Monday January 27th, 2014

Hello everyone! It has been a pretty good week here. we just had a wedding on Saturday for two of our investigators so they can both be baptized! I'm very excited for them! 

We finally got our car fixed so maybe we won't slide around on the street quite so much. I doubt it.

We are having a wonderful time in our new home. The members we live with are just wonderful. 

Elder Rust and I have spoken in both of our wards in the last two weeks. It has been so great. I gave a wonderful talk on the holy ghost.

Transfers were last week. The only change to our district is Sister Steck has left. She is from St.George as well. She's cool.

We attended a baptism of a little girl we have been teaching. Her family is now starting to come back to church. I just love the work of salvation. Bringing people to the gospel is the best feeling in the world.

We have three people we are working with now. They should all be baptized very soon.

One man is a trucker from Portland Oregon. He just showed up at his brother's house after 5 years. He likes what their family has and he wants the gospel for himself. He has a desire to be baptized. He's a great guy. I can't wait until we can baptize him. We've been having a few troubles with him quitting smoking, and complications in his personal life holding him back. We know with faith and prayer, we can get him to where he needs to be.

The sugar beat factory has been shut down for the last couple of weeks. There was an accident that happened where one of the workers fell into the processor. She was sucked down to where the sugar beats come into the factory and chewed up by the machine. The only reason they found her was because her bone fragments were clogging up the machine. The FDA shut down the factory to come in and test the sugar for diseases and what not. The thing is though, there is no way any part of her would make it through the purification process. The sugar beats having a bunch of junk on them in the first place go through a long process to get the pure sugar. There is literally no way any human fragments would make it through. Animals even fall in all the time and there is never a problem. Now the FDA is calling back any sugar shipments and quarantined the sugar in the factory. It's a whole mess. All agriculture in the area is being affected. 

production has fired back up in the past couple of days. There are still investigations going on, because nothing in the situation makes sense at all. To be continued...

I hate it when stuff like this happens. 

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Elder Garceau out

charlie mike

(I love you mom)  

January 13th, 2014

Hello everyone! Things are going well. We have a lot of people to teach. I am glad because we haven't had many people around during the holidays. Teaching the gospel is just great because I get to see the happiness in others grow as I share with them about Jesus Christ.

We moved from Lovell (a town of about 2,500) to Byron(500). It's going to be a bit of a change but so far I like it. The members we live with now are wonderful. They also have a son on a mission. 

I may not be in this area for much longer because we have a transfer coming up. I've been here for about 3 transfers now (4.5 months). It's crazy to think that I've already been on my mission for 7 months. Time has flown by.

We met a man from Portland whose brother is a convert to the church. We have been teaching him in his brother's house. He is a trucker and has been having a rough time lately. He remembered how happy his brother's family is and he wants the same happiness that they have. He showed up about a week ago at his brothers house out of the blue and told them how he wanted the missionary lessons. We have been teaching him every day since Thursday. He is so ready for the gospel. He knows that this is what he wants and wants to be baptized. I am so grateful for this opportunity the Lord has given me to lighten someone else's life.

I have seen my faith grow immensely and I know it is because of my focus in Jesus Christ. The beginnings of faith are very crucial I have found. You can have faith in a lot of things. You can have faith that the sun will rise, faith that when you turn a light switch to the up position the light will turn on. You can have faith that your car will start in the morning. And a war fighter can have faith in his training he has received that it will save his life when he is in combat. But things like this can fail you from time to time (besides the sun rising. That's obvious.).

With all of the things to have faith in, a question arises: What is the best thing I can have faith in in this life that will always work? What faith will never fail me?

the prerequisite to faith is hope. There is a scripture that perfectly tells of this and helps to answer the question.

 41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

Moroni 7:41

I have a knowledge that putting our trust and our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ will bring us the best results. Christ will bring us to the highest we can go if we will exercise our trust and faith in him. 

I don't think I could say it any better than the prophet Nephi in 2 Nephi 4:17-19

 16 Behold, my ^asoul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my^bheart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard.

 17 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great ^agoodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O ^bwretched man that I am! Yea, my heart ^csorrowethbecause of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

 18 I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily ^abeset me.

 19 And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have ^atrusted.

I know that if we put our faith in Christ we can accomplish all things that God requires of us. If we exercise sincere faith in Christ, the pathway will be clear. We can know of the truth of all things for ourselves if we keep an open mind and an open heart and pray sincerely to the father.

I hope you are all having a good day!

-Elder Garceau

(I love you MOM!)

January 6th 2014

Hello everyone! Things are great here in Wyoming. It's down to the negatives again. We are finally getting our car worked on. It wasn't too bad except we don't have ABS or traction control. That's pretty irritating when we have ice on the road. I don't see what good some of these things are if they don't work.

This last week we didn't have many teaching appointments as we have had new years, but we have had some good quality lessons. For new year's eve we went and spent the evening at a members home. That's about all we could do, but we had a good time. 

We are switching wards with the sister missionaries and instead of Lovell 1st ward we will be taking Lovell 3rd ward. I don't care what they switch on us so long as we get to stay in Byron. I love that place. It's not very big, but we have the most work to do in Byron.

Two of our new investigators are on date for getting baptized (the ones we are taking from the sisters). I'm not really going to take much credit for that. It's great to see people coming to the gospel. They are living together unmarried so they are going to get married the week before the baptism. I am very excited for them. They are very firm investigators. I'm glad to be in the right place at the right time to teach them the gospel.

Now that the holidays are over we can visit people more. The members in our wards are very on top of things and go on exchanges with us every other night of the week. I'm sure we can reach a goal of 30 lessons this week. I am very positive about that. 3rd ward is on fire and they have members who are willing to work with us. It's so great so see things working the way they should.

The Lord really is moving forward with his work. This should be an exciting time for everyone. Things have already changed drastically in the church and they're only going to get better from here. You don't need to wear the tag to be a missionary. You don't even need a specific calling! You can be a missionary right now. It's an exciting thing to bring someone to the gospel. The prophets have extended the invitation for us to act. We have been given specific promises from doing member missionary work. Those promises are very legitimate. It isn't a maybe, it's a promise. All you need to do to find out these promises is to read the latest conference talks. When someone gives a promise within their calling, that means that so long as you follow the conditions you will receive the reward. By not following these promptings from apostles and prophets we do exactly as has been spoken of: living below our privilege. Don't live below your privilege. Heed the counselings of the prophets of the Lord and choose to act today. I know that you and your families will be blessed as you actively seek to help the Lord in his work. That is a promise.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

-Elder Garceau

(I love you mom!)