My Dearest Mother . . .

I absolutely love my "dearest mother" letters. They definitely bring a smile to my face (and my heart!). This one was not what I expected and made me laugh . . .

October 13, 2014

My Dearest Mother,

I am in a desperate need of chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and oreos.  If it would be possible, could you please send me recipes for these things?  I would be very grateful!!  Thank you for all that you do for me!!  I LOVE YOU!!

Love, Your Son

Elder Garrett McEwan

Contacting and Getting Fired . . .

October 13, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you for your email this week!!  I was so happy to hear that Dylan won his game and made it to the play offs, and that Parker was able to have a good time at Homecoming!!  I’m glad you are both doing well in school. Remember, it’s super important to stay caught up on everything. Also, Mom, congrats on all of the good work at the Junior High, and I hope you had fun at your girls nights!  Dad, that must be a lot of fun being able to take days off and work in the yard!!  It is a little bit strange to say, but I miss it!!  Any way, good luck with your Halloween party this week, I hope you have a great time!!

It is crazy that Craig is going home soon, and that Tyrell is home now!!  This time is going to start flying by...  Next are sean and derek, then dakota, then me and Zac!!

It is going to be weird because Holly’s and Ronel’s baby will have like 4 or 5 months when I get home!! Hopefully she recognizes me from the cardboard me when I get home!

So anyway, this week was full of contacting and getting fired!!  It was a little bit of a tough week!!  We put lessons with people, and the next day when we went by, the people were not there!!  It was a little bit funny, and I could not help but think of Alma or the Sons of Mosiah....  Did they ever get fired in their lessons?  Just happened to be passing by a random tent in the wilderness and put a lesson, then the next day when they pass by, the tent is just gone??  How many times did they yell into a little hut, and here the words that no one was home??  What do you mean no one is home, we can see you?  Nope no one is home....  A little bit funny to think about!!

Well, as I was saying, we are in the process of trying to find new people to teach, and I have been praying and fasting hard to be able to find them!!  I thought that the answer would come as we found new INVESTIGATORS, but I was wrong...  The "New People"  that we have been finding are actually OLD people, and by old people I mean less active and inactive members.  Some of these people have YEARS with out going to church, and they have forgotten basically everything!!  It was a little sad in one lesson, because the man was talking about how "No one was ever going to take him out of his church, because he loves his church and he will never go to another one".  So, I asked him what church he was talking about...  A baptized Latter Day Saint...  And he responded "Im Catholic."  What?!?!  He continued on by saying that the missionaries in the 1990s tricked him to get baptized??  Haha I dont know how they tricked him into 3 months of church attendance, marriage with his wife, and a confirmation, but he swears that they did!!  Also found another woman that stopped going to church about 3 years ago, and guess where she goes now...?  The church literally across the street from ours!! 

However, we have found some interesting new people.  One of them is named Leonardo, a single father of 3 children.  He is very smart, and likes to read.  He read the whole pamphlet in the first visit, and he is really focused on his family.  It was really interesting to get to know him a little bit this week, and to be able to hear all of his different opinions.  He already believes lots of stuff that we believe and that we are teaching him, so that is nice!!  WE are going to focus on him really hard this week so that hopefully he will go to church!!

Next we found a young mother named Vanesa.  She is 23 and has a 4 year old, as well as a little girl on the way!  She really liked talking to us, and her husband works a lot, so that kind of sucks!!  Hopefully we can get a lesson with him as well so that we can teach their whole family!

Lastly, we found a woman named Evelyn.  She is the daughter of a member, and she is like 24 years old"!  We were just passing by to visit her mother, and her mom wasnt home.  She started asking us some questions, so I invited her to church.  She said that she couldnt go because of her job, and i told her that if she truly had faith in Christ she would at least talk to her boss to try to get the hours changed to be able to go to church... So what happens?  She does it, and goes to church yesterday!!  What a huge blessing!!  We are going to have our first actual lesson on WEdnesday with her.

Speaking of Wednesday, we have a birthday party for Milagros, the woman who threw my birthday party back in July, in the night, and the Zone Leader will be there on an Intercambio with me!!  Wish us luck!!

I love you so much too mom, I cant wait to see you again!!  I will be home before you know it!!  I have to get going now, but I love you!!

I love you all so much!!  Castillo is doing well, the area is doing well, and all of the people as well!!  I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Elder Garrett McEwan

Teaching with President . . .

October 6, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for all of your support and all of your love!!  It was great to hear from all of you, and to hear that everything is going well!!  I was also really glad to hear that you enjoyed conference!!  The speakers who spoke in spanish were obviously not translated, and it was an amazing blessing, and a true answer to some of the people in the congregations prayers.  Lots of people think that we are just a North American Church, so it was great that there were lots of people who had the opportunity to speak in their native languages!!  I really loved this conference!!

So this week was a pretty normal week until Wednesday, when the mission president called me at 10:30 at night?  He asked me what we were going to be doing the next day at 4:00 p.m., because he was interested in teaching a lesson with us?!  WHAT!?  He lives like 2 hours away from us, but he really wanted to teach with us... and he came!  He brought his wife as well, as they needed to sign some paper work here in Azua, and then they went to teach Alexis with us!  It was just a regular lesson, but the spirit was so strong and so.....  different, I dont even know how to explain it!!  It was just so amazing!!  Alexis really felt important and loved that someone like our mission president would want to come and visit him!!!  The lesson went well, and the president and his wife were both able to share parts of the lesson!!  SO GREAT!!!

The rest of the week was filled to the brim with contacting as we try to find new people and put a special emphasis on teaching families!!  We contacted on Friday for like 3 hours, and had 35 contacts...  heres to hoping that they progress!!  We are really working hard to get the word out to every single person that we know, and we are really hoping that the Lord will continue to bless us with success!!

So conference for me was really great!!  WE all went to the district center and watched all of the sessions, including the priesthood session!!   It is amazing how if we go into conference with a question, we will ALWAYS recieve an answer!!  I was thinking about the my last october conference before the mission, and the question I had was about the mission, and the age was lowered!!  Thinking now about this october conference, and how much has changed in my life, and I realized that the way the Lord works has not changed!!  He provides the way to recieve our answers, and know how to help us!!  I will share more about my conference experience in a letter!!

So today we went on a hike with Wilton and Natali to a waterfall as a district, it was super fun!!  We got a little sunburned, but had a great time!!  They are doing so well in the gospel!!

I hope you are all doing great!!  Azua is amazing, and Elder Castillo is doing well as well!!  LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan  :)

Blessings Come When We Follow the Spirit . . .

September 29, 2014

Dear Family,

It is great to hear that you are all doing so well!!  Cool to hear about all of the experiences that you are all having!!  I am sorry that Dylan got a concussion, those are no fun at all!!  Parker, that is great that you were able to ask someone to home coming, I don't know this girl but I hope you have a great time!!  Mom, that would be really cool if you were able to be in charge of the 4H clubs in January, you would learn lots and have a really good time!!  Dad, I am glad that you had fun at your talent show night, I hope you continue to enjoy yourself in this calling!!  :)  Sean, It was also great to hear from you!!  Sounds like your Zone Leader calling is really teaching you lots!!  I am glad that you are getting to know the island well, and having a good time!!  Do you get to drive?!  If you do, I am super jealous!!  I haven't driven in a long time, and I think maybe I have forgotten how!!  JK HAHAHA

So this week on tuesday I recieved a new companion.  His name is Elder Castillo, and he is from Honduras.  He has almost 9 months in the mission and completes a new month the same day as me, the first day of every month!!  It has been fun so far with him, and we are hoping that we can find lots of new people to be able to teach!!

Just a great P-day!

This week was a really good one, and I learned some new things!!  On Tuesday, we were supposed to go to Las Charcas, but with the upcoming transfers and everything, not knowing when my comp would come, I cancelled that trip and decided to capacitate members at night!!  Well of course, nothing went according to plan and my comp, instead of getting there at 5 in the afternoon like we thought, he got here at 9 in the morning!!  Ahh, and we had no citas and had told everyone that we would not be able to go by them on Tuesday!!  So with no citas planned and a cancelled trip to Las Charcas, we went to the house.  I decided to do something new, and I came up with something that I call the Scripture of the Day.  We chose a scripture and came up with 3 questions:  Who is speaking, what does it teach us, and how can we apply it to out daily lives!  Then we set out to teach every single member that I know!!  We started off, and the response was startling....  The members, just about all of them, started to cry.  They said that they had been having a hard day, or that something had happened in their family, and they just needed a little bit of support.  They loved that us as the missionaries took time out to show them love as well!!  It was a really good day!!

Acting out a battle of history

Hermanas acting out a battle of history

Wednesday was great, as we were able to introduce my new comp to all of the recent converts that we have in our area of La Colonia!!  He really liked meeting all of them, and is exciting that we get to help keep them active!!  We capacitated Hector Manaurys in his calling of Family History Coordinator, and then he gave some lessons to the recent converts about family history.  It was a great experience, and we were able to have very spiritual lessons!!  The people are super excited to go to the TEMPLE!!

Dropping a bomb!

Anyway, this Sunday was a good Sunday as well, as we are trying to progress even more in Las Charcas.  The branch president of La Colonia came, as well as his counselors, secretary, and the Elders Quorum President.  They were a little tiny bit awkward, and didn't talk a whole lot, but it was good to have them there to support the people!!  WE also determined that there are 5 people in Las Charcas that will be given the priesthood in 2 weeks, so that was amazing!!  We are trying to help them grow, and they are all progressing really well!!  I had to speak again, because a young woman that was supposed to speak from La Colonia didnt make it, so I had the privilege to speak again.  It was good, we had a really great time, and every one was really happy!

Riding the canon with Elder Cisneros and Hermana Duran

Today, Pday, I got to meet the two new sisters in my District.  They are Hermana Padgett, from Springville, and Hermana Rivera, from Guatemala.  It was Hermana Padgetts birthday, so we got together and played  some futbol, ate pasta, drank soda, and ate a dominican dessert that I made, dulce de batata con leche!  It was good, like carmel, and it was a lot of fun!!  We also took some pictures in the park, and got quite a few weird looks!!

Anyway, everything here in Azua is going well!!  I am loving it out here!!

Love you all!!

Elder Garrett McEwan

The Work Moves Forward . . .

September 22, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you all so much for all of the pictures and emails and support!!  It really makes it a lot easier to know that I have such a great support group back home!!!

So Elder Gallo is going home on Wednesday, so this whole last week has just kind of been saying good bye to everyone and making sure that our people stay active in the church!!  I am doing well, a little stressed right now, but fine!!  I am actually here in barahona, saying good bye to an old area of elder gallo! But things are going well, just getting ready to get Elder Castillo from Honduras! Elder castillo has about 10 months, and is coming from San Juan.  Elder Gallo said good bye to you too!!  Elder Gallo and I are sharing a computer....

Overall it was a really good week, packed full of getting to know new people as well as spending a little bit more time with some people that we have come to love a lot!!

Well, the Meetings for church in las Charcas went really well this week, with an assistance of 22 people.  I really am hoping that this will continue to be a normal thing, because we are hoping to have a little rented building here soon!!  I also feel like that will be a good motivator to people.  It will let them know that we are still here, and that the church is trying to be strong in Las Charcas!!!  Also,  we are hoping that more and more references will begin to spin off of the new converts that we have, as well as some less actives that we have!!  For example, a man named Duber is beginning to reactivate himself and his wife, and he is doing great!!  He recently gave us the reference of his two children that live with his ex wife, but they are going to move in with him!!  They are 14 and 12 years old, and they came to church for the first time this last sunday!!  They loved the church, so hopefully they will continue to progress!

We also recieved the step father of Nayelis as a reference!!  He is a member of the Pentecostal church, but we are hoping that the example of his daughter, as well as his mother in Law Carmen, will help him!!  His whole family are members of the church, a lot of them are inactive, so we are trying to help all of them at the same time!!  It is a little rough, because he fights against the spirit alot, but it is super interesting to teach him!! 

So this last sunday we were able to confirm Edailin, and that was really good!! Also, we gave Wilton a tie, and he came to church in slacks, a white shirt, and tie, and looked like a life long member!!  It was such a triumph to see how much the gospel has changed his life!!  He has also given us a bunch of his cousins as references, and we are also going to try to teach his parents hopefully as well!!  Wish us luck with all of that!!

So the work in la Colonia now is going really well as well!!  I have recently gone into the mode of trying to get a reference from every single person that I talk to, and so far it is working!!  I have decided to put a huge enfasis on working with the members, especially with the recent converts to be able to help keep them active!!  It is going great so far!  There is a member named Hector Manaurys that is really helping us a ton, and we are going to recieve two references from him on Wednesday!! One of them is his brother and the other is a neighbor!!

Well, our most promising investigator right now is Alexis!  He came to the baptismal service that we had last week, and he loved it!!  His one challenge is that he needs to get married!!  He recently got divorced, and needed to pay 200 euros, which is the equivilent of about 350 dollars and about 12000 pesos!!  He really put his faith into action and talked to the lawyer and his exwife.  He got the price lowered to 150 euros, and the exwife said that she would pay 50, so he is going to be responsable for 100 euros!!  We are going to see if we can help him out a bit as well!!

We are also putting together another baptism service for the 25th of October! We have three men that will be getting married so that they can get baptized, and another one that is married already that is going to finally take the step of getting baptized!!   Alexis is the only one of my investigators that will be getting baptized on that day, but the other elders in the district have 3, so hopefully that will all be a success!!  The three investigators of the other guys are all spouses of members, so that will be nice to see some families completed!!  Alexis is also going to hopefully help his wife, Yajaira, to be able to get to know the church!!  She has gone to church before, but goes to the University now on Sundays until December, so hopefully she can change that class!!

We also had our interviews with the President last week, and that was really good, It was fun to talk to him!!

Well, I hope you all have a great week!!  I love you all so much!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Preparations for the Baptisms . . .

September 15, 2014

Dear Family,

People who attended the baptism

Things here are going great!!  Thank you so much for the package that you sent me!!  I loved all of the new ties and shirts that you sent me, as well as the candy.  I also loved the letter from Grandma Losee with the little camel and story!! Please thank her for me!!

So Elder Gallo is doing great, just getting ready to go home!  He is really excited to be back in his country!!  It has been great to be his comp, to learn some new things from him.  He is also going to be my first comp to go home from the mission, so that is kind of cool!!

So this week was all about getting everything prepared for the baptisms!!  We worked super hard all week, and we were able to do everything that was needed to be able to have the service!!

On Friday, we went and bought a bunch of cakes and stuff, and I stayed up super late baking cakes!!  Luckily, we were able to get everything done, and the cakes were a success!!   The whole branch was super happy, and they all loved it!! it was funny because it was just little cakes from Betty Crocker!!  They loved it!!

Saying good bye to Elder Gallo's "people"

So now to Saturday!!  We woke up, and we started to study!!  It was super fun, and we started to get everything ready!!  We went to the church at 5... and all of the people were there!! They were there an HOUR early!!  It was really amazing!!  There were also over 100 people who attended, so that was awesome!!

That is what happened this week!!  I will send lots of pics!!  Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan

Blessings of the Temple . . .

September 8, 2014

Dear Family,

So this week was a really good week!!  I got to go to the temple on Tuesday, and I can honestly say that it was the most spiritual experience that i have had in the temple in my entire life!  I went with a lot on my mind, and the Lord honestly answered every question that I had!!  

We also had a visit from some Elders that needed to stay in our house to be able to go to the temple with us.... Let{s just say that I am glad that I only live in a house of 4 missionaries, and not 8!!  It was a little stressful because we all needed to shower, and we only have one bathroom, but it was just for a day and we all did great together :).

We were also able to have the baptismal interviews of our 11 people that are going to get baptized this week on Saturday!  They all did really well, and we are just helping them to be as prepared as possible!!  We were even able to listen to 6 of the people bear their testimonies yesterday in church!!  Their testimonies were amazing!!  They ranged from knowing that the priesthood can bless their lives, to the Restoration of the gospel, to wanting to grow up and be missionaries.  It was something that really touched me!!  To see how much these people have change is truly amazing!!  Some of them needed to get married, break addictions to drugs, or start to live the law of Chastity, and all of them have made huge changes in their lives and are all really prepared!!

So today, P Day, I was able to go to the beach, and it was a lot of fun!!  WE did some mountain climbing and such, and had a good time, and only got burned a little bit!!  By the way, my bee stings all got better, so that was a huge blessing!!

That is really all that has happened this week!!  We are just super pumped for this Saturday and all of the baptisms!!  Here's to hoping that all goes well!!  LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love,

Elder Garrett McEwan