Biking Adventures in Gainesville

Hello everyone!

What an adventurous week here in Gainesville. As y'all know we are on bikes now and oh my goodness does it suck. I've gotten use to the constant sweat all over me I think. People keep saying September is when is starts to cool down, but I haven't really seen that yet. ha ha We have had so many bike problems this week its unreal. First Elder Andersen's bike tire went flat on our way back home from the church. Which ended up being a 3 mile walk back home. It didn't help that our phone was dead so we had no way to contact anybody either. Then we get a member to take us to a bike shop to get a new tube. We later find out that to fill it up it requires a specific European made nossle. So we had to go to a different bike shop to get that. THEN, as we were riding I looked back to see where Elder Andersen was, which always seems to a ways back, and then the metal shaft holding my seat snapped in half and I tumbled to the ground. Only minor injury but that was not fun riding a bike for a day without a seat.... Feel the Burn!

My first ever District Meeting went very well surprisingly. Getting up and talking to people seems to come more natural to me now that I've been out here for 6 1/2 months. Elders say this is only the beginning of Leadership callings...

Charlie is very solid. He should be getting dunked here pretty soon. He has such a remarkable testimony and he has now come to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Of course there are other concerns he has, Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and such, but now that he has read the Book of Mormon, prayed to know if its true along with Joseph Smith being a prophet and received an answer, everything else is a piece of cake. We are planning on September 28th with him.

We had a miracle with a man named Craig. As we were riding bikes on the sidewalk we stopped and talked to him. We taught him a lesson right there on the side of the road and got a return appointment with him. We visited him and his whole family of six at their home and they all seem to be incredible nice and interested. We actually went to his North Central Baptist church Sunday morning hoping that he would come to ours afterwards.... but he had some last minute things come up. So lets just say he owes us a little favor sooner or later.

Being a District Leader over 14 people has really stretched me and given me great opportunity to love and serve others. I tend to focus on what my wants and needs are and so it has been really good for me to strive and overcome that.

Things within the ward are getting better. I have never had such a good relationship with our Bishop as I do now. He has asked us to go and visit every member and help them with their family mission plans. We do this and tend to find service and receive dinner for it so its going wonderful. The southern food they cook for us here is SOOO good, even on bikes I haven't lost weight yet..

God lives and knows each and everyone of us. How wonderful it is to know that we have a loving Father and friend who wants to hear about our day and wants to help us so that we can eventually become as he is, glorified and perfected. He has created a plan to do so only through our loving Savior Jesus Christ. We find lasting happiness as we strive to be like him and live his Gospel. The Book of Mormon testifies of Him and allows us to find answers to our daily struggles. Prayer is the resevoir for power. I can testify that God truly answers our prayers and speaks to us through scriptures and words of the modern day prophets. I love my mission and opportunity i have to share this wonderful message to other who are searching for truth but do not know where to find it.

Love,

Elder Greenlaw

The Call to be a District Leader

Hello everyone!

This past week has been very stressful. With the recent call of being the District Leader, the stress of helping missionaries and making sure things are going well. It was also transfers last week and we both thought that because of certain events that happened in the ward, we were going to be transferred. We had to stay up late to receive a call from President telling us if we were going or not. Ends up I'm still here for another six weeks with a lot of extra struggles within the ward and the relationships with all missionaries. We had to drive 2 hours to Jacksonville to drop off our car, and then hitch hike back home. Very sketchy in redneck country. Luckily some missionaries were able to later pick us up and take us back ha ha.

The famous Charlie Blankenship is progressing very well towards baptism on the 28th of September. Through him we are reactivating his best friend who happens to be a less active member. Our recent converts are all really struggling right now. None of them have been coming to church and they aren't keeping the Word of Wisdom. Our ward mission leader wanted us to get rid of the Book of Mormon class we hold every Wednesday night at the church, but instead we have changed it to the B.O.M.M.! The Book of Mormon Marathon! We have created a plan to get the recent converts and members who are struggling to read to get through the whole book in less than a year! Its very exciting and I believe it will help many of the problems these people are facing in their lives. That is how POWERFUL the Book of Mormon is! As we are praying and reading it individually and as a family, we will have the Spirit more abundantly in our lives. There will be more love and happiness within the home and less fighting, contention, and stress of everyday life. We can find answers to our prayers and learn so much from it! I can see such a big difference in my day if I sincerely ponder the scriptures. Everything seems to go so much more smooth.

I know that God lives, and he knows us individually. He knows each of our struggles and our weaknesses. He doesn't just sit back and watch us have a hard time, He weeps with us and micromanages our lives without interfering with our free agency. I see his hand in this missionary work, and I see miracles each and everyday. We learn and grow from these trials and we gain experience and great joy when we overcome them! God will never give us something we can not handle. I know that to be true.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement! Talk to y'all next week.

Love, Elder Greenlaw

Pictures from Elder Greenlaw's Mission

Here are a few pictures from last week.

THE SWAMP! This is Gator country fellas!

Rainy day once again! Time to put on the rain jackets! Elder Greenlaw says he hardly even notices the humidity anymore.He also thinks it is weird when it's not raining. "This place is so beautiful!". 

Elder Greenlaw and Elder Anderson

**Note from Jill

While I was in Florida last week, I had the chance to visit the Orlando Florida Temple. It is absolutely beautiful. I wanted to share a few pictures here on Elder Greenlaw's blog. 

Orlando Florida Temple

Elder Greenlaw - 6 Month Mark

Hello everybody!

Sorry to freak yall out from not hearing from me yesterday. It's transfers! So today, Tuesday, is our P-day.

Wow! Where do I even begin with this week. This week has definitely been a wild one. Last night we had our transfer call, and I'm STILL here in the Gainesville 2nd ward ha ha. I'm still training Elder Andersen and I also got the call to be the District Leader here. I was shocked! The Lord definitely calls the weak and inadequate because that's exactly how I feel right now. My 6 month mark just came up and I cant believe it's here! Time is flying by! 

My favorite family in Florida, the Whites, who I seem to always send pictures of me with, threw me a party! We did the annual burning of the tie, along with fireworks, delicious food, and especially Sis White's famous home made mac'n'cheese! MMMMmmmmmm SO good ha ha.  

Elder Greenlaw and Elder Anderson at the White family home.

Celebrating 6 months on Elder Greenlaw's Mission. 

Burning of the tie. It looks like Elder Greenlaw is burning a lot more than that. 

This transfer we received 37 new missionaries plus senior couples. Most of them are Sisters and so the Mission President asked a lot of Elders to sacrifice their cars and give them to the new comers... Yes... that includes me.  I look at it as such a blessing though. As much as I love AC in my beautiful Ford Fusion, we miss a lot of opportunities to talk to people on the side of the road. Now we won't have to worry about it. Also... I've gained 32 lbs as of this morning here so far and I'm about to bust through my suit pants so I am for sure going to lose some weigh here very soon. Luckily the hottest times of the year are almost over and it will be cooling down to about 80 with not as much humidity as 70-80% as it has been recently.

We set a baptism date with a kid named Charlie! A kid who people say is the furthest thing from a Christian. At first he only wanted to learn for simply more knowledge. He is a very smart kid. Almost too smart for his own good. As soon as we answered ALL of his questions and taught him the lessons, he knows it is true! He has learned on almost every kind of denomination and religion there is and now he is begging his less active friend to come to church with him, reminding us to leave with a prayer every time we see him, he even got up and bore powerful testimony in Sacrament meeting this last week. He had members crying and people coming up to him and hugging him afterwards! Oh he is so solid!!! But the only thing is.... He lives about a mile out of our ward boundaries and so we were asked to turn him over to High Springs Elders... UGH!!!! It is so hard to get rid of him because we have such a close relationship with him. But, it's the way it has to be I guess. We know we will be blessed for it. It's a very humbling experience too.  Roosevelt Watts his best friend came to church this Sunday for the first time in 10 years. Such a miracle! He is very depressed and almost suicidal.  We are making huge steps with him. As far as the rest of our teaching pool, It has dwindled and we are back to finding more people. WE have a huge area too so we are not limited on how far away from home we can go because of bikes. BUT, I know the Lord will bless us greatly.

There are many ways that Satan tries to bring us down, and he will never give up. When he reminds us of our past, we must remind him of his future. I've also learned that it is simply up to us if we are going to be happy or not. There are so many decisions that have to be made each day and we have the opportunity to act just as the Savior would. We have the choice to be happy or not and sadly I've learned this the hard way recently. God will never give us a task that we can not handle. As long as we keep our faith strong, nothing wavering, we shall not fear and he promises us so many blessing if we do. Most importantly, when it comes to the Spirit, I know that the Savior's Atonement is real or else I would not be out here right now. He strengthens me everyday and I love him, along with my Father in heaven very much. In this life, we need to figure out how to be happy.... and only through the gospel of Jesus Christ can we find the most lasting joy. I know this to be true by hard life experiences and trials I face each and everyday. I love my mission very much.. It is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to go through, but I can't imagine myself without being out here right now.    I love you all.

Elder Greenlaw 

Hello Everyone! 

The Mac computers in my apartment club house weren't working earlier today, and Ii was really worried that I might not be able to write to ya'll for another week! But thank goodness everything is good now.

This week the Lord has really blessed us. We went from no teaching pool to 5 investigators we are constantly teaching! Oh how marvelous! Praise the Lord! Holy Ghost!

We met a retired black pastor riding his lawn mower this week. He is so enthusiastic about the Lord,and he says he feels so much love and peace when we come by! We are hopefully going to set a baptismal date with him tonight. The only thing that is holding him back from getting baptized is the understanding of the necessity of the Priesthood. Mind you that he has baptized many in his day and brought many people unto Christ. BUT tonight we are bringing a X quorum of the seventy member Brother Anderson to teach him with us... So the Spirit will for sure be there very strongly testifying to him that he needs to get baptized again. Along with all the other people he baptized previously. Potentially we could have 50 or so baptisms next month ha ha.  

We have Mike and Megan who are in desperate need of the gospel in their lives right now as they are turning towards the things of this world for happiness. As we all know that doesn't get you very far. They are thirsting for the word and want us to visit them everyday if we could! Its wonderful!

Laurence Juett, is also struggling with the Priesthood and needing to be baptized once more, but he came to church this week and the fellowship we are giving him is mind blowing! He LOVES the church. Still working on him and his concerns.

Charlie and his little sister came to church also! He is a 19 year old college student that studies many religions, but he has a desire to learn more and is planning on coming to church again next week. 

Here in the Gainesville 2nd ward, the Lord definitely tests your patience as ALL of the recent converts in the past three years are still struggling with the Word of Wisdom. It's easy to tell myself that we aren't doing anything good for these people and to stop focusing on them, but I know that this is the adversary and God is saying otherwise. It's really hard to see these people so often slip up and revert back to smoking. Many don't feel comfortable coming to church because of it because the whole ward knows they are struggling. The ward really struggles with fellowshipping these people. I wish we could do or say more to help...

Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers! I have truly seen them answered this week as we are filling our schedules with appointments and find ourselves not knocking on doors very much anymore. They say by the end of the year, knocking doors will be gone, and we will have iPads to organize our area books and teaching records. The work is changing tremendously and I'm very blessed to be out here witnessing it.

Love you all!

Elder Greenlaw

Spending the Day With the Gators

Football season is coming soon!!! The people here are going crazy about it already! We had an investigator named Mike Bell who we ended up dropping. Huge bummer because he was about to pay the way for us to go to the Gators first game of the season against Toledo! They will smoke 'em! I hope a different investigator will take us. The Lord blesses us according to our desires right?? It was definitely a bummer to drop him but it was the right thing to do. We bore a powerful testimony at a BBQ joint and he still rejected it. It's amazing no matter where you are, no matter what distractions are there, the spirit can be very strong.

We get BBQ food just about every night. I am so sick of pork and ribs its not even funny. I have learned to cook some really good Chinese chicken with ham fried rice. I can also fry up a perfect egg also. I still load HOT sauce on everything ha ha.

In my ward there is a big problem occurring between the bishop and the missionaries. Other ward members are now noticing. This week we will be meeting in his office some time to discuss these trust issues. The bishop loves the Sister missionaries and so he along with the whole ward gives them ALL of the referrals. We don't get a single ward assignment... Soon we will be changing the work for not only us but the future for all missionaries in the ward. 

We have a few people we are teaching now. The Lord is definitely testing my faith and patience right now. I keep catching myself wanting to do things my own way and not submitting my will to God's way. Working on re-aligning that. 

My companion and I get along great still. He definitely likes to push me and keep me going strong at the times I get down. 

We went to a prairie where alligators were everywhere! I hope you like the pictures. 

Smell Gator? 

Elder Greenlaw and Elder Anderson

Elder Anderson, me, Elder Gao, investigator Tim Chen, Elder Forsyth, and funny member Bruce. THE GANG!! (sweating profusely)

Until next time, 

Elder Greenlaw

New Companion - Elder Anderson from Logan Utah

Hello everybody!

Another exciting week from here in Gainesville, Florida! I'm training another "greenie" from Logan Utah. His name is Elder Anderson and he is a total stud. For some reason God always assigns me with the biggest missionaries, maybe to try and keep me humble I don't know but he's 6'4 250 planning on playing football for Utah State. Sounds almost the same as Elder Jenkins my first companion huh! Once again I have to put up with the Utah State banners, hats, t-shirts, and such.. I guess you could say that I'm warming up to them a bit. Still a die hard BYU fan though  don't worry. We get along great and he's definitely excited and worthy to be out here. I told him that my goal for him after these next three months is for him to train just like I did. Of course he rolls his eyes but I already know he's going to. 

The work for this week is slowly starting to pick up! We still don't have anybody in our teaching pool, but we have a lot of new solid potentials. Recently I've been trying to recognize the miracles that go on around us, and they are everywhere! The Lord is definitely apart of this work, and we couldn't do anything without his help. I'm feeling really confident for this week and the people we are going to see. Please pray for the people here in Gainesville and for their hearts to be softened as we search for the elect! The MTC focuses so much on teaching people, but I believe that they need to focus more time on finding people. Missionary work sucks when there is nobody to teach! 

This last Saturday our steak had a Youth Conference focusing on missionary work. All the kids came together and had an MTC experience, got assigned to a companion, got separated into Districts and then we took them out to go tracking! What an experience this was! Elder Anderson and I had a District of about 15 kids that we taught, and did role plays on street contacting with them. Some of the role plays they did were absolutely hysterical! I then got split up with 4 boys about 15 years old. We went to the nearby Publix or in Utah terms, (Albertsons or Harmons) and I forced them to go talk to strangers. About an hour later I got tracked down by the managers and they told me that they had been getting a lot of customer complaints and we needed to leave ha ha. So then I took them to a really rich neighborhood where they soon got doors slammed into their faces ha ha. The Stake President told me to give them an experience they would always remember and so I did! I think they all enjoyed it. 

We also had a miracle where we ran into a former Investigator, Lawrence Juett, and older black man who had a baptism date, been to church 8 times in a row and had all of the lessons taught to him. Mind you that he basically fell off the face of the earth and nobody knew what had happened to him. He was about to get baptized when his wife got involved, who is a 7th Day Adventist, and created much contention when she found out. We ran into him for the first time in 5 months and now we have an appointment set for this Wednesday.  When I told my bishop this, he could not believe it!

Here in the Bible Belt, it is so sad to see how people say they already have Jesus in their lives but at the same time completely reject what we have to say to them. In 2 Nephi 28-29 it prophesies of people saying once they have been saved by Jesus Christ then they need no more gospel. For they have a Bible and need no more! It's like God trying to hand them dessert after a meal, but they reject.... We have experienced this each and everyday and I feel Godly sorrow for these people when I could show them how the fullness of the gospel brings so much MORE joy and love into their lives. Often, I run into people that say it doesn't matter what I do during the week, I have the church to make me clean again and they don't have to do anything other than show up! It breaks my heart to see such ignorance, pride, and hard headed people. But it all is made up for it when we are blessed with someone in our path who is thirsting for the gospel they just know not where to find it. What joy it brings me when I find these people. 

I love the Lord, and I love this work. Til next time!

Elder Greenlaw

Elder Anderson and Elder Greenlaw in Gainesville, Florida