Email from last week that we didn't receive until this week.

Hello Everyone!

This week was another good week!

My favorite part of the week is that we finally found Zaida again on Tuesday and scheduled to have a lesson with her on Saturday.  We were super happy.  She told us she had been really sad recently because of the loss of her foster child son but that she had still been reading the Book of Mormon which made us really happy.  She told us that her brother who is really anti-mormon had been trying to take away all the things she was reading but stood up to her brother and told her "even if you take the pamphlets and book  I can still get more, there is an unlimited supply".  He stopped and backed off but she still only likes to meet with us on Saturdays since her brother doesn't leave the house on Saturdays because he's a 7th Day Adventist, so she feels safe meeting with us then.  She also told us that she had had a dream the night before we came that she had to take some things to the bank and on the way to the bank she looked out her car window and saw us, the missionaries, knocking on doors and it made her feel really bad that she hadn't called us back and tried to get in touch with us recently.  So it was a good thing we showed up when we did. 

 We were going to have a lesson with the Lucero family again in their home but Hermano Lucero told us last minute he forgot he had to work so we ended up going to a park.  We had a really good lesson though.  We were there about 3 hours teaching and talking and we taught Hermana Lucero a lot of things and answered all her questions which she was happy about.  We learned a lot more about her too and she has come from probably the worst background I can imagine, I started crying as she was telling us about it.  She is still really interested and everything which is really good.  I gave my favorite baptismal invitation of my mission so far; and she didn't say yes but she said she would think about it.  I'm confident she's going to be baptized and I know the restored gospel is something that's going to bless her life a lot.

This week we got to play soccer so I was really happy about that.  The Elders quorum organized an activity and we got a few investigators there so we got to play too! It had been about 8 weeks since I had played last and so I was really happy to play.  I was happy that in that 8 weeks I hadn't really missed soccer that much but it was good to play again.

We helped one of  our investigators change a transmission of a car he was working on.  We went over on Thursday and helped him take it out of the car.  Then he took it apart and showed us what was wrong with it.  There are a million pieces on the inside of it and I have no idea how he knows what it all is and where everything goes but he does.  On Friday he went and bought the part and then on Saturday we came back and helped him clean every individual piece which took a while but it was fun.  We spray painted the outside of all the parts so it looked brand new again too.  We also met his cousin and his family, who the missionaries have been looking for for a long time and so we had a really good lesson with all of them too.

Yesterday we went to the city of Wilton again which is fun.  It reminds me a lot of Black Forest (in Colorado) just because it is "country area" outside of the city.  I love going there.  We had  a referral and we stopped by for about 4 minutes but in that 4 minutes we got the lady to go from "sorry I'm catholic" to crying because she was touched by the spirit we brought when we said a prayer.  So we'll go back this next week and see if we can start teaching the family.

That's about all I've got for this week.  I heard USA beat Mexico in a soccer international friendly this past week and so I've been bringing it up with all our investigators who are soccer fans from Mexico.  Sad I missed the game but happy we won!

Hope everything is well with everyone!

Les Quiero,

Elder Gaskill

New Investigators and zone conference

Hello Everyone!

This week has been great.

I don't remember if I wrote about this last week but we received a reference from Bolivia to visit this girl named Erika.  We went to the address last week and ended up talking to the mom but didn't know it wasn't the right person until we were saying bye.  This week I felt prompted to go by her house at a very specific time on a specific day.  The referral was very specific and said come at 5:30 because that's when she gets home from work and school but we went at about 4:20.  Erika was the only one home at the time and we asked for a glass of water and ended up staying about an hour and teaching her.  She told us we got lucky that she was home because normally she has cross country practice and doesn't get home until 5:30 when her mom picks her up and drives her home.  She decided that day though to skip practice and come home to get caught up on her summer reading that she hadn't finished.  So we learned a lot about her and she'll be a good investigator.  The problem is we have to figure out how to teach her either by making her mom like us more or somehow finding her when her mom isn't around.

Wednesday we had zone conference and that was awesome like they always are.  We learned a lot and the talks/classes were really inspired.  Every zone conference all the missionaries have to write a 5 minute talk on a topic that they give us and then we "turn them in" when we arrive and then President reads them all and picks two people to give their talks at the end of zone conference.  My first zone conference I was about 80% sure for some reason that I was going to get picked and then I was really surprised when I didn't get picked.  This conference I had the exact same feeling that I was going to talk except I was about 95% sure this time and I got picked to talk this time.  So I got to speak in zone conference and that was fun.  It was about a talk that Elder Oaks gave in 2000 called "The Challenge to Become".  It was a really good talk and I suggest all of you go look it up and read it.  We learned so much at zone conference.  Although we were exhausted when we left at 4:30 we were so spiritually pumped the rest of the day.  I felt like a native speaking Spanish and everything just went really well the rest of the day.

On Thursday I had a flashback to Stockton.  There is a helicopter that flies around all the time and shines a spotlight to make sure nothing bad happens because there are a lot of bad neighborhoods around here.  Right behind our apartments is one of those areas and we live on the back side and all that separates us is a 6 foot wall.  When we came home Thursday night the "ghetto bird" (as the helicopter's known around here) was flying in circles and shining it's light in the corner of the apartments where we live and on the complexes right behind us.  There were about 4 police officers out with flashlights looking for something but we never figured it what was going on.

Friday we went to go see our recent convert Ruben at about 8 at night and he was just leaving to walk to the 99 cent store to buy milk so we decided to walk with him.  The conversation was normal but we had some interesting experiences.  On the way there a homeless guy was telling us his story about he almost killed somebody with his knife because he thought the guy wanted to hurt him.  When we got to the 99 cent store we waited outside while Ruben was shopping/buying.  A guy in a power chair approached us and looked at me and said "let me guess, you're from Utah". I said I wasn't and we got to talking and he turned out to be a really friendly guy and said he used to give the missionaries rides places.  We never found out if he was a member but we got all his information so we will go and try to visit him this week.  He may be a really good investigator if he's not a member already.  After he left another lady approached us and started talking to us and we got her information to go see her later this week.  Finally Ruben came back out and it was about 9 o'clock so we started walking back.  In Sacramento, 9:00 is when the "zorras" come at and  there were lots of females roaming the streets so we let Ruben lead the way and fend all the ladies off so we wouldn't have any problems with them. Eventually we made it back to Ruben's house and taught him and then went home for the night.

This week my companion has been kind of sick and it was pretty bad on Saturday.  We were in the apartment until about 3:00 when one of our investigators called us and asked us what we were doing and told us to come up to his place and eat.  So we went up there and ate and taught them and spent some time with them.  After that we had a dinner appointment with the Lucero family and they were throwing a party for their son turning 1 so we went out of our area to a really nice white neighborhood that reminded me of Stonebridge in Illinois and had dinner at the park with them.  They invited a lot of their friends who work with them at Univision (a really big Spanish channel) and so we met a lot of nonmembers and got a lot of their information to meet them at their houses this week to teach them.  It was a lot of fun.  It was also really weird because almost all the people in Sacramento are Mexican or Guatemalan but the Lucero family is Argentinian and Venezuelan, and all their friends that were there with them were from south America: Argentinian, Columbian, Venezuelan, Peruvian, etc. so the people were a lot different.  They were all really nice though but it was a little different experience.

We didn't get to see Zaida this week but she called us on Saturday and I talked to her on the phone about an hour and a half and taught her that way.  She had been having car problems and so she was at the mechanic but she talked to me for about 90 mins until the mechanics told her they wanted to go for a ride with her in the car to see if they could figure out what was wrong by driving it around (because they couldn't find anything through their tests).  She told me a lot about her past and a lot about when she used to work at a homeless shelter, things going on with her and her family, etc.  She was doing 97% of the talking and all of a sudden she stopped and asked me "I've been talking this whole time and you've been listening and giving me advice that is perfect for my situation, how do you do it? Do you missionaries get some sort of training for this?".  I decided to tell her that missionaries are called to specific missions to serve in specific areas at very specific times, and that I knew I had been called to serve here so that we would meet her the day that we did, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with her through the 2 elders that would be the best fit for her.  Then I bore her my testimony and it was really cool.  I know that Zaida is one of the people I was called to Sacramento to meet and I love teaching her and I know that in the coming months she will be baptized and will have great responsibility in the church someday.

Well that's about all this week.  Sorry my email from last week didn't work.  I hope everything is well at home.  I know this work is the very best thing I could be doing and I know that what we share is true and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's church here on the Earth today.  Our Heavenly Father loves us and is just waiting for us to either accept His gospel and enter into the gate by baptism or share the gospel with those who have not yet found the path.

Les Quiero,

Elder Gaskill

Short but Great Week!

Hey Everyone!

 

There's not a lot to report on in this last short week but here I go.

 

Elder Sarmiento and I have been getting along great.  He is an awesome missionary.  Sometimes I just feel like sitting back and watching him go because he just always knows the perfect thing to say.  He's been out 20 months and it definitely shows.  He's also a really funny guy, I love him as a companion.  He helps me a lot with my Spanish too because he's from Peru and didn't start learning English until he got here.  We speak in Spanish all the time to each other except when we're talking to people that don't speak Spanish so that helps me a lot.  Sometimes it's funny because he talks to me in Spanish but i talk to him in English since he understands English but doesn't speak it very well.  I'm sure we sound funny talking to each other because we're talking two different languages to each other but understand perfectly what the other person is saying.

 

I had to give a talk yesterday at church and it went really well.  Saturday night they gave us a call and told us they needed two of us missionaries to speak tomorrow in church and the other missionaries in our ward called us and said one of us had to give a talk for about 5 minutes.  So I wrote down a few notes to give a talk and then when I got to church I found out we were the only two speakers and we needed to talk for about 15-20 minutes.  It went well though and the time went by really fast and I didn't even get to say all I wanted before sacrament meeting was over and I had to wrap everything up.  It was a ton of fun.  I remember being really nervous to give a talk when I was 12 in Sacrament Meeting but nowadays I love it, even in Spanish!

 

We had a really good lesson with a family called Familia Toscanos last week.  Other missionaries had been teaching them for a long time but once Elder Austin left I decided I wanted to start from the beginning and it was perfect for them.  We spent about an hour and a half with them talking about the Restoration.  They were really interested and had a lot of questions and we had to go because it was already 9:30 at night.  They wanted us to come back as soon as possible so we are going back tonight to finish with them.  I hope it goes well because this family is awesome and loves the missionaries but as of now are just really catholic. So we'll see.

 

That's about all that happened this week. I'll talk to everyone next week! Hope all is well

 

Los Quiero,

-Elder Gaskill

Busy Week

Hello Everybody!

 

I don't have a lot of time to write emails this week but I will include a couple things before I get going.

So we got our transfer calls last night and Elder Austin is leaving to go right next door on the other side of the freeway to a branch called Sacramento 7 (which used to be a part of the ward I'm serving in now until it split about a year ago).  My new companion is going to be an Elder named Elder Sarmiento, who only has a few months left in his mission and goes home in December.  He is from Peru so he speaks Spanish perfectly.  I'm really excited to be with an elder that is fluent in Spanish because that helps a lot and also someone who has a lot of time in the mission.

 

This week was great.  We had my first baptism of Federico Pimentel, the 9 year old kid who is part of a part member less active family.  The baptism went really well and I got to baptize him so it was awesome.  It was a day of miracles because as soon as his baptism was over we talked to his 12 year old aunt that we've been teaching named Brandi and she told us she wants to get baptized so we're going to baptize her on the 18th! Then we went over to visit Luz and Gustavo who are getting their divorce papers and we are going to get them married and baptized on the 18th as well! So we have 3 baptisms coming up in about 2 weeks.

 

We tried something really cool this week.  I was reading a letter from Elder Mitch Daniels about a month ago where he said his mission president asked them during weekly planning to plan for family X and family Y, two families that they weren't teaching right now that they had faith that they would find in the next week.  The next day they had 2 families they didn't know show up to church and they were blessed with two new families, family X and family Y to start teaching.  I decided I wanted to do that here so during weekly planning on Saturday Elder Austin and I planned for family X.  We planned what we would teach them this week and we planned to see them on Wednesday and Friday night.  As it turns out, we were blessed the same day to find TWO families to take family X's place.  We went to visit a potential we had and ended up finding his cousin named Misael.  Misael told us he used to go to church with the missionaries when he lived in Idaho about two years ago but lost contact with the church when he moved to Los Angeles.  He is a really nice guy and didn't come to church on Sunday but he will be a solid investigator.  Later in the night we were looking for another potential and we ended up talking to her daughter who's about 23 and son who's about 16.  We knocked on the door at about 8 at night when it was getting dark and they opened up the door and the first thing they said was "wow, you guys look really happy!".  I immediately said "That's because we are! And we're here to tell you how you can be as happy as we are".  We talked to them for a while and they were really interested and told us they had friends who were Mormon and wanted to know more.  They told us they were going to come to church but had a couple things they needed to do so they weren't sure.  They ended up not coming and we have a return to go see them Friday night so we'll find out then what happened.  The coolest part about the whole thing was that the returns we got with Misael, and Maria and Andres happened to be the exact same times we had planned to go see "family X".  We were extremely blessed and it was cool to see that miracle.  I hope everything turns out well with these people we added!

 

I don't have too much more time and I still need to write to the mission president, sooo until next week!

 

Los Quiero,

Elder Gaskill

Lots of investigators at church!

Hey Everybody,

 

I hope all is well.

This week has been interesting.  We had to drive up to the office twice this week to get supplies and get our car fixed.  We have taken time to do transfer reports, done a lot of service, and done weekly planning (like every week).  Because of all these things we haven't had nearly as much time for missionary work but we somehow managed to keep all our numbers up in lessons, etc and had a really successful week.

 

One of the biggest blessings was that we had 7 nonmembers come to church from our area this week.  Luz and Gustavo came, as well as Frederico (who's going to be baptized this week), his 12 year old aunt Brandi, a boyfriend/grandpa/dad, an aunt, and then a girl we had never met before that the family had brought named Marta.  We were really blessed and had a lot of success getting people to church yesterday.

 

This week I had was lucky and got to go back to Stockton to be part of Jacqueline's baptism.  It was really hard to get there though.  I had set up a ride with a member about a week before and then the day before he called me and said an appointment had come up that he had to take his wife to that was at the same time and about an hour in the other direction.  I started calling everyone in the ward and I either couldn't get a hold of people or they were busy and couldn't take me.  We went to visit Nelson, our less active friend from Costa Rica and he offered to take me and I was really happy about that.  I was almost as excited to spend 2 hours in a car with Nelson and get to know him as I was to get to the baptism.  However, the next day Nelson called me and told me he wasn't going to be able to take me because when he woke up in the morning his daughter told him he needed to drop her off with his ex-wife a few hours later than he had originally thought and it was the same time hewas planning on taking me to the baptism.  So a couple hours before the baptism I was calling members all over the Elk Grove stake that I had never met trying to find a last minute ride.  Eventually I found a member who was willing to take me.  His name is Brother Bruljan and he was a really fun guy to talk to.  He reminds me of JD because he's about the same age and a retired military guy.  Brother Bruljan grew up in the same house he lives in now so he told me all about how Sacramento has changed over the past 50 years.  He told me about his experiences in the Vietnam War and lots of really interesting things.  

 

The baptism and my talk on the Holy Ghost went really well.  It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be because none of my old investigators came to the baptism and all my favorite members weren't there.  It was great though.  Brother Bruljan even took me to Golden Corral on the way home and I had steak for the first time as a missionary.  I don't think I ever really liked steak before my mission but after eating Mexican/Guatemalan food for so long it tasted really good.

 

Today one of our members who works at a golf course took us golfing for P-day! It was a lot of fun.  There were 6 of us that went and one of the other elders was a golfer so he was pretty good and the rest of the elders were very interesting to watch.  Elder Webster and I spent a lot of time teaching the other missionaries how to swing a golf club and they got a little bit better throughout the 9 holes.  It was a ton of fun though, even though they were all short par 3 holes.  I got really good at using a pitching wedge because that's what we would tee-off with since each hole was pretty small.  It was all good fun.

 

We've been helping a member out a lot renovating a house.  What he does for a living is buy houses that are in bad condition and redo the whole thing while he and his family live there and then once he's finished it they move out and sell the place.  They are working on a house right now that is really run down and my first impression when I saw it was a haunted house I had visited in Utah.  Elder Austin and I helped cut down trees that were overrunning the yard, tearing out the carpet in the house, and demolishing the shelves, etc in the kitchen so that all new carpeting and appliances can be put in.  It's looking a lot better and soon the member's family will actually be able to move in to it.

 

The coolest teaching experience that we had this week was with Luz and Gustavo.  Luz has been waiting on her divorce papers so that she and Gustavo can get married and baptized the same day.  Originally she thought the were coming on August 4th because that's when her 6 months of waiting is over but she went to the court this week and because the city is running our of money the law/police/court system doesn't have very much money and are laying off people.  For this reason, they told her a judge might not be able to get to her case and she will have to wait longer.  She told us she had been reading in the scriptures about signs of the second coming and was watching the news at the same time and realized a lot of those things were happening right now.  She became really upset because she was thinking about what would happen if she died before she could ever get baptized.  It was a very humbling experience for me to see how badly she wanted to be baptized and how much she's gone through but has endured it patiently.  We were able to share the story of Alvin Smith with her, who died before Joseph Smith had finished translating the Book of Mormon, established the church, and received the priesthood and revelation in order to baptize.  In section 137 of Doctrine and Covenants it talks about how Joseph saw many people in heaven, among them being his brother Alvin who had died without being baptized.  We told her about temples and baptisms for the dead and promised her that she would see the day where she could be baptized on this earth, but even if she died she would have that ordinance done for her.  It was a great lesson but it made me so happy to see how badly she wants to be baptized and how much faith she has in our Heavenly Father and her desires to choose the right.

 

That's about all that's happened this past week.  We get transfer calls this next Monday and Elder Austin may be leaving since he's been here 4 transfers (6 months) so I may be getting a new companion. [I think I might be getting a brand new elder named Elder Mata but that's just my guess, we'll see if I'm right (:]

 

Los Quiero Mucho!

-Elder Gaskill

Baptisms coming soon!

Hello Everybody,

This week we went to go have two different lessons with Luz and Gustavo. The first one we had with Gustavo was really cool. He hasn't showed a lot of interest lately but always seems to surprise us. They have been going through a lot lately and haven't had money to pay for gas to go places, buy food, and are even cutting it close on the rent. Gustavo told us that he had a really cool answer to his prayer because he was praying for help money-wise and out of nowhere his neighbor asked him how they were doing.  He said not so good, so the neighbor gave him all the cash out of his pocket (which was about $6) but Gustavo was very grateful because it was enough to get them through the day with food until he went to work the next day. Gustavo always surprises us and has lots of faith, we just need to help him stop smoking again. We also taught Luz a few days later when Gustavo was working and she told us about how she had been having a lot of flashbacks recently to when she was young (really horrible memories) and was asking us why God had made her remember all these terrible things. Immediately 2 Nephi 9:39 came to my head and I read it to her. Then the spirit started talking through me to say what she needed to hear. I was talking for about 15 minutes until I finally stopped and she just stared at me and said "wow, that was the answer to my prayer". Then she proceeded to tell us how every time she has a problem we show up as an answer to her prayers. She told me how she had been thinking about the question that she asked us when she was watering the plants yesterday and she knew that God had sent us to answer her question. Luz and Gustavo are really close to getting baptized.  The only thing is that they are still waiting on the divorce papers but they are going to come August 4th, which is really soon so we are excited for them.

We went on exchanges this past week and Elder Martinez and I had a really cool experience. We were teaching this lady who is about 60ish years old. When the missionaries found her a week ago, they left a Restoration pamphlet.  She has bad vision and can't read so they asked her grand kids to read it to her. We came back and they hadn't read it yet so we read it with them. We had trouble keeping the lady's attention and at the end of the lesson we asked the lady to say a prayer. She said she didn't want to but Elder Martinez told her we weren't leaving until she prayed. I told her "si se puede!" which means "yes you can" and after a few seconds of silence I said "the flies are waiting" which was a really odd thing to say but it came to my mind and 3 three of us started laughing uncontrollably. After some more silence I explained to her that a prayer is really simple and all that matters is what comes from the heart. All of a sudden she started praying and burst into tears. She prayed for about 10 minutes talking about all the people that were close to her that have died and all the hard things she was going through. Eventually she ended her prayer still in tears and got up and hugged Elder Martinez and I and wouldn't let us leave her, but eventually we got away. It was a cool experience.

Thursday night was a crazy night. At about 10:25 we got a call from... DELTA SOUTH (my old area). We were super surprised and Elder Guzman and I got to talk for a while. He told me he was calling because one of our old investigators (who has been taught about 6 months) Carolina Montiel just found that she has kidney cancer and it's really serious. She is not here legally so she can't get any treatment here so she is leaving to go back to Mexico as soon as possible. It was really sad news to hear because Carolina is awesome.  She has a strong testimony but just hasn't been baptized because her husband and family don't want her to and she doesn't want to be rejected by her family. Then Elder Guzman proceeded to tell me that Familia Guzman has not been progressing since I left and they are going to have to drop them. However, finally a bit of good news: Jacqueline Ross (a 9 year old girl we were teaching) is getting baptized this Saturday. We had to drop them when Elder Guzman and I were there because the mom was studying with the Jehovah's Witness and didn't have a car to get the family to church. We stopped by the day before I left and sat down with the mom and promised the mom that if she prayed about what she would do she would know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. Elder Guzman told me how she took our challenge and found out for herself that the church was true and because she's already a member, is going to start coming back to church and now her daughter is getting baptized. I'm really excited because I get to go back to Stockton for the baptism this week, give a talk about the Holy Ghost during the baptism, and see some old investigators and members down in Stockton.

Elder Austin and I are also excited because we have a baptism the 3rd of August. Frederico, the 9 year old son of a super less active lady is going to get baptized. We have been teaching him, his younger siblings, and a lot of his aunts (that are between 6-25 years old (it's an interesting family)). Frederico is the first of many in the family that are going to get baptized and we are super excited about that. He is awesome and hasn't been taught anything about religion his whole life but he loves to pray and read the Book of Mormon, and loves when the missionaries come over.

We committed the wife of Nelson, a less active guy we found from Costa Rica to be baptized in August as well! However she is Philipino and only speaks English and Tagolog so we are passing her off to the English missionaries in our area. But we had an awesome lesson with them and she is super solid. Nelson is also really cool and working on cutting alcohol out of his life again.

That's about all I've got for this week. Hope all is well!

Los Quiero,

Elder Gaskill

Great Week in Elk Grove

Hello everyone!

It's been an awesome week here in Sacramento! Got up to about 110 two different days this week so that was really tough and unbearable. Elder Austin and I have been doing really well and having a ton of success this week and I am really happy about that!

This week we met a new lady named Zaida who is Venezuelan but has spent time in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Mexico and has gone through a lot in her life.  We met her this past Tuesday.  She had actually been robbed the Thursday before so we showed up at the perfect time like missionaries always do.  She thought we had been sent by someone because the timing was so perfect.  She recognized us as messengers from God sent to help her.  She told us about how she's been to pretty much every church besides the Mormon church but her mom and aunt are Mormon and she has a Book of Mormon too.  She told us how she didn't like a lot of things about a lot of other different churches and she knows a decent amount about religion but doesn't really go to a church.  This past Saturday we had a lesson with her in the home of a member family and it went extremely well. She loved everything and had all her questions answered and is on the fast track to baptism.  The only problem is that she has a foster child who is part native american and because of rules with him she can't take him to church.  We are working on talking to the Social Worker and the tribe that the kid is from so he can get permission to come to church with us.  Zaida is definitely a blessing and is an awesome investigator.

We started teaching a lot of kids this past week who were a referral from some English elders.  We are actually already teaching a lot of their parents/uncles/aunts.  The English elders tracted into the grandma's house where some other brothers live and so they got referred to us and we started teaching them.  It's really interesting that we are teaching about 3 different sets of parents and kids who are all related but live in different parts of town.  They are really cool too and we love teaching them.

We had a really awesome lesson with Francisco (the 78 year old guy who has lost all his faith) where we brought a recent convert named Ruben with us.  Ruben was perfect for Francisco because he is 66 and has been through a lot.  Ruben has lived all over the world, fought in the Vietnam war, got divorced when he had to go to Mexico on an undercover assignment from the government, went crazy and didn't know who he was and went to an asylum, got it all back together and got remarried to a lady who is using him to get her papers and for his life insurance.  He lost his house once before because his wife wouldn't help him out.  He's been through a lot and is an awesome guy and will be a good friend for Francisco.  We're going to try to set up another lesson with the two of them and make dinner for them and also get to meet Francisco's wife which we're really excited about.

Yesterday the Familia Ramos came to church which was awesome.  The mom was baptized a long time ago but was super less active.  Non of her kids have ever been to church and all of her sisters that they live with haven't either.  We've been teaching a lot of the kids because they are super awesome and love praying and reading the Book of Mormon.  Yesterday we got them to church and the mom brought one of her sisters who's about 21 who also seems to be really interested.  The ward was great too by "pouncing" on them after sacrament meeting and saying hi and that they had missed them and that they were glad they had come back to church.  We are going to have a lot of success with this family and all the sisters in the near future.

Yesterday we went over to see Jesus Alvarez, who is the old guy who has his own TV show about religion and does his own sermons on tv every week.  He showed us the last one he made which is all about the Book of Mormon.  He did it on Alma Chapter 1 (all about Nehor) and it was amazing that he understood everyone perfectly.  Jesus has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon but he doesn't quite understand what it means and where it came from so we have to work with him on that.  He is also a little crazy (but really smart) so we have been working a lot with him.  

Elder Austin and I had an awesome week and look forward to continuing the fire into this week.  I'm thankful to everyone back home for all the support and for all the prayers, they really pray off and I can feel the love and I know there are a lot of people keeping me in their prayers.  I love this work and am so excited to be sharing the gospel with everyone around me.  Spanish is coming really well which is making me really happy!

Que les vaya bien (durante esta semana, hasta el proximo lunes)

-Elder Gaskill