New Leaf

Mom, Dad, and the whole bunch,
It's sad to hear about Grandma, but it sounds like it was her time and it was for the better. I hope you all are doing well with adjustments. Mom, listed out like that it sure sounds like this year was one of the craziest. We never know what the future holds in store. It reminds me of a scripture I read recently in Ether 6 (verse 5 or 8 I think) which I mentioned before in an email when I was in the MTC. God used his "furious winds" to blow us toward the promised land. That has a lot of life parallels I think. The storms may seem to never end, but the end is rich which blessings. I hope we can keep that in mind as we go into 2013. And may we set goals that will help prepare us for whatever the Lord has in store.
We had some awesome experiences this week. One of which was with a guy named Miguel. Elder M and I were biking back to our apartment for lunch and saw a guy outside in his yard who we stopped to talk to. He said he was cleaning up a bit from a Christmas party the night before, so even though he declined our help, we got off our bikes and started picking up trash and putting it in bags. After a bit of talking he complimented our Spanish and made the comment that he doesn't know much English. So we told him about our free English classes like a half mile from his house. He was stoked! And he committed to see us there the following night. Well the next day when we showed up, 10 min early, he was already there! And it turned out that he was the only student because apparently the class had been cancelled by the member-teacher, but it was good because we got to focus on him. About half way through the class he said, "So you guys in your church, do you believe in heaven and hell?" Well that opened it up for us to talk about the plan of salvation and we gave him a pamphlet in English and Spanish. A member in the building poked his head in and invited Miguel to church on Sunday. To help him feel comfortable on Sunday, we showed him around the building a bit, and ran into another member who chatted with Miguel for like 15min and got him totally interested in church. He says he really wants to find a church where he feels like family and to draw closer to Christ, and he committed to come on Sunday. And he actually came yesterday! It was a miraculous series of events. What's even cooler is that missionaries from several months ago had already saved his number in our phone, haha. I know that God is watching over his children and guiding them - those that don't have the Gospel as well as those that do. He wants all His children to return home.
Well, we don't have much plans for New Year's Eve. There's a zone activity from 6-8:30 to keep us off the streets. I'm excited for the year ahead and these next few months as crunch time. Enjoy your activities tonight and stay safe. I love you all!

Elder Gathro