - 12 months ago.  They recognized him and we were able to teach a short message and they became new investigators once again.

Each week, whether we have the best week or not, we can see the Lord's hand in our work.  It is a great blessing to serve!  I hope you've had a great week as well.  I love you!

 

Love,

Elder Connor M. Garriss



Note from Mom:

I love hearing about your miracles...it reminds me of a quote by Albert Einstein
"There are two ways to live your life...
     One is as though nothing is a miracle,
The other is as though everything is a miracle"

I am glad you are choosing to look at the positive things in your life :)

I love you,

Mom