Elder Michael Gardanier: 5-27-13 Zone Conference

Dear Family,

[This past week, Michael's cousin Dave returned from his mission in Romania. In August, his sister Amanda will head out to serve in North Carolina, and while she is out her younger brother Nathan will overlap a few months.]

Wow that is a lot of overlap for that family, I am glad they will have at least some time together.

[This is in reply to his fence conversation from last week.]

Yea it was kind of interesting. I hope he reads it to, but I almost just hope that he keeps it and someday a kid or grand kid will find it and read it. You never know. But hey, the more we get out the better. Last week someone (we don't know who) left a bag with pamphlets and a Book of Mormon and some church DVD's outside the door of the church. It looks like some former investigator didn't want their stuff anymore. That was kind of sad to see it come back full circle, but oh well.

Yea it is definitely tough to find people to teach. We are really struggling with that. I don't know what it is about the area or what we are doing, but there aren't a whole lot of visible results at the moment. It can be kind of challenging to stay motivated, but that's why it is the best two years I guess.

This last week we were in ward council they were discussing things they could do the help the two wards that meet in the stake center to feel more unified. We were just listening and someone said that they wanted to "do something to help the wards feel less segregated" and then Brother Felix said "Well maybe we should take the signs off of the drinking fountains". Needless to say Elder Coburn and I were basically crying for the rest of the meeting. I am not sure how funny the Ward council thought it was, but it pretty much made my day.

Maybe we will try that glow stick thing. We are almost done teaching Krystal. We have one more lesson with her this week and then she has her interview and that's it. It is crazy to see these last couple months that have already gone by. Hopefully we will be able to find some other people to teach because with her getting baptized, our progressing investigators pool will be basically cut in half...

[A friend of Michael's from Lone Peak is serving in southern California and barely getting by on food.]

Wow that is crazy that the members don't feed the missionaries. Everyone I talk to here says that they usually have dinner appointments, except the Spanish and Hmong missionaries. I hope that doesn't change...

This week we had Zone conference so our Mission President was up here in our area. We were talking to him afterwards and he asked if he could meet one of our investigators. We were able to set it up and he basically talked with him, gave him his personal cell phone number, and told him he needed to come to church and how it was important. He basically did in fifteen minutes what has taken us almost 3 months. It was awesome.

No I have not gotten those pants yet, hopefully they will get here before I get transferred!

Today we borrowed some baseball gloves from a member so we can go play something other than basketball. We are gonna go throw the ball around a little. It is weird how excited I am for it....but of course the day we want to do that, it is raining. Maybe it will be better later. Oh well.

Thank you all so much for the support. I love all the letters and will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Take care Daniel, and make sure you have both eyes open next time;) I love you guys. Thank you tons!

[Today while setting up flags in the neighborhood for the youth service project, Daniel's hand holding a hammer slipped and caught his finger on re barb pole. Following are the two pictures we sent Michael. The second is pretty gross.]