Dear Family and Friends
I think our family produces the cutest babies. Vivian and Jane are both absolutely beautiful and they look just like their parents, it's fun to see the resemblance! Thanks for sending me pictures. Just so they know, they have the world's proudest aunt. (I think every one is getting sick of me showing off their pictures.)
I have some very exciting news! Paul von Chinnery is ON DATE to be baptized on October 5. We are all very excited. However, we have a lot of work to do. He is very addicted to drugs. He's quit other drugs and is now working on getting over smoking. There was a baptism for an 8-year-old boy on Saturday, so he agreed to come. I have never realized how awful drugs were until we were at the baptism. Before it started he kind of had an anxiety attack. I was sitting next to him and helped calm him down. I don't know how many times I told him, "Everything is going to be all right." "You're okay, you're okay." Once the prelude music started playing "Be Still My Soul", he said, "Sister Gardner, I'm okay now. I'm calm." He really enjoyed the baptism and kept talking about his own baptism in a couple of weeks! I have a lot of faith in him, but I'm also very worried. It'll be very hard for him to stop drugs where and with whom he lives. He's been on drugs since he was 8 years old. Neither Sister Nuttall nor I have ever dealt with people with addictions before, so we are definitely asking a lot of people for ideas and suggestions. Paul doesn't have a car and the closest addiction recovery program is in Calgary. But we did order the pamphlet. These next couple of weeks will be interesting. Any suggestions or (even better) prayers are accepted!
We haven't seen Karen since she was at church. We have stopped by almost every day and she's never there. We called and she said we could meet yesterday and she wasn't home (or didn't answer the door/phone.) I don't know what is going on. I know she felt the Spirit at church so maybe she's just scared. We're not giving up.
I think I told you about Suzannah Wingrove, but if not, she is a 10-year-old girl that has a very inactive family. We've been meeting with her and her family. She desperately wants to get baptized and is ready, but we hesitate to baptize her until we get the family more active. It would be such a shame to get her baptized and then the next week have her completely inactive because of her family. So we are working with the whole family and we want the whole family to go to church for a month before Suzannah gets baptized. The family really likes Sister Nuttall and me, so they are fine with us coming over several times a week.
The other day, we were walking down a developing community called Williamstown, when a Mexican man called to us. "Who are you? I've seen you walk down here a couple of times before!" We explained that we were missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Ah Mormons?!" He then went on to explain that he went to our church for a year when he was dating a Mormon lady, but he went because he wanted to know and not for her. Later they broke up and he moved, so he lost contact with thechurch. He invited us to come and teach him and his son's friend that lives with them named Charlie (he's Filipino). So we are going to teach the two of them this week! Like it says in preach my gospel, the Lord puts US in prepared people's paths or he puts PREPARED PEOPLE in our path.
Dan and Angela are doing great! They are planning on getting married in February and we talked about temples and she is excited to go through the temple. So now, we are focusing our lessons more to Dan. He's been the inactive son of a very active family and Angela is the one that has brought him back to the gospel. She's ready for any changes and she's bringing him along.
Yesterday, after we were supposed to teach Karen a lesson and she didn't answer the door, we had an hour before dinner. So we knocked on some doors. I had a distinct feeling to go down a street. One door caught my attention (maybe it's just because of the Yoga sign on the front door... (love Yoga) or maybe it was the Spirit! We knocked on the door and this big guy (probably does Yoga everyday ;)) answered. We introduced ourselves and he said, "Come on in". He cleared the table and asked us to take a seat. Then he said, "I'm ready." Uhhh okay. We started asking him about his religious background and what he knows about our church. His wife is Buddhist, one of his parents was a Mennonite, and the other was Irish Catholic. He says he's read every religion's scripture from the Koran to the Bible and everything in between and that he searched so hard that he doesn't know WHAT he believes anymore. We introduced the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. He said, "I can't believe I've never read this before. I'll read it. It's not very big, I'll probably be done in like 2 weeks." Woah. I promised him that this is what he has been searching for. He was amazed at my confidence and said he hoped that he could find out just like me. We are meeting with him again tomorrow!
It's been a wonderful week. I really love being a missionary. It's amazing how much the ward looks up to these little baby missionaries and they come to us so much for help. Yesterday, I held a poor old man's hand as he talked about his wife's death 2 days ago. I love these people so much and they are really starting to trust me. The little kids love me. One 4-year-old girl in particular always tries to sit on my lap and unfortunately we're not allowed to let them do that, which is the hardest of all the mission rules!
I love my family. You are what matter the most to me. Thanks for raising me in the gospel. I've never realized what an incredible blessing that was until I'm helping those that don't have it in their lives.
Be safe. I'm praying for you.
Love (with all of my heart),
Sister Crystal Gardner
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