Back At Temple Square!

June 23, 2010

I'm here!

I am back at Temple Square, working in the extended zone so my p-day is Saturday! I am covering welfare square every day except for the weekends! It is really fun so far and we get to eat the bread, cheese, jam and chocolate milk. Yum! I am adjusting better than I thought I would. My comp is from Southern California. I know, right? Two California girls! We are going to have way too much fun! She is super sweet so far and I think we will get along great. Things are going well so far! Keep in touch! I only have like 6 months left, so everyone better start writing me more!

This is a picture of all of us sisters who just returned from our outbound assignments!

I love you all!

Sister Garbett

Farewell Maryland!

Thirty-four Doors!

June 14, 2010

Mom and Dad,

Hey! How's everything going? The mission is good. We've been doing a lot of knocking. The other day we knocked on 34 houses in a row. It was very hot and humid and then out of no where it started to down pour. The rain was definitely heaven sent, even though it messed up my hair. :~) We didn't have any luck, but I did meet a couple men from Mexico. They didn't speak English and of couse I don't speak Spanish, but somehow I managed to ask if the Spanish speaking missionaries could call on them. I actually said all that in broken Spanish. They said yes, but I'm not quite sure if they understood. We'll see what happens when the Elders call. I told the Elders if they baptized the two men they have to send me a picture to Temple Square.

I'm still doing great and I'm excited to go back to Temple Square. I only have nine more days here, so I kind of feel like I'm already at Temple Square, since I won't see any result of anyone I find, but I do have hight hopes for everyone I meet.

The church is true! I'm loving the work. I'm geting more and more tired by the day. I can't believe I'be been living the mission schedule for almost a year. I don't know how I'm still alive. :~)

I love you so much! Keep in touch, aka send me mail!

Love,

Sister Garbett

P.S.
Mommy, I have recently realized that I don't know anything about your conversion story. I would love for you to write it all out and send it to me.

Grateful to Serve

June 7, 2010

Mom and Dad,

Hello! I’m so glad I got to e-mail Mom today. That was fun, even though my computer froze up when I still had 10 minutes left. Things are going well here.

There are lots of fire flies here in Maryland and it is amazing! Have you seen fire flies? They look like glitter against the night sky or tiny little Christmas lights flashing on and off. There are different kinds of fire flies, too. I used to think they were all just orange but here the fire flies are orange, yellow, green and blue! I catch them all the time. I have a video of me catching one. I’ll have to figure out how to send it to you, because they are so cool!

We’ve been doing a lot of knocking on doors lately. We find a lot of people, but none of them are progressing by keeping commitments. We have one lady we’re teaching who is reading the Book of Mormon and she said she loves it, but she won’t commit to coming to church. We’ll keep working on her. She’s very nice and always invites us in. We found her from knocking.

We’ve been trying to pick up former investigators, too. We found a family in our area book, left by previous missionaries. We also discovered they were actually a Temple Square referral from last year. We stopped by and the daughter answered the door. She is 19 years-old and was very nice to us. She told us we could come back, but they are real busy. We’ll see what happens. We're hoping they’ll make time to see us again.

We had zone conference last week and Elder Kenneth Johnson from the Seventies came to speak to us. He gave a very powerful talk and I learned a lot from him. He offered us new ideas and ways to teach the gospel. He was very uplifting and inspiring.

Well, I gotta get going to dinner. I love you! The church is true! I know that Heavenly Father knows us all individually. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to serve here in Maryland for the past four months, and I am excited to get back to Temple Square soon (June 23).

You’re in my thoughts and prayers!

Love,

Sister Garbett

Time Passes Too Fast!

May 31, 2010

Mom and Dad,

Hey! How's everything going? How was your Memorial Day weekend? Did you all go to the cabin?

We played soccer this moring (when I say "we" I mean everyone in our Zone except me). I don't play soccer. I'm really bad at the game and the Elders get super intense, so I just watch them play. After the game we went grocery shopping and washed our car. We then went to the Ward BBQ for about a half-hour and after that we went back to knocking on doors.

We've been doing a lot of knocking lately. We've found a lot of potential investigators, but none are progressing yet. We aren't having as much luck as I would like to see. Especially since we haven't had any invetigators to church these past couple of weeks. We only have two more Sundays before we can have a baptism before I leave to go back to Temple Square. So I won't be seeing a baptism on my mission. I guess I was only meant to be a finding missionary.

I'm kind of excited to go back to Temple Square. I can't believe my four-month, outbound assigment is almost up. It seriously feels like I just got here! When I arrived here in Maryland last March there was six feet of snow on the ground and it was freezing! Now everything is green and it's 95 degrees and super humid! Time just goes by way too fast. Did you know my one year mark is in three weeks? Can you believe it's been almost a whole year since you last saw me? It's so crazy!

We're working really hard out here in the mission. We aren't seeing as many results as I would like, but it's not my will. We are continually finding new people and trying to get them to progress. We have a couple of girls we will be teaching. They are the daughters of a recently activated member, but I'll be gone before the daughters move into the ward. But I did get to teach them one discussion. I believe they will definitely get baptized.

I love this ward and the members are great. They feed us well and they are so willing to assist in the work. When I get home I hope I can be as good to the Ward Missionarys as they have been to me. The church is true!

I love you! Thanks for the help and support and especially the prayers! You're always in mine!

Love,
Sister Garbett

Strengthening Faith

May 24, 2010

Hey mom,

Things have been pretty good this week. We have been keeping busy and working a lot. We have found a lot of people, but they aren't too promising. But we will continue to work. We went on exchanges this week and it helped me to really appreciate my companion that I have now. I am so glad I have a good hard working companion who isn't so strict and doesn't tell me what to do.

While I was on exchanges we had a funny thing happen. We went to a member’s home and they have a 17yr old son who just graduated from high school. He pretty much proposed to me. Not literally, but he did say he wants to marry me in the Salt Lake Temple! Hahaha! It's a good thing he isn't in my ward.

We have been teaching a lot of people, but they are not really progressing. We are trying to find more people and go knocking a lot more, but that is not the most motivating thing to do in this area. We did have a lot of success knocking on doors this past week, but they were all about as solid as water.

I had a pretty cool experience this past week where my faith was tried. I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. It's just sometimes I don't recognize, or sometimes I am too nervous to act on the answer I get. Last transfer my previous companion had contacted someone and she told my new companion what housing area she lived in, but didn't give us an address or a phone number. So we were going to just knock on doors throughout the whole neighborhood to try to find her. But there were about 40 houses we had to try. So we knocked on the door of one house and no one was there. I had the idea that we should put our faith into action and pray that we will be able to find where this person lived. But I just ignored that thought and knocked on another door. Then the thought came to me again. So I told my companion and she said that it was a good idea. I asked if she wanted to say the prayer because I am too faithless and she said no, I needed to strengthen my faith. So I offered a very humble prayer pleading for help from the lord. Then a woman walked by and I had the thought to ask if she knew the person we were looking for. But guess what, I didn't ask. I'm telling you, I need to strengthen my faith. So we knocked on a couple more doors and talk to those people and tried to share a message of the restoration with them, but they were not interested. Then we were just standing outside looking at all the houses and wondering what to do next? There were two women outside their homes talking to each other. The thought came to me to ask one of them if they knew the person we were looking for. I had an inner struggle for some reason then after a minute or so, I finally followed the prompting. I asked the women if they knew who we were looking for. They told us they had lived in that house for 15 years and knew all of the neighbors. They definitely knew who we were looking for and where she lived. When I prayed to know which house to go to I was expecting that one house would just stand out, or to have the feeling to go left or right, but I didn't have any of those feelings. However, Heavenly Father did put people in my path who could help me. I never really realized how faithless I was until this month, but man has my faith been strengthened.

I still love my mission. All is going well.

I love you! You're in my thoughts and prayers!

Love,

Sister Garbett