Dear Family,
It`s so awesome that Joshua is now a missionary. I`m going to be
looking forward and hearing about the great experiences he will have
in the next two years.
The other day I just finished with my second
journal and did a little bit of reflecting on the things that have
happened during my mission so far. It has been an amazing experience
and I really love being a part of this great work. Heavenly Father has
blessed me in so many ways. There is still a lot for me to learn and
do. I`m just going to make sure that I live each day to its fullest.
We have been keeping up with doing service here. In fact today we will
be helping a member move. However I think the best part of this week
so far is the broadcast we saw about missionary work. It talked a lot
about member missionary work. Another thing that I learned is the best
way to do missionary work is out of love. As we love the people around
us we will desire that they might come to learn about the gospel. If
we share this wonderful message out of love the Spirit will be able to
testify to them that this message is true.
I have been thinking about
how I can love the people around me that I have never met before. Here
are a couple of ideas that I had that I believe will help me learn to
love everyone I meet:
1. Remember that they are a child of God and that He loves them just
as He loves me.
2. Remember the times that I felt the love of God in my life and how
others can feel it as well.
3. Think about the other people that love them and desire their
happiness(specifically ancestors who are waiting for them to receive
the gospel).
4. Remember the love that I have for my family and how that love and
happiness can continue throughout eternity.
As others receive the gospel they come closer to our Heavenly Father.
Through this gospel and Jesus Christ`s Atonement we can return and
live with our Heavenly Father again. I know that this is the work of
salvation and can eternally bless the lives of the people around us.
I`m so grateful for all of you and the examples you have showed me.
Thanks for all of your prayers. I love you all so very much and pray
for you always.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
June 23, 2013
Dear Family,
Wow I`m super excited for Joshua to be going into the MTC. His time
there will be a lot shorter than mine was but I hope he loves it. I
learned so much while I was in the MTC and really enjoyed my time
there. Missions are so great I love to hear about all of the news
about people going out to serve.
Well things here have been going
really great. The work is progressing and we have so many
investigators that it is beginning to get a little hard teaching all
of them. We will keep doing our best to help each of them though. We
have also found a lot of people that seem like they have been prepared
to receive the gospel. It has been so much fun going out everyday and
sharing the gospel.
This week we had a good experience with service
and how service can really help in the work. Last week we met a
foriegner who is related to a member here. They called us and asked
for some help because there was a language barrier. So we gladly went
and helped out and did some translating. It did help me feel a little
more confident about my Japanese but there is always room for
improvement. Yesterday this investigator came to church and we had a
great lesson. We learned that he is very humble and heavily relies on
Jesus Christ. We are doing our best to help him and all of our other
investigators to learn the truthfulness of the gospel. I know that the
Holy Ghost is the most important part of this work. I`m grateful for
all of your prayers and love you all so very much.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
Wow I`m super excited for Joshua to be going into the MTC. His time
there will be a lot shorter than mine was but I hope he loves it. I
learned so much while I was in the MTC and really enjoyed my time
there. Missions are so great I love to hear about all of the news
about people going out to serve.
Well things here have been going
really great. The work is progressing and we have so many
investigators that it is beginning to get a little hard teaching all
of them. We will keep doing our best to help each of them though. We
have also found a lot of people that seem like they have been prepared
to receive the gospel. It has been so much fun going out everyday and
sharing the gospel.
This week we had a good experience with service
and how service can really help in the work. Last week we met a
foriegner who is related to a member here. They called us and asked
for some help because there was a language barrier. So we gladly went
and helped out and did some translating. It did help me feel a little
more confident about my Japanese but there is always room for
improvement. Yesterday this investigator came to church and we had a
great lesson. We learned that he is very humble and heavily relies on
Jesus Christ. We are doing our best to help him and all of our other
investigators to learn the truthfulness of the gospel. I know that the
Holy Ghost is the most important part of this work. I`m grateful for
all of your prayers and love you all so very much.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
June 16, 2013
Dear Family,
I was super excited to hear about Gracie and will be excited
to see her as well. Things are going really fast soon he will
be in the MTC. You should send me his
missionary e-mail address so I can write him if I have some time.
Everything has been going really well here this week. We have done a
lot of finding and found a great amount of new investigators. We have
been working hard with all of our investigators to help them progress
and grow in faith. We have also been working with a good amount of
less active members. Most of them want to come to church but are busy with
work. Some are older ladies that just don`t have a way of coming but
we usually take the sacrament to them every week.
We have been super busy and keep trying to do our best.
The work just keeps progressing
and I`m so grateful that I can be a part of it at this time. The other
day in church we were reading some of the teachings of Pres. Lorenzo
Snow. We talked about obeying God`s will. In the chapter we read it
makes a reference to missionaries about how they are nervous and feel
inadequate sometimes. However Heavenly Father gives them power to
succeed in His work. I remember writing in my journal when I was in
the MTC wondering how can I become a successful missionary and how can
I learn Japanese. I definately felt inadequate in my skills but I felt
comforted in knowing that the Lord has called me to do His work. I
knew that he would not send me out to fail. I have definitely received
power while doing this great work. Success can be measured in many
different ways but I know that as we obey the will of Heavenly Father
that we will be successful in the way he intends for us individually.
These were just some of my thoughts that I wanted to share this week.
I love you all very much and pray for you all everyday.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
I was super excited to hear about Gracie and will be excited
to see her as well. Things are going really fast soon he will
be in the MTC. You should send me his
missionary e-mail address so I can write him if I have some time.
Everything has been going really well here this week. We have done a
lot of finding and found a great amount of new investigators. We have
been working hard with all of our investigators to help them progress
and grow in faith. We have also been working with a good amount of
less active members. Most of them want to come to church but are busy with
work. Some are older ladies that just don`t have a way of coming but
we usually take the sacrament to them every week.
We have been super busy and keep trying to do our best.
The work just keeps progressing
and I`m so grateful that I can be a part of it at this time. The other
day in church we were reading some of the teachings of Pres. Lorenzo
Snow. We talked about obeying God`s will. In the chapter we read it
makes a reference to missionaries about how they are nervous and feel
inadequate sometimes. However Heavenly Father gives them power to
succeed in His work. I remember writing in my journal when I was in
the MTC wondering how can I become a successful missionary and how can
I learn Japanese. I definately felt inadequate in my skills but I felt
comforted in knowing that the Lord has called me to do His work. I
knew that he would not send me out to fail. I have definitely received
power while doing this great work. Success can be measured in many
different ways but I know that as we obey the will of Heavenly Father
that we will be successful in the way he intends for us individually.
These were just some of my thoughts that I wanted to share this week.
I love you all very much and pray for you all everyday.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
June 3 and June 10, 2013
June 3, 2013
Dear Family,
To start off I just want to wish you a Happy Birthday Mom. It sounds like everyone is having a good time. Its interesting to think that Joshua is graduating and will be going on a mission. Time really has flown I look back thinking it was just one year ago that I graduated but it has been two.
Everything here has been going well. By the way the name of my area is called Nago. It is a super pretty and fun area to be working in. This week has been really good we found some good new investigators. We actually had kind of a funny miraculous experience with one. We met him on the street and got to share a short message. He seemed interested in hearing more of what we have to say so we set up a time that we could meet him. A few minutes afterwards we realized that we had a stake conference meeting during that time. We tried finding him but had no success. The day before this meeting we decided to go visit a person that we didn't plan on meeting that day. On our way over we saw this guy we had just met. We immediately stopped him and asked if he could meet a different day. He said it would be fine so we are actually going to meet him tonight. So I'm looking forward to that.
This week was also stake conference which you probably already figured out. It was a great meeting and we had two Japanese members of the seventy there that spoke to us. It was a great meeting that was just very spiritually uplifting. Our mission president was there as well and he is always fun to listen to. He is a great example to all the missionaries here. That sounds like most of the news for this week. Today is transfer calls but we still haven't heard if anything is happening yet. Next week I'll let you know what happened. I love you all very much.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
June 10, 2013
Dear Family,
Wow it sounds like a lot is going on. I`m excited to hear about Bryce
and Becky`s baby. It is awesome hearing about all of the news.
Well as for news here I got transferred. I`m now a lot closer to Taiwan than I
am to the mission home. My area is a place called Miyakojima. It is a
fairly small island and the only missionaries here are me and my
companion Elder Nakabe. The weather is really hot but the scenery is
beautiful. Elder Nakabe and I are getting along great he is from Tokyo
and we are having a good time going around trying to talk to everyone.
We have been super busy with all of the work. It is fun to see how the work is
progressing in different places. We have some good
investigators that we are working with right now.
By the way something interesting about my area that I think you would like to know is that
there are some huge spiders here. I was surprised at how many spiders
I saw that were about the size of my hand. My companion saw a spider
that was twice the size of those the day before I came here.
I feel like there is a lot to say but at the moment I can`t really think
of anything right now. It was neat seeing my entire area from the
plane as I flew in. The airport is super small as well. Well I`ll
probably explain some more next week. I love you all so very much!
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
P.S. Oh yeah right now I`m the district leader. This is my first time
so I`m a little bit nervous. It is interesting because we are on an
island we do district meetings over skype with some Elders that are by
themselves on another close by island. Our district is called the
Island`s District.
Dear Family,
To start off I just want to wish you a Happy Birthday Mom. It sounds like everyone is having a good time. Its interesting to think that Joshua is graduating and will be going on a mission. Time really has flown I look back thinking it was just one year ago that I graduated but it has been two.
Everything here has been going well. By the way the name of my area is called Nago. It is a super pretty and fun area to be working in. This week has been really good we found some good new investigators. We actually had kind of a funny miraculous experience with one. We met him on the street and got to share a short message. He seemed interested in hearing more of what we have to say so we set up a time that we could meet him. A few minutes afterwards we realized that we had a stake conference meeting during that time. We tried finding him but had no success. The day before this meeting we decided to go visit a person that we didn't plan on meeting that day. On our way over we saw this guy we had just met. We immediately stopped him and asked if he could meet a different day. He said it would be fine so we are actually going to meet him tonight. So I'm looking forward to that.
This week was also stake conference which you probably already figured out. It was a great meeting and we had two Japanese members of the seventy there that spoke to us. It was a great meeting that was just very spiritually uplifting. Our mission president was there as well and he is always fun to listen to. He is a great example to all the missionaries here. That sounds like most of the news for this week. Today is transfer calls but we still haven't heard if anything is happening yet. Next week I'll let you know what happened. I love you all very much.
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
June 10, 2013
Dear Family,
Wow it sounds like a lot is going on. I`m excited to hear about Bryce
and Becky`s baby. It is awesome hearing about all of the news.
Well as for news here I got transferred. I`m now a lot closer to Taiwan than I
am to the mission home. My area is a place called Miyakojima. It is a
fairly small island and the only missionaries here are me and my
companion Elder Nakabe. The weather is really hot but the scenery is
beautiful. Elder Nakabe and I are getting along great he is from Tokyo
and we are having a good time going around trying to talk to everyone.
We have been super busy with all of the work. It is fun to see how the work is
progressing in different places. We have some good
investigators that we are working with right now.
By the way something interesting about my area that I think you would like to know is that
there are some huge spiders here. I was surprised at how many spiders
I saw that were about the size of my hand. My companion saw a spider
that was twice the size of those the day before I came here.
I feel like there is a lot to say but at the moment I can`t really think
of anything right now. It was neat seeing my entire area from the
plane as I flew in. The airport is super small as well. Well I`ll
probably explain some more next week. I love you all so very much!
Love, Elder Joseph Gandy
P.S. Oh yeah right now I`m the district leader. This is my first time
so I`m a little bit nervous. It is interesting because we are on an
island we do district meetings over skype with some Elders that are by
themselves on another close by island. Our district is called the
Island`s District.
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