prayer is important

Christmas time is awesome. why? because people are remembering the importance of Jesus Christ and his infinite atonement, therefore they become happier. it makes me happy because no one bashes, no one says mean things. everyone just remembers their saviour and in returned are blessed.. my inter most desires would be for us to have every month like the month of Dec. where everyone could be "forced"  one could say, to remember Jesus. but i feel like it was like that, then the specialness of remembering would decrease dramatically. its makes me even more grateful for church because that's exactly what it does.. this week was soo much better, the book of mormon never fails, it's the best friend that i could have.  With todays wisdom, knowledge, guidance. i love it. it's got everything. along with prayer.. i think i've increased my testimony a lot this week. never in my life have i prayed so much. i feel like an idiot because the scriptures say to always pray, without ceasing. so i thought I'd give it a go.. and boy can tell you the difference.  before i thought i was praying A LOT but i couldn't say without ceasing.  i think i might have found the thing that i was missing but at the same time there are bazillion things to have realized. lets be real, prayer is pretty important, you all are probably thinking, elder, really, are you seriously finding this out right now? i do feel like i've just notched up my prayer testimony a couple steps.

love you guys lots.

 

ps. mom, i don't know if I've mentioned this already but we started eating super healthy. i love it. so thanks for making us eat all of those gross broccoli casseroles at an early age to get me accustomed, because now i love it.

elder garlock

Not of the World

 i feel blessed today because i can actually see the blue sky. i wish you guys good luck on the project. sounds pretty intense with a lot of detailed time. i cant even believe that it is almost Halloween. i am just amazed every day of how sheltered we are from the world. where we literally live in the world but not of it. i consider it a blessing. but sometimes its just nice to know things.. like we heard that they found some pyramids in the gulf of Mexico! is that even true? but i love it at the same time because the world just kinda sounds.....well, scary. obviously there are a lot of good things. but its just so filthy.. maybe iv forgotten of how good the "Utah bubble" was.

 

this week was productive. but everyone's schedule just didn't line up with ours. passing by at the wrong time. people not being home.. although we had some quality lessons. not a lot but some good ones.. we set a date for a lady called Lupita for the 2 of dec. we are pumped for that... the challenge is work... work work work.. why do people work so much i just don't understand.. we are working very hard to help people understand the importance of what we have instead of work.. we will win the fight. the work will go on and worldly things like work will not be an issue. baptisms are coming and we are ready with our hearts and minds, strengths and anything we can muster to have a baptism.

 

love you guys

elder garlock

Hola buenas tardes

Every Monday morning i try and think of stuff to say, and nothing always comes to mind.  yet at the end i am always trying to cram stuff in, we set three dates of baptism this week. whoohoo! pretty pumped for that.. although they were soft dates.. but that's how they all are in the beginning.. the first one we set with our investigator Javier. he is sweet.. just super busy.. the other three was a family.. (the most stereotypical Mexican family ever! haha i love them so much!!) the dads name is Jose, and his wife is named Maria Guadalupe, with three daughters. the parents have absolutely no education therefore it is very.....very...very hard to help them understand.. a lot of repetition..change of subject really fast. sometimes when i teach white people they look at me with that face saying " dude, I'm not a retard". The teaching culture is soooo much different.

It's kind of hard to switch off sometimes because we will have an in depth conversation with someone then the next moment we have to simplify the message so somebody with the age of 8 can understand us. i love it because teaching Mexicans is so  fun.. white people are gross and mean.. Mexican are stubborn and nice. which one would you prefer?

 

Nothing really to tell.. me and elder Madsen thought we were going to get shot/robbed.. we were opening the door to the car getting out, and some super sketchy looking guy with a bag and a sweater, walking towards us. he was holding to what looked exactly like a pistol in the pocket of his sweatshirt. started to do a weird jog towards our car making eye contact..(yes, in this moment i was freaking out inside) so naturally i got out and kicked him in the knee stopping his jog and then grabbing the gun while he took it out.. haha jk, i just froze waiting to see what would happen.. so he changed direction a little bit and just passed us while we sat there in the car. side note( i have NO IDEA WHY i said with my door half open "hola buenas tardes)....it just came out of my mouth i don't even know why, but he didn't say anything, just disappeared in the yard behind our car...it was super intense adrenalin was going through my body for the next 10 min. just thinking what if, what if, what would i have done. well that's my little story. I'm super pumped for general conference.

 love you guys a lot.

elder garlock

Finding the elect

The weeks are going by so so so so fast. i just can't believe it. there is not to much to report. we are in the process of teaching the people we have more often.. because we always just pick up good amount of people to teach but we can only teach them once a week. or we just never find them again. it's super hard because they are "so busy" all the time.. so i always have this fight within myself saying.. "ditch them, they aren't interested" or" they just aren't ready yet".. but at the same time i think "anything is possible, one more lesson could change them, one more, one more thing could help them understand"..... because i don't want to waste my time with them, but i want to treat everyone like a golden investigator... anyways just a tiny little tangent.

On Saturday we went to stop by an investigator and invited him to church.. he as 7 kids 15,10,8,6,4,4,1.. and they are crazy little fellers.. so we are sitting down and he just basically tells his kids to shut it..(but in a lot nicer way) and says to us "hey i want to come to church but i don't know where it's at and i don't know how to arrive with these directions" so we said we would stop by in the morning and show him.. He came to church, and enjoyed it!! it was so nice. because the other two investigators that we had planned to come canceled last minute. me dio mucho animo!

Flakes

As far as the work. this past week was probably one of the most flakiest weeks of my mission. everybody flaked out.. Everybody....... We had two lessons fall through that were planned, halfway through the week we tried everything to help people keep their commitments/lessons... phone calls, notes, a solid yes or no for setting specific times to pass by. our numbers were awful, but we still had a pretty good week, we taught some really good lessons and met some new people to pass by. i wish i had more to say, but i am content. my companion is great. i have good health, food, LOTS of candy(thanks dad) and am super excited for this week, we are having Russel M. Nelson coming this Saturday.  Then Elder Laurence C Corbridge is coming. so we are super pumped.

Hump day

Hump day should be deleted from the missionary vocabulary..because i am certainly not going back down. 

 

i am definitely not done working my way up...... if anything it's sad that i only have one year left.. i don't even know where the first year went. obviously i was aware, but it went by to fast..i guess it's what they all say no? i don't even want to think how fast this next year is going to come.. Although I'm super excited because i see how much i've progressed as a person and a missionary this past year.......and  i can't even imagine how much i will change this upcoming year. pumped for that..

 

this week was awesome...the work is just...clicking.. we got so many suavecitos, or soft baptismal commitments..  we are.. well, i am just so tired of people avoiding the baptismal.  they just don't want to change or leave their traditions. or they just don't understand or don't want to understand our message because they know secretly that it's true. so i just decided to go on this bold strait up approach.. bold but not overbearing. and i am literally fighting for their salvation and well being... can i just tell you a quick story.. ok super summarized version.. we are in a lesson with a member. we finish the resurrection/b.o.m/prayer.. we asked the soft baptismal question.. he said he is catholic..(20 min before he said he doesn't believe in what they believe, just the traditions he believes) soooo after some simple explaining of the "chain" b.o.m-joseph smith-true church.. we asked again.. .he said that it would be to hard to leave his traditions.  at this point i'm thinking "does this guy even love Jesus, does he even know the importance of him.... of our message!?" so i asked him who Jesus was for him.. he told me life, that Jesus gives him life.. so i said more or less something like this.. "so forget all religions. forget all other churches and their beliefs.. you tell me right now. if Jesus told you to leave your traditions of the catholic church, and to follow him, to walk with him. would you do that?".. then this guy tells me that it would be to hard for him to do that.... i was stunned, i didn't even know what to say... so then i paused and rephrased that little situation a little more in depth... and said something like this.. " so your church....that you know is not the true church. and the traditions it has... are more important to you than Jesus?" to make the story a little shorter i basically said that when he knows that these things are true it would be like Jesus asking him to do that.... and he knows these things to be true he would be baptized.. it literally felt like a battle for his salvation. it was crazy.

First Quote

I thought id start my little letter this week by posting my VERY FIRST QUOTE that i thought of yesterday. Inspired by the book of mormon. i know i could have probably perfected it a little more.. but i wanted to share it today.. ok   

 

"If missionary work is not hard or challenging, then you are doing something wrong. Likewise, if the missionary standards seem like burdens, something needs to change... and with sacrifice, diligence, and humble dedication, our "burdens" or standards will give us strength. Our challenges will be soaked up through the atonement of Christ, and we see that it is through these things that we become purified and sanctified beings."

 

I've never really been big into making quotes, but it just came to me, and so I'd thought i better share it with you guys.

this week was good, we contacted a potential and it went super good. the only problem i see with him and his family being baptized is time. they are a family of 10 and so it is always busy. but i am super excited for them, and they will be baptized. we just need to find them... ohhh it always comes down to just finding them..but it is good.... it is hard.. mentally, physically and emotionally. there are  a lot of things that i could say and feelings that i could express, but im just so very grateful for the atonement and how we just... hmmm are supported and helped out by things that only the atonement can do. if that makes sense.

Woodburn- super pumped

I totally forgot to tell you guys that transfers were coming up.. it was a big suprise because i got Transferred!! I'm now in Woodburn which apparently is about the most mexican place in the mission.. street signs, stores, etc. are in spanish. To add to that i now have a spanard. WE SPEAK SPANISH. it is so nice. obviously we have to speak english sometimes because.. we are still in america. but ... haleluja! its going to be so much easier to speak because the option to speak english is kind of gone. he speaks it.. just not very good.. not to be negative but this companionship might be a little struggle with teaching though.. but they all do so we will work things out..  both of our end results are to help everyone become converted to the gospel. its all good..

 

I am super excited for this area. i don't know anybody but i know its going to be awesome.. when all of the greenies entered i just got super pumped about everything.. i have no idea how and don't know why.. its like all of their greenie faith lit mine up again.. which is awesome. how did i lose mine? did i lose my "greenie fire"?.. now that I'm thinking about it i lost a little bit of it. maybe the faith part.. but that doesn't matter because now I'm super pumped! more pumped than when i first got into the field. even  more ready to change lives and convert people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.. i know this transfer is going to be a little harder then others, but I know its going to be worth it..

I love you guys a lot. I to pray for you guys.

 

Love elder garlock

Fishing

For the record i did not chip any of my front teeth.. just the back one. so its not that big of a deal. 

 

We have been super busy the past couple of weeks, we have been teaching a lot.. and yet we haven't really seen success.. its really kind of sad. It's like everyone who starts progressing slips through our fingers and we can't teach them anymore. It's like going fishing and the fish is on the hook and almost in the boat but then something happens and its gone.. it is super discouraging because this has been an ongoing process for.  Well basically my whole mission. I know I can't get discouraged, because that's not what we do out here. It's hard but I know it will pay off eventually, we just have to keep being faithful. On a more happier note about a week ago we started to act out stories in the book of Mormon and people love it. it is so fun to do. I'm just so glad that the small  things always outweigh the bad things.

So happy

so i was eating split peas and i totally chipped my tooth..! fail!.. 

This week has been super busy.. we have been working a lot with members and less actives along with investigators. i think all of our work has paid off because this week things just seemed to click... or i just realized that...the members love us and we love the members, they are starting to help us in the work. we are called the "esuper elders" because they think elder Adams looks like spider man and that i look like superman. although it is still difficult to work with some people in the ward it is much better.. I'm just glad that the members like and trust us now. i don't really have anything else to say. we are having a lot of little miracles every day.. i just don't understand why I'm happy sometimes, because it is so stressful and frustrating. but at the same time. I'm happy. 

Too much food & Great Mission moment

All is well here in McMinnville... so you remember when i said that i love the food here.. i still do.. but it is sad because im forced to be a food addict.. it is soo frustraiting sometimes. we get fed soooooo much.. I'd have to say every 2 hours on an average day or maybe a little less someone gives us food.. it shouldnt make me mad, i should be gratefull that our investigators and members likes us.. but come on. it makes me so angry because im gaining weight i weigh 190 Pounds!! its sick!.. the worst part is that i can't decline the food.. i think i offended one of our members because i literally could not keep eating the food. and so they assume i am a picky eater.. so now ill probably be known as a picky eater in the ward.. it's frustrating but i dont care. they just dont understand that my body can only eat so much... i cant even start to describe to you guys how important food is to them. it is really kind of sad.. on a happier note, I'm loving everything else in the mission, my companion is awesome and the weather is FINALLY SUNNY!! it gives me so much happiness.

 

We are starting to teach a lot more, we taught 20 lessons.. whoo hoo.. we still don't have any dates for baptism.. something super humbling and super cool that we saw this past week is that we went to go visit one of our investigators who is in a less active family(actually just the dad). our investigator wasn't there but the dad was. he let us in.. long story short. he is this scary Mexican.. and by the end of our "chat" he was crying just opening up his heart to us, telling us how he wants to change, and how he wants to come back to church and how he wants to repent of all the things he's done and how he wants to go to the temple with his wife.. its lessons like that.. that make me grateful to be a missionary and to be able to help people. its lessons like that, that makes the mission worth it.. to see someone change or want to change and come unto Christ.

 

i look forward to the call this next sunday, love you guys

Testimonies rock

The weeks are going by way to fast. this week was so awesome. we went to the temple. that is always so nice. the Oregon temple is so ridiculously nice. it just blows my mind. we also went to the new visitors center.. no joke it felt like i slept for 20 years woke up and was in the future when i walked into the visitors center. its not very big but it is soooo cool. technology is crazy this days.... yes i do have resin and a bridge. and yes i can play it but i only have like an hour or two each p-day.. so not much. and yes it is very country. the other day a guy drove his lawn mower to the gas station..but that's only one part of our area.(ya we cover A LOT of area)we also cover cities. but there are not a lot of cows or animals.. but A LOT of grapes fields or whatever you call them, so many.. apparently around here the wine is super nice. they are some of the top vineyards for wine in the country. that's what iv heard.

The power of testimony. a couple of weeks ago we visited with a less active, and briefly chatted with her son.. who was not interested at all. then the next time we visited he answered the door so we talked to him for about 20 min.. he didn't know if he believed in God, and didn't want anything to do with the church. we bore some sweet testimony on a lot of things. then a couple days later we stopped by again and the mom said that the son said he wanted to go to church.. we were so shocked. definitely the last think i was expecting to hear... a couple things to learn from this.. testimonies rock and are so powerful.. second that i need to have more faith. its not like i didn't have faith that he would change.. but i lacked the faith that he could change soon, that he could start now, in any moment to change his life. there are many other little thoughts branching off of just those two things... they are so so important to have..

I'm doing great, my companion is great. best one yet. our area is slowly getting better waiting to explode. lots of work, but life is good.

Love, elder garlock

Conference

conference was amazing.. so sweet and yet bitter sweet because i realized that nobody takes advantage of it.. its the PROPHET speaking and people are sleeping!?! ward members were sleeping and some talks were perfect for them.. just perfect.. kind of got a little angry.. then i realized when i was back home.. do you think i listened?...nope. do you think i cared that much? not as much as i should have.. i understand.. humbling indeed.

i love conference because its so general and yet so personal too. one talk can apply to two totally different people in two totally different ways... i met Paul's brother at the priesthood session so that was pretty sweet. also for p-day yesterday the other elders have season passes to the aviation museum. so we went for free! best day of my life! so awesome..

Love you, Elder Garlock

McMinnville

so i went to go get my haircut yesterday, and we walked in and it was totally a Mexican salon. who would of thought. so when it comes my turn i tell her what i want and point to a picture of what i want my hair to look like, and then next thing i know she grabbed the electric cutters and took off some hair on the side, turned me around. and said "like this? You want it shorter?".. and to my surprise basically that side of my head was super short.. and so i just said "yep, that length is just fine but no shorter".. but i don't really think it mattered.. needless to say, it didn't go so good. my hair looks like the typical teenage Mexican boy with uneven spots and so on. and doesn't look anything like the picture...oh well.. im so glad that hair grows out after awhile.. also we are going golfing next week so we thought we might as well have a theme. retro golfing. i got these nasty brown plaid bell bottoms with this seventies pink button up shirt. and one of those old school hats. it is going to be so awesome. also. elder Adams grandma worked with Dad up in Ogden. unless there was another Jay Garlock up there 10 or so years ago when we lived in Layton.. talk about a small world eh. she said that he was very nice guy.

the work

the work is good, there are a lot of really nice members and we have a great branch. at the same time we have a lot of less actives and a lot of fixing up to do.. Alot.. as of right now we are trying to gain the trust of the members because we all know that without that we can't do anything. they love us but they just don't know why we are here frankly and what their role as members are.. they need to understand that the branch is not going to grow or improve if they can't even keep the commandments within their home. can you see the process.. because they aren't keeping the commandments the branch isn't doing so hot. and they need to realize that.. and it is soooo hard because as missionaries you just want to be bold and tell it how it is but you just cant because it WILL offend them. this is exactly what happened not too long ago.. so we have to be bold but kind of in a loving different way.. we have some work to do here, I'm still excited.

Love to see change

so many things happened this past week, straight to the good stuff..ok so we had weekly planning. long story short we pray to see how many people we can prepare to be baptized six weeks from that day. we got six for an answer. so we followed it. we were on exchanges with another missionary that didn't really believe that we could do it, and had doubt. so the next day we visit this family and get 5 baptismal dates for the date that we planed. they still have one more child that could be baptized.. it was so awesome to see the numbers become names. we also got another baptismal date for the week right before the first one. it was a fantastic week. and yes i did get transferred and it was very hard to leave because i love all of our investigators and ward members. we were starting to get a lot of success, but i must say that i already love my new area and companion. I'm serving in McMinnville,(in our area we have this huge airplane museum, and i about wet my pants when i saw it, so awesome) and my companion is elder Adams. i am super excited. we have a lot of work ahead of us. but i am excited to see the change that we are going to make.. its always.. ALWAYS so satisfying to see the results of your hard work whether it being cooking, cleaning, fixing cars, creating something. the change within and in the changing of other people. i love being able to see the change in things.

love you guys much.

February 27, 2012

the work has slowed down (as far as numbers of lessons) but we have found some pretty sweet
people. that have alot of potential. more specifically named sara and her husband. she is a sister of one of our less actives. she basically told us this. "ya, sincerely.... i just want to know which one of these churches is the church of Jesus Christ..." i had to bite my tongue to see if i wasn't dreaming or something.. and when her husband heard the
word "elder" he ran out to see what was going on. 14 years ago he was taking missionary lessons, but he moved and lost contact.. the only way it could have gone better is if we set an actual date with them. They said they would be baptized, they just want to be sure its the right church.. it was such a sweet lesson. I'm super exited to teach them more. other than that its just been a real fight to find our investigators.. i am not being negative at all when
i say this nor am i trying to be mean but hispanic people are so flaky. i cant even tell you how many times our lessons drop through or they just are not there.. its frustrating sometimes.. its a fine line of quantity vs quality They call it work for a reason, everything is well.. work is very busy. i can honestly say i have such little time to think about home and stuff like that. Maybe the last five or ten minutes before i go to sleep but usually i just want to go to bed.
love you all. elder garlock

February 20, 2012

nothing very exciting happened this week. i really wish i could share a cool story or something. we almost got a baptismal date. but he didn't want to because his wife isn't interested very much, and he doesn't want to do it alone. afterward we had a really good chat with her and she is going to cook us dinner and going to buy us those masks that the Mexican wrestlers wear on nacho libre. also another funny moment is i was talking with elder sonntag( and yes he is related to them. he is his uncle and i think it was temple pres. but not sure) we were talking about the phrase me cayo bien. which means he/she fell good with me. or we hit it off kind of thing. when you meet someone its like saying ya he is cool we got along. and so i switched the phrase to i fell good with him/her. le cai bien. and right when i said that i stepped i little bit off of the sidewalk and fell right into a garden. there were no flowers or anything like that but i just totally fell belly first. luckily i had an old rain coat on so i didn't get the dirt on my suit. that was pretty funny.

that same night we were wondering where to go and who to visit because i didn't feel good about our plan A and elder sonntag didn't feel good about our plan B. so we prayed on the street to know what to do. so we went to Urbano and Juanna. (some investigator that are soooo hard to find) and they were there. we had a really nice lesson with them about the plan of salvation and she believed it was true. it was really cool.. it was sweet... and at the same time kind of annoying because they say they believe in the things we teach are true but they don't really understand our purpose. for example, some people say that they know Joseph Smith was a true prophet but they don't understand why the authority is important... but we have been making a big improvements with using illustrations and hands on activities. so its getting A LOT better though... on another note.. to keep it short.. the quantity of finding/teaching has gone down. but the quality is getting much better(for investigators) hopefully we can get a good balence of both.

i am doing really good. it's good that you told me about the coat because i was looking to buy one today. so that's good.....IV BEEN OUT FOR ALMOST 7 MONTHS.. SO CRAZY. i cant even believe it.

Feb 7, 2012

My new companion is great. his name is elder Sonntag, he is from Arizona. he is very musically talented.. we are singing in sacrament in two weeks.. notice the we (we will see how that goes.... first time for me). when i was with elder weyland, whenever we had 10 or fifteen min waiting for a meeting at the church i would play a simple hymn or two. i still don't really like the piano that much, but it has made me realize how much i miss playing the violin. then elder sonntag came in and he has added to that desire even more to play the violin. i am going to ask the pres. to see if i can have it sent here. i don't know how much it would cost to send something that big over here. so i guess now i am GIVING A HEADS UP for you guys to jump on it to send it over here if i can have it. tell me if there is going to be a problem with sending it and what not. and so we will have to see with that.

elder sonntag is great we are going to work together really good. of course there are small little things to work out for teaching and stuff but that's just expected with a new companion. other than that we get along just fine and dandy. he introduced me to object lessons. i always knew that they were good. but i have no idea why i didn't use them more in our lessons. i can already see the difference in our lessons. when tyler told me that our investigators are babies and just don't really know anything. how we need to teach simply and clearly. i always understood that but didn't really know how to go about it and teach. After a lot of things i learned from zone conference, district meetings, companionship study etc. there are two things that have helped. teach short, sweet, clear, don't blabber and just throw out doctrine. also, teach like you are teaching a little kid.. as easy as it sounds it's so hard.... of course with these two things there are many other.. hmmm...attachments on how to teach, what to teach , why etc.. all of the stuff to take into consideration. i am excited for this transfer and i feel like we are soooo close to unlocking our investigators doubts or concerns or whatever is delaying them.