Six weeks have past and moves call came in on Sunday NIGHT! (torture for someone who doesn't like anticipation). I'm staying!!! Which means Christmas with a ward family, Boxing Day (26 Dec) with my Scottish Grandma, Carols with Companion and Driving in slush!
My weeks and days are all forming into one memory. I'll tell you a great experience I had this week:
We were visiting Valerie Murphy, as we usually do. We planned to teach her about The gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring). We wanted to focus on faith and read a chapter of the Book of Mormon with her. As we did it was great. She was involved and enjoying the conversation and discussion. Towards the end I had a sudden feeling to share that Jesus Christ loves her, I followed the prompting and to my surprise more things kept coming out of my mouth. The feeling was like the Holy Ghost took control of my body and starting speaking through me. As words kept coming I knew that the Holy Ghost was taking over and I just relaxed and let the spirit tesify. When the Spirit was finished, I came back to reality and witnessed the wonderful expression on her face. I saw tears starting to form and I knew that she needed to hear those words. Sister Beck and I have gotten her in the habit of rotating prayers between the three of us. One of us will say the opening or closing and Valerie Murphy will say the other. Sister Beck said the Opening. As we closed the lesson Val picked up her reminder pamphlet on 'How to Pray' stared at it and said, "I can't do it."I knew we shouldn't push it because she was too emotional. I asked her if she would like to me say the prayer. After the prayer she thanked me for the kind words I spoke. We said our goodbyes and left the spirit lingering!
What a great feeling it was to be taken over by the Spirit. I hope you had a great week, good luck with finals. Study hard and remember to put the Lord first!!
~Sister Garlock
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
My Area
My stories won't make much sense unless I tell you a wee bit about my area and the people. I'm in a city called Montrose Scotland. My area covers four cities: Arbroath, Forfar(for-ferr), Montrose, Brechin and Letham and all the small cities inbetween. It's quite a big area! Here is a little infor about the people I see every week
The Dibdin Family: They are a young couple in the ward with four kids 3 girls and 1 baby boy. Their family is HILARIOUS!! Their girls are active and run area and are wild, but also very nice. They always draw pictures for us! We like to visit them once a week for Dinner appointments.
The Crawford Family: Brother Crawford is the ward mission leader! He is the father of Pauline Dibdin! Brother Crawford is very animated and is talented with accents. Him and his wife can talk broads scot which is basically 'the accent' everyone THINKS the Scottish speak on a daily basis. I still have yet to hear an example of what it sounds like.
Bishop Stronach: We have dinner every sunday with the Stronachs. Sister Stronach is the BEST cook. We tried one of her recipes. Easy and delicious!! We are so grateful for her! She gives us variety in our diet! They are the traditional Scottish couple most people would image. Accents, looks and lifestyle!!
Grandma Tough: Oh wow, what a firecracker she is! She is stubborn, hardheaded and SO CHARITABLE!! She is always trying to help people, but she thinks her way is THE right way and only way! She cracks me up. She is a HUGE John Wayne fan and tells people John Wayne is her boyfriend!! Granda is COMPLETELY opposite! He just smiles at her and accepts her for who she is. It's so precious. Also, Grandma is VERY punctual! If you are one minute late for dinner, you might as well not show up because she will give it to the dogs. However, she loves us so much that she'll wait if we call her in advance! :)
The Lynches: Sister Lynch is someone you don't want to upset. She has a glare that kills people! She has very strong opinions! One week I told her "Hey why are you sitting in our seats, didn't you know these are our seats? oh boy, she gave me a glare and a snappy comment! (don't remember sorry). I just started laughing and moved to another seat. Luckily she knew I was kidding! Brother Lynch is.....hard to describe. He likes to watch people's reactions so he'll try things out on people to see what's going to happen. best i can do. i'll give it a think and get back to you.
Those are the people that are dear to my heart! Every vist is a delight with them
Happy Thanksgiving!
-Sister Garlock
The Dibdin Family: They are a young couple in the ward with four kids 3 girls and 1 baby boy. Their family is HILARIOUS!! Their girls are active and run area and are wild, but also very nice. They always draw pictures for us! We like to visit them once a week for Dinner appointments.
The Crawford Family: Brother Crawford is the ward mission leader! He is the father of Pauline Dibdin! Brother Crawford is very animated and is talented with accents. Him and his wife can talk broads scot which is basically 'the accent' everyone THINKS the Scottish speak on a daily basis. I still have yet to hear an example of what it sounds like.
Bishop Stronach: We have dinner every sunday with the Stronachs. Sister Stronach is the BEST cook. We tried one of her recipes. Easy and delicious!! We are so grateful for her! She gives us variety in our diet! They are the traditional Scottish couple most people would image. Accents, looks and lifestyle!!
Grandma Tough: Oh wow, what a firecracker she is! She is stubborn, hardheaded and SO CHARITABLE!! She is always trying to help people, but she thinks her way is THE right way and only way! She cracks me up. She is a HUGE John Wayne fan and tells people John Wayne is her boyfriend!! Granda is COMPLETELY opposite! He just smiles at her and accepts her for who she is. It's so precious. Also, Grandma is VERY punctual! If you are one minute late for dinner, you might as well not show up because she will give it to the dogs. However, she loves us so much that she'll wait if we call her in advance! :)
The Lynches: Sister Lynch is someone you don't want to upset. She has a glare that kills people! She has very strong opinions! One week I told her "Hey why are you sitting in our seats, didn't you know these are our seats? oh boy, she gave me a glare and a snappy comment! (don't remember sorry). I just started laughing and moved to another seat. Luckily she knew I was kidding! Brother Lynch is.....hard to describe. He likes to watch people's reactions so he'll try things out on people to see what's going to happen. best i can do. i'll give it a think and get back to you.
Those are the people that are dear to my heart! Every vist is a delight with them
Happy Thanksgiving!
-Sister Garlock
Monday, November 7, 2011
Tesifying through Music
What an exciting day Sister Beck and I had this Saturday. We were out and about visiting investigators and inviting them to church. One of our investigators live off of high street(state street). The investigators name is Sebosh, he is from Nepal. Sebosh agreed to come to church with us!!!!!!! On our way back I felt like we should say hi to a part-member family dad named Kev Croall. He is a non-member and his wife and two kids are members. We see Kev once a week at his in-laws (his in-laws have us over for dinner every friday!). We stopped by to see Kev, but wasn't in.
Sister Beck and I started home for lunch when we stopped and talked to a guy named UD. He was part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. His congregation was setting up to sing on high street. Sing songs about Jesus Christ. Chit Chat happened, more people joined our conversation and all of a sudden they asked us if we sang. I said "Not in public!" his reply: It's not about you, it's about Jesus Christ! (ouch!). he contined "It's about letting people know that Jesus Christ is the foundation for our lives, we sing for Jesus Christ. Would you like to sing a song about Jesus Christ? " My head was screaming " NNNNNNOOOOOOO!" but Sister Beck said "Sure! yeah, we can do that! " He said we would be on in 20 minutes. Sister Beck and I looked at each other and said "We are singing on high street in twenty mintues......What did we get ourselves into??"
Once we were over the shock. We realized this was an opportunity of a life time. We went home and choose two hymns to sing. We had no choice but to sing accapella. We practiced three-four times in our flat. The time came and their congregation asked us which instruments we wanted. They said "We have drums, guitar, saxophone, piano, what would you like?" The only instrument we could use was the piano, but I WASN'T singing alone and we only had our mini hymn books so it would quite impossible for Sister Beck to play from the mini hymn book. We replied "Nothing, we are going to sing accapella." They looked at us like we were crazy!
As we sang "I know my redeemer lives (two verses; 1 & 4) and all three verses of "I stand all amazed." We both felt the spirit of comfort and peace. People didn't stop and listen, but they looked over and smiled! It felt SO GOOD to be able to voice our testimonies about Jesus Christ through music. It was a testimony to us that there are many ways to bear a testimony and many ways to bring people to Christ.
Sister Beck and I started home for lunch when we stopped and talked to a guy named UD. He was part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. His congregation was setting up to sing on high street. Sing songs about Jesus Christ. Chit Chat happened, more people joined our conversation and all of a sudden they asked us if we sang. I said "Not in public!" his reply: It's not about you, it's about Jesus Christ! (ouch!). he contined "It's about letting people know that Jesus Christ is the foundation for our lives, we sing for Jesus Christ. Would you like to sing a song about Jesus Christ? " My head was screaming " NNNNNNOOOOOOO!" but Sister Beck said "Sure! yeah, we can do that! " He said we would be on in 20 minutes. Sister Beck and I looked at each other and said "We are singing on high street in twenty mintues......What did we get ourselves into??"
Once we were over the shock. We realized this was an opportunity of a life time. We went home and choose two hymns to sing. We had no choice but to sing accapella. We practiced three-four times in our flat. The time came and their congregation asked us which instruments we wanted. They said "We have drums, guitar, saxophone, piano, what would you like?" The only instrument we could use was the piano, but I WASN'T singing alone and we only had our mini hymn books so it would quite impossible for Sister Beck to play from the mini hymn book. We replied "Nothing, we are going to sing accapella." They looked at us like we were crazy!
As we sang "I know my redeemer lives (two verses; 1 & 4) and all three verses of "I stand all amazed." We both felt the spirit of comfort and peace. People didn't stop and listen, but they looked over and smiled! It felt SO GOOD to be able to voice our testimonies about Jesus Christ through music. It was a testimony to us that there are many ways to bear a testimony and many ways to bring people to Christ.
 |
| This is the man who invited us to come sing about Jesus Christ. I knew you wouldn't believe me if I couldn't prove it!! haha |
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Bring one in: Bring one back
Hope all is well with everyone! Things in Scotland are great! The weather has bee quite sunny, but we hear it's going to be a cold wet winter. This past week Sister Beck and I have been focusing on getting Less Actives (LA) to church. We also have been focusing on our Stake Goal: "Bring one in, Bring one back" In order for this to work each family has been given the assignment to make a family mission plan to help "bring one in, bring one back." We have going around visiting as many members and LA as we can. We had a goal to get three LA to church and we had a shocking 5!
Brother Crawford (Ward mission leader) gave a presentation yesterday about how simple a mission plan is to create and had the missionaries (us) help with the presentation. We've known about the presentation for a week, but had NO IDEA what Brother Crawford wanted us to do for the presentation. We talked to him on saturday, he told us what he was going to do and said something about our part, but Sister Beck STILL didn't know what he wanted us to cover! We followed the spirit hopping what we planned would work and IT DID! We got a surprise call this morning from a family. This was the conversation: Maxton Family: Hi sisters we are calling to tell you our family mission plan us: (my thoughts: I'm sorry what did she say? is this really happening? we've been pulling teeth to try and visit people and encourage them to do their family mission plan and someone is ACTUALLY calling to report that they already did it?) me outloud: Oh that's great ....
HOLY COW!! our work paid off and our presentation worked! Sister Beck and I felt so blessed that we dropped to our knees in gratitude. Miracles do happen when we push forward and do all that we can do!
This past weekend was the Ward Halloween Party....Oh it was SO FUN! and can you guess what I dressed up as??????? A Full Time Missionary!!!! yes i've never been a missionary for halloween and thought! "Hey i'll save some money" ok the REAL reason is that our Mission President said we couldn't dress up :( Sad moment for us. If we could dress up we were going to go as Dweedle Dumb and Dweedle Dee! It would have been amazing!
The YSA was in charge and they assigned us to tell a story to the children. This wasn't just any story, it was an action packed story that involoved food, staying quite to avoid waking vampires and finding a baby vampire fang!!! I have a wee bit of an idea of how to describe it, i'll try. We had to use food elements to help embellish the story. When we were looking for the fang we looked in the kitchen and had the kids feel inside bowls. the bowls contained witches eyes balls (grapes) and goblin Fingers ( hot dogs). It was SO funny because some of the kids would be truely grossed out! hahaha It was honestly the best ward halloween party i've been to!
Hope you enjoyed the pictures... none this week, sorry. Also, feel free to e-mail or write me. I can't e-mail back, but if you have BIG news that needs to be shared feel free to shoot me an e-mail! My address should be on the blog (right hand side??). Hope school is going well
Brother Crawford (Ward mission leader) gave a presentation yesterday about how simple a mission plan is to create and had the missionaries (us) help with the presentation. We've known about the presentation for a week, but had NO IDEA what Brother Crawford wanted us to do for the presentation. We talked to him on saturday, he told us what he was going to do and said something about our part, but Sister Beck STILL didn't know what he wanted us to cover! We followed the spirit hopping what we planned would work and IT DID! We got a surprise call this morning from a family. This was the conversation: Maxton Family: Hi sisters we are calling to tell you our family mission plan us: (my thoughts: I'm sorry what did she say? is this really happening? we've been pulling teeth to try and visit people and encourage them to do their family mission plan and someone is ACTUALLY calling to report that they already did it?) me outloud: Oh that's great ....
HOLY COW!! our work paid off and our presentation worked! Sister Beck and I felt so blessed that we dropped to our knees in gratitude. Miracles do happen when we push forward and do all that we can do!
This past weekend was the Ward Halloween Party....Oh it was SO FUN! and can you guess what I dressed up as??????? A Full Time Missionary!!!! yes i've never been a missionary for halloween and thought! "Hey i'll save some money" ok the REAL reason is that our Mission President said we couldn't dress up :( Sad moment for us. If we could dress up we were going to go as Dweedle Dumb and Dweedle Dee! It would have been amazing!
The YSA was in charge and they assigned us to tell a story to the children. This wasn't just any story, it was an action packed story that involoved food, staying quite to avoid waking vampires and finding a baby vampire fang!!! I have a wee bit of an idea of how to describe it, i'll try. We had to use food elements to help embellish the story. When we were looking for the fang we looked in the kitchen and had the kids feel inside bowls. the bowls contained witches eyes balls (grapes) and goblin Fingers ( hot dogs). It was SO funny because some of the kids would be truely grossed out! hahaha It was honestly the best ward halloween party i've been to!
Hope you enjoyed the pictures... none this week, sorry. Also, feel free to e-mail or write me. I can't e-mail back, but if you have BIG news that needs to be shared feel free to shoot me an e-mail! My address should be on the blog (right hand side??). Hope school is going well
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