Weekly email #29 -Amish CookIn and Chili Cook off

Hey everyone! It's been an interesting week. I've been working a lot on working out in the morning because I STRUGGLE with that. But lately, we have been able to go to the Church and play ball with the other Mount Vernon Elders and it's been fun! From the pictures I will send you can tell I'm the best player on the court (not).

It's kinda freaking crazy that I've been out for almost 7 months. The saying, "months feel like days and days feel like months" is totally true out here. It's weird seeing how many new missionaries are coming out, and they are considering me to be one of the "older and much more wiser" ones. Yet, I'm still like one of the shortest out here. What the heck?!?!

The Mount Vernon Ward had a Chili Cook off this past Saturday, and us four Elders were volunteered as judges to decide who had the hottest chili, the weirdest chili, and the tastiest chili. It was surprising because they take it so seriously out here. We were seated in the primary room by ourselves with a tally sheet for us to keep track of how each unique type of Chili tasted, smelled, looked, and tasted like AFTER eating it. It was insane! Elder Leavitt, one of the other Elders

in this Ward, was having the Ohio flu at the time and was instructed by Sister Daines to, "not eat the Chili. You will hate yourself." Though bummed, he watched us eat without him. I didn't know Chili can come in so many different colors and spices! Someone put a ghost pepper in one of them. Let's just say I made sure that one was going to lose.

The Amish Converts in the Ward held an auction to help raise money for the Young Women in the Ward. They sold Amish products, baked goods and much more! It was awesome. I'm surprised that every ward that I've been in so far has been freaking great!

As for the work, it's been going well. We have a nine year old investigator that is apart of a less active family. Though he and his family came RIGHT AFTER Sacrament yesterday, he is still showing

progress and we are excited to be baptizing him the 19th of March.

Shortly written email today, but I'll be sending pictures. Stay tuned!

Love you all!

Elder G

Sent from my iPad

Ready to begin.

These bring back childhood memories!

The auction that was taking place.

A couple of my Amish friends. The youth in this Ward are the hardest working people ever.

This is the Hostetlers' woodshop. They are an Amish family in the Ward. 

Family of 17 to be exact.

The center of Ohio!

Weekly Email # 28

Hey guys! This will be a short email this week. We are deep cleaning the
apartment to make it all nice and pretty. That and shopping and post
sickness stuff. Doing good though! I'll have a ton to write about next
week, but until then, Ta Ta for now!

Love,

Elder G

Happy Valentines Day!

 

The only love a missionary can receive. Legally. Happy V-Day!

 

 

 

Weekly Email #27 - Well.. That escalated quickly.

THE NIGHT BEFORE TRANSFERS. After already being confirmed to stay in Marble Cliff. Approximately 8:58 pm.

President : Hello, is this Elder Galbraith?
Elder G : Yes it is! How are you, President?
President : Good. Good. Well, I am sorry to inform you so late but I need to make a change.
Would you be willing to be transferred?
Elder G : Oh... Um sure. I can do that.
President : Okay awesome. Again sorry but this change needed to be done.
You better get packing. Have a good night Elder, thanks for all you do.
Elder G : ... No problem.
*click*

So Yeah! Haha I am currently in Mount Vernon right now, which is an hour and a half
North East from Downtown Columbus. Along with all this change, I received a new
companion. His name is Elder Isom and he's freaking awesome! He's a very chill Elder but we get crap done! He's been out for 13 months and he's from Seattle, Washington. (Seahawks fan. I feel sorry for him.) He's also a Ute fan.... I know you're reading this Elder Orlandi, you would love this guy. Haha. We get along really well and things are looking up in this new area of mine.

Elder Isom and I. We were told by a family at our dinner appointment that
he looked like someone off Harry Potter and I looked
like David Archuleta.... Never been told that one before. Haha

Just this past weekend, Elder Isom and his previous companion baptized a lady named Roxie
and she's great! She was one of the first people I met when I got out here last Thursday and
she's totally enveloped in the Gospel right now. We are working on getting her temple recommend
and her patriarchal blessing, because she has wanted both of them ever since she committed to baptism. Plus the Ward has done an awesome job in fellow-shipping her which is even more awesome!

The Ward is awesome!  The Ward boundaries included Amish country, which first of all,
scared me a lot for some weird reason. But I was able to meet quite a few recent converts
who were previously Amish and they are so great! I'll send pictures in these next couple
weeks of these families when we go over to eat. I've never had Amish food so I'm freaking excited!

If you didn't know, if you become a member of the Amish community/church and then you
leave for a different Church, you are shunned and never allowed to talk to other people of that
group ever again. It's crazy.. It's amazing how much they have sacrificed to become Mormons and they still cling to their Amish roots which is freaking great! Local Ward members always talk about how great the Amish converts are, because of the sense of unity they bring. They show up in horses and buggies to Church and take them everywhere they go. Oh and they have freaking sick beards and top hats. I think I'm going to like this place!

All in all, this shocking change was definitely unexpected. But I know that President is surely inspired to send me here. Maybe I was getting too comfortable in Marble Cliff. Though I'll miss the large skyscrapers, crazy downtown and such, it's good to know I'm in good company over here in Mount Vernon. Let's see how much I like country town!

Love and miss you all! Have a splendid week!

Elder G

Sent from my iPad

Weekly Email # 26 - Wait. Football Seasons over?

Hello everyone!

It's been an interesting week that's for sure. To start off, Elder Liu
got sick with uncomfortable stomach pains at the end of our P-Day last
Monday and it has stayed with him ever since. We were able to start
going out starting the following Wednesday but it was hard because you
could tell he was still struggling.

You can say that we hit a wall this past week. Our success was very
limited but we were still able to do a lot of missionary work and get
Greg to church for the 2nd time in a row! Oh, I haven't talked about
Greg yet.

Greg is freaking awesome. We found him through the Church referral
system and saw that he requested a Bible. We dropped off the Bible to
him that night and the first thing he said when we handed him the
Bible was, "Thank you so much. I've been wanting to get back into
Church. Do you guys know of a local church around here? I want to get
baptized." Elder Liu and exchanged quick glances, we couldn't believe
it! We talked to Greg about the Restoration and he said he can
"totally dig" Joseph Smith having his First Vision experience.

We have been meeting with him frequently ever since and like I said
before, he has come to Church twice! The only thing that is stopping
him from getting baptized in the next couple of weeks is that since he
has committed a "serious sin" in the past, he needs to be interviewed
by my mission president or one of his counsellors and in one of the
questions they will ask him, they will ask if he understands all the
missionary lessons. So we will have to teach him all the lessons
before we can give him a baptismal date, which stinks.

It would stink even more if Elder Liu and/or I were leaving tomorrow,
but it turns out that we are both staying! I'm still junior companion,
but Elder Liu has become District Leader now! He's so happy and
excited. (Intense Sarcasm).

UPDATE!!! - Conner ended up getting
transferred to Mount Vernon (Amish country).

If you didn't know, Elder Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve issued the
statement that we will no longer have transfer meetings as
missionaries. This means that President Daines has created a
checkpoint map for us when we get transferred to different areas. This
kinda stinks because transfer meetings are awesome! It's always neat
to see the new missionaries that are arriving and to hear the
departing missionaries testimonies. That's one of the many things you
learn to deal with. Change.

That's it for this week. Love you all!

Elder G

Sent from my iPad

Us with Crystal Fischer and her son, Anthony. 

She's a recent convert and she's awesome!

Chris, me and Elder Liu. 

(He goes to OSU. Friend of Crystals. Recent Convert of two years ago.)

 Dinner at Sister Fischer's home.

We gave this lady a free Bible she requested and we got

 a return appointment with her to talk about the Book of Mormon. 

We came back and this was outside her front door.

"No Mormons Please"

Well, at least she said please. 

Us and the Chens. 

Let's see if I can get all their names right. 

From Top to Bottom: Bailey, Grace, Zochi, Brighton,

Elder Liu, Bro. Chen, Amelia, Elise, Me. 

No, Elder Liu did not help me out... 

Okay, he helped a little bit.

A little friend I almost stepped on while getting out of the shower.