Week 15: Change is Good!! Life is Good!!

Hello family!!
Great to hear you are all doing well; congrats to Mackenzie and happy for Jordan with Show Choir and Northern Lights activities – Happy Birthday to them both!

How’s it going!? This week flew by and I’m surprised I’m already writing! This week had 3 main things that went on!

So first i had an exchange with Elder Duran (the guy in the pictures) which went great! Really enjoyed the time on splits with him and getting to know him better. A good example to me.

Second, we had the Worldwide Mission Broadcast and received the changes to the mission schedule including p-day and key indicators! That was welcomed for a lot of missionaries but since I’m new it’ll just be a new routine for me! I like it because it allows us missionaries to have agency and to prepare us to use that agency after the mission! It’s been great based on the fact that we can go to bed at 9 30 now and only have studies till 11! We also get two more hours of P-day which is great.

Third, the last major thing that happened this week was our exchange with the Zone Leaders! I went with Elder Child! He’s from Springville Utah and did a lot of the same things I did in high school! He’s super cool but also an English missionary!! So I got to speak English for the day and one of the things he had me do was share a scripture with a member to seek referrals! So I shared Helaman 5:12 (which was one of my goals to do through the week) and I just tied it to referrals! I really like this scripture because it’s a scripture for everyone. Build your foundation on Christ. Simple as that.

I know that this is a true principle. I went to high school with no members of the Church. It was hard because I was expected to keep such a high standard when many people within the school weren’t. I know that if I hadn’t of had this strong foundation on Christ, which my parents helped me to build, I wouldn’t be anywhere close to what I am today.

I’m so thankful for that and for the role God plays in my life. Without him I wouldn’t have met the amazing people I have, or be the person I am today. I constantly see the blessings he’s given me, my loving family, and friends. I know that through him we can truly be happy!!

I love and miss you all and am thankful for every single one of you! Hope you all have a great week!

1) Alright so the first one is a selfie of all my district getting ready to go on splits with the Elders
2) The ones after that are pictures of signal hill from the top! we ran up the hill for exercise that morning!
3) The last ones are of me and Elder Duran! One of my good district buddies from New York!

Week 14: Wet Wet Wet in California!

Buenos dias mi familia!! 

Good to hear from all of you this week!! This week was an interesting one! The week started with exchanges with Elder Keeler and Horton! I went with Elder Keeler in his area for the day and it was fun! Great to have a change in scenery. We did have dinner with members almost every night which was nice again! 

As you can see from the title, it rained a lot this week. Almost every single day! But the worst was yesterday (Sunday)! It POURED all day! So much that a section of Long Beach was under 30 ft of water!! We saw a guy canoeing!! CANOEING!! Well lets just say that California is not prepared for rain. EVER! It was pretty funny but we got soaked!! 

I also got Grandmas gift this week and also a card from Nana! They were both great! I enjoyed the quotes! I will read one every p-day for the next year! 

Also on Saturday, Elder Keeler and Horton got a call that they were moving apartments and had an hour to get ready! So they called us and we helped them move into their new apartment! This Sunday we also had Stake Conference which was good but only 3 families from the Spanish branch showed up so that was unfortunate!  

This week I had the opportunity to share a message with a family here in Long Beach about building our foundation on Christ. I used Helaman 5:12 and talked about how in this era, the tempations, tempests and whirlwinds, as referenced in Helaman, we have to ensure we have a strong foundation. Without that foundation, we will fall to the temptations of Satan. A strong foundation is so important and becoming more so today.

Oh and one of the young girls in the ward painted my nails (yikes!) See pic and also of our area before the storm.

I hope you're all doing well! I miss and love you all! Sorry for the lack of time today......chat next week!

Week 13: Elder Holland Visit - Highlight!

Buenos tardes mi familia! How are you all?? This week was one for the books! First of all, we had a dinner every day this week!!! And one was with an investigating family!! it was great!! The highlight of our week though was a surprise mission conference with Elder Holland, Elder Hallstrom and Elder Gent!! It was great! They talked a lot about how the success of our mission isn't dependent on how many baptisms we have or the less actives we make active but rather on how great of a person we become because of the mission. They stressed a lot about being good fathers and mothers! Then they talked a lot about missionary work and that we don't have the right to return from our mission and go inactive. I really liked it because he really touched on the fact that a mission is supposed to prepare us to be better people in the future and i really liked that! it was great! we all got to introduce ourselves and shake his hand! He definitely carries the spirit with him all the time! Plus he was way shorter than I expected... anyways that was really the highlight of my week! I love and miss you all! It's so great to hear about the fun times you're all having back home! I keep you all in my prayers and miss you a lot! Tenga una buena semana!

Week 12 - Much work to do - little time to email!!

Sounds like things are crazy and great and awesome!! Happy for Jordan!! And the show choir of course! I really want them to do well so Jordan can have a great experience! I know show choir really was a great experience for me and i want the same for him!! Church here is great! I really wish you guys could experience it! I love the families here and the constant love they have!


This week was pretty normal!! We had zone meeting this week though and got to meet all the new people in the zone! We also studied a lot this week just because we've been needing some help finding and teaching! We only had dinner one time these past two weeks!!! Crazy right?? So we've been starving! We finally got fed by the Souza family though which is great because they're so loving!! We love them!! But this Saturday we had a very interesting experience. It was about 8:30 at night and we were tired, ready to head home, but we decided to go visit one of investigators who isn’t progressing too much. His name is Jose. We've been stopping by for the past 4 weeks and he hasn’t been home! So we decided to drop by! Surprisingly enough, he was home! We invited him to church and he said yes! So on the way back, we ran into 3 others! We did the same thing with all three of these people and they all accepted return visits and to come to church the next day! It was amazing! But, there's always a but. The next day at church none of the 6 people who committed to going to church came. And it was really unfortunate. We were sad especially since there was a baptism after that they could've attended as well! But we'll visit them this week and try and follow up!


This week I studied a lot in PMG chapter 6 i believe, Christlike Attributes and mainly about Charity and Hope. The Book of Mormon has really helped in strengthening my testimony and helping me to realize how important it is! I love hearing about your week and everything! I hope everything is going well! This was really the highlight of the week though! Good and bad!


But I miss you all a lot and appreciate your support! Love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Week 11: Happy New Year from Cali!

Hello all!! Crazy to believe that it's 2017 already!! This week was nice! Monday before emails I forgot to say that i got a haircut and then played volleyball with the President's family for their P-Day! Tuesday was a busy day and it started with us cleaning out the rest of my companions old apartment! That took a lot of time unfortunately but after we went to go visit a less active family named the Salazars! theyre super cool and have 2 sons who are our age who both LOVE soccer! Its great! Wednesday was pretty busy as well, we had District meeting and service which took up a lot of our day and then went out with a  member Hno. Quintanilla, and tried to visit as many people as we could! it was a good night! Thursday we had weekly planning and we got leadership calls! My companion got called to District Leader and wasn't too excited about it, but accepted the challenge! We decided he needed a cheering up treat so we went to this place called Afters! Its ice cream which they squeeze into a close donut! It was amazing! Friday, Elder Urbina had leadership training so i just sat in the Mission office for about an hour waiting until he was done! After that we went to breakfast with our investigator Bessy! She took us to a Hondurian spot and we had these things called Baliadas. They're basically just tortillas with beans sour cream and chicken put in the middle and they were great! Later that night we got to set up the New Years Dance with the Souza family because they needed a lot of help! Saturday was pretty slow just because everyone was gone for New Years Eve so we tried to get in to places to talk but didnt find really any success. Sunday, the first day of the New Year, we started the day by going to church! It's always great! After the Souzas had leftover pizza from the New Years party so we went and picked it up and had it to break our fast! After dinner we went to the Salazars house again because they're a wonderful family and we really are pushing to get them active again! After that though we got transfer calls and learned that Elder Urbina and I would be staying! I was pretty happy about that! Thats really the sum of the week for me! We had some great experiences and its time to start my Black Year! (The whole year from Jan 1 to Dec 31 without seeing your family) So here we go!
Love you all and miss you all! Hope you had a great New Year and are doing well!

Elder Gilmour

Week 10: Christmas with Elder Gilmour!

It was a great Christmas!!! - One of the best for sure as we got to Skype with Elder Gilmour and to talk live with him and his companion from Long Beach. We looked forward to this day with anticipation and it exceeded our expectations.

He is doing well!! His Spanish is great and is loving the people of Long Beach, California. He sounded great; it was so good to hear his voice again - you wouldn't think that hearing his voice would have such an impact on us, but we sure do miss his personality and sense of humor in our lives. Brothers reunited - Jordan and Justin's relationship is a special one - great to see them interacting again. Our extended family were with us in Utah when we Skyped and it was the highlight of our Christmas season.

A few pictures - including a not so traditional family one.

Week 9: Christmas Week

Hello family! How are you all doing? It's been great to hear from all of you! I got Grandma and Grandpas letter in the mail this week and that was great! Happy to read and receive!

This week was pretty basic. Monday we got to talk to our strongest investigator Bessy, and she invited us to dinner this week so that’ll be great! She's in a difficult circumstance so were working hard with her to get her baptized here in the next month or 2! Tuesday we had a pretty slow day and didn’t teach any lessons but had dinner with a less active family and shared a spiritual thought so that was good! Wednesday we had district meeting and after i got to meet my trainers’ last and favorite companion Elder Quintana. He was super funny and really awesome! We did service also and wrote condolence letters as usual! Everyone in the office is super cool and the oldest ladies daughter is Elsa at Disneyland! Pretty cool! After we had dinner with the Quintanilla family and they’re always great to us! After dinner we went up to signal hill and did some walking and contacting up in that area and also saw the great view over LA and Long Beach! It was so cool! Thursday was an interesting day. My companion had to go to a leadership training at 9, so I basically went on exchanges with Elder Duran for the day. We taught two lessons to investigators in his area and then my companion and his companion came back!

Friday was a nice day because i got to eat out at BDUBs and In n Out and ice cream right after! It was so delicious! Saturday was cool because one of our investigators challenged us to a 4 v 4 street basketball team and we took them on and beat them! 1-0 on my career and then we had a lot of time to walk and talk to random people looking for investigators and practicing my Spanish with them! It was neat! Then we had dinner with the Sousa family who are sooooo cool! We played a card game called scum and in the game there’s a King, queen, knight, and slave and i said "I want to be the slave!" and the 13 year old said back "You can’t be the slave you’re the whitest one here!" It was so funny but it’s true about everywhere I go! Yesterday we had Spanish church and we met a RM from Peru and i hope my Spanish is as good as his after my mission because it was amazing!!! We then had lunch with the other elders! After we went out and walked and contacted and then had dinner with the Camarenas! They’re also soooo cool! Then my companion wasn’t feeling good so we went home early for him to get some rest! That’s about how my week went!

It’s crazy that Christmas is already this week! I’m so excited to share some great messages! It’s always a great time for us to share the Christmas spirit! Anyways love and miss you all and wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!

Elder Gilmour

Week 9: Light of the World!

Hola mi familia! Este semana estaba muy interesante! This week was very interesting! on Monday, we balled up until around 5 then got in the door of one of investigators, Edith, and taught the restoration! they're a great family with really great potential. We talked with them throughout the week as well! Tuesday we had some crazy good ice cream called Frostbites and then got challenged to a two v two basketball game in the park! we got crushed because everyone who plays in the park are crazy good! Wednesday we had zone meeting which was new! Thursday I dropped our first investigator which is really unfortunate but she just wasn't willing at all and supposedly had been taught for months before I got here. we also got caught up in a daycare fight and a bunch of kids were throwing stuff at the teacher and they were all dropping f bombs and cussing out the teacher, so the teacher turned to us and said "Elders, get em" and we just walked away. Friday I got my package and my letter from dad which was great and then we went and cleaned out my companions last apartment which took some time! but later that night we had dinner and correlation and then went on exchanges! Saturday was my first exchange and it was a great experience! I went with Elder Cruz who is the district leader! it was so great to learn from him! also it was my first time on bikes and throughout the day we had some weird experiences! We got offered a blunt and watched some kids and their mom roll some weed! that was weird! but then later that night we had a crazy experience with a member of the light of the world church and he showed us a video of his "apostle" and was crying and praising him the whole time. But me and Elder Cruz both felt such a strong feeling in our hearts that the message was absolutely wrong. So it just goes to show that during this time of false prophets and teachings, God will always make it known what the truth is. Then Sunday, we had Spanish church and got a baptism but she lives in Mexico so we had to transfer it to her hometown missionaries! always our luck! Then we had dinner with the Camarena family and then ended our week!

Man it was a crazy week but it went by so fast! Hope everyone's doing well and enjoying the Christmas Season! May God be with you in all your doings! Love and miss you all!!!

Week 8: Not Missing the Iowa Cold - its 70 here!!

Hola! Como estan?? This week went by fast! Starting to get down and dirty with the work! (not literally though). Anyways some highlights of the week:

Tuesday we had new missionary training and reviewed our purpose in the mission - so that was fun.

Wednesday we had our second district meeting and just summarized our efforts as a district and what we could improve on. We have 5 investigators that we're going to try to get a baptismal date for here in the next month or so! Later that day we did service! Our new mission president I guess, limited us to only 2 hours of service each week so we just do it all on one day! We go to a Hospice center and write condolence cards for families whose family members died in the hospice center! Its pretty fun because we write them in many different languages like Spanish, Cambodian and Japanese. pretty crazy. We had dinner with the Quintanilla family who has 2 sons and 1 daughter all very young! but basically had a thanksgiving dinner again! Then went out and visited a family (Manriquez) who had requested a blessing so... yes I did give my first blessing and I gave it in Spanish! It was a great opportunity and the father was very thankful!

Thursday was busy. Right away in the morning we got a call from a Brother and he said one of the elderly members in the ward had fallen and really hurt himself so... we went and gave more blessings! This time the man asked if I could do the annointing and the brother to do the blessing, so again I got to practice using Spanish with blessings! That night we had dinner with the Sousa family (coolest family ever, I already got the invite to come back after my mission:)) but we had fish tacos and yes I was nervous at the beginning but they were actually really really good. So yes Justin ate fish!!!

Friday we met two new investigators named Justin and Casia (bf and gf) and they are so cool! They speak English though so we had to hand them off to the English missionaries but the bf has crazy potential!

Saturday we had lunch at Panda Express but later that night we had a Christmas dinner with the whole branch and that was super fun!!

Sunday we had Spanish church and fast and testimony meeting so that was great! We then went back to some other missionaries' apartment and  then had a dinner with the Chavez family all together! They fed us spaghetti and beans! A great meal! And that basically wraps up my week!

Week 7: Q&A Session with Holly!!

What is your new area and your new address?

Area is Long Beach North and the address is actually just the address of the mission home 6500 E Atherton St Long Beach California 90815 I think that’s the zip code. If not I’m sure you can find it online.

What is companion’s name and where is he from?

My companion is named Elder Urbina and he’s so cool. He’s 17 months in and speaks native Spanish but also English. Hess super cool and loves basketball and all so that’s great! He's from Spanish Fork Utah too.

How’s your apartment?

Our apartment is super small and probably the smallest I’ll ever get but it works well for us! We enjoy it!

What was your ward like?

Our ward was pretty cool, all in Spanish so idk how much i understood but it was so spiritually strong! It was crazy!

How’s the weather in Ca?

The weather in CA is hot and cold at nights! And the past two days it’s rained which is really rare for Cali supposedly so that was cool!

Did you get your bike and all accessories?

I got the bike and everything all ready but we have a car so that doesn’t really matter, yet.

How was your mission President-does he have all his family there with him?

The mission President is really cool! His wife’s here but idk about anyone else!

What is 1 thing you love so far?

I love my companion! He's so funny and we work together really well!

What is 1 thing that was hard this week?

One thing that was hard was definitely the Spanish, everyone here speaks Spanish and interpreting it is so difficult for me

Did you get to have a Thanksgiving meal?

Yeah we actually had 2 thanksgiving meals and had 3 planned but were so full we couldn’t do another!

How’s the Spanish now you are in the real world?

The Spanish is tough like i said but everyone says my Spanish speaking is already really good so i guess that’s a plus

What is 1 thing you learned about your mission?

I learned that my mission doesn’t have too many baptisms so that’s interesting just because the Spanish population isn’t as high as I thought

Week 7 - North Long Beach Area!! My First Week in the Field!

I’m in Long Beach!!

The first day I got here we had interviews with the mission President then got with our new companions!! My trainer is Elder Urbina! He’s super cool and native Spanish speaker! I’ll definitely learn so much from him! After we got our trainers we got in our CAR (whoop whoop) and instantly went out proselyting and had dinner with the Manriquez family!! We had some soup which was really good! And then had Hamburgers and cake!! It was really great! After my trainer asked me to give the spiritual thought... in Spanish! I was so nervous. But I opened up to my favorite scripture in Jacob 2: 18-19 and taught how important it is to search for the kingdom of god! I was nervous but i did it all in Spanish and pretty well i guess! Then we went our knocking doors and contacting and inviting people to watch the new Light the World video on Mormon.org! It was fun but now i realize how much Spanish i really need to learn... a lot. At 9 we went back and unpacked and got everything ready for the next 6 weeks!

The next morning we woke up and went and ran around a park for 30 mins, came home and showered and got ready for the day! We had one hour of personal study, companion study, district meeting for 2 hours and then language study for another hour! We picked up my bike which looks good! And then we did 2 hours of service for a local Hospice Center and made condolence cards for families with members who passed away. Its fun, everyone in there is so funny and always laughing and making jokes. After we went down into the Land of Los Alamitos and yes i saw the high school. We went around trying to get into some referrals houses but didn’t get anything but talked to a Catholic lady on the street and gave her our message. After that though we came back and had dinner. We then went on splits with the elders’ quorum and got put with a really cool guy so we went and basically home taught a divorced mother! And that concluded our night!

So that is basically a typical day here in CA but I’ve met a lot of great families and I am starting to get accustomed to the missionary life! I’m sure things will start to pick up here this week and so on! I miss everyone dearly and can’t wait to hear from all of you! My address is 6500 E Atherton St Long Beach California 90815 for anyone wanting to send mail! I have a lot of other stories but I’ll have to save them for next time or through mail! Miss and love you all!

Love
Elder Gilmour

Week 7: Arrived in California Long Beach!!!!

Hello family!! I made it to Long Beach and have met the Mission President and many other missionaries!! They're so great! After I'm done with this I'll be heading out to get ready to go out and teach for a bit tonight! How fun!! I'm pretty nervous because it sounds like I'm in a Spanish Area so all Spanish for me! I'm very excited though. I'll get to meet my companion and get settled in! P-day is Monday so I won't be able to write till then!! Everyone here loves it and i'm sure i will too! I love you all and hope you all have a great week! I'll make sure to write everything in my journal from here on out so I don't forget anything important! Love you, wish me luck!!

Week 6: Ultima Semana!! (Last week in English)

¡Hola familia! ¿Comó estan? this week flew by pretty fast and not too much has happened so ill let you in on the details!

Today we packed all of our stuff up for when we leave! Talk about crazy! Then after we got done packing we went and played basketball for two hours and of course we played volleyball in honor of the Jags winning three straight!! So something cool that happened this week with basketball though was that i dunked in a game two handed! and then i slammed one down one handed pretty strong! the other companions were going nuts! so i guess all the walking we do here has paid off!! it was crazy! also for our gym times all week, we've been playing soccer and were going to play cage soccer after were done here too! I got them hooked on it ;) so its been a great day so far!

This week is all about improving our teaching skills and Spanish speaking, so its been pretty hard! especially since its our last week and you know how teenagers are! we love to slack off! but we haven't done that too much! It was sad though because we're the only people left in our district because all the others have left already! so it was sad to say goodbye to those guys knowing our time was coming up. so that was hard.

The food here is still wrecking people left and right. My companion got an infection in his throat and stomach this week so we've been at the doctor quite a bit this week! thankfully i haven't had the same experiences. Last week we also had 100 people who got food poisoning, so that was crazy too. Im ready for american food again.

Other than that not much has happened this week! just getting ready to head out in Tuesday morning at 2:30 in the morning! No sleep for this guy! It's also weird because my companion who's going to the same mission as me, has a different flight plan and schedule than I do, so looks like ill be alone for a bit!

Anyways, that's about the gist of my week! Getting close to mission time! How awesome! Oh and btw... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! i totally forgot to tell you last week! I hope it was great! anyways the next time ill be writing will probably be the day before i leave which is Monday so ill let you all know how it goes! Love you all!

Elder Gilmour