Monday, December 9, 2013

The work continues to roll forth here

Hello Everyone!
 
This past week went very well.
 
The highlight of the week has been continuing to work with Josh.  He is still getting baptized this Saturday and is very excited for it.  This week we will prepare the program and find out who he wants to do what.
We spent a lot of time in Galt of Tuesday which was fun.  We had to go all the way up to Rancho Cordova for a meeting in the morning so on the way back down we stayed in Galt to do some work there.  We were really excited for an appointment with one of Brenda's friends but she had to cancel because her parents didn't want us coming over. We ended up going over anyway because we listen to the Spirit instead of people as missionaries and it turned out well. We found out that they had a recent death in the family and were able to offer comfort. We are still looking for a way to teach Mariana but we have something set up at Brenda's house this week that we are excited about. 
 
Tuesday evening we got our Thanksgiving dinner just a little bit late. Hermana Cardona made a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.  She said it was our Christmas dinner but it seemed a lot more like Thanksgiving but it was really good! It was fun to spend some time with the Cardona family as well. 
 
Brenda finally got her mission call! We helped her finish her papers back in August before I left Galt but the branch president and stake president were slow in doing the interviews so everything didn't get turned in until a few weeks ago. Brenda has been waiting by the mailbox every day and the call finally came on Saturday. She opened it yesterday after church so we drove up at the end of the Spanish ward and watched her open the call. She's going to Baltimore, Maryland Spanish speaking! We were all very excited for her.  She reports to the MTC on January 29th, 2014.  I told her that since her mission starts the day before mine ends she will be taking my spot as a missionary just in a different part of the country and she will have to keep up the missionary spirit.  It was an exciting moment for everyone in the branch.
 
We started teaching a cool new person named Tara. She recently moved down from the Lodi hills to Lodi. She happened to move into an apartment complex where some Elders live and so when she asked for help from the apartment manager they referred her to the missionaries. They helped her and then passed her information to us. She has gone through a lot of rough things and is looking for more peace in her life. She's great and is getting along great with the ward. She came to our Christmas party and got to know a lot of people. She was supposed to come to Stake Conference yesterday but didn't make it so we'll have to find out why. She's great though.
 
We got to see the Rodriguez family twice as well. We were on splits with members of the stake high council and we went to see JJ but he wasn't there.  His parents didn't know we were coming either and they were with the teacher of the beauty school Jovita goes to and her husband. Right when we walked in they told us we had come at the perfect time because they were just talking about the church. Since I was the only Spanish speaker I was able to sit down and teach these people about the gospel and what we do as missionaries.  They live here in Stockton and so I am going to set them up with the Spanish missionaries here this week. Juan and Jovita were planning on taking them to the Oakland temple with the Spanish Branch to see the lights so we will have to see if that happened.
 
The work continues to roll forth here. It's getting cooler and closer to Christmas and I'm excited for this time of the year to be a missionary.
 
Les Quiero Mucho,
Elder Gaskill

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