Going to Train a New Missionary!

Hello Everyone,

 

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

Missionaries Increasing

Hello Everyone!

 

This week has been awesome, we accomplished a lot.

 

On Thursday I finished reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I have to say I think it's more true in Spanish than in English.  I loved the experience and I love the Book of Mormon, and can't wait to do it again!

 

On Friday we had zone conference and it was very spiritual and uplifting. We were notified that right now our mission is about at 200 elders and sisters and it will be going up permanently to 250 elders and sisters.  The additional 50 missionaries will be 20 English elders, 20 English sisters, and 10 Spanish sisters.  There is no increase in Spanish elders but that will make the few of us there are that much more special.  It was really interesting because the number of sisters in the mission has already increased a lot and we could see at zone conference.  There were 4 zones together and about 1/3 of the missionaries there were sisters.  Zone Conference was great and we learned a lot.

 

Yesterday we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Heriberta.  She has been taught for over a year and yesterday we decided to take her to see a baptism at the Mormon center in a YSA ward even though it was in English.  The baptism was great a very spiritual.  She didn't understand most of it but she did feel the spirit.  Afterwards we went out and started talking in front of the temple.  We talked about how she felt and helped her recognize the spirit and challenged her to be baptized.  She said she still didn't know and her doubt is that her kids don't like church very much yet and she has to force them to come and she feels like if she got baptized she would keep having to force them and wouldn't like that.  At the same time she recognized that she needs to set the example and take that first step.  We decided to say a prayer right there and Heriberta said an awesome, very heartfelt prayer.  I suggested that we start walking around the temple in silence and listen for the spirit and see if it says anything to us before we got back around to the front.  When we were about 3/4 of the way done a YSA girl came up to us and even though she didn't speak Spanish started walking with us and trying to say a few words to Heriberta.  She kept looking back and forth between Heriberta, my companion, and I until right when we had almost returned to the same spot that we were before.  All of a sudden the girl grabbed Heriberta's hand and said "come with me".  She led her to the doors of the temple were the stood for a few seconds and then started to walk back to us in front.  When the passed by the big fountain she stuck her hand in the water and said "I love touching the water, put your hand in and feel how nice it is".  Then they came back and the girl gave Heriberta a hug and said she loved her and then took off for the YSA fireside that was about to start.  I thought it was an amazing answer to Heriberta's prayer, and that it was definitely interesting that she led her to the water and told her to touch it.  Heriberta's response to all that was that she thinks Heavenly Father wants her to make the decision and that she needs to just decide.  She said she was going to dream on it and tonight we are going back to see what she decides.  I can't wait to see!

 

We also had a crazy experience this week.  I was on exchanges with one of our zone leaders and we were going to find an new address because one of our investigators was moving.  It was the middle of the day and when we finally found it no one was home.  We decided we had driven all that way for a reason so we decided to knock around to find out who was there that we needed to find. We decided to knock on the neighbor's door.  When we knocked on the door I saw car rims and tires, bikes, and Spanish beer cans so I began to get excited.  The door opened and it was a Spanish lady.  She immediately invited us in but there was no guy in the house so we couldn't.  We talked for a little bit and I felt prompted to ask her if she knew any members of the church.  She told us "yeah, my sister in law is a member".  It turns out her sister in law is Heriberta! It was a crazy coincidence.  She had already seen how much Heriberta and her kids had changed since they started coming to church and already had a testimony of the power of the gospel.  Since then we have started teaching her and her husband and kids.  They read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and weren't able to pray but felt the peace of it as they read.  I can't wait to keep teaching them and help them progress.

I got a call yesterday and found out that Juan Carlos is getting baptized this Friday back in Lodi.  I was just there for a baptism last week and I am very happy to get to go back again.  I am seeing a lot of blessings in this work in seeing lots of people I care about come into the waters of baptism.  I just am getting happier happier seeing all these changes people are making in their lives.

 

That's all for this week.

 

Les Quiero,

Elder Gaskill

Mendoza Family Baptism

Hello Family!

This week was great!

The highlight of this week was being able to go and see the Mendoza family get baptized back in Lodi! I was really happy to see the branch there again and a lot of good friends.  There were also about 10 missionaries there that had taught the family so I got to see good friends like Elders Martinez, Stone, Hernandez, and thought I was going to see Elder Guzman but he didn't make it for some reason.  The baptism went really great and the Spirit was very strong there.  I was very happy to see Jovita and Juan, the Ortegas, the Cazares, and lots of great people.  I also got an email from Arturo today that made me happy.  He said that he and his family have been going to church down in Ensenada, Mexico! He says the Elders have challenged them to be baptized and they feel like the need a little bit more time to learn before.  He says he keeps telling his parents that they really want me to be able to see the baptism as well as his aunt and her family so there's a possibility that they might even come back to Lodi to get baptized! That would make me so happy. As long as they get baptized that is the important thing but I would be very happy if I could see it firsthand.  I am very happy nonetheless.

The work has been going kind of slow here since there aren't very many Spanish people and we don't really have a Spanish branch or ward to work with but we are doing our best.  It seems that every interested person we find falls through the cracks either because pastors tell them things about the church that aren't true or the husbands/wives of the people we're teaching don't let us do so.  We are trying our best to stay positive and keep working hard so we'll see where it gets us.

We have zone conference this week and that should be really exciting!
This week I met someone from Colorado Springs! She just moved in with her boyfriend out here in Diamond Springs.  She lived in Colorado Springs for 15 years near Bijou downtown working in a factory there.  It was really cool to meet a Spanish person from Colorado Springs because it is the only one out here that I have ever met.

That's all for this week! Hope everyone is doing well!

Les Quiero
Elder Gaskill

Short Message This Week

Hello Everyone!

I don't have a lot of time this week but I'll write a little bit.

The coolest thing that happened this week was yesterday.  There is a member named Brother Gaum up here who has some really interesting stories from his life.  When he was a missionary he was at correlation one day and while they were saying a prayer angels came and laid there hands on his head and set him apart to go open the missionary work to the Jewish people.  When he opened his eyes everyone else in the room was in shock and told him what had just happened.  The next day his mission president called him and told him that the first presidency of the church had called and that they had received his name by direct revelation to go with the general authorities to open up the work to the Jews.  He was reassigned for the rest of his mission and with a lot of leadership in the church coming up with brochures and training manuals to train missionaries on working with people from the Jewish faith and culture.  The rest of his life has been just about as interesting.  Well anyway some interesting things have been happening to me lately and word got around to him and so he called me up and said he wanted to meet with me.  He gave me a lot of really good advice.  He thinks I will have something big happen in my life soon as it relates to missionary work so we'll see what happens the rest of my mission. It would kind of make sense but I think I'm just a normal missionary.

We have a lot of really good investigators and we are excited to see the work progress here in the El Dorado Hills.  Great things are about to happen I know.

Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Gaskill

1st week in El Dorado

Hello!

This week was a great week but sad.  Tuesday night I had to say goodbye to everyone in Lodi and that was really sad.  I hate goodbyes so usually I would just avoid them and leave without saying anything but I knew some people would be mad at me.  We went to the church for mutual (youth night) and I said goodbye to most of the member.s  Then we went to say goodbye to all my converts.  We went to the Ortega's for dinner and they surprised me and somehow knew it was my birthday the next day so they made me "mole" (pronounced mole-eh) which is awesome.  It was the best I've had my whole mission.  Apparently her mom brought a big bag of ingredients from Mexico to make it so they only make it for special occasions in the family.  It was awesome and they got me the best birthday card I've ever seen with lots of monkeys and some good chocolate stuff that I had to leave.  After that we went to Jovita, Juan, and JJ's house.  We stayed there a little while and they brought out more gifts.  A few weeks back when we had to go get fingerprints done in Sacramento for Elder Hernandez they took us to the historic/visitor's side called Old Sacramento.  We went to one store that was a Peruvian store and there was a really cool jacket I liked. They went back and bought it for me for my birthday! I was very happy but I will miss them a lot.  After that we went to Galt to say bye to the Mendozas and the Guzmans.  The Guzmans weren't home, unfortunately but the Mendozas were home and we had a good chat and firmed them up to get baptized on February 23rd so I will get to go back to visit then.

 

The next day I took off for El Dorado! We live about 1500 ft above sea level and the highest it gets in the mission in our area is about 5000 ft above.  So it's nice to be back in the mountains! The area reminds me a lot of mountain towns like Aspen or Vail mixed with Woodland Park or Manitou Springs (before they burned).  I like it a lot.  My companion's name is Elder Fullwood.  He is a redhead from Katy, Texas! (My family lived in Katy when I was 3 until I was 5)  woohoo! He's an interesting guy for sure and we get along really well.  His family raises Border Collies and he was home-schooled.

 

It was a really weird birthday because I kept forgetting about it.  I was awake packing at 2am when I was born so I said happy birthday to myself but then went to bed and forgot about it the rest of the day until at about 10:15 that night when President Lewis called and wished me a happy birthday.  I got some presents a couple days later when the mail came and that was awesome! Elder Fullwood's birthday is tomorrow (the 29th) so we are really close in age.

 

This zone will be interesting because there are a  lot of sister missionaries here.  There used to be just 2 but now there are 6 and 4 of them are brand new. I think 2 of them are 19 and from somewhere in Texas and the other 2 are 21 and from Bountiful and somewhere else in Utah.  The sisters that are training are pretty cool too.  I've never served around sisters yet so it will be interesting, especially with the younger sisters that still act like high school girls.

 

The Spanish unit is also very different up here.  We are a group that meets with an English ward.  We have one family of members and one family of investigators in the group so it's very small.  The Spanish members wear headphones and we translate everything they say at the pulpit.  It's very weird.  There is a lot of room for growth and I'm excited to help the work go forth.  There aren't very many Spanish people here.  There are a few big apartment complexes and mobile home parks in each city and that's about the only place we can find them.  It will be a lot different from the rest of my mission but I am very excited and feel blessed to be here.

 

We met 2 really cool families this week since I got here.  The first is a family with the mom named Maria.  We were driving by and say this mom with 4 little kids walking and saw that they were Hispanic so we pulled over, asked if we could give them a card, got their address and then left.  The next day we went back and visited them and she was very interested.  She was raised Catholic and her husband Jehovah's Witness.  We taught her the Restoration and she wanted to know which church was the Church of Jesus Christ.  She felt the spirit very strongly and we are excited to go teach her again tonight.

 

We also met a family last night that was really awesome.  They are Catholic but don't like that everyone worships the Virgin Mary and the saints. (That made us so happy because most people don't know enough about the bible to know that they're breaking the 2nd commandment).  They were really excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray by the end of the lesson as well. We're already seeing lots of success!

That's all for this week.

 

Les Quiero Mucho,

Elder Gaskill

Transferred to the Mountains!

Hello Everybody!

The big news out here is that I'm getting transferred.  I'm really sad about it because I love this area and it's weird that I'm leaving after only 2 transfers here but it's in the Lord's hands.  I'm going to El Dorado Hills which is all the cities in the mountains.  So I will feel a little bit closer to home!  It will be really tough though because we only have a group there with just a few members and there aren't too many Spanish people out there so we'll have to find them.  I'm sad that I have to leave Lodi, especially on my Birthday but hopefully there are good things in store out in El Dorado.

This week was really great!  Ana and her two daughters didn't end up getting baptized.  When President Martinez from the mission presidency came down to do her interview we decided it would be better to wait and have the whole family get baptized together! Now all 5 members of the family will be getting baptized in February instead of just 3.  I'm excited to be able to come back for that baptism.

We also found a really cool new investigator named Juan Carlos.  He had come to church the week before with a recent convert family.  I went to talk to him after church and everyone around us told us that we looked like twins.  He came to volleyball on Thursday night and then we went over to the member's house on Friday and he was there! We talked to him and it turns out he lives in Stockton right now but is moving to Galt with this family soon.  We talked to him a little about the church and he said he grew up Jehovah's Witness but fell away from that church when he found out he wasn't allowed to go to college (unless he went to Beth-el which isn't a really college, just a JW college).   He has been looking around at a lot of different churches.  We asked if we could come back the next day when we had more time to talk and he said yes.  We came back the next day and taught him the Restoration and he loved it! We watch the 20 min Restoration movie as part of the lesson and he said he felt the spirit really strong when Joseph was in the woods and felt like he could relate a lot to him.  He really wants to read to Book of Mormon and is coming to church and wants to be baptized! That will be another baptism I will have to come back for.

Elder Burentia told me this week I was talking in Spanish in my sleep so that was also cool to hear.  I think that's the first time I have talked in my sleep because I have been sick this whole week and have not slept very well.  I know all my dreams have been in Spanish that I can remember, and in all my dreams I'm a missionary teaching Spanish people so that's why I'm talking in Spanish.  Regardless, it was cool to hear that.

I had two birthday parties as well that were surprises.  On Sunday after church we had dinner with the Cazares family.  They were throwing a party for their daughter Amy who was turning 5.  The bought her a nice princess cake and made me a really good cheesecake chocolate cake.  The party was a lot of fun too.  My first Spanish birthday party ever!  We had a lot of fun and taught a lot of the Cazares' family members and friends that are not members of the church.  Hopefully something comes of the ones who live in Lodi or Galt.
My second birthday party was last night with the Orozco family.  We did a Family Home Evening with them to teach some of their neighbors and afterwards they surprised with a big cake that said "Happy Birthday Elder G".  It was a lot of fun and they gave me "Paris for Men Body Lotion", and two teddy bears from the girls named Elder Gaskill and Teddy.  It was a lot of fun, but also a really sad family home evening.  Our transfer calls came while we were singing the opening song.  Elder Hernandez ran into the back room and I could tell from what I heard that he was going to be training the new missionary which means that I would have to leave.  I told everyone that and the mom started crying and the rest of the family started pouting.  They told me that the last of the good missionaries was leaving Lodi and Galt so I had to reassure them that they would still have good missionaries.  It was really hard to concentrate on the lesson and everything the rest of the night.  Every time I looked up someone was looking at me with tears in their eyes or a frown on their face so I had to look back down.  I love that family a lot and it will be sad to leave but I'll see them again.

Tomorrow is my birthday and the beginning of a new part of my mission that will be very very different from what it has been thus far but I am excited to learn and to grow.

Love you all,

Elder Gaskill

Busiest Day of the Mission so Far...

Hello Everybody!

 

This week got going kind of slowly but it ended very busily.

On Friday we had the most busy day of my mission.  We had an appointment every hour from noon to 8:30 at night.  I was a little nervous going into it and was praying really hard that I would have enough spiritual energy and time management skills to get through the day.  It was really tough. Spanish people love to talk and it was really hard to get to know them, keep them focused, teach them a lesson, leave the commitments, pray and get out with enough time to get to the next appointment.  We had some good lessons though.  

 

There was a guy named Jose Franco that we taught who was interesting.  The English speaking elders were the ones that found him for us and they had actually run into him once before about a month and a half ago.  The first time they wrote down his address and phone number wrong so we weren't able to find him.  All he wanted was a Book of Mormon.  The second time he happened to see the missionaries riding by the park and he flagged them down.  It was two different missionaries though so they didn't remember him.  This time they got the information right so we were able to go visit him.  He really likes the Book of Mormon and has seen videos about it before.  He doesn't understand that every church can't be the church of Jesus Christ. He loves to talk too and it was very frustrating.  Hopefully he turns out to be a better investigator down the road.  We had a couple new investigators that we had really good lessons with but none of them came to church so we'll see what happened to them this week.

 

We have a few people from the Mendoza family getting baptized this week.  The missionaries have been teaching this family off and on since May of last year but they've had random problems so they haven't been able to make it to baptism.  A few weeks ago Ana called me on a Sunday and told me how she had figured everything out and needs for her and her kids to be baptized.  She is so resolute on getting baptized this Saturday it's crazy.  She's a little bit of a drama queen and amplifies everything but she's really sincere.  She and her two daughters will hopefully be getting baptized this week.  The older one wants to but the younger one is unsure still.  Her mom says she just doesn't want to get wet in front of everyone and she says she feels like she doesn't know enough about the church.  We'll be working with them a lot this week so hopefully we work through things. Ana's husband Daniel is going to take a lot more time though to get baptized and her son Jose is going to take a lot of time too. We'll definitely have our work cut out for us.

 

I'm really hoping I don't get transferred next week but we'll see what happens.

Love you all and hope everything is going well back there!

 

Les quiero!

Elder Gaskill