May 18, 2015
Dear Family,
It was good to talk to all of you this last week. It is crazy to think that that is my last
phone call home on the mission. I guess
that it is just a sign that I am pretty close.
It was good to see in your email that all of you are doing well and that
you are all having a good time. Sean and
Parker, congrats on the ceremony thing for your class, I hope you had fun. Dylan, good job on track this week, I am glad
that you are liking it! Mom, I hope you
can get that job that you want, just let me know how that all goes! And Dad, I am glad that you had fun at your
family home evening last week. Sounds
like that ward will be fun for you.
So this week, as you all know, I received my new
companion. His name is Elder Palomar,
and he is from Payson, Utah. I wasn't friends
with him before the mission, but I knew who he was. He is really cool, and works hard. He just got baptized a year before he went on
the mission, and he is an only member in his family. The rest of his family are members of the
catholic church.
Anyway, things this week have been going really well. We have just been focusing on teaching people
who are genuinely interested in learning more, and we don't even put lessons
with people who don't show true interest.
We have been working hard to change this area, which has struggled for
years, and it has been tough, but we saw some good changes this last week.
First off we have Yeni, who is really cool, and her daughter
Jeidy. They have been being taught for 3
weeks now, and they came to church for the first time yesterday. They loved it. Yeni said that she felt something different,
and that it was different from any of the other churches that she had ever been
to, and Jeidy, who is 8, loved the primary.
Yeni also has a 2 month old that she brought, and it was amazing because
the baby slept the whole time, letting Yeni just focus on what was being
said! She also has a two year old named
Dillan, but he didn't go. It is funny
because in this area no one can say my name, so I just told everyone to call me
McQueen, like lightning McQueen, because it was easier, so they do. It was funny because Dillan said to Yeni that
they needed to leave the door open because
"El hombre McQueen viene hoy".
They are a great family.
We also were able to receive a reference of a girl named
Cami. She went to church 2 weeks ago and
we got her address and everything to be able to go and teach her.... and in the street that she lived in, there
were 3 houses that had the same house number...
So we contacted all three of them.
None of them were her house, so we contacted the whole street... and still didn't find her! So we just started at one end and walked the
whole street, hoping that she would just see us... didn't happen. Then we went with some members yesterday who had
been to her house before and were able to get it all figured out!
We also found a cool guy named Alfred and his wife
Yuli. They are really cool, and were
genuinely interest in how the gospel can help their family and their
relationship. They have been together
since she was 15 and he was 17, and
have been together for 15 years. They
have 5 kids, but things just aren't going super well in their family life. Hopefully they will be able to come to
church. We gave Alfredo a shirt and 2
ties so that he can feel comfortable going to church.
Today we had an activity at President Nuckols house. It was a lot of fun. We played dodgeball, soccer, and
basketball. My team took first in
dodgeball, second in soccer, and first in basketball. Then we had a water balloon fight, then had a
barbecue. It was fun.
Something that I just want to share really quick is the
importance of showing our faith by our actions.
Like it says in James 2:17-18, faith with out works is dead, and that we
need to show our faith by our actions.
It is more than just NOT doing bad things.... WE NEED TO DO GOOD THINGS!!! I encourage you to continue reading and
praying everyday, with purpose, and to put your faith into action and LIVE the
gospel.
Love,
Elder Garrett McEwan
