Weekly Email # 34 - Ba. Ba. Baptism! Well. Half.

Hello everyone!

Great news! Ashton got baptized this past Saturday! Don't believe me? Ok.

(Elder Blanchard, Matthew Scoresby-Member, Ashton, Me)

I'm so happy for him. He's been wanting to be baptized ever since I first got into the Ward seven weeks ago. He's come a long way. Let me explain.

For Ashton to get baptized, it was MANDATORY that he showed up to Sacrament Meeting on the 20th. Once he did that, he was eligible to be dunked because he had fulfilled all of his other requirements. That morning came around, and it wasn't looking good. We called his mom 3 times at 8:00 am, two hours before Church began, and she wasn't picking up. After our PEC meeting, we rushed on over to his home, knocked as hard as I possibly could three separate times and no success. On the way back to church we called her TWO more times, and still, no one was picking up. We thought we were going to have to postpone his baptism AGAIN.

We showed up 20 minutes before Sacrament meeting just waiting and praying that he will show up. After the longest wait of my life, we sat down and started the meeting with disappointment. We initiated the first hymn before the opening prayer and as we were singing, I heard, "PHEW, WE MADE IT!"

There is Ashton! To make a long story short, he had heard us knocking persistently and woke up his mom to take him and a couple of his siblings to Church. This family has been less active ever since they joined the Church and for them to have only 30 minutes to rush to church and make it on time, was an absolute miracle.

But wait there's more.

Ashton passed his baptismal interview a few days prior to his baptism. Transfers came the day after the interview, and Elder Isom got transferred to the opposite side of the mission in Bellefontaine. Elder Blanchard and I got to teach Ashton's final lesson and he was super excited.

Saturday came around and as people were filing into the Relief Society room and Ashton was nowhere to be found. 4:00 pm came and his mom texts, saying they just got home with all his stuff and refreshments and stuff like that. She ended up coming with Ashton 25 MINUTES late. I was so stressed out, it was unreal. He got baptized though, and he was pumped to be confirmed the next day.

Well. The next day came. Sister Stahle (Ashton's mom), texts and said they woke up an hour before sacrament meeting was to start. This was the first time she had ever woken up this early. And texts!

Sacrament meeting started, and the Stahle's were nowhere to be found. They showed up a minute before the CLOSING HYMN. Ugh. So now he won't be able to be confirmed a member  until the week after General Conference. Other people's agency is the best :)

It's been a crazy week. That's why I'll end here because i gotta email all you crazy people back. Thank you all for the Easter wishes. I hope yours was as great as mine was! General Conference is this weekend and I'm so excited for it. Take notes! And read them again and again. You know I'll be doing that!

Love,

Elder Galbraith

Sent from my iPad

Weekly Email # 33 - Transfer Doctrine

Whelp. Totally didn't mean to send that empty email. Haha anyways!
How's everyone doing?

I found out that I'll be staying here in Mount Vernon for this next
transfer and Elder Isom will be leaving after being here for 6 months.
The other companionship in Mount Vernon is getting split up so there
is a couple changes going on right now. Elder Isom is a really good
guy! He just needs to get rid of his Ute pride and he'd be my favorite
companion :)

On a more serious side of things, I'm sure you all have heard about
the bombings in Belgium that happened yesterday. What a tragic event,
my thoughts and prayers are with those missionaries and others who
were injured by this incident.

Reflecting on these recent events leads me to a quote that I
absolutely love. Here you go.

   "True disciples represent the Lord when it may not be convenient to
do so. True disciples desire to inspire the hearts of men, not just
impress them." - Elder Gregory A. Schwitzer

The Work has been going great over here! We have Ashton's baptism this
Saturday all planned and ready to go. He was able to make it to Church
along with another investigator we have. Things are looking to be
really good these next few weeks! We have some very promising people
have been touched by the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon has created a more spiritual fire in me. I read it
every day and the Spirit floods loads of information into my brain.
I'm just glad it stays there and doesn't leave haha.  We have been
visiting a few less actives this last week and it's so sad to see
that they once had a testimony of this Gospel and now it's faded and
they can't seem to bring it back. They have told us a ton of anti
Mormon stuff that they have been told by other people and now they
believe it. The Spirits no longer with them and it's hard to teach
them.

Nevertheless, we will keep trying to bring the Gospel back into their
lives.  This area is awesome and the members support us missionaries
so well.

Cool thing! If you go to the March Ensign you can find Elder
Christofferson's talk and about halfway through the talk, he starts
talking about the Amish Converts in Ohio. That's where I'm at! Back
when the Amish started converting a few years ago, they were visited
by Elder Christofferson and he's been close friends with them ever
since! Who knows, he might visit soon (Elder Galbraith crosses his
fingers).

Love you all! Hope you have a good week!

Elder G

Sent from my iPad

Weekly Email # 32 - PICTURES!

This will have to be my weekly email for this week. Things are still
going well! Love you all!

Elder Galbraith

A members Monte Carlo. He let me rev the engine a little bit!

Missionary + Quad B.O.M.s + Amish Name tags = win win

We had a temple trip for recent converts/less actives. 
Biggest group of such people mount Vernon has had in a long time!






Me, Sister Canter (fellow shipper for Roxanne), Roxanne, Elder Isom.
Roxanne's first temple trip.




Bro. Weaver's shop. 
Bro. Weaver is one of the Amish, and he's had this shop for a few years now. It's awesome!

Weekly Email # 31 - Temple Trip # 2

Hey guys!

This will be a short email this week because we are doing our temple
trip today. Actually just got done with it and it was so great! I came
with a lot more questions like trying to understand Adam and Eve's
temptation, investigator concerns, and personal thoughts. The temple
can answer all of those and more.

After the temple session, we are currently at the mission home with
President Daines for some missionary business. And I asked him the
question, "Why did God command Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit
when He knew they had to break that commandment?" He started messing
with my mind and we had a great discussion about it and much more. The
temple is awesome and brought so much peace to me today!

This month, President felt inspired to conduct a mission fast to help
our mission's investigators come to Church. We are working hard out
here and it'll be soon when we get our next baptism.

I'll add a cool quote that I found over this past week. Hope you all
have a great week!

President George Q. Cannon said once: “No matter how serious the
trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will
never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It
is [against] His character [to do so]. He is an unchangeable being. …
He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may
pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor
overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties
the better and the purer for them, if we only trust in our God and
keep His commandments."

Elder G

Sent from my iPad

Weekly Email # 30 - Having Crappy Lessons. Literally.

Sup.

I have to start with this story.

We had another lesson with Ashton, our nine year old investigator that
is getting baptized on the 19th of March, and it was.... Well
interesting.

We were teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the third of five
missionary lessons. In this lesson, we teach these simple principles.

Faith
Repentance
Baptism
Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost
Enduring to the End

We decided to have the lesson at the Mount Vernon church building so
that it could be just him, his mom, some Ward members, and some
siblings of his. One of his siblings is two years old. We held it in
the gym and created a circle of chairs that all pointed at a
chalkboard that had the principles we were going to talk about.
Everyone sat in their chairs, and we began the lesson.

We had just finished teaching about faith and were leading it into
repentance, when Keyon, Ashton's two year old brother, runs behind the
chalkboard and just stands right behind it for about five or so
minutes. After he had been standing there for only 30 of those
seconds, this wind of the smell of diarrhea smacked me in the face and
I think I almost went into shock and fainted. It was bad. Elder Isom,
standing on the other side of the chalkboard, began coughing, I
assume, from the lack of breathable air that surrounded both him and
I. This went on for FOUR MORE MINUTES as we continued the lesson.

Soon enough, everyone recognized the absolute poison they were feeding
into their nostrils. Everyone kept looking around to find where in the
world that stench was coming from. Keyon, being totally embarrassed
and recognizing that everyone could smell him now, just BOLTED for the
exit, while leaving a trail of his remains behind him. To get to the
door, he stepped over one of my feet and I'm not even kidding you. His
poop was SO FREAKING close to getting on my shoe. It literally missed
me by six or so inches and it gives me the shivers just thinking about
it. I still DEEP CLEANED everything I wore that day, because I didn't
want that odor to follow me any more.

Nevertheless! It was a team effort in cleaning up the carpeted Gym
floor. Miraculously, none of his droppings left a stain after we had
cleaned it all. After the longest 20 minutes of my life, we CONTINUED
the lesson with Ashton and were somehow still able to teach an
effective lesson to him and teach him the importance of Baptism and
the Holy Ghost. He's super excited for his baptism and so are we.

It's kinda crazy how a Elder Isom and I were able to keep our
composure in this situation. It was definitely the Holy Ghost that
brought the Spirit back after the leaky diaper incident. If anything,
this experience taught me to focus and to focus on the people that
need this Gospel so badly. We were so close to giving up and Heavenly
Father absolutely helped us through that time.

As I reflect on the mish so far, I think of how much this Gospel has
changed me and also the people around me. I can't comprehend the
importance of this work, and I hope to continue to strive to do
everything I can to further the Good Word that we as missionaries have
to offer. Lately I've gotten several emails and letters and I can't
thank you all enough for that. It's one of the tender mercies I've
been through out here and I wouldn't change any of it for the world.
Stay awesome.

Love and miss you.

Elder G

Sent from my iPad




Left to Right : Elder Leavitt (He was in my first District in Canal), Elder Yeates (District Leader), Elder Durkin (Greenie), Elder Spencer (Came out with me), me, Elder Isom.

The District when there was six of us. Elder Durkin and Elder Spencer left and got mid-cycled transferred to a new area. We've been a District of four for two weeks now.

We helped build a train set for an elderly woman in our Ward. She has
a hard time lifting and bending down to put it together so we happily
obliged.

Some of the Elders in our Zone. Elder Houghland (one with glasses) was the one I originally was taking a selfie with and everyone else joined in. Freaking Elders.

If you look really closely, you can see a car antenna. That's really, really, really long.