Thanks A Lot, Carl (5/6/2019)

Dear friends and family,

So as I said last week, I am training a new missionary! His name is Elder Whitcomb. He's from New York like myself and he is a two-transfer missionary just like I was. I was very surprised by that. Training is really hard. Hah. We had a lot of cool teaching experiences this week... I'll start from the beginning.

So Elder Pay and I had our last proselyting evening together on Wednesday evening. Inexplicably I started feeling this weird self-confidence come out of nowhere. I felt super awesome, like I was more "myself" than I had been for weeks. Things kind of come together in my mind; I understood why Elder Pay had been my companion. At least in part, it was to prepare me for training a new missionary. I thanked God for this completely beyond-explanation chemical reaction that happened when I combined with Elder Pay that somehow at the very end of our companionship made me feel awesome. I couldn't really explain it, but I was ready to train a new guy fresh out of the MTC.

Then Thursday came and I got my new companion and found out he had not been to the MTC! Well, that's a shake-up. Without that boost to my confidence, I probably would have still been able to train a new missionary who had been to the MTC. But WITH that boost I became (just barely) able to train a guy who hadn't. I see what you did there, God 🤔

And it's a good thing I did because like I said, training is hard. I am still figuring out how to do it. My confidence has wavered since then but that's okay, it was a glorious few hours. (Haha.)

That evening Elder Whitcomb and I went to a lesson that fell through and rode around with a member trying to visit people and getting lost on the freeway. I was trying to navigate but these labyrinths of highways seriously look like someone spilled a plate on spaghetti on the floor. After several wrong turns we made it to our destinations and also made it home on time somehow for a decent first impression on my new companion.

The next day we also had our planned lesson fall through since the lady on date for baptism, Timika, got caught up helping someone move for longer than she anticipated. I felt bad that Elder Whitcomb wasn't able to actually get in a lesson yet!

Saturday was a good day, however. After following a spiritual prompting we stopped by a guy Elder Pay and I had met at a service opportunity and he happened to be home! We had a pretty good small lesson with him and set up another for this weekend. Then we had our first planned lesson that didn't fall through with the Maxwell family. For context Sister Maxwell is a returning member and her two kids over the age of 8 haven't been baptized yet and they aren't super interested. But we had our best lesson we've had with them yet, I would say.

Sunday also went well--we found some new people to teach, including a born-again guy who was trying to catch us saying that we need to do works to get to heaven. Thankfully I have enough experience at this point in my mission where I was able to calmly and casually explain our beliefs. We have a lesson with him tonight and are going to do our best to just leave him the Book of Mormon and tell him to read it rather than stay there and debate/Bible bash for an hour. Pray it goes well.

A super golden lady named Jane finally got back to us earlier today and we set up an appointment! We are pretty excited about that.

Finally, last night we were allowed to watch the devotional with Carl B. Cook and Sister Cook. It was all about eternal marriage. It was a fantastic devotional and really spiritually powerful...but... Gahhhh come on man, I still have 7 months left!!!

I definitely have learned that God's objective is to help us grow, not to make us comfortable. I am ever more aware of that fact. It isn't always the most pleasant experience but it IS worth it!

Godspeed to you all!

Love,

Elder Gallagher