Serve someone every day this week!

 

Dear Everybody,

 

This week was a good week. We were a little slow on lessons because many people were on vacation for the holiday, but we were still able to do some great missionary work and keep inviting others to come unto Christ. On Thanksgiving we had 3 dinner appointments, which was a bit much. There are just so many members here who want to have the missionaries over for dinner! It is a good thing that we are getting a whole bunch more missionaries in the mission so that we can spread the love even more! There is so much work to do here that I am very grateful that God is sending us more missionaries so that members and missionaries can work a lot harder to help people become reactivated, or baptized in the kingdom of God. Then, eventually many families will be sealed in the temple, which is really the bigger goal of missionary work. My first convert here in the Utah Provo Mission was sealed to her husband and kids on Saturday, which was great! They were sealed in the Salt Lake City Temple, so I couldn't go, but I went to their reception afterward. It was great to see them and how excited and grateful they were for the blessings that God has given them. I was also fortunate to get permission to accompany Marissa through the temple as she received her endowment. It was a great experience and I am very excited for her! She will be an amazing missionary in Zambia!

Well, keep up the good work! Look for some way to serve someone every day this week!

Love,

Elder Getts

I love the gospel!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

 

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was good. I was really excited to get the news that Marissa will be going on her mission to Zambia! She will be an amazing missionary. I hope that all of you strive to be amazing missionaries as well! We just don't have time any more to not share our testimonies with others around us and invite them to come to church, to read the Book of Mormon, and to learn more about the Gospel by meeting with the full-time Elders or Sisters. The Lord has hastened His work, so we must hasten ours. We had Zone Conference this week, which was great! Elder Bishop and I had a great time as we applied what Elder Bednar taught us about teaching by the Spirit and inviting others to learn as they choose to act. Preaching the Gospel really is the most fun thing that you could ever do! It is really changing my life. I love you all and hope that you are doing great!

Love,

Elder Getts

Hello everyone!

This week has been a great one and interesting. We had 6 investigators on date for baptism, but 2 are moving to Idaho, 1 is going back to New Mexico, another decided that she didn't really want to change her life or meet with us anymore, and another is having trials and still wants to get baptized but wants to change her date, so we went from 6 to 1 on date in a couple days. But that is all right because the ones who are moving will meet with missionaries where they are going and the other ones will eventually find their way through the guidance of Heavenly Father. We have been working hard and I have really felt the Spirit guiding us. It constantly amazes me how many people not of our faith that we find to teach here in Provo that not one of their neighbors knows about! If every member will take upon themselves the responsibility of inviting others to come unto Christ by meeting them and preparing them to meet with the missionaries, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING THINGS WOULD HAPPEN! The Lord is hastening His work in preparation for His Second Coming. There should be about 90,000 missionaries out in the field pretty soon! That means that every mission in the world should be growing, and that means that the members need to work on finding people for those 90,000 teachers to teach! Today we were privileged to bear our witnesses of the divinity of Christ and His work in 3 Sacrament Meetings. I love to do that! But it is not enough to do it just once a month, we MUST do it multiple times a day! Everyone, be an amazing example of Christian virtues. That is essential, but will not be enough. We MUST speak up as well! Give a little testimony - "Jesus is my Savior and I try to follow Him every day." or "The Church has blessed my life. I feel so happy that I can be together with my family forever." or "I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I try to follow its teachings and I am always happier when I do." I promise that many people will respond with desires to learn more about the Gospel and that many of those people will receive a witness by the power of the Holy Ghost that it is true and will enter into the waters of baptism. Never doubt your testimony. It will lead others to eternal life.



Genaro gets baptized



I love you all!

Elder Getts

Working hard and baptisms

Hello everybody who reads this little update on my mission!

 September 24, 2012

Things have been going well this week. The past couple of weeks we have been getting more than 20 lessons, which is great because more people are coming unto Christ. Elder Guzman and I are working well together. We have fun and work hard. He is probably the companion most willing to work that I have had. We have two baptisms coming up this week: the first is Nilcer Figueroa from Honduras. She came to Provo about a month ago to learn English at Nomen Global, a small English school here, and said she noticed a huge difference from Honduras and really felt something special here. She has progressed amazingly the past month and will be baptized on the 29th! Second is Daniela. She got married two weeks ago to her boyfriend, who is a less-active member coming back to church. They both seem ready to change their lives, so it will be great for both of them. She is also getting baptized on Saturday. The Temple Dedication was great. We went to the Edgemont South Stake center because it is closest to our house, and when I saw the doors to the baptismal font I remembered that I had been baptized there! I am excited for this week because we will have Elder Koelliker from the First Quorum of the Seventy in the mission doing zone conferences with us. It will be especially cool because the zone leaders will have a zone leader council with him that will be more personal. I am sure that I will learn a lot. Other than that, not much is going on. I hope that everyone is doing great wherever they are and with whatever they are doing!

Proverbs 3:27

October 1, 2012

This week has been good. We have been teaching a lot more lessons, but still need more work. I especially love to teach Genaro Inoa, a 72-year-old Dominican man who is so excited about the gospel and for his baptism even though he can't remember things very well because of a stroke he had 3 years ago. I know that he is excited because of what he feels in his heart, which is where we can come to know for ourselves that something is true. We learned from Elder Koelliker about D&C chapter 4. It talkes about serving with all of your heart might, mind and strength. We start out with putting our heart in the right place, and then our mind will follow and then we will work with our might and strength, but if we don't become humble, pure in heart and receive a witness in our hearts we will never be able to channel the potential that our mind has or that our body and spirit have to do good in this world. When our heart first submits itself to God's will, then those elements will align and we can truly serve in the best way.



Daniela's baptism



We just got a call this morning that we will have a missionary waiting on his visa to go to Spain with us for a while, so we'll see who it is when we pick him up at 3:30!

I hope that everything is going great for everyone! Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Getts



Nilcer's baptism



Dear Everyone!

Saludos from your friendly neighborhood missionary!

The temple steps

A Jerusalem street scene

This week was a great week! It started out with Zone Leader Council on Tuesday. It was really cool because we got to go to the Jerusalem set down in Goshen that the church built for the movies of Christ. It was awesome to go see what they had built. It felt cool to be there even though we knew it wasn't the real Jerusalem. After our tour, we had the rest of the meeting on the steps of the area that they use as the temple. I am including some pictures.



Elder Getts by an olive tree in Goshen, Utah



This week we met with a man named Genaro Inoa from the Dominican Republic! He is 72 and had a stroke and a brain anurism 3 years ago and has recovered great. It is so awesome to hear his Dominican accent! We meet with him almost every day because he just stays at home and he is on date for baptism on October 20th. He needs a lot of time for us to teach him because he forgets things very easily. He came to church on Sunday. So you never know who will accept the Gospel, even old people who are supposed to be set-in-their-ways. We also had another investigator get married with her less-active boyfriend on Friday, so she is progressing toward her baptism on the 29th.

It has been interesting to be serving on BYU, because I see a lot of people I know just in passing and some of them don't recognize me, and some do.

Well, the transfer has come to an end.. Elder Espinoza will be opening a new area in Provo and training a new missionary, so he will be a district leader in the zone. My new companion is Elder Guzman, from Mexico. I don't know much else about him. I am way excited for the transfer and to get to work to lift up the zone because it has been suffering for a few months. President McCune is trying to have a set of Spanish Missionaries for each Spanish unit (ward or branch), so they divided a couple areas and there are a lot of missionaries training in the zone. So we will have a young zone and hopefully their enthusiasm will make the work improve a lot!

Also in our area, the whole ward got together to help a recent convert family who lives in a pretty run-down trailer to redo their roof, but the walls were so unstable that they had to redo them them first. So it turned out into a big project, but I was really impressed by the charity and love that they showed toward this family. I hope we all always strive to show that. They taught a lesson without saying anything!

Love,

 

 Elder Getts

 

Hello Everybody!

 

Elder Getts is doing great here in Provo. I love serving here and it has been amazing to see the hand of the Lord. This week we had some great experiences and I have been loving my scripture study! It just seems to make me hunger more and more to know Heavenly Father and Jesus better through the scriptures and the teachings of the Holy Ghost. This week we talked with a man named Wilbur who left to go back to Mexico on Sunday. He is 39 and has a wife and two daughters in Veracruz, Mexico. He told us that he was looking for the way to guide his daughters toward God and had a ton of doubts but was sincere in wanting to understand. We tried to answer his questions and were bold in declaring the truths of the restored gospel. We made sure to stress the importance of the Book of Mormon and establishing a foundation first before all of his questions could be answered. Elder Espinoza finished by sharing Alma 37:6 with him about small and simple things, and that really impacted him. We shared our testimonies and left full of the Spirit. We probably won't ever see him again in this life, but it was an amazing experience. A returned missionary called us yesterday with a referral about a girl named Nilcer. So we met with them in his apartment. She is from Honduras, and has heard about the church from friends there. She really wants to learn about it and has loved going to church the past couple of weeks. She seems very prepared to hear the gospel message.  We have been having great experiences as a companionship here.

 

I hope everyone has an awesome week and that each of you ACT and DO something to further the work of the Lord among your friends and family who have not received the Gospel yet!

 

Love,

Elder Getts

Highlights from the last two months

June -

After being here in Utah I realize that it really does rain a lot in Montana. I really love that quote about how the Lord works because it is TRUE and AMAZING! I remember reading it before and thinking about how attitude is so important and the Lord can help us be humble and change our attitude and then our environment changes through how we see the world and how we work to change our lives and the lives of others.  This week was good. we only had one lesson that was without a member, and the other lessons were good. We haven't been able to put anyone on date yet, but I can see that they are progressing slowly to be able to accept the invitation to follow Jesus and be baptized by someone holding His authority. Tomorrow we have a mission conference because President and Sister Pitts will be leaving this month and they want to get the whole mission together. We will take a mission picture and all that stuff. It will be good to see everybody there, too. I am going to Saratoga Springs this Saturday. It will be great to see everyone and be able to baptize Carmen and see her kids get baptized. I will also meet her brother who finishes his mission in Idaho in two days.

This work is the work of the Lord. I know that He will help those who come unto Him with their problems and weaknesses. Today I was reading in Ether 12 about humility and charity. I could feel the truth of the words and how that if I apply them that I really will be able to be like Christ and share is light for my whole life with everyone I meet. I hope everyone has a great week!

 

July -

I hope that everything is going well for everybody. This is the Lord's work, and everybody can do it. Just start out with the goal to start a gospel conversation every week, and then you can work on it and make it higher. I read a statistic that says that between 3 to 5 % of ACTIVE members of the church regularly participate in missionary work. And we still get almost 300,000 convert baptisms a year? Imagine if 50% of active members participated? Each person can choose to add their little part to the great work of the Lord. I promise those that do that the Lord will magnify their small effort into a great force for leading people into the Gospel. Talk with your friends. Leave small testimonies. And the number one factor that affects missionary work in a ward or stake is the personal righteousness of the members. Live up to your covenants. Keep the commandments. Be more like Jesus Christ every day.

 

Things have picked up a lot here. And it is definitely God doing it. We just try to be obedient and diligent and He has brought the people to us. We have 2 baptisms planned for the 11th and 2 more for the 25th and hopefully a few more people we are teaching will be ready by September. The sad thing is that I am leaving the area. I am staying here in Provo, in the same district actually, so I will be able to come back for the baptisms. Crazy, huh? My knew companion is Elder Espinoza. We will actually be in a trio for a couple weeks with Elder Prettyman, who is finishing his mission 4 weeks early to get to school on time (he will be back at BYU too). It will be a good transfer. It has been amazing to see Elder Kuhn progress. He is way better at Spanish, although he still has a long way to go, and he isn't as quiet with the members and investigators as he was at the beginning of the transfer. The past week I have been pretending like I was a missionary new to the area and making him lead me to our appointments and decide who we were going to visit if one fell through so that he would get used to it if they were going to transfer me. It is definitely a good thing we did that because he will have to introduce someone to the area now!

Something weird that happened is that I was talking with the 21 year-old daughter of a member family that we visit who is going on her mission in September to the St. George Temple visitor's center, and we found out that both of us went to Rock Canyon Elementary together! It was weird because we don't remember each other at all, but we remember a ton of the same people and the same teachers and everything! It almost felt like I met a long-lost cousin or something. How small is the world!

 

Well, I hope that everyone will have a great week and will do what they can to come closer to Jesus Christ. He lives and is our Savior. He restored His Church and the Priesthood and the Fulness of the Gospel for us in these days. Keep moving forward!

August -

Transfers were last Wednesday. I was only with Elder Kuhn for one transfer, but it was still amazing to see his progress. It looks like he has a great companion and they should have some success together. I am still in the district so I can keep tabs on him. :)  We are in charge of the Grandview 20th Spanish family ward and all of the Spanish YSA investigators. There aren't any Spanish YSA wards, so we just have 21 YSA stakes and teach young single adults who speak Spanish. So, technically I cover Marissa's ward! Crazy, huh? So tell her to look for Spanish referrals for me!

 

Love,

Elder Getts

Finding new investigators

It is definitely not the Pacific Northwest here. After living in Montana for 10 years I have realized that they were right when they told me in elementary school that Utah was a desert! I guess that is just an example of why we have to experience opposition to really understand. If I hadn't lived in Montana or traveled to other places, I would never have realized that Utah is dry and dusty and deserty. One thing I don't like about the valley is the inversions where all the smog and everything clouds the air. It is pretty gross.

This week we found a bunch of new investigators, We received a referral from a guy from Haiti and he set up the meeting and everything. We went and the whole family was there. There is the husband and three daughters who are not members, and the mom has been inactive for many years. We mostly just taught them about prayer. The daughters had never been to any church or read the Bible or anything, so it took a while for them to understand prayer. They do believe in God, and are a really sincere and loving family, they just haven't learned all of the amazing principles of the Gospel. I am excited to teach them and see their eyes open to these amazing truths. We tried to get everyone to try a practice prayer, but only the 15 year-old daughter would do it. She said a great prayer and there was a great spirit there. The mom and the 17 year-old daughter were crying. At the end of the lesson the dad asked when we were going to come back, which is a good sign that he wants to learn more! (Usually we have to ask when can we come back.) Then we met another family, where the dad is really sincere and wants to follow God, but he told us the first time that he met us that his wife doesn't really like to come listen, but she came and listened along with all of their kids and we also taught them about families and prayer, and we had a kneeling prayer that the dad said. He even told us that our church is probably true because his wife actually came and listened to us! I really hope that these two families will progress along with other individuals that we have found here.

We gave talks in the Parkway 6th Ward yesterday. It was good. I basically taught the Restoration and bore testimony of it - one of my favorite things to do. And then I explained a little about Preach My Gospel and encouraged everyone to study it. Elder Lampinen, a Finnish Elder in our district told me that Elder Perry in a Stake Conference in Spanish Fork promised the members that if they would study the first 3 lessons in chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel, that they would always have some words to answer any question or doubt that someone would bring up. Preach My Gospel is really an amazing book, inspired of God, and I know that if we study it we will become better disciples of Christ and better missionaries in our wards, communities and families. So please, study it and apply what you learn!

I love you all and hope that you look for ways to serve other people this week!

Love,

Elder Getts

Leaving Saratoga Springs - Heading to Provo

Dear Everybody!

Well, my long sojourn in Saratoga Springs is coming to a close. This Wednesday I am going to be transferred to the Provo West Spanish area - west of the freeway, by Utah lake. My companion will be Elder Ramirez. I don't know much about him, just that he is from Jalisco, Mexico. I am a bit sad to leave all of the amazing people here in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. I have come to love this area and the people here so much! It is amazing how much love that Christ can give you toward others, and it just comes from serving them. There are two people who want me to baptize them, so hopefully I will be back a couple times during the next transfer. I am excited to get to a new area and build it up again, to find those who are looking for the truth and help them to change their lives, make covenants and endure in the path of Christ. I know that that is how they will find true and eternal happiness. Without any doubt.

This week was pretty good. Carmen moved out from living with her boyfriend, so in two weeks she will be ready to be baptized, but she is waiting until June 16th to be baptized because her brother will have ended his mission in Idaho on the 14th. So I should be back to baptize her that day. It will be the best birthday present ever! We also had an opportunity to lay some sod again, which was fun. It only took us about half an hour this time because the yard was tiny and there were a bunch of people. Hopefully the family will remember the service that we did, because new Elders are coming to the area so we are giving up the English stake.

Well, I hope everyone will have a great week and that they will do whatever they can to be more like Christ and to show compassion to others!

Love,

Elder Getts

Photos:

1. The District at Neptune Park  - the pyramid is the only one in the Western Hemisphere!

2. Hna Arteaga's Family (he was the SS ward mission leader)

Baptisms!



Gisela and her family



Elder Dickinson, Tyson, Danny, and Elder Getts

Hi, everyone,

Everything is going good here in the area. We had two great baptisms this weekend. The first was a 16 year-old named Danny. His best friend, Tyson, baptized him and he got the priesthood and was ordained a priest just after sacrament meeting on Sunday. It was really awesome to see him with so much opportunity to serve in the church and go on a mission. His non-member mom was even crying. Hopefully she will also be baptized in the future. Then on Sunday we had a baptism of Gisela, a sister who has basically been active in the church for about a year without being baptized. She finally gave up coffee and was baptized. She will be confirmed next Sunday. Elder Campos came to perform the baptism and I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. There were so many people who came that we had to do the service in the chapel and then go to the Relief Society Room for the baptism. It was great to see her finally making such an important promise with God so that she can follow Jesus Christ more fully and achieve much more happiness and be sealed to her family.

This transfer is almost over! It has been way too fast here in Saratoga Springs / Eagle Mountain. I am leaving in about a week to who knows where. We will just see where the Lord wants me. I have had such a great time here, and the area has been really successful even though I heard a bunch of negative things about it before coming.

This morning we went with the Saratoga Elders and hiked up a hill by the lake. We could see the whole valley and even into the Salt Lake valley when we looked north. It was pretty fun.

I know that if everyone will strive to be a good example and then to share their testimony with others that the peace, safety and joy of the Gospel will spread into the hearts of others. Please commit yourselves to living a more virtuous life and follow that commitment every day! You will be greatly blessed for it!
Love,

Elder Getts

Small miracles

This one is for everyone!

How is everyone doing? I hope that everyone has been enjoying life, because that is how it should be. I have been enjoying the mission a lot. We have been seeing many small miracles here in Saratoga Springs. The past 3 transfers we have worked really hard contacting referrals, former investigators and knocking doors and I probably know or know of about every single hispanic person in Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs. So just before this transfer I was basically out of ideas and just prayed to ask God to prepare the people who are already here and to bring new people ready for the Gospel to the are. Since then one non-member family that we weren't even teaching has come to church twice, an eternal investigator that we have who has been meeting with missionaries for years and goes to church every Sunday stopped drinking coffee because her family's home teachers gave her a blessing to be able to quit and she got sick and didn't want to drink coffee for like a week because she was sick, and then just didn't start drinking again. So she should be baptized this week or next! And two kids, a girl who is 17 and a boy who is almost 11 started coming to church because their mom is inactive but their aunt is an active member of the ward. The 11-year-old already wants to serve a mission and to be baptized, he just told us that he wants to be baptized and then be good after and not just be baptized to be baptized. God has really been answering that prayer! It was just a different feeling that I had when I was saying that prayer. I had faith and knew that it was the will of God that what I was asking would happen, and it has and will continue to happen. It was really a situation where I had done almost everything I could do and all I could do was ask the Lord to help us. He really is helping.

Besides all of the work that is going on we had a little fun trying to milk the goats - our landlord told us we could whenever we wanted to. We got the district together, but even with six of us we couldn't get much, and then the goat stepped in the teeny bit that we got, so we couldn't try any of it! It was pretty fun though.

I hope everyone is doing great at work, at school, at home, on vacacion, or wherever you are! Heavenly Father loves you.

Love,

Elder Getts

Dear family and friends,

 

I am pretty sure that it has snowed more here in March than it did in December, January and February combined - and it still hasn't snowed all that much. Saratoga Springs is getting better as we work hard to find and help our current investigators keep commitments. This Saturday we played basketball for exercise in the morning and I suffered a minor ankle sprain. My ankle is a bit swollen and has some bruises, but I can walk on it just fine. I just won't be playing any basketball for a couple weeks. It also helped to be able to remember how Mr. Bowman wrapped ankles in high school, so I could wrap it with athletic tape.

This Sunday was a good day. We had a Stake Conference in Saratoga Springs, and then afterwards we stopped by some new investigators - Adriana, Luiz, and Sergio Montoya - and were able to put a date for their baptism on April 14th. It will be awesome, because they are so humble and sincere and really feel the Spirit. Then we talked with Ivan in his new apartment and had a great dinner with our Ward mission leader, Hno Arteaga, the bishop and the Gutierrez family, who had their baby boy in the hospital for over a month because he had to have surgery on his skull. He finally got out of the hospital and is doing pretty well. Hopefully we will be able to start teaching them slowly and that they will be able to feel God's love because the whole time the boy was in the hospital we tried to stop by and just check up on how they were doing, as well as other members.

Elder Whitsitt also got his call about his flight plans - he will be headed out on April 2nd, the day after General Conference. So that means that I will be staying here for another transfer, which I am excited about, so that I can leave the area doing really good for the missionaries who will be after me.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is truly wonderful in helping us conquer challenges and find happiness and peace in our lives. I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ lives. He loves us and suffered and died for us. The Book of Mormon is His divine word and contains the fulness of His Gospel. I challenge every one of you to bear your testimony through how you live.

 

Love,

Elder Getts

Missionary Work

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope that everyone is having a great time doing whatever they are doing, working, playing, vacationing - it all just depends on the attitude.

We have been trying to deal with the new changes that have happened in our area, especially trying to contact the investigators that the Zone Leaders left us in the Eagle Mountain North stake. We should be seeing all of them this week. I am excited to be District Leader, to learn more about missionary work and to try to be an inspiration to other missionaries.

We have a great family that we are teaching now, Familia Aragon. They are really looking to come closer to Christ and to raise their children in the right way and told us that their marriage said "until death do you part," but that they want to be together for eternity. They even invited us over for dinner after the first appointment with them.

Sebastian is getting baptized next week and it has been great seeing the amazing change in his family as they have strived to follow Christ and change their lives. Brother Goodfellow will be receiving the priesthood this Sunday, so he can baptize Sebastian and Josalynn.

The Gospel is true, but it is so much more than just true! It is the Gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We have the Church of Jesus Christ, the exact same church that he established when he was here, on the earth today. The Book of Mormon is The Word of God. We have a Prophet of God on the earth today who is guided by Jesus Christ to guide the church. I know this with out any doubt.

Love,

Elder Getts

Crazy Transfer Time!

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope that everyone is doing great! This email is going to have a lot of pictures and not as much writing. This transfer some crazy stuff happened. We are down a few missionaries in the mission, so President is sending Elder Campos to Orem and switching him to an English missionary. I am staying with Elder Whitsitt for a transfer and he will be heading out to Argentina on the next transfer. I am going to be district leader, so I will definitely learn a lot this transfer. They also switched us from doing English work in the Saratoga South stake and gave us a stake in English in Eagle Mountain, because they are switching the Zone Leaders to Alpine and dividing their stakes with us and with the Eagle Mountain English Elders. So it is definitely a crazy transfer with a bunch of changes.

Everything is going good - we are saying a lot of goodbyes for Elder Campos today and tomorrow. We played the Spanish ward at the high school on Saturday in basketball (they won the stake tournament) and we beat them pretty bad. It was really fun, though, especially being on a high school court again.

Well, I hope that everyone will have a great week and look for ways that you can make other people's lives better!

Love,

Elder Getts

Andrea with "El tata" which is just a term of endearment for "Uncle". He baptized her.

 The Trio on the ice of Utah Lake - left to right: Me, Elder Campos, Elder Whitsitt

The Trio with Mt. Timpanogos and Utah Lake in the background

Our District - it was a really fun and united district this transfer.

Left to right: Elder Whitsitt, Ivan, Hermano Arteaga (ward mission leader), Elder Campos, me

A new companion - we're a trio

February 6, 2012

Hey Everybody!

Everything is going great for me here in Saratoga Springs/ Eagle Mountain. First order of business is that Elder Campos and I have a new companion, Elder Whitsitt. We are a trio for now, and I am assigned as the trainer for Elder Whitsitt. He is from Michigan but has lived in Pleasant Grove for 3 years and is waiting for his visa to go to the Buenos Aires North Mission. He is pretty funny and we have been having fun together. He already is pretty good at Spanish because his mom is from Mexico and his step dad is from Puerto Rico, but he still has some things to learn about the language and about teaching (like any new missionary).

Next is that we had the baptism of Andrea. It was the best baptism I have ever been to, mostly because of the amazing change that I have seen in her life. She is always so much more happy now. She even bore her testimony in her baptism. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and Elder Campos confirmed her on Sunday.

On Monday we had a fun Zone Activity where we played basketball, which was pretty fun - I was really grateful for the exercise. Today we are doing it again but this time playing dodgeball because there are some Elders that aren't too fond of basketball, so we want to do something to involve everybody.

It is so awesome to be doing missionary work! Feeling the Spirit is the most fulfilling thing in the world and there are so many ways that we can do good things that bring the Spirit into our lives. I encourage every one of you to look for those small things that you can do to get closer to Jesus Christ and feel the Spirit.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Getts

Photos!

January 30, 2012

Dear Mom, and everyone else,

Everything is going good here. We had another baptism this Saturday. He is a 31-year-old guy from Uruguay named Ruben. He got divorced not long ago (in November) and that made him really want to change his life. He is really humble and was ready for his baptism.

Other than that we had Zone Conference this week on Tuesday, which was edifying. The theme scripture was 2 Nephi 2:26 and we talked about agency and how the investigators need to act and exercise their agency through doing things and keeping commitments like reading the Book of Mormon, coming to church, and praying.

On Monday and Tuesday we slept over at the Zone Leader's house because the pump in our landlord's well blew out and we didn't have a drop of running water, so we needed somewhere to shower, brush our teeth and use the bathroom. We even had to get buckets from a neighbor and take them over to the house so that the family could flush their toilets! But we got water back on Wednesday night, and were able to do our laundry and everything. On Saturday we went to the stake center to play basketball as a district, but they were doing a stake basketball game and didn't have enough people so they let us play with them and it was pretty fun.

We had a great FHE in Monday night with a family that we are teaching in the home of the bishop, who gave a great lesson on priesthood authority.

I wish everyone the best this week and hope that each of you can work on making your relationship with Christ even closer.

Love,

Elder Getts

                         Ruben

            Ariana and her family at her baptism 

A wonderful time in Saratoga Springs

January 23, 2012

Dear family and friends,

I hope that all of you are doing great and living good and happy lives.

I am still having a wonderful time here in Saratoga Springs, teaching, studying, working and even getting to play a bit of basketball with the district. We had a baptism of a nine-year-old girl, Ariana, on Saturday. I baptized her and then the bishop confirmed her in sacrament meeting on Sunday. It was a simple but spiritual baptism. Ariana was pretty excited about the whole thing, which was good to see. Hopefully she can also help her parents be stronger in the Gospel. We have another baptism planned for a guy named Ruben from Uruguay. He is 31 years old and got divorced a few months ago and when we found him he said he wanted to change. It has been awesome to teach him.

Elder Campos has his health back and we had another great week of teaching and work. We also played basketball twice which was pretty fun even though it would be nice if everyone in the district knew how to play basketball...

I keep learning more every day about my Savior and the principles of His Gospel, and that helps me to find peace and direction in my life as I put those principles into practice in my life. I know that anyone who will strive to obtain a testimony of Jesus Christ, especially through the Book of Mormon, will receive that testimony from God throught the Holy Ghost. And that testimony will serve as an anchor and a foundation that will lead to happiness and peace in this life and in the next.

Written with love,

Elder Getts

The gospel always leads to happiness.

January 16, 2012

Queridos familia y amigos,

I am doing great here. We had a great week with 25 lessons despite the fact that Elder Campos was sick the whole week and had to take a couple hours each day to sleep. He is a great companion and we really work well together. Hopefully this week we should have a baptism of a 9-year-old girl named Arianna. Her parents were just really busy and didn't put her baptism as a priority when she was 8, so when she turned 9 she was under the jurisdiction of the mission and missionaries. So we contacted her family and have been teaching her. She wants me to baptize her and Elder Campos to confirm her. I am happy to baptize her but it is sad at the same time because her dad isn't very active and won't be able to baptize or confirm her, which is such an important step in her life. I am definitely grateful that my dad has always been able to do those ordinances for me: baptism, confirmation, and receiving the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods.

Our ward mission leader and his wife lost their baby this week at three months of pregnancy, so he called us over and we gave him and his wife blessings. They are doing better and are strong, especially with the strength that the Lord gives, so I know they will be all right.

The Plan of Salvation is such an amazing gift that the Lord has given us, so that we have a purpose in life and can work hard to achieve that purpose. It also amazes me that the Gospel always leads to happiness, which is really the ultimate goal.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Getts

Happy New Year!

January 9, 2012

Dear family and friends,

 

I hope that everybody is having a great new year and doing well on their New Year's resolutions! We are doing well here in Saratoga Springs. We had an interesting and a fun week. Here are some of the things that happened:

 

We were surprised this week when we went over to visit Marco and Jennifer at Jennifer's parent's house (M and they weren't there. The parent's told us that they just suddenly left for Idaho when they heard that Marco could get a job up there. The thing is that they are young (she is 18 and he is 21) and they are pretty rebelious. The parents had talked to them a lot about helping around the house and being grateful for the help that their parents are giving them by letting them live in their house and being responsible for their baby, but they just wouldn't listen, and so they finally just left without telling anybody, even sending us a text or something. I feel sorry for them because they are going to have to learn a lot of life lessons the hard way.

 

On a surprising and happy note, Maria, a 15 year-old foreign exchange student from Mexico went through a huge turn around this week. We were going and teaching her about once a week (she lives with an American family of members) and she wasn't being very receptive. We even watched the Joseph Smith movie and at the end she laughed, which offended me. But we kept going and telling her that she had to read and pray. She kept doing that and suddenly this week she told us that she felt like she believed in everything and had already talked to her parents about getting baptized. We told her that she had received her answer and that she needs to honor her parents, but that she needs to be true to her testimony, even if she has to wait until she is 18, because her parents are Catholic and don't approve. She even bore her testimony on sacrament meeting and said that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that the Church is true. It was pretty amazing to see that change in her. 

 

Those were the big events. We also helped Sean, a New Zealander who married a Mexican girl from Utah move on Friday. It was fun. Elder Campos and I did quite a bit while they were running to get the truck - they were delayed because they saw a car crash on the way and were the only witnesses so they had to spend a few minutes giving details to the police.

 

We also found a guy from Spain named Ivan who is the grandson of an American soldier who stayed in Spain after WWII. He doesn't know much English, but he decided to come to America because something was missing from his life in Spain and he wanted to start all over and find happiness and peace in his life. We took him to church the day after we met him and he liked it. He says that America is a lot more friendly than Spain.  

 

Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior! I hope each one of you can come at least one small step closer to Him this week!

 

Love,

Elder Getts

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!

December 19, 2011

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Christmas is a great holiday because we remember Christ and there is a special spirit that surrounds it. I hope that each one of us can carry that spirit throughout the whole year and not just reserve it for one month.

This past week was pretty normal. We helped our landlord plant 1000 more tulips. His place is going to look beautiful in the spring. We also had an awesome lesson with an investigator named Andrea. (By the way, we are also teaching a girl named Marissa). She got divorced about two months ago, and we have been teaching her. We have been able to see a huge difference in her life. Her feelings of anger and distrust have gone away and she feels peace and happiness through learning about Jesus and applying the teachings in her life. She is going to be moving from Lehi to Eagle Mountain on Wednesday and we are going to help her with a couple people from the ward. She accepted a baptismal date for the 4th of February, which is a big step for her, but we think that later she might even want to change it to be a little sooner. It doesn't really matter as long as she is able to enjoy the blessing of making this sacred covenant with Heavenly Father.

I am excited to talk to everyone on Christmas Day! It will be a million times better than last year, for sure.

Share the joy and peace of the real meaning behind Christmas! Isaiah 9:6

Love,

Elder Getts

Every area is only as good as YOU make it!

December 12, 2011

Hey everyone!

 

This week has been great. We actually taught 20 lessons for the first time that I have been here in the mission, and Elders told me that the missionaries before would always complain about how slow of an area it is. Every area is only as good as YOU make it! This week we started teaching a 9-year-old boy named Sebastian who has been bugging his parents about being baptized for about 6 months. We really are teaching the whole family because they have been inactive until last month. The mom remembers a lot from her childhood, but the dad really needs some help with understanding some of the basic things about the Restoration, prophets and the Book of Mormon. They are all very eager to learn and to improve their lives and relationship with their Heavenly Father. They told us that the bishop of their ward has been visiting them for about 5 years, and now we get to see them finally come around. We really need to have patience with everyone, because sooner or later, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will help them come back to the fold, just how the shepherd goes looking for the one lost sheep.

On Saturday, our ward mission leader in Eagle Mountain told us that we were giving talks in Sacrament Meeting the next day, which was pretty short notice, but I was excited to give my talk. I thought a lot about what the most important thing was that I could tell them and it came to me that I should talk about the two most important events in the history of the world: The Atonement (Expiacion) of Jesus Christ, and the Restoration of the Gospel (La Restauracion del Evangelio). I found a few basic scriptures that I wanted to share, including two particularly powerful ones: Alma 7:11-15, which talks about everything that Christ suffered for us in verses 11-13 and then in verses 14 and 15 it teaches us how we must accept that sacrifice; and Joseph Smith's account of the first vision, which I recited, and as I recited that scripture, the Spirit came and testified of the truth and reality of what happened that day in a grove of trees near Palmyra, New York, to a young boy. That experience changed the world forevera and connected us once again fully to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, His great and perfect sacrifice for all of us. The Spirit really spoke through me yesterday. It was the best talk I have given in any language, not because I gave it, but because I was the mouthpiece for the Spirit.

We have had many opportunities for service here. This week we helped a member, Hermano Cruz, and his wife (who we are teaching) to take down, move and rebuild a swingset and trampoline that someone had given them. It was pretty fun and we learned how to put together a trampoline, too! On your mission you learn a lot more than the scriptures.

I want to end with a little saying that I read on someone's wall this week, that I think we should all ponder and apply this Christmas and every Christmas:

 

-- Together is a wonderful place to be --

 

Love,

Elder Getts

The Purpose of Life

November 14, 2011

Dear family and friends,

 

I hope that everything is going wonderful for each and every one of you! This week was a good week, just like always. It really is hard for me to have a bad week. On Friday we were able to go on splits and we taught six lessons which were really good lessons to! Then on Saturday and Sunday we didn't have as much luck. That is just how the mission goes: it has its ups and downs just like life.

But what I have learned is that now matter where you are, on an up or on a down, you still have to cling to Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

This past week I lost two of my three nametags, so I had to order another one. Now they have new nametags with magnets that don't really stay on as well as the other ones with the clips, so I wasn't as surprised at losing that one, but I don't know how I lost the one with the clip. I guess I will just have to be more careful.

It is amazing the situations that you run into as a missionary. You meet people who have been through so many trials, have experienced things and been in situations that you hardly have ever even realized existed before. It gives me so much comfort to know that I am a servant of the One who knows and understands every one of those situations, including every feeling and thought of every person, and knows exactly how to help and has the power to do so. (Alma 7:11-13; Mosiah 4:9-10)

Eternal perspective is really something special that enlightens my mind, expands my vision and brings hope and happiness into my life. We talked to someone on his doorstep this week, and when we asked him what he felt was the purpose of life, he just said it was to work and then keep doing it over and over again. That makes me sad for him. There is so much more to life because God exists and there is a life after death. I know it! And that knowledge gives me strength to work every day in building the kingdom of God and in bringing myself and others closer to Christ and eternal happiness.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Getts

November 7, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

 

I have finally received news that I will be finishing my mission - the two full years. I am permanently reassigned to the Utah Provo Mission. My new return date is April 10, 2013. It feels so good to be called again. It is also great to have my myldsmail account back, without any of the advertisements that I have had to endure while I only could use my Yahoo account. The Yahoo account is also really slow compared to this one.

 

This week was a little slow since we lost a day because of Halloween. I am really looking forward to this week so that we can teach a lot more. We had stake conference in our Bonneville Stake this Sunday, which was pretty good, but also pretty crazy because we were running around the chapel trying to find everyone that needed headphones so they could listen in Spanish. I thought it was pretty cool because they had an Hispanic sister give the opening prayer in Spanish. This week, one of our investigators who has known about the church for years and has been listening to us for two months said that she would talk to her daughter when she gets back from her honeymoon about a baptismal date. Hopefully we receive some good news in our next appointment with her!

 

I have really been enjoying studying the Book of Mormon. I have changed my study plan to focus on the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel, two of the most important tools for missionary work. Preach My Gospel is inspired and every family should have one and use it to teach in the home as well as in Church. The Book of Mormon and the Bible are both the word of God. The Book of Mormon is especially important in these days because it is a strong witness to the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know it is true. Those who read it and pray about it with pure intent will receive a testimony that it is the word of God and a true witness of our Savior. I urge everyone to take that challenge.

 

Love,

Elder Getts

 

Elder Getts' first companion in the Provo Utah South Mission

Elder Getts and Elder Hudson

Monday, September 5, 2011
Hey Everybody!

This week has been pretty great. I am so happy to be out in the mission field again. I feel way different this time, which I am sure is due to a lot of different factors. I have always liked Provo, and there is actually a bunch of missionary work to do here. My area is called the Bonneville area in south Provo, and we have two stakes: the Bonneville Stake and the Slate Canyon Stake, each with a Spanish ward, so we went to about 5 hours of church yesterday, which is pretty great, because the best three hours of the week is now the best five hours! Since it was Fast and Testimony meeting I was able to bear my testimony in each ward. My companion is Elder Hudson, who came on his mission from England and was called to serve in Madrid, but could never get his visa because he was born in the USA and moved to England when he was 13. He has been out for about 14 months, or about as long as I would have been out if I hadn't come home - he entered the MTC the week before me last year. He is obedient, excited about the work and we work well together. This mission is way different than the Dominican Republic (to be expected I guess). We get home at nine every night and we study all morning, so we have a lot more time and I don't feel nearly as rushed. We actually have been teaching and finding less than we did in the DR, but I feel like we are doing more work. I have definitely realized it is the quality of the work and not the quantity of the work that counts. It has been amazing to see the diversity here. Already I have met people from Venezuela, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Peru, Chile, Honduras, Argentina, and needless to say, Mexico. I also love speaking in Spanish! The Lord has definitely given me the gift of tongues, because I feel like I talk so much better now even with my break from the mission. The Lord has really boosted my confidence and I am not scared of talking, contacting, or doing anything associated with missionary work and I don't worry much at all.
This past week we had three baptims from the Morales family. The parents and the middle daughter (her name is Jocelyn Morales and she is actually in a class with Cariel Smith and Timpview) were baptized. The youngest was baptized two weeks ago and the oldest is still trying to make the decision. It is pretty interesting in this mission because we speak three languages: English, Spanish, and Spanglish (because everyone who we talk to knows at least a little bit of English). They say stuff like: "Ustedes necesitan un ride?" The parents are usually the ones that know Spanish, and the kids know it very well, but it is still a second language for them since they have learned English in school and Spanish at home. So when a teenager opens a door we usually talk English with them because that is what they prefer. Another investigator we have is Veronica. She is from Mexico and barely knows any English, but she is married to an American member of the church who barely knows any Spanish, so they are both trying to learn each other's language. Elder Hudson and his companion received her as a reference the last week of August and on Friday we commited her to prepare for baptism on the 24th of September. We taught her yesterday and she told us that she had already told everybody at church that she was getting baptized and that she was really excited. She also told us she was doing it for herself, which is great! Another thing about her is that when we taught her on Friday she said the closing prayer and didn't open talking to Heavenly Father and didn't close in the name of Jesus Christ. So on Sunday we invited her to do it again and taught her how to pray correctly and she did it right!!!! That is a HUGE improvement from the DR, where we would tell some people how to do it every lesson for weeks and they still didn't understand, even though it is so simple! That really made me excited!

Jesus Christ lives! He loves every one of you and wants you to come to know Him. He has shown us the way to do it, through faith, repentence, baptism, the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. He has established his church on the earth today through a prophet, Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon that Joseph translated through the power of God is true, and I know it without doubt! If anyone disagrees I challenge them to take some time over the next 48 hours and open your heart enough to believe everything the Book of Mormon says during that time and pray to God to know if it is true and I promise that you will receive a witness that it is the word of God.

Have an awesome week!
Love,
Elder Getts