Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Another New Companion

Hello Family,
 
Our transfer calls came in last night! Elder Sarmiento is going to East Sacramento to be a Zone Leader for his last two transfers in the mission and my new companion is Elder Rivera.  Elder Rivera only has 2 more transfers in the mission as well so I will probably stay in the area 6 more weeks and get transferred after that.  Elder Rivera's family is from Puerto Rico but he was born and raised in the United States.  He speaks Spanish perfectly  I am really excited for the next transfer with Elder Rivera.
 
This past week Brandy Ramos got baptized and that was awesome.  We were really worried because we weren't able to talk to her mom for about a week and a half so we were planning the baptism by telling all the girls about it and then they would pass the word on to their mom later when she came home.  We got everything ready and the baptism went really well.  It got off to a late start though.  Elder Austin was supposed to come back to baptize Brandy but 15 minutes after it was supposed to start he still hadn't arrived.  We were calling his phone and trying to get a hold of him but never could.  So I got suited up and ended up baptizing Brandy instead of Elder Austin.  It was unfortunate because the Assistants had misinformed Elder Austin and told him the baptism was going to be Saturday instead of Friday so he was really sad he had to miss out on the baptism.
 
We have been making a lot of progress with Aurora this week.  She came to the baptism on Friday and loved it.  She felt the spirit really strongly and was crying and loved the testimonies and everything she saw.  We also taught her about the Restoration this weekend and she loved it as well.  She is going to be sad that Elder Sarmiento is leaving but life goes on.
 
We had a "Multicultural Activity" on Saturday where lots of people made a dish of a famous food from wherever they're from and brought it to share.  There was food from USA, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Dominican Republic, Brazil, and Argentina.  It was a lot of fun.  There was also some dances that people put on that were really cool.  Some Brazilian girls came and danced the Samba.  Before Saturday "The Samba" was just an indoor soccer shoe that Adidas makes but now I know it's a dance and it's really cool.
 
We met a less active family this week.  The parents are from Puerto Rico but have lived in the United States the past 40 years.  They have 2 little girls that are 8 and 9 who haven't been baptized but really want to.  They love when we come over.  They want to come to all the activities and want to come to church and they really really really want to be "baptitized" as they call it.  We are going to work on getting them back to church.  They got offended about 4 years ago because they didn't have enough money to pay tithing and their rent and I guess they don't understand the scripture in Malachi about the Lord "pouring out a blessing upon them so great that they won't have room enough to receive it".  The dad smokes a lot but he is open to coming back to church.  The mom is really mean and we're going to have to work with her.  Hopefully they let their daughters get baptized.
 
Yesterday Elder Sarmiento and I found two really cool new investigators.  One named Raymundo that was taught by the missionaries in '86 and really likes us and one that loved the message of the Restoration and asked us how she could get a copy of the Book of Mormon to read.  That was amazing because for some reason getting people to take 2 minutes out of their day to read a page in a book is a really hard thing to do.  We are really excited to teach them more.
 
Yesterday we also played soccer.  There are some tennis courts right next to a high school that are really old and have cracks all over them that have been converted into futbol surfaces with spray paint on the fence for goals.  We showed up to play with a couple members of the ward and there were a lot of younger guys there so we started a street soccer tournament and it was a lot of fun.
 
Everything is going really well here and I am very excited to have another transfer here in Elk Grove.  I hope all is well, and that everyone is as excited for General Conference in a few weeks as I am!
 
Les Quiero,
-Elder Gaskill

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