Hello Everyone!
This past week in Lodi has been great! Elder Martinez
and I are having a lot of fun. Missionary work becomes a lot more fun
when your companion is also a really good friend. The Lodi area is
awesome too! It's a lot more like Stockton than Elk Grove. There are a
ton of Hispanic people here and there are some white people too but
hardly any other cultural groups. Galt is almost completely
Hispanic or white as well. The branch here is awesome and loves
missionary work. Ironically it is bigger than both the wards in
Stockton and Elk Grove that I have been in but still considered a
branch.
We have done a lot of great work and seen a lot of success. We have 2
investigators that are going to be baptized this week that we are really
excited about! Jovita is pretty much a member already, she
knows everything and comes to every activity and is awesome. Her
husband, Juan is just as awesome but wasn't sure if he wanted to get baptized
this week. On Saturday we went over to their house and did a lot of
service, had lunch with them, and then taught them. We went over all
the baptismal questions with them to make sure they were ready. When
the husband told us he still wasn't sure, I asked him if he believed
that Joseph Smith restored the church and that Thomas S. Monson is the
prophet on the earth today. He told me he had a testimony of both of
these things and we helped him realized that his testimony of everything
else stems from these two beliefs. Right now his only problem is
leaving behind the idols that Catholics love but we told him that he
would be able to do it and that he is prepared and ready for baptism.
He told us he would give us an answer the next day, and on Sunday at church we asked him and he told us he wanted to be
baptized! We were really excited for that and he and his wife will get
baptized this weekend.
Yesterday was a really great but busy day. We had 8
investigators come to church and we had our hands full with them. Our
two investigators that are getting baptized this weekend came (Jovita
and Juan), the family of a recent convert family came, an investigator
from Galt came, and a new guy we had never met before. The investigator
from Galt's wife is a member, and has a few kids who are members, one
of which is serving a mission in Oaxaca, Mexico right now. This is his
second time to church and I think he will get baptized soon. The other
investigator was the nephew of a member who is here in the states for
his first time and is on vacation for about a month before he goes back
to Mexico. There was a baptism last night for 3
eight year olds in the ward. There were just as many people there as
there were in church that day; it was amazing! Jovita brought her
brother and his family to the baptism, a few of our other investigators
came, and the members brought two new families (their neighbors) that we
had never met before. We had our hands full trying to get to know them
all and set up a time to come over and teach them. It was the best! Those are the best
moments for a missionary.
Our area here is really big so we have a lot of work to do. The mission
is low on Spanish speaking missionaries so they had to combine a lot of
areas. One of those areas was Galt and Lodi. Elder Martinez and I are
both learning the Galt area since we have never served before but Elder
Martinez is teaching me the Lodi area since he's already been here for 2
transfers. We have more work to do than we have time or resources to
accomplish but it will be great. Hopefully a lot of new Spanish
speaking missionaries will come in December so they can separate the two areas
again but for now we'll be working all day from sun up to sun down.
I'm really looking forward to this transfer and I'm learning a lot each
day. I think my Spanish accent is just about there because yesterday
the 2nd counselor in the bishopric introduced me to the priesthood
quorums and told them I was from Jalisco, Mexico and a lot of members
were excited to talk to me about "our hometown" of Jalisco afterwards. So my Spanish must have been good enough that it was believable. One of
the bonuses of having native speaking companions is they can teach me a lot about
the language and I can master the accent by mimicking theirs'.
Well the work keeps going. I can't believe 2012 is coming to a close
already. One of these days I'm going to wake up and be getting on a
plane coming home. It's going to come a lot sooner than I want it to
but the time just goes by way too fast out here. I love Lodi and Galt
and it's going to make the time go by even faster.
I hope all is well at home!
Les Quiero,
Elder Gaskill
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