Elder Richard Gautavai: Pray

Good Morning!

This past week was crazy with all of the things that we had going on!

We had transfers on Wednesday w/23 new missionaries arriving into our mission. It was nuts! With the 23 missionaries that arrived it also meant that there had to be 23 trainers, which meant there were 46 missionaries there who were just trainers and new missionaries. On top of all of those missionaries there was all the missionaries who were there just transferring around the mission. It was a PACKED house on Wednesday haha.

President Raymond & Sister Cutler
Bountiful Muller Park 7 Ward
Bountiful Muller Park Stake

We then had a leadership meeting on Friday which was pretty good, but it took all day long! The meeting itself was from about 9AM to 3PM, but because of travel it ended up taking up about 5:30AM to 5:00PM to finish all travels and what not. It was a pretty good meeting, and was pretty relaxed as well. President Jones talked about the new mission president (President and Sister Cutler) , and it made me realize how close he is to going home. He departs on June 28 I believe. He only has a grand total of about 3 transfers, then he will depart home with Elder May's group. How crazy is that? I can't believe President and Sister Jones have been here for 3 whole years. It'll be sad to see him go, but it sounds like the new mission president is a really nice guy!

We also met with quite a few pretty promising group of people this past week which was really nice. It seems like in past weeks everyone has been really flaky, and they didn't have much desire to progress, but they would still talk to us and what not. It was really bugging me, and I was getting really frustrated with how everything was going, but I didn't feel like I had much to say or control over anything. This week seemed like we visited a plethora of people who were outside of our "usuals," and we found some pretty promising people.

We met with a lady by the name of AA. She is a part-member family, and her husband is very less active. She grew up Catholic, and has a very good understanding of the Catholic religion. They are both fairly young and enjoy the social scene in life, but they both have potential in grasping the plan that the Lord would have them follow. We had a great conversation with them about various different aspects of the church, and its' organization. I felt like we developed a good relationship of trust, and we now have an opportunity to actually teach her, and help her to find truth.

We're also trying to work with a lady by the name of TM who is going through a lot. She was a media referral from mormon.org that we've been trying to visit for the past little while. She usually didn't want us to come in, but would always tell us to try back another time, or give her a call. We decided we needed to stop by on Friday night after our leadership training meeting, and she happened to be home. She gave us the usual "Sorry, you caught me at a bad time, I'm really sorry, but it'd be better if you called." So I was thinking...there has got to be more here, and there's something we can offer, so I asked her "Is something wrong?" She then responded really quick and said, "No, why do you ask?" I then just told her I felt she sounded rather flustered. She let us in, and the flood gates opened. We have a meeting with her in the up and coming week!

We also had a guy named SJ who came to church on Sunday, unexpectedally. He is originally from Fox Point, WI which is in our area, and was born and raised there. He moved out to Arizona for about a year to pursue a golfing career and ran into a girl who is a member of the church. She told him to try it out here in Wisconsin, so he came to church on Sunday! We have an appointment with him as well in the up and coming week.

Well, those are some of the highlights from my week! It was a very good week as I now look back on it! I only ask you continue to pray for me, and for those that we are teaching. I ask you pray for Elder Wright, and his family as well! I don't really have a message for you today, but I will close by just saying the Lord does care for each of his children, and would never leave them or forsake them. He will always do all that He can to uplift and strengthen his children.

Love you guys!
Elder Gautavai