So long, Elder Bishop. . . Hello, Elder Hernandez

 

Bits and pieces from the last few weeks -
I am doing great! We have transfers this week - transfer calls are tomorrow. Elder Bishop is heading home.  We are doing well. Andrew was confirmed today and then given the Aaronic Priesthood and now has a temple reccommend! So we are going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with him on Tuesday. It is so much more exciting when you can go to the temple and do baptisms with your recent converts really soon after their baptism! I don't worry as much about if they will stay active or not because I know that they are starting to enjoy the blessings of the temple. It has been a good week. I love teaching the Gospel and getting to know Heavenly Father's sons and daughters. We are teaching a family in a member's home right now, which sadly doesn't happen very often, and it is amazing! The members are a young family with an 8-month-old girl, and there is an amazing spirit in their home! They aren't afraid to invite their neighbors over for games, for FHE, and then to meet with the missionaries, and it makes a huge difference in our teaching and how the people we are teaching are progressing. Much of the time all we have to do is invite! There are many people who will accept if we just invite them! If we do it with sincere love they will not be offended. Keep up the good work in the service of the Lord!

It has been a wild week for me. We had transfers and tons of stuff to do, and then suddenly we are flooded with appointments! So we have been all over the place teaching and working. We got 17 missionaries this transfer, opened some new areas and created a new zone, which is what is creating all the work for us. It is fun, though. I like to see things change for the better and be a part of it. Everything is going well for us. We had a baptism yesterday and he was confirmed today. I confirmed him and really felt the Spirit as I said the prayer. It definitely felt like my words were being guided.  My new companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Raleigh, NC and his parents are from El Salvador. He was called on an English speaking mission here. I hope that everything is going well for you and everyone else!

Elder Hernandez is cool. He has been on his mission for 15 months. We get along pretty well and are working hard. There is SO much work to do here that we need to split our area to focus more on individual stakes, especially Grandview East. It probably won't happen until the transfer that I leave to come home, because we are getting mostly Spanish missionaries this next transfer in February. The next baptism coming up is on February 9th. The man's name is Chris and he was really prepared. Everything makes sense to him and he feels that it is true, which is how the Spirit often speaks to us. It is really amazing to see the member family that has helped us fellowship them and the love and the Spirit that can be felt in their home. I just wish that the members of the Church would catch the VISION of Preach My Gospel that the Apostles are trying to get us to see! It is SO important and even more rewarding!

Well, I hope that you have a great week!

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