It's so good to have a companion again

Elder Atkinson is way cool! We had a blast this week  

The work was way good this week too. Here's what went down-

On Saturday, Alex was baptized! I'm attaching a picture of us. The service was was way way nice. The Spirit was was way way strong. He's a special kid and he'll do great in the Gospel.

We had some way cool miracles too. On Friday night we had an appointment with somebody whom we had met on the street just a couple days before. We went by but nobody was at home, so we headed back to our car. At the entrance of the apartment complex we ran into Melanie and John, who were just heading in for the day. We talked with them and asked them if we could come back and teach them more and we set an appointment for two hours later. At 8 we went by and taught them and they are way prepared! Melanie is looking to draw closer to God, so we will gladly help her. They accepted a baptismal date fur April! Woohoo!!

Church was awesome on Sunday. I'm not usually wowed by lessons in Elders' Quorum, but this past Sunday there was a great lesson on repentance and it reminded me of how desperately we need repentance. If we do not repent of our sins, our testimonies grow weak because of sin...so repent! As soon as possible!

This Week Was So Good That I Liked It A Lot

Let me tell how great and terrible this week was.

Monday was cool, we went for a sweet bike ride in the hills and got some sweet pictures. Also we looked very manly.

Tuesday was nuts. We went to a missionary meeting and as soon as we got there, President Meredith pulled my companion out for a couple minutes. And then a couple hours later Elder Parker told me was getting transferred to Oakland to be the new assistant. :/ That was way sad because he is one of my favorite people ever. That night we went back to Union City and did some good work, we have this family we tracted into a month ago and we've taught them 3 or 4 times and haven't had a great lesson so far. Tuesday we taught the mom the Restoration and it was one of the most powerful lessons I have ever taught. When we shared the first vision and the Restoration, the Spirit was just screaming like that scary book in Harry Potter 1. We asked if she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet and she said, "yeah, i know he is" and we set a date for her in April. Later in the car Elder Parker and I were talking about the lesson and we both felt like when we bore testimony, it was because we KNEW the Gospel would bless her life and not that we just believed. So that was cool.

Wednesday was a bunch of goodbyes. Thursday was a blur. We taught a lesson in the morning and then the Assistants came to pick up Elder Parker and that stunk. I spent the next couple days bouncing from companionship to companionship trying to get work done in the area. Also spent about 8 hours of proselyting with a member of the ward as my companion, and we got some good work done, found some good potentials and such.

Friday was cool. We helped a guy move. 

Saturday was great, we did weekly planning and it took me like two hours. Planning is so much easier when you're by yourself. Sunday was pretty cool. Daylight savings was not pretty cool.

Last night was Why I Believe and it reminded me Why I Believe.

My new companion starting tomorrow is Elder Atkinson! He is another one of my favorite people in the mission. We worked together a bit back when I was in Antioch.

Cool story- Prayer works! It works even better when we're committed to act on the answer we receive. Often times our prayers become a list of "send me this, this, and this and help this person do this, this, and this." One way we can make our prayers more effective is to ask "Heavenly Father, how can I help this person do this?" and then ponder what you can do. This week I've made an effort to have more effective prayers by asking Heavenly Father to show what I can do, and he answered my prayers while I was still on my knees. 

So do that.

Have a stellar week!

Elder Gillie

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Week 5 of the 13th Transfer of My Mission

I now have less than 6 months left...what is this I don't even...

This week flew by! On Tuesday we had exchanges with Hayward 1st and Union City Chinese. I got to go to the Chinese area, and I was all like, "heck yeah, bout to tear it up since I speak Chinese" and then I ended up spending all day standing awkwardly beside my companion while he talks to people in Chinese. Turns out I don't actually know Chinese. Also Hayward was cool because we got an impression to go by a recent convert who stopped coming to church a couple weeks ago. It was so cool because she was way excited to see us and we were able to figure out a little about her concerns.

There will not be a baptism this weekend like we thought, but it will be next weekend. Hopefully we are both still here since transfers are next week.

Our good friend Diana whom we've been visiting for a few months finally came to church yesterday, and it was awesome! The Sacrament service was magnanimous. Also resplendent. 

The Gospel is true. If we just exercise our dang faith we'll feel Christ's love!

Have a great week...expeditiously.

Elder Gillie

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February 23, 2015

Hello my friends. This week was great. The temple was awesome! We had lots of exchanges. We were able to find a new inveestigator and set a date with him. Also we ate lots of great food.

So on Monday...oblige him.

On Monday we ate chicken and pork. On Tuesday I went to the Brookvale area with Elder M. He is way cool...my mission.

The temple was great on Wednesday!...I ran into my friend...that was weird.

So now I'm getting tired of having bouncy balls in my eyes so I will write this with my eyes open now.

On thursday we had an exchange with the Lao elders. Elder Parker went up to Richmond and i stayed down here with Elder Geilman...it was pretty sweet. 

On Friday we spent hours conducting weekly planning and typing up stake reports and it was so exhilarating

On Saturday we conducted an exchange with the Chinese elders and it was so great! Elder Lau, my district leader, is a BOSS and we had a blast. he gave me a size 14.5 shirt and it is the tightest thing in my life.

On Sunday we finished stake reports and the exhialilaratilion came back.

exchanges are way fun but we are ready to be going on less than 3 this week so we can focus on our area more. This week was great, we hit 17 lessons...next week we hope to see some great progression with our g8rs.

have a great week!

Elder Gillie

Temple Week Agaaaaaain - Feb 16th

So this Wednesday we get to go to the temple for a session and we're excited about that. so that means we only have an hour today for email since wednesday is our PDay. 

So what's going on here in Union City? Behold, my beloved brethren,I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my over anxiety for you.

Life is well. We found this family named the Richard and Ashley family a few weeks back and we've been trying to get a solid appt with them. We were finally able to come teach them a little bit this Thursday. We talked about how the Gospel blesses families and what blessings they want. They want the Gospel in their family, they also want to get married, so they want to become active in church again so they can be a happy church-going family. Holy miracle! 

Yesterday we got a new stake presidency! The stake president and his counselor were released, and the 2nd counselor became the new president. I know that is so exciting, haha, you are probably drooling reading this right now. But we're excited because the new stake president will be awesome so we're looking forward to our meetings with him.

I had an exchange with Elder 'Otuafi from Tonga this week, he is a stud. We tore it up that day, just kidding the Lord tore it up and we were tools in his hands. 

This week I learned a lot about...COMMITMENT! Before my mission I had commitment issues, haha. I was always like, it's not you, it's me. Serving the Lord requires commitment, but because he is loving, He helps us increase our commitment to Him as we exercise our faith. If we commit ourselves to Him, or "bind" ourselves to Him, we'll experience the healing power of the Atonement of Christ that we are helpless without. So Commit Yerselves to the Lord, and you'll find freedom and newness of lahf.

Also Elder Parker and I spent a lot of our car-time by practicing freestyle rapping. He's pretty good, and I got better but we're both still pretty white.

Elder Gillie

Gr8 Wiik - Feb 9th

Something funny happened this week but to save time I'm going to copy and paste from my companion's email. So it's from his point of view.

What a week. 

I didn't get the police called on me. 

BUT

We had a baptism. One of the part member families we've been working with for a while. They're cool. 

We met with the bishop on Monday night to plan out the program. He asked us missionaries to give the talks. We told bishop that E. Gillie would be gone on exchanges and that E. Hong (one of the assistants) would be here but that he could give the talk. 

So, bishop was fine with that. E. Hong's name was put on the program.

We decided it would be better for E. Hong to give the talk by the spirit, so we'd let him know he'd be giving the talk Friday night... the evening before. 

hahahaha. 

He was a good sport 'bout it. 

Anyway Saturday came. We went and filled up the font - which was super dirty and had earwigs in it - and got everything organized. Bishop showed up, and one of the sisters in the ward with the programs. 

The program was all wrong. 

Karma.. 

It said that BOTH of us would be doing all of the talking. 

GREAT! 

the whole baptism was super last second. It was great though,

we've got some new investigators from it. 

We got soaked in the rain this weekend. 

That was basically our week. 

So that was cool. Other than that...not a lot. Our investigator Cat is preparing for baptism in March, she's awesome. The Gospel is still way true and happy.

Have a great week!

Elder Gillie

Miracle Week - Feb 2nd

Things picked up a ton this week, plus we saw Elder Anderson, plus we added 3 investigators heck yes.

On Montag we had family home evening with Brother Tuituvuki (member of the bishopric)'s family. we talked about the restoration with their kids and asked them who they could invite to see Meet the Mormons at the temple visitor's center, and they thought of like 20 people right off the bat. When I'm not a full-time missionary, I want to be just like that. On Tuesday we had a correlation meeting that we thought was at 7, so we got there at 6 :45 and waited. Then at 7:15 we found out it was at 7:30, so we waited. Then at 7:40 we found out it was at 8. It was not the most gratifying use of time ever, but the meeting made up for it, sort of. So that's probably the most exciting story from my mission i've ever told. On Wednesday we met with a less active who had a non-member woman friend and they agreed to receive the PMG lessons, so that was cool. On Thursday we got a flat tire. We noticed right as we were driving out of our parking spot, so we changed it right there and drove to a tire place...As our car was raised up and the guys were ready to put a new tire on, our vehicle coordinator called us and told us to go to PepBoys instead since they had an account there. So we drove to Hayward, went into pepBoys, gave them our keys, told em we needed a new tire, and then...waited for 2 HOURS!!!! Haha, they weren't a big hurry to get to our car so we waited for a long time whereas we would have been ready to go in 5 minutes if we had stayed at the first place. Consequently we had to eat our dinner hurriedly, oh how hard our lives are. later that night though, we taught a great investigator, Cat. We taught the Restoration, and the Spirit was way way strong, and i had a little vision of just how powerful the Gospel is.

The rest of the week was great and we had the Spirit with us way strong. And then on Saturday we went to Oakland and had a mission conference with Elder Anderson, Elder Richard J. Maynes, and our area authority, Elder Packer. Elder Maynes talked about having the faith to be a missionary at ALL times. He gave an example of when he was at a gas station, and some missionaries pulled up at the pump ahead of them. he tested them by waving at them and saying hi, but they didn't engage him in conversation. So that reminded us, we gotta open our dang mouths at all times! Elder Anderson's teaching was pretty simple...he talked about how we need to share with people the doctrine of the Atonement. That is one reason why the Book of Mormon is so important...because it teaches about Christ's Atonement in a way that is more descriptuve than the New Testament. For instance, look at 2 Nephi 2:8- "Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise." I highlighted grace because the Spirit reminded me how important Christ's grace is. Only through his grace can we become pure, and it feels so good to feel that way.

Later that night, we taught a potential investigator named David, whom we had just met at the BART station a couple days ago. We taught him the first lesson at the chapel Saturday night and it was crazy good. He asked so many great questions...like it almost seemed like he was a less active member punkin' us, haha. As we shared the Joseph Smith experience, the Spirit reminded me that God does really speak, Jesus Christ really is the Savior, and there salvation is available to all who will partake of it. Roll dang tide.

 

On Sunday, Elder Anderson came to our steak. Lynn and her husband George came and had a great experience. Elder Anderson spoke on a wide variety of topics. His testimony of Jesus Christ was way powerful.

Oh here's another story...as we were driving back from Oakland Saturday night, we saw a homeless guy at the stoplight right after we got off the freeway. Because we are so righteous, we were moved with compassion and offered him a protein bar. He looked way grateful. Last night we went to a public place to contact people...and he walked up to us and said hi! Turns out he worked on the Ogden temple when it was being built, he had visited the oakland temple, and also the one in Minnesota, where he is from, and he thanked us for the food we had given him. One of the greatest joys is to serve others...and this is something I remembered after this experience. So serve, y'all.

lOVE,

eLDER gILLIE