Dear Family & Friends,
Hellooo! How are each of y'all? What's new in your life?? It's P-Day!
Yes! It means I get to email all of you. The excitement of emailing
all of the people I love every week still hasn't worn off even after
22 months. I'm so grateful for each of you in my life.
This week was pretty great. We had a lot of good stuff happen and we
were able to do lots of fun things! Monday last week, we went to the
Nature Preserve in Mineola. It was pretty fun but mostly just hot and
humid. None of us thought to bring water either so we were all dying,
haha. Rookie mistake. That night though, we were asked to give the
devotional at FHE for the YSA. It was a blast going to Family Home
Evening with all of the Young Single Adults. I was so glad to see Aber
show up without us even inviting her. She really is doing great. We
played a game with candy and I was able to talk to another recent
convert named Daryl. He's really thinking about serving a mission so
he was asking me a ton of questions about it. I told him that he
should do it. It was the best decision I ever made to serve a mission.
The next day, we had District Meeting in Gilmer! It was a good
District Meeting and we went to Hadden's afterward. Hadden's is a
really good sandwich shop on the square in Gilmer. Perks of being in
Gilmer, is that you almost always run into a member of the church when
you go places! (There are so many). So none of us had to pay for our
lunch which was the biggest blessing to me. I'm pretty tight on money
this month Haha. After all of that fun stuff, we went out to find! We
knocked on a part member family's door. Someone we had never met
answered. Her name is Kelsey. We shared with her the Restoration and
committed her to baptism! She said yes! Hopefully she progresses as we
now start teaching her.
Okay Tuesday night was a blast. Elder Lu and I split up with members
in order to go to all of our appointments. I went with Brother Miner
and Elder Lu went with Brother Potter. Brother Miner and I went to see
the Isonhood Family. Justice is one of the 9 year olds who got
baptized in June, so we went to teach another one of the new member
discussions. It was a really good lesson as we talked about the Plan
of Salvation. Justice retained most all of it and he even brought his
friend, Zayne, to sit in on the lesson. After the lesson all the kids
wanted to do a face-swap with me on snap chat so they pulled out their
phones and did it. They were dying of laughter which was pretty great.
When we left, Brother Miner showed me his IPad Pro. Holy moly it's a
nice iPad. He also showed me Pokemon GO which apparently is huge right
now, lol. He let me catch a Pokemon.
Wednesday night was pretty great too. We went to the first half of
Institute at the church with the YSA. Brother Sullivan is the teacher
and he really wanted us to come. I love being in classes with Brother
Sullivan. He had such a talent for teaching! I always feel instructed
and edified after a lesson with him. We went to visit Pam after
Institute and found that her mom just moved in with her. Her mom is
not a member so we were able to share a scripture with her from the
Book of Mormon and invite her to the Ward Party and to church on
Sunday. She said she would! And she did!
Thursday night Jan and Cherri got their Temple Recommends! We were so
happy for them. We helped Cherri find some names to take to the Temple
as well and she found two names. She said she had been seeing those
names everywhere recently! She thought it was cool those are the two
names she found. Friday was a blast. We went to Cherri's to help paint
a room in her house! It was so much fun but also exhausting! Who
would've thought painting would be so tiring, haha! It was a lot of
fun, though, and her son Dylan was super excited to have his room a
new color. Later that night was the Ward Party! It was awesome to see
Cherri and her kids arrive early to help set up. Pam and her mom
(Balinda) also came early and Pam brought Lilly (a recent convert) and
her kids as well. Wendy, Little John, and Jan came too! The party was
so much fun. They did a three legged race in which Dylan (Cherri's
son) fell to the floor and got dragged by his partner! It was
hilarious! At the end there was a tug of war. I wasn't originally in
but one side was about to lose. So I went up to help and it was either
adrenaline or something but I pulled and just like that our side won.
EVERYONE fell though and I landed on about 12 children. Luckily,
nobody was hurt but it was pretty hilarious.
The next day was pretty special, because we were able to go to the
Temple with Jan for her first time to do Baptisms for the Dead. Elder
Lu and I went with Brother Pilcher and Wendy early in the morning so
we could do an endowment session. There was someone going through for
the first time and it brought back so many memories from when I went
through for the first time. I almost starting crying as I thought
about walking into the Celestial Room for the first time seeing my
family and all the ones I love. There's something so special about the
Temple. Jan was able to be baptized for her mom and her dad was
baptized as well. It was great for her and Wendy had a really good
experience as well. We ate at Jalapeño Tree on the way back which is
my favorite Tex Mex Restaurant here in Texas.
I'm so grateful I'm still serving in Gilmer. I love it here so much. I
love the people more than I can say and I'm so thankful God put me
here for a time. I love all of you so much and miss you more than you
know. Only about 8 weeks and I'll see you all again. Can't wait!
Elder Joshua Needles
Hellooo! How are each of y'all? What's new in your life?? It's P-Day!
Yes! It means I get to email all of you. The excitement of emailing
all of the people I love every week still hasn't worn off even after
22 months. I'm so grateful for each of you in my life.
This week was pretty great. We had a lot of good stuff happen and we
were able to do lots of fun things! Monday last week, we went to the
Nature Preserve in Mineola. It was pretty fun but mostly just hot and
humid. None of us thought to bring water either so we were all dying,
haha. Rookie mistake. That night though, we were asked to give the
devotional at FHE for the YSA. It was a blast going to Family Home
Evening with all of the Young Single Adults. I was so glad to see Aber
show up without us even inviting her. She really is doing great. We
played a game with candy and I was able to talk to another recent
convert named Daryl. He's really thinking about serving a mission so
he was asking me a ton of questions about it. I told him that he
should do it. It was the best decision I ever made to serve a mission.
The next day, we had District Meeting in Gilmer! It was a good
District Meeting and we went to Hadden's afterward. Hadden's is a
really good sandwich shop on the square in Gilmer. Perks of being in
Gilmer, is that you almost always run into a member of the church when
you go places! (There are so many). So none of us had to pay for our
lunch which was the biggest blessing to me. I'm pretty tight on money
this month Haha. After all of that fun stuff, we went out to find! We
knocked on a part member family's door. Someone we had never met
answered. Her name is Kelsey. We shared with her the Restoration and
committed her to baptism! She said yes! Hopefully she progresses as we
now start teaching her.
Okay Tuesday night was a blast. Elder Lu and I split up with members
in order to go to all of our appointments. I went with Brother Miner
and Elder Lu went with Brother Potter. Brother Miner and I went to see
the Isonhood Family. Justice is one of the 9 year olds who got
baptized in June, so we went to teach another one of the new member
discussions. It was a really good lesson as we talked about the Plan
of Salvation. Justice retained most all of it and he even brought his
friend, Zayne, to sit in on the lesson. After the lesson all the kids
wanted to do a face-swap with me on snap chat so they pulled out their
phones and did it. They were dying of laughter which was pretty great.
When we left, Brother Miner showed me his IPad Pro. Holy moly it's a
nice iPad. He also showed me Pokemon GO which apparently is huge right
now, lol. He let me catch a Pokemon.
Wednesday night was pretty great too. We went to the first half of
Institute at the church with the YSA. Brother Sullivan is the teacher
and he really wanted us to come. I love being in classes with Brother
Sullivan. He had such a talent for teaching! I always feel instructed
and edified after a lesson with him. We went to visit Pam after
Institute and found that her mom just moved in with her. Her mom is
not a member so we were able to share a scripture with her from the
Book of Mormon and invite her to the Ward Party and to church on
Sunday. She said she would! And she did!
Thursday night Jan and Cherri got their Temple Recommends! We were so
happy for them. We helped Cherri find some names to take to the Temple
as well and she found two names. She said she had been seeing those
names everywhere recently! She thought it was cool those are the two
names she found. Friday was a blast. We went to Cherri's to help paint
a room in her house! It was so much fun but also exhausting! Who
would've thought painting would be so tiring, haha! It was a lot of
fun, though, and her son Dylan was super excited to have his room a
new color. Later that night was the Ward Party! It was awesome to see
Cherri and her kids arrive early to help set up. Pam and her mom
(Balinda) also came early and Pam brought Lilly (a recent convert) and
her kids as well. Wendy, Little John, and Jan came too! The party was
so much fun. They did a three legged race in which Dylan (Cherri's
son) fell to the floor and got dragged by his partner! It was
hilarious! At the end there was a tug of war. I wasn't originally in
but one side was about to lose. So I went up to help and it was either
adrenaline or something but I pulled and just like that our side won.
EVERYONE fell though and I landed on about 12 children. Luckily,
nobody was hurt but it was pretty hilarious.
The next day was pretty special, because we were able to go to the
Temple with Jan for her first time to do Baptisms for the Dead. Elder
Lu and I went with Brother Pilcher and Wendy early in the morning so
we could do an endowment session. There was someone going through for
the first time and it brought back so many memories from when I went
through for the first time. I almost starting crying as I thought
about walking into the Celestial Room for the first time seeing my
family and all the ones I love. There's something so special about the
Temple. Jan was able to be baptized for her mom and her dad was
baptized as well. It was great for her and Wendy had a really good
experience as well. We ate at Jalapeño Tree on the way back which is
my favorite Tex Mex Restaurant here in Texas.
I'm so grateful I'm still serving in Gilmer. I love it here so much. I
love the people more than I can say and I'm so thankful God put me
here for a time. I love all of you so much and miss you more than you
know. Only about 8 weeks and I'll see you all again. Can't wait!
Elder Joshua Needles
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