Letter Sent on February 18, 2013

Dear Family,

 

Hi how are you doing?? Long time no see :) For me,

This week has been pretty good.  I had the opportunity of going on an exchange with Elder Jongsma! We went into my area and it really was a good exchange and we had some cool things happen. The focus for the exchange was to have every lesson that we taught focused on and tied into Jesus Christ. Which of course we should always do, but we wanted to set a special goal to do that in every lesson.  We wanted to come out of each lesson having lifted up and helped inspire those who we taught to stand taller and have a commitment to be a little better. 

We did a great job with accomplishing this goal and we had a cool experience visiting with a less active man named Kosal! He is 72 years old and has been a member since 1999-a long time.  He has been having some heart problems and we had a really good visit with him and he shared about himself and about his family some.  He is a super polite guy and very kind and welcoming. He talked about how he has made mistakes and so he stopped going to church.  We shared about how Christ still loves us even when we make mistakes and that His arms are always outstretched and that through His Atonement we can change.  It was a good lesson and I hope he felt the Spirit and was lifted by what we shared.  He prayed for us at the end which was also really great to hear.  When we asked him if we could come visit him again he said that yeah we could come anytime and that he is always home!  So that was great and hopefully we will be able to keep meeting with him and build up that trust again and help him come back to the church and use his Priesthood worthily. 

We have a couple of investigators that are newer; Srey Pov, Ming Sophat, and Bong Daen, that are doing good and I believe they will really keep progressing a lot this coming week.

We had a good PEC meeting a couple of weeks ago and the branch president kinda took the ropes a little with home teaching and did some assigning of home teaching companionships- and so now there are officially 8 great companionships and each has two families to teach.  So yeah super cool stuff-when home teaching becomes more and more established the branch will become more and more stronger and the members will be blessed a lot.

Something I have been thinking of lately and something that I read about is the importance of relationships.  Really in our lives relationships are the most important things that we have!  I remember Pres. Moon teaching about this a lot at a specialized training meeting we had, that when wondering where to prioritize that we ought to focus on relationships.  We really are so blessed to have all the relationships that we have, with our families, friends, and most of all with the Lord.  I read a talk by Pres. Uchtdorf called, "Of Things That Matter Most" recently.  He talks of how we need to focus on the the most important things-the basics-which he states are our relationships; 1.With our God, 2, With our families, 3. With our fellow men, and 4. With ourselves.  I am grateful for his talk and I love what he said,

 "Brothers and sisters, diligently doing the things that matter most will lead us to the Savior of the world...Let us be wise. Let us turn to the pure doctrinal waters of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ" I am grateful for all the relationships that I am blessed to have in my life and for those I am developing here in Cambodia.  The Cambodian people are so Christ like and it is an honor to be able to serve them.  I love you and I hope that we can all take a step back and consider where we are in our relationships.  Have a super week!

 

Love,
Elder Garlick

Pics; 1.Elders @ The Branch Valentines Party! Elder Price, Kaev, Garlick, Jensen, Scott, Jongma

2. The Preach my Class.  They were super pumped about the class and brought in a cake and we blew out the candle together to celebrate the birth of the class:) I love these guys!

3. Khemrin-an awesome member here in Ta Khmao.  He just barely got set apart as a missionary and is now in the Philippines MTC and will be serving here in Cambodia shortly!