Jordan Gardanier: July 14, 2014

Lesson on the Ten Commandments

This week has been a period of growth for me. Which is really hard, but also really good! :) I've learned so much about myself and about my Savior. I know that through Him, all things are possible. ALL things. Nothing is exempt from the Atonement.

Moscow is getting so hot. This week Sister Mitchell (the coolest member ever) showed up at our apartment with 2 more fans! Oh it's been so great. Our apartment feel 100 times better and I don't feel like I'm in Arizona anymore. Haha. So we have 2 blowing on us at night and it gets freezing at night, and we love it! :)

Monday we went to an "almost wedding." Hahaha let me explain. Remember that this is during our P-day. And as missionaries, we don't waste any time on p-days. So the Palouse sisters have an investigator and a less-active who have been on and off for like a month. All of a sudden, they get a text from the investigator saying that they want the sisters to be witnesses at their courthouse wedding. They meet with the judge at 4:30 (p-day ends at 6) so we were planning on only being there to sign the papers and get out so we could get to p-day. Long story short, the bride wasn't supposed to be getting married (she has some mental thing. I don't really know) and she was doing this behind everyone's back. We all arrived, and she suddenly "had to go tell her ride something" and she left in the middle of the paperwork. And then never came back! She just left us all standing there. So the wedding didn't actually happen, unfortunately. :(

Last week we got a media referral, so we went to go contact her on Tuesday. She lives way out in a part of our area that I didn't even know existed. I'm letting another area use my GPS (about a year ago, she was constantly getting lost in Spokane Valley and asked us to send her Grandma and Grandpa's old Garmin that we had in our closet, and only used on road trips. She as used it a ton...Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) because they didn't have one and they cover like 8 towns and it's all boonie and I knew they could us is more than we could. So we were like "Yeah, we'll be able to find the road no problem.". We got SO LOST. Hahahaha. We went 20 miles out of the way. Whoops. :) But we ended up finding her house and she is so golden! She invited herself to church and accepted a Book of Mormon. Way cool. She didn't end up coming to church, but we're going to go back out and see her (now that we know how to get there....) :)

Wednesday was so funny. We went to see Annette (a non member they have been trying to teach on and off for about two months) and she was drunk. She usually tells us if she's been drinking because we told her we can't teach her because she won't be able to feel the spirit. So we went and I immediately knew she was intoxicated. We didn't know how far gone she was, so we tried to teach our lesson on the Ten Commandments. So I talk about the Ten Commandments a little bit and all of a sudden, Annette says "God EXCUUUUSED ME FROM THE 10 COMMANDMENTS" and continued to talk about how if someone was coming after her she'd kill him. Oh gosh. We decide that this isn't going to fly. So I try to share a scripture about becoming like a child and Annette says, "Do you really believe that? That we can become like a child? Children are not perfect......" I'm trying so hard not to laugh. She tries to argue with us about how we can't become perfect. So we're like uhhh, we need to get out. Sister Rose asks " Have you been drinking? Because we told you that the spirit can't be here if you've been drinking" And Annette answers "The spirit....IS HERE!". Hahahahahaha... now I'm feeling like we need to leave before I bust up laughing and break my "dignified" face.

Tony is our investigator who's getting baptized on July 23. We met with him and his wife this week to go over the baptism program. He asked if I would speak at the baptism! :)

Currently waiting for my "trunky papers" ...which is the paperwork from the mission office that I have to fill out. It asks questions like "how do you want to get home" and "how much luggage do you have", and stuff like that. Everyone I came out with has gotten those papers EXCEPT FOR ME. Maybe I'm not going home? :( But I called the mission office and told them. They said they would re-send the paperwork. DON'T WORRY! :) (whew!)

I'm so jealous of all my family going to California this week! I hope you all have lots of fun! :) (this last week the entire Gardanier family met in Mission Beach. We had a huge group there... minus 2 missionaries, a family with a newborn, and one cousin. It might have been our largest group ever!!)

Remember how much you mean to so many people. God loves you and is so proud of who you've become. :)

I love you!

Sister Gardanier :)