Posts

"Out of Great Tribulation" (12/9/2019)

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Dear friends and family, It doesn't feel real, but we have come to the end. 23 and a half months have passed since I became a missionary. This is the last weekly email. I was set apart on the day President Monson died. I've labored through all the many changes that have happened in the Church since then. I've seen new mission rules galore all across the board culminating in a new missionary rule book. I've read the New Testament and the  Doctrine and Covenants in their entirety for the first time. I read  Jesus the Christ  twice and the Book of Mormon 4 times or so. (I think I still am missing a bit of the Pearl of Great Price somehow.) I got to look at myself in the proverbial mirror, recoil in horror, and try to repent. I got to meet countless individuals who I will love and stay in contact for the rest of my life. I was involved in teaching 6 individuals who got baptized either while I was in their ward or afterward. I learned how to better t
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Last Chapter (12/2/2019)

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Well, I will wait to reflect upon my mission until next week's weekly. Despite the fact that I don't have too much else to say this week. The trio life is good. Elder Borden and Elder Schreiter are great missionaries. I think this trio is even better than the two other trios I was a part of between transfers on two separate occasions. I thought of something interesting recently. It was really uplifting and profound. I kind of forgot what it was. ...That's why you write things down sooner! All I remember, basically, is that it's silly to expect someone to get through life without having made lots of mistakes. It's a given that mistakes, even big ones, will be made. That's kind of inevitable. It's okay. Just move on. That's what I tell myself anyway. I feel like I had some cool analogy for this but I forgot what it was. I'm striving to stay focused. I am trying my hardest. I'm sticking it out till the end, feeling
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Blessed (11/26/2019)

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Dear friends and family, I met an apostle of Jesus Christ this week. I don't have the picture he took with the mission yet so if/when I get that I'll send it. (Provided they get it to us within the next two weeks.) On Saturday we arrived at the church building where it was to take place. This was the entire mission meeting in one location, which never happens unless an apostle visits. We were told that Elder Uchtdorf was in a meeting with the mission leadership so we quietly gathered in the gym to line up for a photo. We got lined up and arranged for the picture waiting for a while as more missionaries filed in and we awaited the Uchtdorfs. Finally I spotted Sister Uchtdorf walking in and going near to her seat. I don't know how many people recognized her--we don't usually see her, just her husband. A few moments later Elder Uchtdorf strode in and everybody went dead silent. He said something like "I've looked all over the building for
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I Have A Plan (11/18/2019)

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Dear friends and family, What is there to say this week? Hm... Well we had some success finding some new people, and we have appointments lined up. Pray those go well. Our main man on date, John, has been progressing except he said he'd come to church Saturday evening but the next morning something came up and he wasn't able to make it. Unfortunate, but not exactly his fault. Still worrisome though. Hopefully everything gets together and he is able to make his baptismal date for December 21st. This past week's  My Plan was really good--I got to the section where it has you think of who you want to be in one year and I unexpectedly thought of a ton of goals that I felt really good about. So I guess I'm pretty excited to make those happen. I have a lot of work to do. Love, Elder Gallagher PIC: An oddity of nature and gravity    
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15 Pages (11/11/2019)

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Dear friends and family, We sent out a mass text to all the people in our area book who were marked as "not interested". Someone responded saying they'd be happy to meet again, but the last elders never answered some of his questions. We said we'd be happy to try to answer them if we could. So we get emailed to us a 15-page document containing the lamest anti questions you've ever read. We're talking questions about Jesus being born in Bethlehem and not Jerusalem like the Book of Mormon says (he even had a visual aid for that one), Jesus and Satan being brothers, the Church of Jesus Christ prophesied to be undestroyable, why the passover isn't mentioned in the Book of Mormon (" Hmmm... Don't know, don't care. How's that? " - Emperor Cuzco), and even how Moroni became an angel (" Like anyone could even know that. " - Kip Dynamite). 15 pages of this cr@p! Haha. The actual visit with him ended up being no
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Incredible News (11/4/2019)

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Dear friends and family, We've been trying our best to make things happen in Mansfield. Progress has been a little bit slow. Adapting to new areas isn't my favorite thing. Hard to know if you're doing your best. But we're doing okay overall. So we got some incredible news... an apostle is visiting our mission. I've been waiting my entire mission for something like this.  Dieter F. Uchtdorf  is coming to visit the Ohio Columbus Mission on November 23rd. The entire mission will be together which in and of itself is unprecedented at least in my time. I am very much looking forward to that. In other news, I started My Plan this week, which is a 6-week program for missionaries when they are in their last transfer in order to prepare them for their return home and ensure they transition well. It's kinda weird because I've already partly gone through it with the three missionaries I killed off (Elder Penny, Elder Henrie, and Elder Miller
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10/28/2019

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 Um sorry guys I'm lame this week PICS: Elder Cox and myself and Morgan Freeman as a grocery store bagger from the Shawshank Redemption This library book was mocking me ("RM")
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