Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Everyone!
This last week went really well.
 
Zone Conference went great! Elder Baxter inspired us all and taught us a lot of great things.  The coolest part was afterwards we had a special meeting with the 6 of us zone leaders, President & Sister Lewis, and Elder & Sister Baxter. They gave us some instruction on how to be better leaders. The coolest part was at the end we all knelt down and he said one of the best prayers I have ever heard and left countless blessings with us.  After, we tried to remember what all was said and we couldn't. We decided it was like 3 Nephi 17 where the words of the Savior couldn't be written. We have very strongly impressed upon our hearts how we felt though.
 
We got to have dinner with 2 of my favorite families this week: the Rodriguez family and the Barajas family.  It was great to go visit with them. I felt right at home.  We have dinner again tonight with the Rodriguez family for Thanksgiving.  We also got to see a lot of the families from the Lodi branch on Sunday while we were waiting for the Barajas to pick us up.  We got to see the Cortez, Cazares, Cardonas, Sheldons, Lopez, etc and it was great.  I got ambushed and didn't even make it to the building, we just ended up talking to everyone in the parking lot.
 
I got to go to Sacramento for Mark's baptism on Saturday and perform the ordinance. That was great because he had overcome so much to be baptized. It was a very sweet moment. There weren't many  people at the baptism but the Spirit was there and that's the most important part.
 
Last night we got to play in the Turkey Bowl that the institute put on and people came from all over Sacramento, Lodi, Stockton, and Manteca to play so it was a fun event.  My team ended up winning it all so that was an added bonus. We hardly ever get to play sports so that was a rare delicacy.  I got sick from all the other elders in my apartments so my lungs were really congested and not doing so well but I ran through it anyway and pretended like it was normal and had a lot of fun.
 
We have been doing lots of teaching.  We have taught a lot of people that don't seem like they're going to progress too much. Josh however is doing great and progressing towards his baptismal date of December 14th very well.  It was hard for him to hear the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity being a 20 year old who's never had religion in his life. However, he's so humble that he readily accepted it and is trying his very best to do it! I gave him a pair of pants, a white shirt, and a tie so he would have church clothes to wear and he looked great at church; fit right in.  He has changed so much over the past few weeks since we first met him and he is very excited to be baptized.  He learned how to tie this really cool knot on a tie and taught it to us yesterday. In exchange we taught him how to tie a normal knot on a tie.
 
It's nice to have a break today to relax and eat some good food!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Elder Gaskill

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