A Note From Ashley

Hey everyone, 

I apologize for my lack of posting Elder Garrett's letters! Christmas was great, mostly because we got to talk to Elder Garrett! He sounds really good and is excited about the work he is doing.  Thanks to those who sent him Christmas presents and letters, they made his day! He will be sending home a SD card full of pictures, so I will post some of them when we get it. Below are 3 new letters.....Enjoy!

Ashley

Well this Saturday we have a baptism with Nancy Casamelhuapa!!! I'm so excited, its been a lot of work to get to this point but I know that I learned some lessons that I wouldn't of learned without it. I'm so grateful for the chance to be serving the Lord in Bakersfield,

This week we also taught Mark, he is doing great! We taught him the plan of salvation and now he is excited to get baptized so he can make it to the Celestial Kingdom! I started to laugh when I heard him say that, but he is really excited to be baptized. And he is so excited about the Book of Mormon, which makes me even more happy! He is reading it everyday and is changing things in his life to come closer to Christ!

Oh and Elder Wenz is staying in Bakersfield!!! I'm so excited that we get to stay together for at least one more transfer, and Elder Wenz is now the District leader! This is going to be a good transfer!!!!


It was good to hear from you yesterday!!!

Love you all
Elder Garrett

HEY! Well I'm so excited for Christmas!

 

This past week has been crazy and I'm not even sure where to begin! Since Elder Wenz hurt his shoulder and can't ride a bike we are walking everywhere! Its fun but it takes up so much time. We also have been bugging the members for rides all the time! They are going to start to hate us pretty soon.. ha ha. But they are all so willing to help us and make sure that we always have rides to our teaching appointments! 

 

We are still teaching Mark, he is around 20 years old and it turns out that his dad is a member already but hasn't been active for 15 years. We are going to start teaching his whole family soon as well. He has 6 siblings all younger than him! What a find! We were blessed to find them. Every time we ask Mark when he wants to meet with us he says AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!! So thats always comforting that he is really interested. He is understanding everything we teach him and is thirsting for more of it. He loves the Book of Mormon! His baptismal date is January 14th, I'm so excited to see him be baptized!

 

Nancy Casamelhuapa is being Baptized on December 31st still and is so ready for it. She is amazing! Every time we meet with her she amazes me with how much she knows! But then I remember that she has been going to church for 3 years.  We were so blessed to be teaching her. 

 

We haven't been able to teach David this week but we have seen him pretty much everyday.  We have a teaching appointment with him tonight, it will the first time that we will be teaching his whole family (his wife and two sons). We are planning to be setting his wife and his oldest son (9) with a baptism date! Its going to be fun! We are planning on teaching them the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Its my favorite lesson to teach besides the restoration, because we get to focus on baptism so much!

 

Well I will be talking to you in about 5 days!!!! I cant wait!

 

I love you all so much and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Elder Garrett.

Hey Family!!!

Well this week was a very interesting week! It started off great! We found this young guy named Marc tracting, and he invited us back to share with him what we believe and what we know to be true. We went back there the next day and taught him the restoration. He was very receptive and understood why there needed to be a restoration and when we asked him what he would do when he found out that this is the true church he would dedicate his life to it. Then we extended a invatation to be baptized and he excepted. He is going to be baptized on January 14th! I'm so excited that he wants to be baptized. And then we have David Tate who still wants to be Baptized and he is sharing the Gospel to his wife and kids now. So now we are going to teach him and his wife and two kids! One of the kids is 9 so thats so exciting! His date is January 14 as well.

And of course we have Nancy who still is excited for her baptism and has really been preparing for the last 3 years.  We are teaching her the lessons and extending commitments and making sure that she understands all the things that she is agreeing to when she enters into the covenant of baptism. Her date is December 31!

Elder Wenz crashed his bike Saturday, he seperated his shoulder. He is ok now just pushing some pills and making life funny.. ha ha! But now we have to walk everywhere, so thats gonna be fun. Tell the ward thank you so much for the cards, it made my day! And thank you so much for the gloves, beanie and the cd's! I'm so grateful for everyone.

Love you so much,
Elder Garrett

Address Change

Hey Everyone,


The California Ventura Mission Office is moving.  They will move on December 12th, so you can send your PACKAGES to the new address;

California Ventura Mission

3301 West Gonzales Road

Oxnard, CA 93036

If you are planning on sending Elder Garrett a Christmas present please make sure that it will be there by the 21st so the mission office can make sure that it is given to him by Christmas.  Better safe than sorry, just send it as soon as possible.  If you have any questions you can email me at ashleyrowbury05"at"gmail"dot"com.  

-Ashley 

Hey Family!

Well this week was cold! (Not really but it seemed cold!) It got around 32 degrees and my hands were freezing! Elder Wenz and I are ridding bikes like crazy out here. We are averaging around 20 miles a day, my legs are so tired but I love riding though.  The Lord is definitely showing us the blessings of the hard work.

Last Friday in weekly planning we set a goal to hand out 4 Book of Mormons each and leave a commitment to read and pray about it. So over the past 3 days we have been passing out Book of Mormons and leaving commitments like crazy! It helps if they make a commitment to reading it cause then they feel guilty if they haven't. We are really trying hard to help the people in this area come unto Christ.

During our Zone Conference last Wednesday President Castro was talking about the Doctrine of Christ and  when we use it in our teaching and declaring we are able to have the Lord's spirit more abundantly. Elder Wenz and I are starting to use it all the time in our declarations of the Gospel. This way when people are really excited about the Gospel, we know that they are more ready than someone who doesn't show that same excitement. It is helping us to know how is elect.

President Castro has also asked us how we ourselves are coming unto Christ. And reminded us that the Doctrine of Christ is a continual thing and that we always need to be trying to come unto Christ our entire lives. So I thought to myself how am I really coming unto Christ?  I thought of the person that I used to be and how there we so many things that I should have done better. Then I think of my life now. I'm always trying to make the right choices and I'm thinking of what the consequences of my actions will be. And then I realized that I really am trying to be more like Christ in everything that I do.

I'm so happy that I'm here serving the Lord. He is making things come to pass in my life that are truly miracles. I"m so greatful for the Book of Mormon and the guidance we can recieve from it.  I know that if we follow it's teachings that we are coming closer unto Christ.

I love you all and I'm sorry that I didn't send any letters last week, but I didn't get any stamps last Monday. (But I'm just on my way to get some!)
Miss you so much,

Elder Garrett