This week was great and has already come to a close.
The
news of the day is transfers. Elder Fullwood is going to Stockton and
I'm going to be training a brand new missionary! I have no idea who he
is yet and won't know until tomorrow morning when I go to pick him
up. I'm really excited, but I feel sorry for this missionary that he
will have to put up with me and will come into a really tough area.
However, I just plan on pretending like this is a really good area so he
will love it. We'll find out more about who he is next week.
This past week we got some... SNOW! The first time I've been in
snow for a while so that was nice. At the same time it was
scary. Elder Fullwood normally drives and he had never seen snow before, let alone driven in it. That was his 3rd time driving in
snow and there were only a few scary experiences and I was sweating
bullets the whole time but we made it eventually. As it stopped snowing,
our zone leaders texted us and said "I hope Elder Gaskill is driving!".
When I told them I wasn't, they immediately called and told us to pull
over and switch drivers. Luckily, Elder Fullwood submitted to their
counsel and we made it through the rest of the day safely. We couldn't
get too much work done with all the snow but I was just happy to be in
snow!
On Wednesday we ran into a family that I knew from Elk Grove. They
own a bakery in Rancho Cordova but are apparently famous all over the
place. Every Wednesday they come up to the hills to sell bread and they
happened to show up while we were talking to one of our investigators. They remembered me from about 5 months ago and gave us lots
of free bread so that was great.
Friday was also a very fun day but not too productive. We had to
take our truck down close to where the mission office is to get the
oil changed and the tires changed/rotated and that took a while. We ran
into a couple other missionaries from other parts of the mission
and it was great to see them. There are a few missionaries who are
here waiting on their Visa's to come in so they can go to Mendoza,
Argentina (where Troy is). I told them all to say hi to him for me if they ever run into him. When we finally finished, it
was lunchtime so we decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to get lunch
since it's my favorite restaurant and there are not very many in the
mission. We walked in and sat down and I looked over at the T.V. and
there happened to be a college gymnastics meet on. After careful
examination, I noticed that it was between Kentucky and Missouri. That
was really cool because I got to see Holly Cunningham on T.V. a couple
times while she and her team were competing. There was also a soccer
game on another T.V. It turned out to be a really great lunch hour.
Later that day I went back to Lodi to see the baptism of Juan Carlos.
The baptism went really well. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of
members from the branch there but it was great to be back and a part of
the baptism. I was very happy to talk to Juan Carlos again and see him
get baptized. He is a very solid guy and will go far in the future.
Our investigators have been slowly progressing as well. We are
still working with Heriberta. Her brother and sister in law are
progressing very nicely. They have felt the spirit a lot during lessons
and while reading the Book of Mormon. They are very excited to come
to church next week. We also found a lady named Navidad in Folsom
this week. She has been taught in the past because her best friend is a
member down there. On Friday morning her friend called us and said
that Navidad's husband was just deported and she's really sad and it
would be a good time to visit her. We stopped by and talked to
her for a while about the gospel and she really calmed down. She says
she wants to keep learning and coming to church so we'll see where
that takes us.
In the ward right after ours, there were two elders that gave their
farewells and are going to the Colorado Springs, CO Mission! A lot of
members knew that's where I'm from so after church they told me
to go say hi to them. One of them is going Spanish speaking and he was
really cool. He probably won't be anywhere near where we live but I
told him to watch out for any Gaskills. I didn't get to meet the other
one but hopefully I will get to see him next Sunday before he leaves.
But if you ever have any missionaries in the area from Placerville/El
Dorado, you'll know it's this elder that's just about to start his
mission.
That's about all for this week! Hope everyone is doing well. The
work is going forward! A lot of the missionaries next to me are talking
about all the missions that are being created right now. Do your best
to share the gospel! The world needs it.
Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Gaskill