Last Mission Photos

01-25-2016

Hello everyone! I hope that you had a great week. This week was a great week for us! 

Monday night we had an awesome FHE with the Salvador Family and Gloria and Abel and their kids. The Salvador's planned it all. We talked about faith and how it is like a seed. For the activity we had a bounce house in the house for everyone to play in. :) So cool! 

Wednesday we watched the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast. This went to all the missions/missionaries in the world. It was really great. I don't have my notes or else I would share some things I learned from it. We also got a new investigator that day. We actually met Jeannette on Sunday but she became an investigator on Wednesday. 

The rest of the week was filled with teaching and finding people. Some of that finding is finding lost members of the ward. This makes me so sad. Sad that we don't know where they are and sad that they don't know who they really are and how much this Gospel can bless their lives. It's sad because at one time they knew. At one time they dressed all in white and where baptized and confirmed members of the church. On a happier note, we did find one and they are open to us coming back. 

Last night Sunday, was another night with a miracle. We have another new investigator. Christine has told us that she isn't looking to convert but she wants to know more and understand more about our church. We've met before. She came to a baptism a few weeks ago and the following Sunday we had tea at her house. On our way to Magog we called her and at first she was hesitant at letting us come. But I told her we had Banana Bread (I had just made it that afternoon) for her. When I said that she was ready for us to come. We will be seeing her again this Thursday and she is planning on coming to church on Sunday.  

All in all it was a great week and this once is shaping up to be busy! We are leaving for Quebec today for Zone Conference tomorrow. I'm pretty excited. It should be a great couple of days and coming week! 

Love you all and keep smiling! Sister Gardner

01-18-2016

Hello everyone. I hope that you are had a wonderful week!

Our week was good and busy. But I just want to tell you all the highlights of the week. 

First Glenda and Abe came to church yesterday!! It's so exciting when people take that step and come closer to Christ. It is an act of faith and it shows that they really are wanting to make a change in their life and come closer to their Savior. 

Second, we contacted 3 referrals this week. One of them was not a fun experience. I only managed to say hello before she looked at our name tags and said something in fast angry French and shut the door. The other 2 were much better. Sabrina wasn't interested but she let us in her house (miracle because people don't usually let us in) and she gave us some water. The other Jean accepted the Book of Mormon and told us we could come back next week. 

Third while we were contacting Sabrina we had time to knock on one more door before we went home. So we went to the house we felt prompted to go to and there we met Sade and she speaks English. She let us in her house too. We told the Restoration in about a minute and asked if she wanted to know more. She said yes and to come back next week because she was leaving that night to go on vacation. 

Last we went to the temple! My session was even in English, which was nice. I love the temple. I love the peace it brings to my life. I'm so grateful that I have a temple I can go to while I am on my mission. Not every missionary has that opportunity to go. I challenge you that if you haven't been to the temple for a long time GO. If you have recently gone GO AGAIN. The temple will bring so many blessings to you and your life! 

Have a wonderful week everyone! Sister Gardner

Montreal Canada Temple

Here we are at the Montreal Canada temple as a district.

01-11-2016

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great week. I apologize for the not so great emails these past few times and this will be another one. Life has been crazy. We didn't have a normal p-day today because we are going to the temple on Friday. But we get to send emails today. 

Again I'm going to copy a part of what I wrote to President Patrick this week.  "Hello President! I hope that you had a great week! This week was a busy and not busy week at the same time. I feel like we did a lot of running around and teaching but then when I look at numbers it doesn't look like we did that much. But numbers don't say everything right? 

The Elders had a baptism on Saturday. Sister A and I sang for it and I ended up sharing my testimony in French. Well I've never thought my testimony was that great in French. But a women named Christy(a kind of referral from the Talbos) came to the baptism and told me afterward that she really enjoyed my testimony and could tell it came from the heart. She also received a blessing from Elder P after the baptism and invited us over for tea on Sunday. We were able to go and she is so cute!! Unfortunately not an investigator yet, but I firmly believe she will be a member someday and she wants us to come back again! 

Glenda and Abe came to church on Sunday! That was great. They have been coming for a little while now. Lessons seem to go well. They are usually in Spanish so I don't follow a lot, but I can feel the spirit and I can see Abe thinking out everything we say and really analyzing it. 

Our recent convert May is having her baby this week! I'm so excited and I will be able to see this new addition to the family before I go home. :)

I hope that you all have a wonderful week! 

Love you all! 

Sister Gardner 

01-04-2016

Hello and again I have no time to write. 

Know that all is well and it is now white in the Great White North and cold! 

Today it's -17 C (0-1 F). It was a very busy week and went by fast. 

Thise week is looking to be crazy too! 

Have a wonderful week! 

Sister Gardner

So we had time to come back and finish emails and so I am going to copy what I sent to the President that sums up my week a little better. :) 

Hello! I hope that you have had a great week. Our week was very busy! We have a new investigator named Addy. She speaks broken French and lots of Lingala (not sure how to spell that). She had called us to wish us a Merry Christmas but we didn't know who she was. It was an unknown number and we had missed the call. So we called her back and set up a time to meet with her. 

So we went to her apartment building and parked 2 buildings away and when we got out of the car we heard this bell going off. It reminded me of a recess bell. It was coming from an apartment next to hers.  We thought it was a little strange but went to our lesson. We told her our purpose was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to help people accept baptism. She didn't understand, but said we could come back because she liked the spirit she felt with us. 

We left her building to find the entire street covered in flashing red and blue lights. There were fireman, paramedics, and policeman. There were all focused the apartment building that had the ringing bell. Our car wasn't in the middle of it exactly, but it was very close to it. People just kept looking at our car and had that look of who does this belong to. We tried to talk to a policeman about what had happened and if we could leave. He only spoke French and my knowledge of non-Gospel related terms is very limited. Eventually we found a fireman who spoke English. He told us that we could go. So we got in our car and left, and we still don't have any idea what happened. 

We returned to Addy's apartment a few days later and all was calm. We invited her to baptism and she said yes, although I'm not sure she fully understood we were asking her to be baptized not if she was baptized. We also learned a member in our ward speaks Lingala so we can bring him next time. 

Our other investigators are doing well. The only thing they are not doing well on is coming to church. They do all their other assignments, just not coming to church. It's so frustrating. Free Agency what a blessing, but sometimes I want to kind of take it away from people and make them do all their assignments (church, prayer, read), because I know it will help them in their lives. Alas I do not have control over that. I think we will have to have a lesson on why we come to church and such. 

We were able to meet with 2 of our recent converts of 2 years and talk about doing their genealogy so they can take names to the temple. One of them is also taking a temple prep class. They told me they would try to go as fast as they could so that they could go to the temple with me before I went home. I thought that was the sweetest thing. We shall see how that goes. 

Have a great week!

Sister Gardner