Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Another Great Week in Stockton

Hello Everybody!
 
This week has been pretty great! I went on exchanges twice this week so on Wednesday I was in East's area and everything went great.  We added a new investigator named Oscar who is really cool.  He is a "searcher" for sure and wants us to help him quit drinking.  We asked him to pick up the Book of Mormon every time he's tempted to pick up a magazine with bad things and he said he would do that as well.  He also wants to come to church but wants to wait until he works in his new job a few weeks so he has money to buy nice clothes to wear to church.  He is awesome.
 
On Thursday I was on exchanges in the zone leader's area with Elder Nicolls.  We had an awesome day.  We found a new lady named Victoria and committed her to be baptized at the end of June and she accepted.  It sounds like all her family is LDS except her (she's about 50).  She wants to be baptized and learn more about the gospel and the plan of salvation.  It was really cool to be with one of the zone leaders because they are both awesome missionaries.  I also realized what a blessing it is to have a good ward to serve in.   The work is 10x better when the members are helpful (which we are trying to work on in our ward right now since a lot of the ward is inactive or works a lot). 

Friday we had a very interesting experience.  The Delta East elders and us got food from a Chinese Restaurant for dinner and then went to eat it at a park in a nice neighborhood in our area.  About 2 minutes after we sat down this thug looking guy came up to us and started asking us for lighters.  He was already extremely high and he asked each of us about 10 times if we had lighters and we told him we didn't.  Eventually this pregnant lady walked by with her husband and 2 year old and he asked her if she had a lighter and she got really mad and yelled at him so he started yelling really vulgar/rude things at her and then he wanted me to come with him to yell at her (I think, I couldn't quite understand what he wanted).  When I told him "no" he got really mad and punched a tree and then was telling us to look at his hand and what kind of damage it could do.  Elder Guzman said that we had to go so everyone got up and as I was putting my food away he came up behind me, grabbed my food, walked back to where he was, and threw it down on the table.  When that happened, some red sauce that was all over the food got all over my companion.  I was really frustrated and got up from the table.  My companions thought I was going to fight the kid but I was just really frustrated.  I started walking to the car and everyone followed me, including the thug guy.  I tried to have everyone get in the car quickly and then lock the door but Elder Torres was too slow so this guy opened the passenger door and didn't want us to leave but eventually I convince him to close the door and to go back and eat the rest of my food that he took, so he did.  That was a really interesting experience.
 
We had a really awesome lesson with familia Guzman last night.  Hermano Guzman hasn't been able to come to church because he has to work in the flea market to pay his bills and provide for his family.  I promised him that if he stopped working there on Sundays that the Lord would provide him and his family with a way to have everything they needed.  He told us he would stop working on Sundays and come to church with us! We just need to get them to church one more time, get them married, and then they can get baptized! I love this family a lot.  They really like us too and Hermano Guzman has been praying that neither my companion nor I get transferred (since transfers are in 2 weeks).  We'll see if his prayers are answered because that would be awesome if Elder Guzman and I could somehow both stay.
 
This past weekend was stake conference and it was awesome.  We translated again and it was really tough but we did a good job.  The stake president gave a really really good talk and it was unfortunate that we were preoccupied with translating and couldn't focus on what he was saying.  Hopefully somehow I can get a copy of it and read it.
 
That's all I have for this week! Love you all and hope everything is going well.  All of you are in my prayers!
 
Les Quiero!
-Elder Gaskill

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