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