May 19, 2014

TRANSFERS.

I will be staying in Paradise Ridge and my new companion will be Sister Rose. Sister McWilliams is leaving and she is going to be serving in President Mullen's ward! Hahahaha. I'm just glad that I'm not going to his ward. Too much pressure. But I'm so glad to stay! :)

Wednesday we went on exchanges! I was in the Quail Run Ward with Sister Wood. We walked up and down a lot of hills. That's really all I remember... and it was really hot. Wrong day to wear my hair down. By hot, I mean it was 80* outside. Hahaha to my Arizona family!

Thursday was weekly planning. We have a cemetery next to our apartment, so we decided to be all creative and fun and do weekly planning outside in the cemetery. It was TONS of fun. Chilling with all the cremated people. No big deal. We were outside in the sun for 3 hours. It was nice and warm and we had a picnic. Then, we got in the car and I look down and my right leg is BRIGHT RED. So red. I had a sunburn from my ankle to my knee on only one leg. How does that happen? I have no idea. And my arms got burned too. And I have a nice burn line from my watch. :) Its all a tan now, but in the picture I look awful. It was painful for a few days. 

                                                  

Let me tell you about Sundays.

At home:

Sunday morning ... "Is it Sunday already?"

On my Mission:

Monday-Saturday "Sunday is right around the corner! Who do we need to go see to get them to church?!"

Church has turned into this huge event every weekend. The whole reason we go out and teach people is so we can get them to church on Sunday. So church has gone from "no-stress" to "high-stress". This week we had 6 investigators in church. It was so fun to see the ward talking to them and helping them all feel welcome and invite them to sit with their families. :) The opening prayer in sacrament meeting was given by Bro. Taylor. He's a little out there. But way nice and so funny. In his prayer he gave Sister McWilliams and I a shoutout. 

"Please bless the Sister missionaries in our ward, Sister MAC and Sister Gardanier. They are beautiful sisters."

The bishop flashed us a look after the prayer and we all started laughing. So funny. People who have a sense of humor are awesome. :) We love shoutouts! :)

Jefferson - I think I've mentioned him before. we taught him this week and he is just so golden. He was telling us about how he loves the Book of Mormon and that he agrees with all the things it says, but just because he likes it, that doesn't make it true. At the end of the lesson, he basically bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and that it was true. We brought that to his attention and he just sat and pondered on it. Then we told him transfers are coming and that one of us might be leaving. He says "well, if you two get the boot, make sure the new missionaries come meet with my still." Ahhhh! :) He's so great.

I'm so glad to be serving a mission! Make sure you pray for the missionaries serving in your ward and each of their investigators by name. :) Every investigator needs prayers, no matter where they're at in their conversion. :)

I love you! Thanks for all your love. :)

All My Love,

Sister Gardanier

May 12, 2014

Skype #3

I've been getting a ton of emails from my missionary friends who are out and all the subjects of their emails are "Happy Mother's Day!" or anything of that nature. Haha. So, Happy Mother's Day to all the women. Even if you don't have any kids. You have been a role model to someone at some time and that is just as important. :)

This week we taught 37 lessons. However, I don't feel like our week was really that busy. Our goal for next week is to teach 40 lessons. Which will be awesome for the last week of the transfer! :)

The highlight of the week is Charlie. I wish I could have recorded our conversation with him this week. It was so funny. And really odd. He told us that he's been on earth since the beginning of time. He's created this device (he's created lots of devices, mind you) that can tap into the electric pulses in the air and he can listen to aliens through it. And that he has this contraption that he's created that he uses to alter the human mind. He's done it to 25 people already. He told us that the government is watching him really close because he's created a device that can get rid of 80% of the drugs, which would but the drug companies out 3 trillion dollars a year.  Ridiculous. He also told us that one day an emblem appeared on his hand that showed him what planet he was from. Sister McWilliams and I really didn't know what to do. So, we told him that God loves all of his children and that we are all important to him. He didn't let us pray with him. Too bad. I don't think he'll be getting baptized in this life. :)

On P-day last week we went on a hike! It was SO pretty. Pictures don't so it justice. If you ever come to Moscow, I know where to go! :)

Thursday we had zone conference! It was so cool! We did this "game" thing. President sent a set of missionaries out to find someone to bring back to the building so another set of missionaries could teach them. In front of the other 50 missionaries, President, Sister Mullen, and the AP's. Dang. They brought back this girl they found at WalMart. She was SO golden. For reals. The sisters who taught her did so well. The lesson was perfect. She was crying and she said she's been looking for the truth and it was a miracle that they found her. Basically she's getting baptized soon. Probably. 

I can't think of anything else super cool. Sorry! :(

I'm so grateful for MY MOM. She's the coolest. I've been so blessed to have had her as my support through all the trials of life. She's been the biggest cheerleader, chauffeur, cook, and doctor. I hope to be half the mom she is! :)  

I love you!

Sister Gardanier 

May 5, 2014

Happy Cinco de Mayo! We aren't having any super fun fiestas. :( But P-days are always fun! I hope you eat lots of Mexican food for me! :)

This week nothing super exciting happened. Unfortunately. But there was one lesson that was SO FUNNY. My whole email will probably be about this lesson we had. I wrote 2 pages in my journal about it. It was so worth it.

So, Annette. I don't know if I'd told you about her yet, so I'll do it now. We tracted into her. When we met her, she was drunk. Hahaha and Sister McW didn't even notice. SO FUNNY. Annette literally can't even form a sentence. My companion mouths the sentence to me, "Is she even accountable?!" ...and I mouth back, "Not right now! She's drunk!". The look on Sister McW's face was priceless. "OOHHHH." Hahaha. Anyways. Annette is super nice and definitely needs the gospel in her life. We also met her caretaker, Randy. He's super elect. Except he doesn't live in our area. But we're going to teach him anyways. :) So this past week we had a lesson with her and Randy. We start walking to the apartment door and we can hear weird latino rap music blaring from her open windows. We walk in and it's like a smoke box. No joke. There's this other guy sitting at her table smoking and drinking with her. He's wearing this weird military costume. It's got german patches all over it. He has this Hitler mustache except its curled on the ends. Modern-day Hitler. No joke. His hair is all greasy and it looks like it's supposed to be a comb over, but he slept on it the night before. He introduces himself as Roger, Annette's MINISTER. Are you kidding me? And then proceedes to say "I've had quite a bit to drink, so I'm not in the right state of mind to have an intelligent conversation with you girls".  Okay. We aren't here to talk to you ANYWAYS. We're talking to Annette and she's drunk as well. I turn to Sister McW who's trying to teach the lesson we've planned. I shake my head at her. We will not be teaching. The spirit will not be there and we need to get out ASAP. She nods and closes her Book of Mormon.  Roger is being SO obnoxious. He's trying to talk over us about random stuff that doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. Annette's drunk, The room is all smoky. Roger is trying to talk over me (yeah, like that's going to happen), and I'm really annoyed because I want TO GET OUT OF THERE before I punch Roger in the face. Not a joke. Roger then starts to roll a cigarette (mind you, he's still rambling about nothing and talking over me... not cool) and Randy (Annette's caretaker) says to Roger "Would you mind waiting to light up? That's not really appropriate right now".  So Roger gets up and goes outside to smoke. After he leaves, Randy tells me to sit in Roger's seat. (Since I was the only one standing).

We FINALLY have a decent conversation. Then Roger comes back in and stands next to me. He says to me, "Can I have my seat back?".  I jump up and say something super sweet like "Of course! Sorry about that".  I thought Randy was going to deck him. Then we try to share a scripture and Roger is trying to talk over us...again. Long story short, we shared a scripture and got out. 

We had two miracles this week! I'm going to try and redeem myself from the paragraph above. We got 2 new investigators within 45 minutes of each other. Illi was the first one. We started talking to him and he was NOT INTERESTED. At all. In my head I'm like,  "We need to leave. This is wasting our time." We started talking about the Book of Mormon and how God has impacted his life. As he started talking about his struggles he's been having in his life, the spirit softened his heart right in front of us. You could see the change on his face. He ended up accepting a Book of Mormon and everything. It was so great. The spirit is real. we saw it with our own eyes this week. Then we knocked on a random door (okay, not so random. we were following the spirit).  A girl opened the door and it was a girl we had street contacted 3 weeks ago who didn't call us back. We set up a follow up appointment but she didn't show. OH WELL. Now we know where she lives.

ANYWAYS. I'm super over my time, but we also went Blitzing. Try it... it was so fun. 

I love all of you. I'LL SEE THE FAM ON SUNDAY! 

Love you.

Sister Gardanier

                                  Our Moscow, Idaho District!

April 28, 2014

80,000+

This week went by so fast. We taught 33 lessons this week. No big deal. :) This won't be a long email or anything. I got super distracted during my email time and I don't have a ton of time. 

We got 6 new investigators.

I'll give you a run down of all the peeps we're teaching.

Gary - LA (less active). Rough past 10 years. RM (Returned missionary). Has a past of doing bad stuff and things like that. TOTAL SWEETHEART. We're working on reactivating him right now. He came to church on Sunday and brought his nonmember friend! Who the heck does that?! It was awesome! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and ended up talking about the Atonement for basically the whole lesson. He cried a lot. is it bad that I enjoy making people cry? It's just a visual cue that they're feeling the Spirit! :) He talked to the bishop on Wednesday and is working on repenting. :) He's already committed to leaving his past behind him.  His stories about how it felt to go through withdrawals and the pain of everything has assured me I will NEVER do anything like that....EVER. Poor guy. 

Doug - LA (less active) for over 40 years. He lives in Genesee. Its a SUPER small town in our ward. It's a 15 minute drive from our apartment to the town. look it up on a map. It's pretty great. Anyways.... he has lung cancer and he's living on "borrowed time" as he called it. Haha. He wanted nothing to do with the church and then he got super sick and called his brother (who lives in Southern Idaho) to come give him a blessing. His brother left right away and was at his house the next day to give him a blessing. Here is Doug's version of the blessing he received... "I know my brother. I know how he talks, what he says, everything. He's my brother. I can tell you one thing for sure. That was not my brother talking. I know it was from God." He was crying and everything as he was telling us the story. He said he's never been more open to the church and that when he gets better, he'll come back to church. :) We set up a time to go back and see him and his NON MEMBER WIFE who's been reading the Book of Mormon. Miracles.

A New Investigator! He's a referral from some sister missionaries in another area. The lesson didn't go very well.  He takes a long time to think about the questions we ask him. The lesson was full of awkward silences and it didn't go as planned. And we also had a less active member with us who we were trying to fellowship. We felt so bad it was awkward for her. More to come on him...

Thomas and Kelli - Golden investigators. This week we talked to them about the church organization blah blah blah. And we told them that there were 80,000+ missionaries serving world wide. Kelli Says "yeah, and half of them are in Moscow" hahahahaha. There are like 10 sets of missionaries that cover the Moscow, Idaho area. Lessons with them are HILARIOUS. They're still praying about a baptism date. They came to church on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours! That's huge.Hahaha.

It SNOWED on Sunday. What's up with that? But it didn't stick. Good thing because we're on bikes. 

Jefferson - He's an investigator who doesn't realize he's golden. Hahaha. He's new. He read through Jacob 5 in 3 weeks. He has awesome questions and really wants to learn...but doesn't think he'll ever get baptized. Psh. That's what he thinks. 

Yeah this ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated. You're welcome. :)

I miss you all so much. I hope you all have been enjoying the warm weather. I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever warm up here....

Study the talk "Missionary Work and the Atonement" by Holland. ITS' SO GOOD. 

I love all of you. Thanks for all your love and support. Constantly pray and ask for help when you need it. The Atonement is "infinite and everlasting" and it was made for us to use all the time. Christ already paid the price for ALL of it. not partially, or half, but all of it. We need his help ALL THE TIME. I've taught the Atonement a lot this week, and I've learned a lot.

I love you.

Sister Gardanier

                                  12 month mark...Gone one whole year...Wha Hoo!!