It is Such a Small World

Hey y'all,

 So this last week has been great! Here are some of the highlights of what happened.

First of all, Chelsie Alvarado is progressing tremendously! We had stake conference this last Sunday and it was a broadcast covering all of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Elder Kapishke from the Seventy and Elder Russell M. Nelson from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles spoke. Two powerhouse speakers back to back. There was so much doctrine taught that Chelsie loved every ounce of it! She was originally planning on getting baptized on the 9th of February but in order for her family and YSA friends to attend, we moved it back a week to the 15th. Not a problem at all. We get the feeling like shes trying to get her parents more included in her steps of coming closer to Christ. We are trying to get her mother who is more receptive of the family to join in the next few discussions we have until shes baptized. Who knows, maybe her entire family will follow her example along with Christ's and get baptized soon. 

It's such a small world I swear, this week we've been going to Chili's, our favorite hot spot for dinner recently. We aren't eating with members as often as we would like. We became good friends with a waiter there named Andy. He happens to serve us every time we go. He recognized us as Mormon missionaries and has asked many questions about our "vacation" he calls it, along with questions of our beliefs. We then find out and met one night at Chili's his wife who is the sister of a member in the 2nd ward. She is also the daughter of the one and only Rodger Larsen in our ward. Rodger and I are very close because he used to live in Draper, a few blocks away from my home when it used to be all farms and pig fields. He is good friends with our neighbors (in Utah). We graduated from the same High School, GO BEETDIGGERS!! Anyways, so we invited Andy and his less active wife to church and we are continuing to befriend them and will hopefully start teaching Andy about the restored gospel. To top this story off, they live in our apartment complex and have already offered to have us over for dinner! If I wasn't on my mission he would teach me how to surf and snowboard too!

My ankle is still giving me some grief. Its been three weeks since I've sprained it. I cant workout as hard as I would like to. Luckily enough I'm able to ride my bike and walk for now. 

Well that's about it for now! Take care y'all.

Love, 

EG

Happiness Comes From Serving

Hey y'all,

Last week I was pretty bummed I didn't get a chance to write to y'all. I only got to send off a few sentences to Mom saying I'm fine, not dead.... YET. We went off to St Augustine for P-day. We had a chance to go play some beach volleyball again. It was awesome! Other than the fact I was limping everywhere I went. A Sister missionary even told me that she had never seen someone fall on the ground so slow ha ha. I severely sprained my ankle playing some basketball. It's been three weeks and I'm still not healed up all the way. Elder Jenkins my trainer rolled his ankle doing the same thing the other day. The doctor said, because your a big guy weighing almost 300 pounds you have to go get an x-ray ha ha. He said it wasn't even bad, he was still able to walk but he still went in for the checkup.

Hopefully I can partially make up for not writing last week because things have been awesome here! We have had many opportunities to do service for people, which has been great. There is a food pantry in Green Cove Springs that we volunteer at from time to time. Lots of very sweet, loving old woman there that sadly too in love with the churches that they already attend. We still had the chance to answer their questions about the church. We often get asked... " So I'm very devoted (Baptist) but I'm interested in the differences between our churches. 

We painted another members home, did some yard work, moved a piano, the list goes on and on for service these last two weeks. There is an area in Folkston, Georgia where the missionaries can't even preach. They are STRICTLY service. Even when people ask them about the church they can't tell them about it. Not being able to preach would be a bummer but I personally wouldn't mind serving all the time. It's a great way to feel the spirit and create great relationships with people. You always have a great felling in your heart when you serve people.

So as for God's children that we have been working with recently, Chelsie Alvarado has been attending the YSA in Jacksonville for a month now and has met a bunch of missionaries. She is really good friends with Victoria Taylor in our ward also. She had never been taught anything except how to receive revelation for herself by prayer, reading the Book of Mormon, writing questions and answers down, and praying afterwords. The fourth verse she had ever read in Chapter 32 of Alma was when she got answer to one of the questions that had been weighing on her mind for awhile. By this amazing experience she immediately knew the Book of Mormon was true. She is solid. She wants to learn learn like no other and we have now taught her the Restoration of the Gospel, and the Plan of Salvation inside the Taylor's home. It has been so powerful having the entire family sitting in the lesson baring testimony, sharing experiences and expanding on principles. Member Missionary work is LEGIT! The spirit is always so much more powerful when your teaching with members and they are more likely to progress and eventually get baptized. Last night after the lesson i invited her to be baptized and she accepted! February 9th is the day! Mark it on your calendar folks cause its going to be incredible! She has a friend in the YSA that has investigating the church for awhile now. She had a date but later cancelled and we are thinking that this might just be the thing that pushes her towards baptism. Maybe even the same day!! 

Sadly, Daphne hasn't progressed at all in the past 3 weeks. Ever since she got her old job back at the post office she's been working a TON and we haven't seen here since. We know that she is prepared and is ready to accept the fullness of the gospel but all in the Lords timing I guess. She loved church and told us she would be coming back but the weather has been so freakin great recently that the drag strip she works at on Sunday, doesn't shut down. Lets just say that we pray for rain on Sunday a lot! We've got some other people that have fallen off the radar and are not keeping commitments... So that's it for right now.

Hope y'all have a fabulous week and either continue to or start making invitations to your friends and family to come closer to Christ! Let us all strive to have the spirit more and be more Christlike which is the only way to have true lasting happiness in this life. 

God be with y'all til we meet again.

Elder Greenlaw

Fleming Island Missionaries

Testing My Faith and Paience

Hello  everyone!

The Lord is testing my faith and patience right now in my life. Last week I got a little discouraged because we didn't have as much work last week. I had a nasty flu virus and it stopped our work from moving forward. I even go the flu shot. Funny how that works. A few days after recovering from this sickness, I was playing basketball at the church with some members and non members and ended up spraining my ankle pretty bad. The past 4 days I've been a gimp, or " The Crip" my ward mission leader calls me. Making my way around the church in a brace and crutches, while still trying to welcome people and say hello to as many as possible, I was surely talked about and laughed at. Oh well, what can you do. The Sister missionaries in our ward are saints. Since my companion doesn't have much sympathy for me, they have stepped in and have been buying me chicken noodle soup while I was sick and even gave their car while I'm injured. Perfect or worst timing ever, depending on who you are, the weather is going to make record cold temperatures here in Florida so it has been a blessing to have heat and a set of wheels this week.

My companion and I are having a wonderful time together. We got nervous for the transfer call last night. We were hoping to stay together for a longer time but rumors said otherwise. Luckily we are both staying for at least another transfer and our Mission President said that he feels like good things are going to happen here and he's confident in us so that's pretty cool. He made a surprise visit to our sacrament meeting on Sunday. He also told us that they are looking to open up 5 new areas for companionships and this area is where he most likely will place one. This area is white and all ready to harvest! So many hearts have been prepared, we just hope and pray that we can find and teach them all.

My companion has a really good friend that he's teaching on Facebook right now. She lives in San Francisco but with the amazing technology we have right now, we are able to teach her anyway from such a long distance. We have been told that the beginning of February at Zone Conference we will ALL receive our very own iPads. This will make the work of Salvation that much more effective. The way that the gospel is being taught and shared is totally different from what it use to be. Knocking doors is the last resort. We work through the members and we are striving to get them all excited about the work. We show them how easy and simple sharing the gospel with their friends can be. We are getting the ball rolling in this area. Many have now stepped out of their comfort zones at school, work, and play, and have invited their friends to come closer to Christ without making relationships awkward afterwards. The tools we have nowadays are amazing. I'm so grateful to be apart of this great work.

Love, Elder Greenlaw