Christmas Tree Fun

This week was cool, literally and figuratively lol. Of course I talked about how I got a turkey in bowling last Monday. But even better is that on Tuesday, we took over one hundred Christmas trees off of a trailer, drilled a hole in the bottom of them, then set some of them up for display on a tree lot that sold trees for a charitable cause. It was really fun and we went back later in the week to load them up on people's cars and it was quite the experience! Transfers came in and I will be staying here in Fuquay-Varina through new years. I don't know who my new companion is yet. Throughout this last week, I've been reading through the come follow me and it's been awesome. I'm trying to get into the habit of doing it so that I can be used to doing it when I get home. I also have been listening to a lot of talks lately and my testimony of living prophets and apostles grow each day! I have been teaching a lot of members this past week about the light the world challenge for this year, it'll really complement the challenge president Nelson gave us last week and it'll bless us more than we think it will. I invite you all to do it with me and be sure to post on social media how it goes! Also, I posted an ad on Facebook for free service and people have been HITTING ME UP. This whole next week is going to be jam packed with service and I'll be sure to do some contacts with these peeps and invite them to learn of Jesus Christ. I'm sooo excited to see what this next transfer has in store and that I can have a clean slate with a new comp that'll go off on all of these potential members out here. I hope that he will be like Elder Lima, that would be my perfect match as we do the Lord's work. Just know that y'all are in my prayers and if you need anything, whether it's prayers or help understanding a gospel subject of any kind, let me know! Love you guys! See ya!

Amazing Messages

Hey all! We got together with a lot of the surrounding missionaries and played some games at Womble Park. Elder Hill brought some gloves and I played catch with him for the first time in like 2 years. I was surprised to learn that my knuckle ball has become exceedingly nasty to where it moves like somebody under the influence without spinning at all. I guess it just needed a little rest lol.

We were tasked with the special assignment this week to get anybody and everybody to watch the message from President Nelson. I took that to heart and doubled my efforts in speaking to anybody who would listen to my voice. I started going off and even made some pass along cards for the event. I caught the attention of my neighbor and started to talk with her. Her name is Lisa and she is a beast. Before I knew her name, she was known as "smoker lady" hahaha. But anyways, she starts saying that she would be interested in watching the message and then began to ask all of the weird questions about our church (multiple wives, if coke is banned, etc). Then she tells us that she was the 8th grade sex ed teacher for none other than DUSTIN JOHNSON as well as a few other athletes that play in college sports. We sadly haven't seen her yet, but I know that we're gonna have a lit conversation when we do! Another cool contact that I had was when I called an atheist that I found named Amin. He doesn't really care to learn much about God, but he seemed really excited to talk with us and asked us to send him the link about President Nelson's message and the church website! I wish that every contact was as spiritually uplifting as that was.

When the message came on Facebook, I was sooooo pumped. After watching, I felt weird because I was underwhelmed, yet my mind was still blown if that makes sense. I guess I was expecting things for the second coming, but then I was blown away because he was like, "It's not like I'm a doctor... oh wait, yes I am, and y'all need gratitude!" or when he was like," Don't be bummed about losing loved ones, because I have lost plenty, yet I move on in life". It was awesome and our whole zone had a zoom chat where we talked about what we liked and felt about the message.

This weekend, our stake had the first stake conference in over a year and the Maurers pulled up without any of us missionaries knowing on Saturday. Luckily, I didn't have anything I was scared of them seeing, or so I thought... They both spoke and Sister Maurer gave a talk that I think the whole family needs to listen to about if others know that we are Christian. After the meeting, they came up and Sister Maurer CLAPS me with a roast about how ugly my hair is. It's alright though. They are a hoot and I love them. Then on Sunday, President Runyan came up and spoke passionately about how the parents need to prepare their children to serve missions and build the Lord's kingdom here on earth. He also gave a shout out to the missionaries saying that we are the best ones he has ever had in this stake, then when I gave a little fist pump to him, he said "I see even one of the missionaries present is giving me a fist pump of excitement" lololo. He called for everybody to be better about making their home a Christ centered home. I felt the spirit so much as he spoke and I was so glad to know that my family has been good about helping me be able to choose to follow the teachings of the church because I wanted to instead of forcing it upon me/them giving me my testimony instead of me getting it for myself. 

The APs cracked down on us (the entire mission) the other day about us not wearing masks AT ALL TIMES, leaders and companionships alike. So yeah.... I'll try to be better this next week lol. That's all folks, I'll see ya next week. Falouuuuu

Service, Rain, Star Wars and President Nelson

What's poppin? This week was pretty dope. I did a lot of service throughout the week and it was a blast. One of the things I did was move a giant pile of gravel around to the other side of a lady's house and make a path with it. It was going pretty good until the wheelbarrow tipped and the two handles snapped when I was pushing it. The work didn't stop and my forearms got destroyed haha. Another form of service I did this week was at a golf tournament for the MMIA. While there, I held more liquor in my hands than I have ever held in my life hahahaha. I also saw Ms. North Carolina and decided to take a picture with her. She saw me and eagerly put her arm around me as I asked to take a picture with her and I didn't have the strength to tell her not to put her arm around me. ;)

Thanks to some of the season's last hurricanes; I had to stay inside for a full day because the heavy rainfall caused the streets to flood. Instead of trying to bash in the bible groups like usual, I decided to take a different approach and join a star wars interest group and make posts related to the gospel. I had so much success on just one post that it makes me wonder why I hadn't given this a try 4 months ago haha. Besides that, not much really happened this week. One thing is for sure, Y'ALL NEED TO WATCH THE VIDEO PRES NELSON MADE FOR THIS FRIDAY! All the missionaries are in charge of literally telling everybody to watch so I expect nothing less from y'all as well. Tchau!

The Living Christ

Howdy y'all! I'm sad to say that things didn’t quite work out for Gabby this past week. Due to the recent elections, we had to be inside our houses at an earlier time for fear of riots. But ya know, since Biden was in the lead, the rioters had no reason to go looting, I guess. I had interviews with President and Sister Maurer and that went well. I love every chance I get to meet with them and chat. 

On top of having interviews, we had a mission wide zoom call where we discussed about a talk given by Elder Bednar in a mission leadership conference in 2018. It was on what revelation is, how we can get it, and what we need to do when we receive it. It was really awesome. One thing that struck me was when he said, "Repetition is a vehicle through which the Holy Ghost can enlighten our minds, influence our hearts, and enlarge our understanding." He continued to say that if we ever are listening to others in sacrament meeting or conference and we think "wait, I already know this", we should not turn off our minds and not pay attention. If we ever do this, Elder Bednar has called these people to repentance hahaha. 

Idk If I told y’all yet, but it is a new goal of mine to memorize the entire document of The Living Christ. President Maurer asked our zone to specifically memorize the first two paragraphs, but I want to know all of it, so that's what I'm working on. 

Even though we didn’t teach many people this week, we got to do a lot of service. I went multiple times to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity, and even had the chance to get things prepped for a Veterans Day golf tournament through the MMIA. It was really fun and I am satisfied with my efforts. There isn't much left to say besides that I am grateful for this opportunity the Lord and my family has blessed me with to come out and serve a mission. I am sure to make every second count and lose myself in the work. God's the GOAT!

Halloween Horror - Missionary Style

Yoyoyo Fam Jam,

This week was quite one to remember. We were super busy and I went to the chiropractor not once, but two times! My back has never felt better and it is yet another motive for me to get rich when I'm older so I can go get my back fixed often in the future. Our schedule has been hectic as well as the schedule of the people we've been teaching, but we try to make use of all of the time we are given.

Last Friday, we had our zone conference with President Maurer, and sadly Sister Maurer wasn't able to make it because she was feeling under the weather. We spoke about many things. One thing they really focused on, was getting back into the "normal" missionary schedule by trying to drop out our "outside time" permanently. I can see why they decided to implement that because a lot of missionaries have taken it waaaay out of proportion by just playing games all day instead of doing the Lord's work. Another thing we spoke a lot about in our conference were who the stripling warriors are. For those of you who didn't know, like me, "stripling" means young. We split into three groups to write down the attributes described in 3 chapters of Alma (Alma 53, 56, 57) on 3 separate white boards. I kind of took charge of one of the white boards and wrote down the attributes the people in my group were shooting my way. Then, President had us pick the top 5 attributes we wrote down. The 5 we chose were: courageous, power of the word of God, exceedingly valiant, men of truth and soberness, walk uprightly always. These were great and President Maurer "volunteered" me to present the 5 things to the whole zone and why we chose them. He went on to explain that we as missionaries must be like the stripling warriors, courageous, walking upright at all times and being strong with the word of God which we are commissioned to proclaim to the entire world. Because we literally are called to go to war against the adversary to bring souls unto God, there isn't much of a difference between us and the young men under Helaman's command.

The weather has also taken a drastic turn into utter cold of fall. Luckily, I have a furnace within me (aka the spirit), so I don't get cold easily. But MAN, just wearing church pants and a light jacket doesn't do quite enough sometimes lol. I didn't do anything for Halloween besides watch a devotional at the church and go all out to make the best horror movie ever. That sucker is a true nightmare for anybody not of our faith hahaha. Besides that, there hasn't been too much that is email worthy. I am starting to get in touch with more of the members and I am about to rack in a butt load of referrals, I'm feeling it!