Life is Amazing :)

Okay, my jacket is off, my emails are read, the list of things to write about is out, the tie is loosed and the top button of my shirt is unbuttoned. I'm ready to roll.

First of all, Mom, I only unbutton my top button when I email. Right when I get up I cinch up my tie and button back up. I just have to get settled.

The light is getting a little weird. It's pitch black by 5:30. There is sunlight, but not direct sunlight. So I'm lacking on the Vitamin D. The sun is so low its always behind the mountains. Elder Good has a happy light, so we are able to get some Vitamin D. It's weird, when we don't have Vitamin D we get exhausted pretty easily.

The other weird thing is, there is no snow. It is almost December and I have seen no snow. Boy oh Boy I am grateful for that. It's still a little chilly, but a light jacket fixes that right away. Man I'm being blessed.

One of our missionaries had to go home because his younger brother took his own life. That hit us pretty hard. It was totally unexpected. It scared me because he was the same age as my younger brother Brandon. We've been praying for him.

Bishop Casperson sent me an email that addressed exactly what I have been working through this week. As I mentioned last week, I have been in the mindset of 'go go go'. But I have come to an epiphany this week. Which is funny, because Bishop Caspersons email was icing on the cake.

He mentioned in his email a book that he was reading. The book talked about a missionary who thought his missionary service was to work, and not so much to love. The missionary found gratification from being exhausted at the end of the day. He found gratification from knowing that he was a hard worker.

I kind of connect with this missionary. I have felt that I need to work work work to be a successful missionary. But I have been learning, and Bishop Caspersons email has mentioned, that I need to love people, and not just work. Yes, I need to use time wisely, I need to be diligent, but I need to be motivated by love. I shouldn't be motivated by the number of lessons that I have, or the number of investigators I have. This week I have been praying for love. I have been praying to love my investigators, random people on the street, to love everyone. I am really seeking this out. I am so glad that Bishop Casperson sent me that email, because it really did tell me that I am doing and seeking what is right. Man I love my mission. I am learning so much! I kind of just word puked this week for an email, and I don't really know how to best articulate my feelings. But this is what I am feeling:

This week I have been studying and praying earnestly. I have been really focusing on strengthening my testimony on the divinity of Jesus Christ. I've learned from the scriptures and from General Conference addresses that I need to earnestly seek. I need to not only pray for a testimony,  but I need to act on faith. I need to live the gospel principles, I need to experiment on the word, I need to be continually pondering the word of God. I am determined to have an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ's divinity. I am determined to KNOW. I want to have absolutely no doubt.

I do have an unshakeable testimony of many things:
I know that when we are sincerely searching the scriptures, we will find answers. I KNOW that. Because it has happened to me. I know that Heavenly Father loves us, and if we let  Him, He will help us to meet our potential. I know that when we pray for righteous things, He will give them to us. I know that He knows us best, and is so happy when we rely on Him and live the gospel.

The last couple of days I have been seriously tearing up my scriptures trying to find answers, and I am finding them little by little. Something that isn't little by little is the presence of the Spirit. When I am sincere, I feel the Spirit so strong!

Look forward to next weeks email, it won't be so unorganized, and it will be full of amazing experiences that I am going to have next week.

Live the gospel! Read the scriptures! Pray! Heavenly Father loves us all.

I love you all too :)

- Elder Tyler James Garver

Northern Lights, Amazing Weather, and Bill.

Well, the end of the story is that the truck belonged to a seminary teacher. He works for the church, so they gave him an old missionary vehicle. We told him what we did, and he flipped. Apparently he is a huge Utah fan. Huge. He told us that we better replace that sticker. So I'm going to have my parents mail me a BYU sticker and a Ute sticker. We will give him the BYU sticker first, wait a week and then give him the Ute sticker. It'll be funny :)

There is some sort of tropical storm somewhere on the coast, so the weather has been AMAZING. It's so warm! I love it. I am really being blessed. I bet it's colder in Utah right now than it is in Alaska.

I saw the Northern Lights this week, they were pretty cool. I was told that they weren't as bright or as colorful as they can be, but they were pretty cool nonetheless.

This is how I would describe what I saw:

They were sort of dim, but they covered the whole middle of the sky from horizon to horizon. To describe the way they covered the sky, I would describe a river in the sky.

The colors were green, like a glow in the dark green.

My companion told me that they either dance, flash, or stand still. This time they flashed a bunch.

As far as I know, the northern lights are solar bursts from the sun hitting the atmosphere.

Again to describe them like a river, it would be a stand still river, with drops hitting the surface. When the 'drops' would hit the surface, the lights would flash just a tad bit lighter and brighter. It was really cool.

I got a letter from Papa, and he asked what they looked like, and he said to him they were kind of spooky. I would have to agree with him on the type that I saw. It was a spooky flashing green.

Later on this winter I should see brighter and more defined northern lights.

We trained reindeer again this week, and it was a lot of fun. Because of transfers, I am really the only one who knows how to train them now. I think I explained a bit of what we are doing, but I will give an overview of what we did.

There were more missionaries that came this time, and each of them was to train a reindeer. Eventually we will end up training two or three reindeer. I love getting down and dirty, and some other missionaries are a little uncomfortable doing that. So, I pointed out Louis to a fellow missionary, and told him how to hook on the rope. That way he didn't have to worry about wrestling with a reindeer to put on a halter. To halter a reindeer, you have to entice it to come close to you by feeding it, then you need to grab on to its antlers and hold on for dear life as they flip and flop trying to get away. After you get a good hold on them, you grab a halter and put it on. After the halter is on, you attach it to a rope, and hold on as they try to get away. This is their first time being on a halter, so it is scary to them. Naturally they freak out. Its hilarious to look around and see all of the reindeer dragging all the other missionaries around. Elder Lancaster is not pulling his reindeer, his reindeer is pulling him:

Remember Sugar? Well she didn't get the best of me this time. I grabbed on and held on tight. She is now haltered.

Because Elder Gilmore has Louis, I was able to find another reindeer:

I haven't named her yet. :)

Next time we go over there, they will be less afraid because they will be more used to the halter. Our goal is to be able to train them to walk like a dog on a leash first, and eventually train them to be able to pull a sled. It's fun work.

Now to missionary work,

Grayson isn't grounded anymore, so we are going to start teaching him again.

We found a new potential investigator! His name is Bill.

He lives above and across the hall from our apartment. Here is Bills story:

He has always wanted to play the banjo. He is an engineer. Quite an intelligent engineer. He has done a lot of noteworthy things. Well, something happened with his leg or something, so he has been taking a break from work. He told us that when we was taking a break, he bought a banjo and decided to learn how to play it.

He said that when he picked it up and looked at his banjo, he observed that the banjo was a horrible engineered instrument. Its apparently 30 or so pounds, and the strings have to be plucked pretty hard to make enough sound.

Because he is an engineer, he redesigned the banjo. It is much louder, and much lighter. He sent the banjo to a friend in Tennessee, and they were amazed with it. Mike Scott, a Guinness World Record banjo player who has his own line of banjos, requested that Bill make a banjo for him.

He showed us the banjo, and its actually really cool. I was very intrigued. We brought up what we do, and he told us that he was Christian. He shared with us his conversion story. He told us that he has proved that God exists through math. He wrote a paper on it. So Elder Good asked if he could have a copy, and last night Bill brought a copy to us. I don't think Elder Good knew quite what kind of a paper Bill was talking about. Its at least 25 pages. Bill told us that he'd be happy to take us out to get a pizza and talk about it, God, and 'Utah and shiz'. So this morning before studies I looked over the paper. I'm only a fourth of the way in, but there is so much opportunity of teaching Bill the gospel! As I was reading it, I was reminded of Elder Russell M. Nelsons talk, "Thanks Be to God" I found that talk in an Ensign I have, and we are planning on sharing it with Bill.

I really wish I could explain more about this experience with Bill, because I have missed a lot of detail. But I'm excited to see how this pans out.

The other day I read a talk by Tad R. Callister called "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary." It is a great talk. I found comfort in it because I knew that I was living a lot like the consecrated missionary that he described, but I also felt comfort in it because I have so so so much to work on. I want to do my best. I am so glad that the Lord is behind this, because I have no idea what I am doing.

I love reading and studying the scriptures. I feel Gods love everytime I do. I love it so much!!! I hope you all are truly studying the scriptures and becoming "Consecrated Members". We all have a lot to work on, but that's the whole point of life!

I love you all :)

Elder Tyler James Garver

 4 PM in Alaska. The hours of sunlight are still pretty normal.

 

Elder Good

Well hello all! I had a great week! I hope you all did as well!

To all the people who have sent me letters, thank you very much, I haven't forgotten to reply, it just will take me a little while. But I will write back!

I got a new companion this week. His name is Elder Good. If I could describe him in one word, I would use.... Great!

The only thing I knew about him before I met him was that he snored. Well, he does.

But not as bad as everyone said he does. The first night was rough, but the rest of the week has been just fine now that I am used to it.

The weird thing is that he doesn't just snore. He moans. Its hilarious.

It sounds like he is in agony all night. It really is odd and funny.

Elder Good is a very chill fellow, and we get along quite well. We are really going to raise the bar on our missionary work. It's going to be a great transfer.

Speaking of missionary work, last night we taught Sabrina.

I really like Sabrina. She is a great gal, and I cannot wait until she fully grasps the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She has been taught all of the lessons, and understands it quite well. She has even started sharing the gospel with others! It's awesome! She's a member missionary without even being a missionary! She has a couple concerns, and we are praying for her. If you all could include her in your prayers that would be awesome! Last nights lesson was awesome.

We teach her at the Mothersheads, and last night we ate at their home. Sabrina had already had dinner so she knitted while we ate. Our dinner lesson was about faith, and we ended up reading Alma 32 together around the dinner table. It was great and Sabrina totally understood it! She really is a smart lady. After we had dessert, I asked Sabrina to teach me how to knit! I learned how to knit! Sabrina, Sister Mothershead, and I were knitting as we taught Sabrina her lesson. We covered all the lessons, and then talked about the baptismal questions. Then we talked about her concerns. It was awesome.

The light is getting interesting here! It's dark by 6:00 pm. The sun comes up at around 7:30.

I have an embarrassing story to tell. And this one sadly is not a joke.

Thursday, Elder Good and I were invited to a ward training/dinner at the church. When we drove up, we saw that another missionary truck was there. Or so we thought. All of the missionary trucks are Nissan Frontiers or Chevy Colorados. All the license plates on the mission vehicles start with the letters YZ. That means that they are tax exempt. Well, we saw this Nissan Frontier with a YZ license plate. It was red. There was a missionary who left last transfer that drove a red Nissan Frontier. He was a huge Ute fan. When we saw the truck, we noticed that the truck had a Ute sticker on the back window. That is against the rules! We thought that he probably put the sticker on right before he left. So... we peered inside the truck, and of course we saw church materials. The truck was a mess inside.

Lets look at all the reasons why we can assume that the truck is a missionary vehicle:

YZ plates.

Nissan Frontier.

Church materials in the back.

Its messy.

The last Elder who was a huge Ute fan drove a red Nissan Frontier.

It was all pointing to it being a missionary vehicle. Elder Good tried to open the door to the truck to verify, and it opened. We looked in the back seat and there were Joseph Smith Testimony pamphlets, Book of Mormons, and all that.

"You know what would be hilarious?" I said to Elder Good as I started to chuckle. "We should peel off the Ute sticker!"

Elder Good started to pull his knife out and I said, "Wait I've got a razor blade knife, lemme do it."

E Good- "Okay, I'm going to look around in the truck and see who is driving it right now."

After peeling off half the sticker, as I crumpled it up in my fingers I heard,

"Wait! Stop! There's a pistol in the glove box!"

He ran out to me and we both freaked out together.

"Oh man! What are they doing with a pistol?!"

to be continued... (I've run out of time haha)

Love you all!

Elder Tyler James Garver