August 27th, 2012

Me with Elder Walch and Elder Kunzler on top of our roof for transfer day before Elder Walch got sent to Palawan.

This is before Rosemar left to go back home to Bacolod. It's us, Rosemar, Jacob and Jarad

This is the morning before the baptism at the temple tour with Janet, Sister Bunny and her son, Flynt.

Elona's baptism!:D That is the Nanay she works for.

Hello! First of all, that's really great about Justin getting his mission call! I'm really excited for him! I still haven't received any pictures though... That's ok though. I can't believe he leaves so soon. He is going to be a great missionary. I'm going to make a video once I get my camera totally fixed. I haven't been able to really find a good place where I could get it fixed though... I'm going to look around a little more today. Don't worry! :D It has been a really really amazing week though. Elder Kunzler and I have been working so hard in our area. We also went on exchanges with our district leader, Elder Grob. Elder Grob is a great missionary, he worked in our area because he had a baptismal interview to do and I worked in his with Elder Pugmire in his area. Something that's different about their area is that while running an area, they are also the finance and supplies office elders, so they don't get to work in their area a whole lot like everyone else. Elder Pugmire and I had a really good day though, we taught a few less actives and found a few really good new investigators. We were even able to commit one to baptism! :D Sister Alona was baptized last week! :D Which is really great! She was so happy and she was really emotional when she bore her testimony. That has always been one of my favorite things being here is hearing new converts bear their testimony of the restored Gospel. Something that was also amazing about the baptism was that Sister Reyna Spoke! :D She had her talk on baptism and did such an amazing job! She has been doing really great. Elder Kunzler and I both think she is going to go on a mission in a year. We even jokingly (but seriously) brought it up once, we said that she will be a missionary and all she said was "Sana.." which means hopefully. It would really be the best if she went. Something else that is really awesome about our area is that we have a ton of people to teach. I actually don't have enough time to write everyone in here.... Elaine is doing great, so is Albert, and Janet, they all came to church last week. I think they will all be baptized too in September. We also have the Saberola family again, they now have baptismal dates, we have 2 other investigators, Sheryl and Margie, who both have baptismal dates, Brother Ramon has a baptismal date, so does sister Anna, who has been taught for 2 and a half years. Actually she has been really amazing. In our area book she has 5 teaching records she has been taught by countless missionaries, including myself and Elder Duero(we stopped teaching her because she was not progressing and went on vacation for a while)...... Well about a week ago, we decided to try and visit her. So we did. Her problem by the way is her boyfriend, who has been inactive for a really long time(years...) and they aren't married, but living together but do not have plans to be married. The first lesson we just reviewed a few things with her about the restoration and about baptism and gave her a goal date. Then the next lesson we felt really impressed to talk about family prayer. I also did a little drawing on the back of my planner that showed her when 2 people focus what they do on teachings of Jesus Christ, they become closer together. We committed her to have family prayer every night and promised her if she would there would be peace at home and her husband would actually have a desire to come back to church. We visited Sister Anna a few days later and right away she told us that she had tried doing family prayer for the last 5 nights and she told us that Brother would come to church that Sunday... and he did! It was a really great spiritual experience. We never even taught Brother Marlon(Anna's husband) once but yet he found that desire to come to church. It was really amazing! It's really just the power that the teachings of Christ has on people. I will send you a pic of the drawing I did. Oh and sister Anna came to the temple tour last Saturday. I really think she could also be baptized this September, but it really depends on Brother Marlon... Another new investigator we have, who has been to church 3 times now, is Brother Joel. I guess he isn't that new...Anyways his girlfriend was less active but has been to church 3 times now and Brother Joel has a baptismal date for September as well. We just need to make sure they get married first, which is what they want. Another great thing, was yesterday, we only had found 5 new investigators for the whole week but our goal was 5. So we did some finding after church and found a new family of 7 who want to be taught and agreed to be baptized on the first lesson! We do not have a date yet, but we are really excited about this family, they are the Sanchez family. We are hoping they will progress, they were really receptive in the first lesson. And also we have Brother Arthur who is another great investigator. Really receptive and has a lot of questions. The ones I mentioned are the ones that are really progressing and doing great! :D Church was really great too. We had so many less actives and investigators come that some of the active people had to sit outside. The whole church was filled. It was soooo crazy. We had a less active family come, another Tatay came for the first time, then we had 7 investigators there. The chapel was sooo full. We also hit all of our goals last week and hit 91% of the standard of excellence. We would have hit 100% though if we had one more investigator come to church... Anyways so that is about all the really exciting things that happened last week. Oh yea, another great thing is I'm not very tired today, because we really just rested this morning after studies and stuff so this email actually looks like an email! We are working so hard though. A cool thing is we have 12 people committed to baptism on a specific date and I think we might be able to get 8 more(The Sanchez family and Brother Arthur). So we are getting really busy. But it is great! :D That's about all the excitement for me this week. Thank you all so much for your support! Congrats on your call Justin! I will send you an email if I have time today... Also please tell Kameron I love him too and hope he is doing great. Oh and I still don't know if I am going to stay in Montreal... I might just live and go to college on Palawan after the mission. Haha. Just kiddin! I love you all! Have a great week! :D Elder Gagnon