Weekly Email # 90 - I.Don't.Want.It.

90.... weeks. Holy snot. Haha

Haha how are you everyone? We had a great week! Let me share some highlights with you.

On Tuesday, we had Zone Leader exchanges on campus! For me, this was the 4th time going on campus, the first time with Elder Hermann, one of the good buds of the mission! As we were walking to campus, I told Elder Hermann that in all the exchanges I've gone on, I've never been able to go inside The Shoe and that was going to be our goal! Haha so we found an opportunity to right before lunch and right before we were going to go in the big archway to the stadium, we both felt a prompting to go talk to an Asian lady who we would've walked right past, but we stopped ourselves. We contacted her found out her name was Wei Wei. We talked to her for a few minutes and she showed a lot of genuine interest! It was a great contact and I was still able to get that picture finally :)

Then Wednesday morning came around! We had our second to last Zone Conference with President and Sister Daines. We talked a lot about teaching like the angels and the switchover that will happen when they head back home. Its crazy to think they will have been around for almost 23 months of my mission experience when everything is said and done. It was a wonderful meeting and was super great!

We worked around this week and tried different contacting approaches which was good! We went to the Dam to contact, but didn't show too much success. We also tried working in different areas and did a variety of street contacting and tracting.

Jeff, our wheel chair bound investigator, was going to come to church yesterday, but had to flake out :( We'll get him and others there next week! He was so close!

The Ward did a youth fundraiser this past Saturday that was an auction! They had a professional auctioneer from West Virginia come out to help, it was awesome! I might have won three dozen donuts.... and several Ward members gave us baked goods that they bought at the auction too! #SugarComa #MormonsAreTooNice

Today, we had District Activity and it was super fun! We played Mustang Ball which I have never heard of before until today. Haha basically its like five sports combined into one. You play with a soccer ball and if you score in the basketball hoop with it, you get one point and if you kick it into a set up goal below the basketball hoop (we used a round table), you get two points. Haha the things you learn!

Love you all! Thanks for your stupendous emails! They are always awesome and super funny to read! Hope you have an awesome week.

Pics and Vid!

1. Finally. 🤤🤤🤤

2. Columbus East Zone Pic!

3. Video of Bishop Dickson trying to be an auctioneer. Hahaha!

4 and 5. District Pics!!

Weekly Email # 89 - Results of Blitz Week! Happy Easter!

Hey everyone!

Well the results of our Blitz Week was.... surprising! Haha we were inviting all week long for people to come to church. We thought that out of all the people we invited (it was more than 60 individual invitations), there would be a good turn out! And we also have a few people that we have been working with that actually said, yes I will be at church. Haha so we were pumped!

Guess how many showed up...........

0.
Zip.
Squat.
Nada.
Zilch.
Goose Egg.

NONE!!! What the heck? Haha that just left me in awe as we waited in the foyer until a few minutes after Sacrament Meeting began. We sat down and had a wonderful Sacrament service, along with two hours of Sunday school classes, which I KNOW some of our investigators needed to hear. I laugh about it now, but when we got home, I was just straight flabbergasted at it all. Agency, though it is one of most important doctrines we have in the Gospel, is so annoying when people Choose to go against commitments, promises and God's Gospel. Of course we will use this for motivation to find those that are prepared this coming week, but man, that was just crazy!

This upcoming week should be a fun one! We got ZL exchanges on campus tomorrow, meetings like Coordination and Zone Conferences, and a Ward Social that will involve an auction to use as a youth fundraiser! Oh, and getting our investigators to see the importance of commitments, thats always a party too! Haha

This will be a short email so I'll leave you with some pics. Much love! Have a great week!

Pics!

1. Going to teach investigators how to phone Jesus! Well, in this case we were phoning Brother Peterson (shout out) , but you get what I'm putting down.

2 and 3. Park pics, because why not?

Elder Galbraith

The Great OCM

"It is THIS mission and how valiantly you serve that will bless your family." - Elder Bennett

Weekly Email # 88 - Blitz Week!

Hey Everyone!

Having a Wednesday P-day and a Monday P-day back to back while staying in the area after transfers is the best! While everyone's cleaning their cars for car inspections at Zone Conference this week, we'll be sitting back, emailing, and scrubbing down our disgusting bathroom. Haha it should be a party! Well, less of a party now that Elder Miller is gone :( Anyways, what's been going on the past five days? I never thought you'd ask!

Remember that one lady I was telling you about last week, Lynn? Well, we decided to stop being in contact with her on Thursday last week and took her off date... On Wednesday, she sent us 4 voicemails saying that she did NOT want to visit and never wants us to come back or contact her in any way. Well the next day, she left one voicemail where she said that everything is going well, she's reading the book, and she's excited to meet with us again.....

What??? So we waited for her for a couple minutes at a Mexican restaurant we were going to meet her at and she didn't come. So we went to a local Wendy's, called her, and she didn't remember any of the 4 voice mails she left us on Wednesday and forgot about our return appointment on Thursday. I personally believe she is interested in learning more, but from what we've seen from her and other missionaries reports from last year, it was the best situation for us to stop seeing her. I really didn't want to stop teaching her, but we prayed about it and felt right about that decision.

In other investigator news, we did service for a couple named Steve and Kathy, and then they fed us a delicious pulled pork sandwich dinner afterwards! They told us how much they enjoyed conference and the talks they watched AFTER conference! Steve has been browsing BYU TV and watching talks and other things haha which is the first time I've had an investigator do that. He seems more interested at the time, but during dinner, Kathy asked a lot of sincere questions about the church too! They weren't able to make it to church, but Steve at least, told us he would make plans to come to church soon.

You know that My Very Own Blanket place that we do service at every Tuesday and Thursday? Well I don't know if you know or not, but during the two hours of break time between conference sessions, they featured a 10ish minute video for Just Serve (a program designed by the Church so we can give volunteer service hours in our communities)! And in this video, My Very Own Blanket was one of the featured Just Serve places! Jessica, the owner of MVOB, was a part of that video! Sadly, none of us cool Elders got to be in the video, but a couple of sisters were in a panorama they did! Go check it out! I think its on JustServe.org if you haven't seen it yet!

Oh, also, our zone is doing a blitz this week! Should be awesome! This is only the second blitz I've ever done and we'll be doing church invitations in EVERY CONTACT! Haha should be a way to spice things up!

I've found recently that the scriptures are our maturity as members of the church. What do I mean by that? The Scriptures give us correct doctrine and if we use the Scriptures correctly in our teaching, it backs up EVERYTHING that we say, because the Holy Ghost can testify of our interpretation of said Scriptures. I've become more appreciative of the Scriptures this past month as they have helped our investigators realize they can apply these sacred chapters and verses in their lives as we missionaries do so ourselves. I haven't been that great at using the Scriptures during lessons so this realization that I had this past week has helped out a lot.

Here's a cool scripture for you all! And also my love for each and every one of you! Thank you for motivating me to be better! If I don't hear from you today, have a great rest of your week!

Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Pics!

1. No words....

2. The Tree of Life in Lehi's dream. This depiction of Lehi's vision is freaking awesome!

Elder Galbraith

The Great OCM

"It is THIS mission and how valiantly you serve that will bless your family." - Elder Bennett

Weekly Email # 87 - Should I Stay? Or Should I Go?

Hey Everyone!

Now I can send a decent weekly email out! We got transfer news a couple of hours ago that I will be staying with Elder Evans in the New Albany 2nd Ward! It was a shock to a lot of us, and I really wanted to stay here at least one more transfer, (I might have done some silent pleading in my mind....) but I am excited for these next 6 weeks!

As for this past week, its been crazy crazy! We've been teaching a woman named Lynn Archer, who Elder Thompson (District Leader) and I contacted on a sidewalk a couple of weeks ago. We taught her the first couple of lessons over the course of this past week and a half and she was super excited to come to church this coming Sunday! We extended the 6th of May as her baptismal date this past Monday and she accepted it, which we were super stoked about!

Well this morning we received a call from her and she also left a voicemail. Lynn said that we shouldn't come by anymore because her landlord was getting super mad that we would come inside her home on "private property" and a bunch of other stuff. She slurs her speech so it was difficult to get everything from what she said in the voicemail but she basically dropped us. Well we gave her a call about an hour ago and she didn't answer. Then about 10 minutes after that call, she called us back and acted like nothing ever happened. We asked if she still wanted to meet with us. Yes. We asked if we could meet her somewhere other than her home so she doesn't get in trouble. She agrees. And then I ask if she would still be able to come to church this Sunday and she hung up on us. Hahahaha I have no idea what's going on so our return appointment with her tomorrow will tell a lot about her progress. Hopefully it goes well.

General Conference was awesome! They keep getting better and better! We were able to spend both Sunday sessions with the Smiths, one of my favorite families! But the crazy day was the Saturday sessions! Saturday morning, after doing service for a member, we had to have it at our apartment because we couldn't get to the church or another members home in time. And then the afternoon session we spent with a investigator named Jeff Burke. He's wheelchair bound and asked a WHOLE BUNCH OF QUESTIONS! Which was awesome, but made it so I didn't really get much from that session. Haha but he seemed to like it! We then went to Priesthood Session later that night at the church, where both New Albany Wards met together before hand to have pizza and wings! It was THE BEST!

That will be it for me. Have a good week everyone! We'll talk more Monday! Love you all!

Elder Galbraith
The Great OCM
"Brethren, let me be clear: there is nothing noble or impressive about being cynical. Skepticism is easy—anyone can do it. It is the faithful life that requires moral strength, dedication, and courage. Those who hold fast to faith are far more impressive than those who give in to doubt." -President Uchtdorf

Pics!

1. Saturday morning session of conference!

2. Me, Elder Evans, Elder Jeppson and Elder Miller walking out to the car after Priesthood session!

3. Shout out to Andrew Smith! He was so close to making it to the end of conference :)