Josh was baptized!

Hello Everyone!

 

This week was great. The best news is that Josh got baptized and confirmed. It was a great experience. He really wanted Elder Fulks to do all the ordinances since he is leaving this week and that was a great experience. He is really strong in the gospel and will be ordained to the Aaronic Preisthood next week. His situation at home is crazy and he has really bad influences all around him but he is the glimmer of light in that home. We are trying to help the rest of the family change and I think our presence has rubbed off a little bit.

 

We got our transfer calls and my new companion is Elder Gilray. I'm very excited.  I asked for him to get sent to me so I'm glad they made it happen.  Elder Gilray started his mission 6 weeks after me but had to go home for knee surgery after a football game in Galt in the summer of 2012.  He was only home for 3 months and has been back for a while.  He is a really good missionary (Spanish speaking) so I'm excited to work with him. He's a lot of fun. He's from Dallas, Texas and I'm pretty sure was going to BYU-I before his mission. Elder Fulks is really sad to be leaving. It's just barely dawning on him that he's actually leaving. I'm glad it's not me yet.

 

We are working with the members to find a lot of new people. We dropped or were dropped by almost all our investigators last week. We got down to 1 but she's still cool. She hasn't been to church yet but has seen how different she has felt meeting with us and in the ward function she went to.  She almost was admitted to the hospital last night which would have been bad but she got out of it and so now we can keep teaching her.

 

I'm excited to be here in the Christmas season and remind people what they should really be focused on. I continue to hope and pray that we can be lead to the people who are being prepared to meet us. I love this work!

 

Les Quiero Mucho,

Elder Gaskill

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

Pouring out all my heart, might, mind, and strength into this work!

Hello Everyone

The last week was another great one!

 

Thanksgiving was a great day! We went to Lodi and had Thanksgiving dinner with the Rodriguez family. It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving dinner but I enjoyed it.  We had a good spicy chicken in a red sauce instead of turkey, and had lots of pasta/potato salads on the side with pumpkin pie at the end.  We ate a normal amount instead of stuffing our faces and still felt good afterwards.  Later on I missed the yams from the traditional dinner we have at home but the most important part was there: being thankful and being around the people you care about.  It was fun to be in the same home for both Thanksgivings on my mission.  Their extended family was there as well and it was good to see all of them again. None of them are members so I enjoy exercising my influence on them so hopefully later down the road it will add up and make a difference. 

 

 We came home at about 7:00 and it was really weird not having anything to do. As a missionary it kills me not being able to use my time effectively and efficiently.  My companion went to bed really early and I spent a lot of time reading the Book of Mormon, going through our area book, and cleaning.  I still had time and had nothing to do so I ended up tying every tie I have with a new knot I learned from our investigator Josh (called the Trinity knot). I was really bored! Eventually I sat down and began to look over pictures of my mission, pictures from before, pictures with my family, etc and had a really good reflective moment to think about all that I have in my life and especially the many blessings I've seen on my mission.  I was able to notice a lot of changes that I've seen and then make plans to continue to improve and set goals for where I want to be in the future.  It was a good, relaxing evening.

 

We were able to work hard the rest of the week. On Saturday it was the last day of the month and we had a lot of miles saved up so we decided to drive up to Galt and work there.  We went through our list of people to visit and no one was home.  We decided to stop by the Cardona's house to see if Brenda had any friends for us to go visit.  When we arrived she was anxiously awaiting to mailman because her mission call is in the mail and she was waiting for it to arrive any second.  While we were there on the doorstep with her the mailman came but sadly she didn't have her mission call.  She decided to come out with us and introduce us to one of her friends named Mariana.  She was nervous because she thought she was really Catholic but we talked to her on her front porch for a while and she was really interested in our message.  She told us she had kind of distanced herself from the Catholic church recently because she didn't feel comfortable there and has started going to a few other churches with her friends and said she would like to go with Brenda! Right now Brenda goes to the Lodi Spanish branch so we'll have her come to the YSA a few times to help us out.  It was a great contact. Unfortunately about 20 family members were on their way over when we showed up so we had to set up another appointment for tomorrow that we are excited about.  Brenda also took us to meet another member who used to go to the branch but moved to Yuba city a little before I got there.  Between the two of them they thought of about 8 more people in Galt that we should teach and we are excited to meet them this week!

 

The rest of the week went really well. Josh has learned almost everything from the missionary lessons and is excited to be baptized at 1:00pm on December 14th. He even fasted with us yesterday and made it the full 2 meals.  He is such an awesome guy and I feel very privileged to be one of the missionaries teaching him.

Last night we didn't have a dinner so we went to the Hixon's house.  The Hixon family feeds all 8 missionaries in the Delta Spanish ward every Sunday so Elder Fulks and I were excited to go back and see the family as well as the current Spanish missionaries.  Everyone in the family remembered both of us, even the kids so that made us both happy.  They Hixons have a picture up of every missionary that has ever eaten dinner at their house (starting from about 4 years ago) so they have pictures covering the space right below the ceiling that goes all around their kitchen and living room.  It was weird to see how many missionaries have come since I left Stockton in June 2012.  It was also weird to see the pictures of missionaries that I knew very well that finished their missions a long time ago.  It also felt like coming home and it was good to be back.

 

Things are going well in our area and Elder Fulks and I feel very blessed. I feel especially blessed because I have more time left than he does (he has 2 weeks left).  We both freaked out a little bit yesterday when it became December 1st because with every new month comes the beginning of the end.  I think I might have a heart attack on New Years but I hope not. Right now I'm just focused on one day at a time making each day the best it can be and pouring out all my heart, might, mind, and strength into this work!

 

Les Quiero Mucho,

Elder Gaskill

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

Missionary Work Keeps Getting Better and Better!

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well! This was another great week in the mission.

 

Our investigator Josh has been progressing a lot! We introduced him to a recent convert named Carlos and they get along really well. Carlos can give him rides too since he has a car. We took Josh on a tour of the church and he loved it and was excited to come to church with us.  He is very willing to change and as soon as we taught him about the word of wisdom he made changes to  start living that commandment.  He came to church yesterday and loved it! Carlos brought him and he stayed  4 hours (Carlos had an interview after church to get his limited use recommend & get a calling).  He is doing great.

 

We also had Daniel, Tommy, and Lyn come to church yesterday.  Tommy is ready and has learned everything but has to get over one last thing first before he can accept a baptismal date. Daniel keeps moving around so we can't find him but we are working with him as well.

 

On Thursday we were with Elder Morley all day (one of the APs). It was good to be around him again and reminisce about good times we had together in El Dorado for 3 transfers.  We had a really productive day as well.

 

Earlier in the week we were at Hermano Ku's house (the Lodi Spanish Branch Ward Mission Leader) to get a referral. While we were there his nephew Diego walked in.  Hermano Ku's sister-in-law and family live 3 houses down the street and their family is very catholic.  Diego said he came home, no one was home, saw a missionary car and felt like he should come over and talk to us.  We talked to him about the Plan of Salvation and answered some of his questions for a while.  His family has had a lot of experience with the church and so he was interested in listening. We knew it was definitely a prompting of the spirit that got us and him there at the same time.  He didn't see it that way though. The next day, 3 more missionaries found an old referral for his mother and decided to stop by and they found Diego as well. We went back down with Elder Morley the next day.  It seems that the missionaries are all on the same wavelength (the Spirit) so we're hoping that Diego listens to the spirit as well.

 

On Thursday we stopped by the Barajas family and it was great to see them again.  Only Hermana was there with Andres so we had dinner with them and talked for a little while.  Andres had bought me a shirt and told me not to look at it until I got home. When we came back I looked at it and it's an awesome tank top that says "Most Dope"  haha.  We're having dinner with the whole family this Sunday and I'm excited to see them again!

 

We also found an old investigator up in Galt that we were teaching named Valerie and she has a lot more time now so we are going to start teaching her again!

 

I am excited for this coming Saturday because Mark is getting baptized! I will get to go back to North Sacramento and perform Mark's baptism. I'm excited for this weekend.

 

Also this week is Zone Conference. Once a year a general authority comes and tours the mission and so Elder Baxter from the Seventy is coming to all the conferences and to tour the mission.  Instead of the AP's conducting Conference they are asking the Senior Zone Leader to conduct so I will have to introduce Elder Baxter and that is kind of intimidating but it will be a cool experience!

 

This week will be awesome! Missionary work keeps getting better and better!

 

Les Quiero Mucho,

Elder Gaskill

Getting Reaquainted with Stockton

Hello Everyone!

 

I hope all is well.

This week was another great one!  It's been full of memories.  It's good to be back in Stockton. The last time I was here was July of 2012 so it's been a while.  It's weird to drive around some of the same streets. We mostly work on the northern side of the city, a different part than where I served the first time.  I know the main streets but am getting to know everything a lot better.  It was really weird to drive down to the southern area to visit some people.  We stopped by a few of the Spanish members homes because they have kids that are YSA (Young Single Adult) age and we wanted to invite them to some activities.  It was great to see everyone again.  Elder Fulks and I both served in Delta South near the beginning of our missions so the members remember both of us.

 

The work is very different here.  We work almost purely by referrals.  Ideally we want the whole family to be interested so we only get to teach them once the parents have expressed their disinterest and then we take over teaching the YSA age young adults.  It's a lot harder to fill our time so we have to find ways to find new people.  There are two colleges here: Delta college and University of the Pacific, however it's not very effective to walk around on campus contacting people so we're trying some other ways.

 

We are working with a few cool people.  My first appointment in the area was with a young guy named Josh.  He doesn't really know anything about God or Jesus Christ so we have been teaching him a lot.  He loves everything we share with him and after saying it a couple times it sticks with him.  He accepted the invitation to be baptized on December 7th so we are excited to help him work towards that date.  There is another investigator named Tommy who was supposed to be baptized a few weeks ago but had some problems come up so we are continuing to work with him and help him get baptized the end of this month. 

 

We also met a really cool guy named Steve who is dating a girl in Modesto who is a member of the church.  He used to be a Jehovah's Witness growing up but distanced himself from the church a few years back because of "the politics".  He loves everything and had trouble accepting that Joseph Smith saw God because of the scriptures in Exodus 33 that says "no man can see God and live".  We hear that a lot so it's easy to help people understand what the scriptures mean and explain the First Vision a little better. There is also another guy named Daniel who the missionaries were teaching but he disappeared for a while.  He showed up to church by himself yesterday and was really excited to be back.  He has figured a lot of things out and we are happy to start working with him again.

 

I also got to see a few members of the Lodi branch recently.  Last night we went up and visited with Juan, Jovita, and JJ Rodriguez (luckily JJ is in the YSA ward so it gives us good reason to go visit the family).  It was a very sweet experience because yesterday was November 10th, exactly a year after the day Juan and Jovita were baptized.  I love that family so much and I am so happy to see the progress they are making and the strength of their testimonies.  JJ's year anniversary is coming up on December 29th so I will also be here for that.  I think the plan is for the whole family to go to the temple in January to get sealed.  I hope the plan sticks so I can still be here to accompany them to the temple!

 

Yesterday I also got to confer the Aaronic Priesthood on a new member of the YSA ward named Carlos.  He was baptized about 2 weeks ago and I was surprised that he picked me to perform the ordinance since I had only known him for 4 days.  It was a really cool experience.

 

Things are going great and I am very happy to be a missionary!

 

Les Quiero Mucho!

Elder Gaskill

Going back to Stockton

Hello Everyone!

This past week was another great one!

The big news this week are transfers. My transfer call came and I am getting transferred to the South Stockton Zone in the Pacific Young Single Adult ward.  My new companion is Elder Fulks (another Spanish speaking missionary). He goes home at the end of this transfer so I will be his last companion.  Our zone is pretty small (there are 2 in Stockton).  In Our zone we have 3 English companionships, 1 Hmong, 1 Lao, and 1 Cambodian.  All the other Spanish companionships are in the North Stockton zone. I am sad to be leaving such a great zone and companion in North Sacramento but I'm excited to go back to the valley.  One of the things I'm excited for is our YSA ward also covers Lodi and Galt.  That means I can go visit the Rodriguez and other families in Lodi (and JJ will be in the YSA) and also the Barajas and other families in Galt! It will be fun. I feel like I get to go home for the holidays (:

 

This week was a lot of fun! It was a little bit slow because of some meetings we had to do and other trainings but it was a lot of fun. On Halloween we got together as a zone and watched a new movie that came out from Deseret Book called "Ephraim's Rescue".  It was pretty good and about a man who was prepared his whole life to help rescue some of the pioneers in a handcart company that wouldn't have made it to Salt Lake otherwise.  Afterwards Elder Ross and I did our zone training.  We made it a lot of fun.  We started out by bringing everyone into a room with the lights out filled with fog (from a fog machine). Elder Ross and I had blankets on so we looked like something creepy.  We had flashlights shining up at our faces and creepy music on in the background. We welcomed them to zone training and then moved into another room to actually do it.  We were training on commitments so at the end we practiced by trick or treating.  Except we had the missionaries dress up in costumes (mummies with toilet paper, ghosts with sheets, crazy hair wigs, etc) and go "trick-or-treating" by teaching the people behind the doors and giving them a pre-decided commitment.  They were rewarded with candy if they did a good job. It was a lot of fun.

 

The most exciting thing that happened this week was with Mark. We didn't hear from him all week so we used our secret agent skills and found out where his parents live (which is where we moved).  We were waiting for him to contact us and just listened to the Spirit in the meantime.  On Saturday we felt prompted to go to his old place of residence where Kelly was.  She was there crying and in a lot of pain because she was really sick.  We offered to give her a priesthood blessing but needed a guy to come over.  She told us Mark was on his way over so we waited for him.  When he got there he told us he was sorry but his phone was out of minutes so he wasn't able to get in touch with us all week.  We gave Kelly a blessing and it went really well.  She told us all day she had been praying that someone would come over to help her out and we told her we were prompted to go over there.  Mark also told us he was prompted to pick up the phone and call her that morning and that's why he had come over.  It looks like we were all on the same page and things worked out!

 

Mark came to church yesterday and now he is 100% ready for baptism! We set a new baptismal date for November 23rd with him! We are all very excited!

 

That's about it for this week. New adventures to come in Stockton!

 

Love you all! Les Quiero!

Elder Gaskill