5/8/17 No general email just responses to us

Hey dad! sounds crazy, you pretty much owned the whole shop then haha. (14 loads of laundry with our washer broken for a month but then borrowed one from Hawkins)
 not too much this week, some meetings and our normal visits. busy as always but not too much stands out. my comp doesnt let me talk a lot in the lessons which is kind of annoying. usually in a 40 minute lesson he only lets me talk for 2 or 3 minutes. pretty frustrating but im working on just jumping in when i can. love you dad miss you and talk to you soon! ill send mom the details, im actually with a different missionary right now because my comp wanted to go to the city for a zone activty, but to me its just losing 3 hours of our pday riding in a bus. so i stayed with another missionary close by. but yeah i think were planning on sunday at like 4 your time?  ill work on it. love you dad!

tell dad nice watch!!

ok so 5 oclock my time! i will count on that. idk what time my comp wants, but ill tell him im doing mine at 5 then.haha i dont even remember when i sent those since its been so long haha. but your package and letters arrived! thanks for that. it was awesome to get the letters from everyone, especially grandma and grandpa. i think thats the first letter ive gotten from him in many many  years. so that was awesome! thanks for everything. sounds like things are super crazy right now, i can barely keep track of whats going on. things are going good here. one lady told me how she had a dream that she was holding hands with me and walking on the beach. it was super awkward. but super funny after. yeah not too much this week. time sure has gone fast, already almost 1 third done here. but also gone pretty slow and i still have a long time ahead of me. love you mom!

Brennen got wisdom teeth out and we sent Josh the funny video
hahah that was so awesome haha. im gonna save it so i can wach it again later. he was way more entertaining than i was haha!

Baptism and Busy Week 5/1/17

Well its been another busy week here. I made a list of all the households that, ideally, we should meet with at least 1 a week, composing of uncontacted references, investigators, recent converts, and less active members. We have over 50! So much work that we have to do here, the hours go by so fast. It doesnt help that our area is so big and we send at least 2 hours a day just walking. Its been super hot lately, life is almost unbearable if you arent directly in front of a fan. Im just always kinda soaked in sweat, when we arrive at peoples houses they usually ask me if i just showered because of how much im dripping haha. but its fun and feels refreshing when theres a breeze! yeah i miss houses with ac.

 On another note... this week our golden investigator Jose was baptized! He wanted me to baptize him. Its been so amazing to see his change and acceptance of the Gospel and how his whole life has turned around from where he once was, as a severe alcoholic, to where he is today. He works in a barber shop with a member, and the member was just crying the whole time and gave a powerful testimony of how hes been talking with Jose and inviting him to church for the past 3 years, and how happy he is to see this change in his life. Members are the most important part of missionary work!

so the other day i woke  up at 330 in the morning, just super hot and super sick. I felt like i was about to pass out- i couldn't see or hear, and was way overheated. i sat up in my bed and just lost all my strength. I couldn't even pick my head up for a few minutes. it was probably the scariest moment of my life. I asked my comp for a blessing, and after that my stomach hurt a little but i felt fine after that. I knew that the priesthood is real and that heavenly cares about us and loves us. Im so thankful  that i was able to receive a blessing. The Lord is watching out for us and loves us.

 Love,

Elder Gardner

Elder Gardner, Jose, Elder Sanchez

 Answers to Family Questions:
yes i can skype, im working on the details with my comp now, hopefully in a little i can tell you. im thinking maybe around 5 my time then, so that you have some time to get home and ready. my comp has a skype account so im just going to use his. we can use the branch presidents computer to do it. but im working it out! mothers day has come up very fast.

so for Brennen and his papers.. i would say go to missionary.lds.org first, just login using your email account. im pretty sure he can start by himself. yes i was an elder before, the stake president took  the group of kids that could go on a mission, taught them a little, and then we were ordained not too long after i think. idk exactly, that was a long time ago haha! um so for me bishop told the stake secretary that i wanted to meet with pres for my papers or whatever, then the secretary texted me and confirmed a time. you could ask bishop hyde about stating papers, he will know what to do even though hes not the bishop anymore and can atleast give you a starting point i think. yeah i dont remeber very good how everything worked, just that it did work in the end and here i am! thats awesome thats hes getting eready and starting them. and that he gets 2 mil mas!

with me and my comp, im pretty much nonconfrontal about things, i just kind of let them do their thing. i know i should say things to motivate and help them, but id rather just avoid a confrontation , about anything really. thats my difficulty so far. ive been pretty chill, just kind of taking things how they are and mainly trying to lead by example. love you mom! i do have some pics this week haha!

hey dad!
 im glad you got the driveway done. definite a lot of things in life that we just get caught up in sometimes. balance is also something ive been thinking about. everything that we do in life is important, but we need to keep things balanced.  i hope things work out for dallin, that's interesting. you are right about spanish though, i remember what you said last week how i need to keep talking Spanish with my comp. i need to make that a point so i can continue progressing, its something im working on because it just is so much easier to say things in English haha. but im working on it! I baptized my golden investigator on saterday! he is so awesome dad and is truly converted. IM so happy for him. Ill send pics  and some other stuff in my other email..We had interviews with resident again, it was nice to talk with him for a while about some doubts and things ive been worrying about. love you dad!

Another Letter 4/24/17 Mom asks for pics

Well not much this week exciting, just a lot of work. the hours are just flying by here. Me and my comp have a goal of making this branch into a ward before we leave this area. it has 11 years as a branch and still seems far, even though in the database it has over 500 members. The main thing this branch needs is priesthood holders, and we have a long list of potentials and people to reactivate. Usually, of our daily planning we only make about half the visits, because we find people on the way that we arent expecting. Its amazing how many people have been put in our path this past week.

SO one of our investigators is a 60 something year old lady. Shes kind of crazy but is super funny. Shes an eternal investigator because she has some problems with her marriage paperwork and is actually married to some guy in Spain and lives with the person she wants to marry here. But were working on that. Anyways usually when we go to her house she goes on some rant about something from Revelations or just some other crazy thing. This week we passed by her house  Saturday night to make sure she could make it to church. We've never visited  her in the night before, so it was much to our surprise when we found another pastor there! She definitely gets all her crazy ideas from this guy. We listened for a while then just kind of interrupted him in a loving way and said that we came to help her with some marriage paperwork, and we only need some information from her since it was pretty late, then he can continue. it was pure inspiration and i dont have time to describe exactly what we said but before he was just going on and on about 100 different topics but after that he just stopped talking and i could tell that he seemed to have a lot of respect for us. his attitude towards us completely changed. SO yes under the guidance of the spirit I know anything can be done.  anyways hope everyone had a good week. enjoy the sun, here we get a nice sea breeze most of the time. in the shade and late afternoon it is perfect, i just need to buy a hammock. 

Love 

Elder Gardner

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 4:32 PM, Nicole Gardner <wesandnicole@hotmail.com> wrote:

Love you!  Pictures!  Keep sending pictures:)  You are amazing! Love, Mom

no tengo ahorrita disculpeme! tal vez este semana voya

hey dad, sound like a lot of work on the driveway! dallin sent me a pic and its looking great. im about half and half with thinking in spanish,  the members all say that i learned pretty fast and that they understand what im saying, and i understand most of what people say. some people are a lot harder to understand but i definitely have improved alot. yes time sure has gone by fast, i cant belive it really. love you dad and miss you!

New Comp Elder Sanchez, No pic 4/17/17

Howdy yall ,

 its been a great busy week here. My new comp is Elder Sanchez! dont have a pic, he doesnt belive in taking pics during the week haha. But anyways hes from columbia but was raised in Utah! and is fluent in spanish and english. its fun to have an english comp. he has 1 year in the mission  and likes to work! something ive been waiting for in a comp. Anyways so last week we got our light bill. normally not a big deal, except that last month we never got it and they cut it after 2 months unpaid. my comp was freaking out and decided that we had to pay it right away. Being semana santa, on good friday, none of the buses were working, so we started walking to al centro in the hopes that a taxi would pass. we were almost halfway there when a taxi passed, but most of the roads were closed because of how much people were here on vacation so he pretty much drove us 2 blocks and then ripped us off. he dropped us off at an atm, but we needed to be at a banl to pay the bill. but, since it was good friday, of course all the banks and businesses were closed. we spent the next hour walking to the farther supermarket, where we could pay the light . it was a 3 hour adventure in the heat, but in the end we got it paid haha! so the beach here was completely filled with drunk people, just when we were walking around we saw so many drunk people just passed out on the side of the road. pretty sad but not much we can do.

 we had a super solid vist with Jose this week,  we tuaght him the word of wisdom. he said he doesnt like coffe anyways, and that in his AA meetings they have a tradition of coffe and donuts but he can substitute it for water and say hes mormon. haha this guy is so cool, and proof  that everything is in the time of God. He used to be a severe alcholic but one night when he was drunk he said he spent the entire night pacing his house, praying  that god would change him so that his family doesnt have to suffer through him. now hes a leader in the alchoholics anonymous. i could go on and on about him but he understands the doctrine, accepts it, and applies it. hes super excited for his baptism on the 29th!!

so somthing ive been thinking about is our agency. It is the only thing in this world that is truly ours, yet we have it to follow Gods will for us. Agency isnt for us to choose what we want to do, but for us to choose what God wants us to do. As we do this we will recieve blessing and miracles that we never thought possible, this i testify of. I hope everyone was able to spend a few moments the past week to think of the Saviors sacrifice for us. He knows us perfectly, better than we know ourselves and only through Him can I become something in my life. Jesus Christ lives and loves and I will be forever grateful to Him for accomplishing the Atonement, making it that someday I have the hope to be perfect, as my Father in heaven is. love you guys, hope you enjoyed easter.

Avanza Su Verdad!

Love 

Elder Gardner

Mom's Poem and 4/10/17

Good week. We have a brand new senior couple that our working in our district! Its super cool to work with them. Elder Diaz was stake president and stake patriarch in his stake and knows a lot. They are kinda worried that they dont know how to be missionaries, but really all you need to serve a mission is described in D and C 4 so I reassured them that they will be fine. SO this week we had a drunk guy come up to me. He gave me a hug then started asking me about Hitler. We were like, well hitlers dead. then he said, no the guy with the hair. "trump?" yeah him, tell him hi, and that we are all america. there is no wall in america because we are all america." then he took my lession 1 pamphlet that i had, opened it to the page about prophets and said that these guys are the owners of america. haha it was pretty funny and suprising that he knew exactly where everything was. SO this week we have changes in the mission, my comp is leaving and im getting a new one. Sad to see him go, only been with him 6 weeks and it was a ton of fun with him, and a ton of crazy things that happened here with him. This week is Semana Santa, supposedly the hottest week of the year. there should be a ton of people here in Tela for the beach since all the kids dont have school, and lots of people dont work this week. so it should be fun. Its not to hot though, theres always a nice breeze goin even when the sun is hot, and it cools down quick in the evening. on sunday we had stake conference, no one showed up from our branch except like 3 people so we canceled the bus and rode in the half cab of a members truck. it was a fun 1 and a half hour ride. but afterward we went to a cool restaurant where we had a ton of food, probably the best food ive had in honduras haha. Side note, im learning a little garifono, the languange of the black people here. its super cool. Anyways till next week pues.

Love 

Elder Gardner

this picture is probably bad quality, no one in this country knows how to use a camera haha. Just a kid in the ward that wanted my comp to baptize him. and then the other is our leaders after conference. Super fun guys. 

My poem on the Holy Ghost:

I love you all!

Love,

Mom

Listen

Still, Small, Quiet yet Divine Power

Comfort and Calm amidst the storms

Hope of Better yet to come

Whispering Love when I would feel anger or hurt

Gentle nudge in the right direction

Prompting to Serve

Forming Genuine Charity within me

Encouraging when in doubt or depressed

Burning to share testimony and experiences

Expanding Knowledge and Understanding

Teaching Forgiveness

Confirming Eternal Truths

Reassuring that I Am Enough

Gently Guiding, Sometimes Chiding

My True Friend

Nearest to my Savior

Giving a Glimpse of what I can Become

Purifying my Heart and Mind to align with Action

As I follow, there is Peace.

Am I listening?

By Nicole Gardner

April 9, 2017

Hey Mom, Elder Curtis was in the ccm with me and we are good pals. haha yeah i heard about his camera, he thinks it was one of the missionaries that took it. yeah i have some more with him, but not many. sound like fun with the fam and everything. as far as you callings go, maybe theres someone in cub scouts that only you are able to help.i cant remember which talk  it was that said something similar to this but everyone is where they are for a good reason mom! or maybe you can learn something from one of the scouts, i dont know. i think about this a lot since we have a lot of changes in the mission that i dont like, you know how i hate change haha. speaking of change my comp is leaving, im actually pretty sad about it. weve gotten super close and have had a lot of fun together. hes probably been the best friend ive ever had  and has been fun to work with. I figured out that he is like a mature, spanish edition of Adam Hargrave hahahahaha. he does a lot of similar things so its been so funny to watch him. love you mom, praying that dad gets better.

Thanks my boy!  That's exactly what I needed.  Change is difficult and sometimes being stuck is just as difficult but you are right...  We don't always know why we are needed just where the Lord puts us and sometimes it's for our own growth:)  I love you! Mom

Gen Conf! 4/3/17

Great week, conference was awesome. I was able to watch it in english with ac! Super great, every talk was very powerful. Our investigator Jose went to priesthood session and both sunday sessions. Hes making such great progress and is so awesome. watch the new video for easter, prince of peace, super powerful and also very awesome. We met lots of people this week that asked us to visit them, and met another older man named Enrique who is also super awesome. Hope you were able to enjoy conference and the words of the living prophets. If anyone wants to look at the mission blog, here is the link

 http://hondurassanpedrosulaeastmission.blogspot.com Im not in it this month, we had our zone conference 2 weeks later than everyone else because some of the missionaries here had chicken pox.  but she updates it a lot and you might be able to see me from time to time. 

Love 

Elder Gardner

This is me and Elder Curtis from Pocatello Idaho, watching conference in the ac!. And Elder Bednar in the background.

Another Week, Another Convert 3/26/17

We had divisions again this week, I was with a buddy from the CCM , Elder Curtis! It was fun to work with him for a while. One of the members gave me a banana and I played with it the whole day and used it to make weird examples of things we were teaching haha. Its kinda fun to stretch your mind into making something work as an example. So the city government here has been protesting for a few weeks, because they haven't been paid in over 6 months! All the workers showed up every day and just sat outside the building and refused to work. We walked by after divisions and there was about 10 military police outside the building and all the workers were gone That's one way to end a protest. I guess they figured out a contract where they got paid for 2 months right away and a schedule for the other months. I would be mad too though if it took 6 months to get paid haha. We had a baptism, her mom didn't give permission for last Saturday but we were able to show her how much her daughter has changed in the past few months  so she said yes. ha so yesterday I met a lady that is 107 years old! She was drinking coffee and watching a television sermon haha. We teach Sunday school every week, and I gave a talk last week in church. This branch is pretty small, but there's still enough happening here.

Have a great week everyone

Love Elder Gardner

so the guy on the end in this picture is Hermano Stell. He used to be a preacher in a baptist church but was converted maybe 2 years ago. He teachers elders quorum every week and he still teaches like a baptist haha. Hes super funny though and helps us a lot with the work.

 yep

I took the other one in a cemetery at night, fun times

hey mom yes i like the updates, its fun to know whats going on. thats crazy with everything. what school did riley go to? other than evit.  thats crazy with the ward, sad that we lost the palmers, but they still live in the same place haha so its ok. idk what to say really, dont feel very good right now. kinda sad also lately. yes we get to watch conference this week. yes i miss you guys though and just being with the family.its probably best that im here right now though with all the crazy things that are going on in the family. love you mom . oh i washed my sheets and blankets this morning, handwashed haha. its kinda fun just takes a while. love you  momo​