August 26, 2014

Hey friends

Since Pday was only 5 days ago there's not a whole lot to say. We took our investigator, Daniell to the oakland temple yesterday, I think he liked it. We met with another investigator, Marlin and had a neat experience...after our lesson, he prayed for the first time in 8 years. After he prayed, he said he felt a strong energy come all over his body...I wish we described the Spirit like that more often, haha. It was so cool, and I'm excited fer him.

Things are good! Elder Sera is a sick missionary. He is so good at talking to people and understanding them. I'm lucky to have such an awesome companion.

We had an earthquake not too far away from where I live. It happened at around 3:30 yesterday morning. I don't really remember it, but Elder Sera said there was some pretty heavy shaking. Apparently after all the shaking, I sat up in bed, looked around a little bit, then fell back asleep. I don't remember any of that, haha. There's not really any damage around here, so everything's okay.

Spiritual thought of the week...you have to have faith.

All my spiritual thoughts are the same, haha. This week I've been thinking about faith and repentance. All principles of the Gospel tie back to Jesus Christ as our Savior, and we access His mercy through faith and repentance. We need to believe in him, have hope, and repent of our sins, and His mercy claims those who come unto Him with a humble, penitent heart. As missionaries, we help people feel peace in their lives through repentance. We also get to feel that same peace as we exercise our faith and repent. We can decide today to repent by keeping the commandments and looking for more ways to obey the Lord. Do it!

Have a great life this week

Love,

Elder Gillie

A Bunch of Letters From Elder Gillie

Hi! I apologize at the break in posting Alex's letters! For your enjoyment, I am posting a bunch. I know that he would love hearing from you all. You can email him at alexander.gillie@myldsmail.net

Here you go:

Aug 4, 2014

Holy Transfer That's Almost Over! We get transfer calls this week. A wise home teacher once told me, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper...that closer to the end you get, the fast it goes." How true that is, especially on a mission. This transfer has just flown by.

Andrew's doing great! He's cut his smoking in half since we started teaching him. We're pretty close with him. Hopefully he can light his last one this week.

Henry's awesome. He came to church again, and he's happy.

Nick, (baptized three months ago) is doing great too. He's super active and is trying to find one of his friends to meet with us.

We haven't really found any new YSAs lately...we find old people and pass them off. :(

...But the Gospel is still just as true! I love the Gospel, and I love missionary work! I love the Spirit, I love the Atonement, I love God's children!

One thing I've learned this week is that God doesn't worry about our talent, He just worries about our heart. If we do our best to keep His commandments, He'll make up the difference. We don't have to be talented to be servants in His kingdom, we just have to be obedient and willing, and He'll make us powerful. 

Have a great week my friends!

Elder Gillie

Aug 11, 2014
The sitch is...I am staying in Richmond for a 4th transfer! The other sitch is...Elder Cherrington is being transferred to Concord, and my new companion is Elder Sera from Japan.

This week was incredible. We had a whopping SEVENTEEN YSA's at sacrament meeting yesterday. It's almost too crazy to believe. Henry passed the Sacrament for the first time, and we had a less active come for the first time. It was ridiculous. I love this place.

Andrew also came yesterday, and he has almost quit smoking. That's mah boy.

We had another miracle happen this week. We've been teaching an investigator for a while, and she's not been progressing. Elder C and I decided to drop her. The Spirit was pretty strong towards the end of the visit, and I was wondering to myself, "Why is the spirit so strong when we're dropping her?" It was weird. As we wrapped up, I felt impressed to ask her friends what thoughts they had about what was being taught. They said they wanted to learn more, and while they were expressing themselves, the Spirit slapped us all. It was pretty neat.

Exchange with Elder Parker was cool, he taught me a lot about having high standards. 

And Kevin Love got traded to the Cavs, what the heck?

I'm grateful to be staying in Richmond fer another 6 weeks, and I love the work! The Lord is good. This week I got plus 5 xp to testimony of prayer. Every morning and every night we ought to kneel in prayer and plead with the Lord to guide us. And we ought to expect that guidance to come! Every time I do so with a willingness to follow whatever prompting I'm given, I've felt my love for the Lord increase, and I know you will too.

Have a great life friends!

Elder Gilie

Aug 20, 2014

Hey family and friends. Sorry I'm not writing til today, but our Pday is today because it's our temple day. The temple is still the house of the Lord and it's awesome!

This week was a wild ride. Andrew was able to quit smoking! Way to go for him. But then he called us on Wednesday and told us he didn't want to meet anymore, and we couldn't figure out what had happened. That was pretty disappointing. We also set a date with another guy named Alexis...but he didn't show up to our return appointment, and when we saw him he told us he didn't want to meet anymore either. So we just set a date with our other investigator, Danny. We've been having lots of finding miracles...people that the Lord's been putting in our path. On Monday we went to the train station to talk to people. The first guy we talked to was really interested, so we taught him the first lesson right there sitting on a bench, set a date with him, and passed him off to the other elders. And we were led to another guy, Arthur, who accepted baptism, and now we're working on a date for him. It's amazing how we can find people to teach if we have faith!

I know the Jesus Christ lives and that He is our Redeemer. I'm so grateful to know that through repentance, we can be forgiven of our sins. Roll tide.

Elder Gillie

That's all, folks!

Actually, here's a picture for you. Because we all miss Alex's silliness.