Merry Christmas!!

This week was pretty good. Quick summary of the week. We tried to contact a lot of the people we have talked to in the street the past two weeks, and now we are trying to figure out how to contact people in the street and help them be interested in our message as well as understand that their eternal salvation depends on it. Haven´t got that one quite figured out yet. 

One of the biggest highlights of the week, is that we have a baptism set up with Cristina. She is a 58 year old Romanian woman, who is just so prepared for baptism. We taught her about the Book of Mormon about a month ago, and then she had a dream about it, and knows it´s true. She also had a dream (not sure if it was the same one or not) in which Angel Moroni told her that she needs to get baptized, to which she responded that she can´t get baptized till she has a job, and Moroni promised her a job. Well, she got the job real quickly after that, and she also has seen in a dream Presidente Muñoz (our ward mission leader and Gospel Principles teacher) leading her by the hand into the waters of baptism. We´re pretty sure she´s ready. Now, we´ve just got to finish teaching up the lessons, and we will be helping her take that first major step toward the Celestial Kingdom the 21st if everything goes smoothly. She is so ready. 

Other than that, we had special training on Friday, and it was awesome. It was the first one I have gone to where President Deere has spoken the whole time. He spoke of the importance of the Book of Mormon and how we need to present it as more than just a good book "comparable to the Bible". How we have to say, this is the test, this is the evidence that God has given you in this moment in time to know if this message we are teaching is true. It was powerful. And it was even more powerful because I finished the Book of Mormon this week. It was a great way to end reading the Book of Mormon and start it again.

But, the highlight this week was easily the choir concert in Granada. First off, before I forget, Mom, make sure you tell Brother Coffin that they had a band in the chapel. Trumpets, trombones, percussion, the whole deal. It was legit. We sang three Christmas hymns in English: "Far, Far Away" Joy to the World, and O Come All Ye Faithful. Then, there was a solo by a sister named Hermana Roan, and she sang O Holy Night. It was soooo good. I got her autograph afterward. And then, I was in a group that sang Winter Wonderland in a jazzy sort of way. Then we listened to this band play a couple songs. They played a song entitled Ivanhoe which was crazy-awesome and then another entitled Russian Christmas Music which was pretty good. Then they played Battle Hymn of the Republic and we sang, unfortunately in Spanish (it´s not nearly as good in Spanish in my opinion). The funny thing was, is that when the conductor cued us in, nobody started singing. He didn´t really give us a good cue, but so we just faded in slowly. It was quite funny. I hope there is some kind of video out there that I´ll be able to look up after the mission. And to end it all, we sand White Christmas with the band. It was just so much fun. The best part though is that one of the Senior missionaries, Hermana Castillo, bore her testimony at the beginning and said, "You will touch hearts that will not open up to the spoken word, but they can not keep the music out. That is why we are here."

Well, that´s basically been the week. This week will be another week of finding. The last time we did this, we had a goal of 555 new investigators as a mission, and we found 558. This time around, we are out to find 800 of God´s children to bring into the fold. It´ll be a week full of hard work, but it´ll all be worth it.

Love you all, and Merry Christmas,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett and his comp.

I´m getting transfered to Málaga!!!

Oct 14

First things first, after 6 months in Lorca, I´m getting transfered to Málaga!!!!!!! I can´t tell you how excited I am. I´ll be companions with an Elder Lopez from El Salvador. He´s been out for a while (I don´t know how much time, but more than double of what I have) and Elder Hooper will be in my District or Ward or both assuming he doesn´t get transfered (He also went to my High School). And Elder Oldroyd, my trainer, Elder Patterson, my old DL, and the AP´s will all be in my Zone, so it´ll be great when we have Zone meetings and activities. I´m excited and scared to be going to the big city after being here in Lorca, which isn´t excatly a small town, but from what I´ve heard it´s nothing like the big cities.

Oct 27

I´M IN MÁLAGA!!!!! It´s so great. My first day, we had a ward English and Spanish classes, FHE, and Branch Council. We had Branch Council!! I had almost forgotten that there were those. Wait, it was a Ward Council. I´m in a Ward, it´s so awesome and different. I won´t say that it´s better in every way shape and form, but it definitely has it´s benefits.

One of those benefits, which is near and dear to my heart, is food. We have been fed so much over the past almost week now. I love it!

Things are a little bit rough in the area, it´s a little bit new (I think it became an area last transfer) and so we are working on building it up, but everything is good. I am so lost in this city, but I hope that will change within this next week.

Nov 4 

Love you guys, everything is going really well with the companionship. We are getting along much better, and joking around  and becoming good friends now. Now we just have to work better together. Our teaching styles are suuuuuper different, but I´m trying to learn from him (since he does have like 3x as much experience as me in the mission). We are starting to do a lot more practicing lessons in the apartment, and the Lord is blessing us a lot. Now the trick is to just stay humble and act on the blessings we are receiving so we can continue to receive them in abundance.

This week has been amazing! 

First off we found 5 new investigators to teach. Well, let´s say the Lord placed 5 of his children in our path to teach. And they are all excited to learn about the gospel.

First off, at the beginning of this week, instead of planning to go and try and visit people who hadn´t been available for the last 2 weeks, we decided to go and knock doors in certain neighborhood in our area so we would be able to plan more effectively every day. My experience in Lorca with knocking doors was horrible, almost nobody accepted us, and we had much more success in the street. However, here in Málaga, we have had little to no success with street contacting. I think in 3 weeks, we have had 3 people give us their contact information, and 2 of them were Nigerians who spoke English (kinda).  In one morning, we found 5 people who said we could come back, and this couple (not married yet) who let us come in and teach them. It might not seem like a whole lot, and it´s definitely not enough to fill our plans in our agendas, but it´s improvement and a blessing from God.

Nov 11

Well, the week´s been good. We are continuing to move forward and the work is picking up a little. We have 2 baptismal dates set and 2 more on the way. The plan is to have 4 baptisms here before the end of the year. I really think we can do it.

Also this week, I was really impressed with Alma chapter 13, and how much it talks about the priesthood. I invite you to read it to think a little bit more about the callings that you have now in life and that you will have in the future. It reminded me a lot of something our ward mission leader said in a sunday school class about the premortal life. He asked why 18, 19 and 20 year old kids can be sent out to preach the gospel to all the world. They didn´t have all that much time in this life to prepare for it, but then he said that we were prepared in the premortal life, and it gave me so much comfort knowing that it doesn´t matter if I feel inadequate, if I rely on the Lord, he will help remind me of things that I already know.

Love you all, and take care!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett's new address is:

C/ Daoiz Nº3 3ºH

29014 Málaga

España

Garrett and his old comp. on a hike

District Leader

Vale,

So this week was good. We had Zone Conference on Tuesday, and it was amazing. We talked about how finding new investigators leads to baptism, and that if we want baptisms, we have to find people to teach. We then proceeded to talk about how we were going to find people to teach. President Deere has also set the goal for us to read the BoM together as a mission starting Oct 7th, and finishing by the end of the year. 85 days in total, which is approximately how many days in total it took Joseph Smith to translate the BoM. I am excited for that, but I am even more excited for...

CONFERENCE!!!

This will be the 2nd General Conference that I will have seen since I have been on a mission, which is the only real proof that I´ve actually been gone for 6 months. It has flown by sooooo fast. I will probably be transfered to a new area in 2 weeks, which is exciting, scary and a little sad all at the same time. But that also means that my address will be changing. I´ll let you know as soon as I can what my new address is, if I actually get transfered.

But, I am so excited for Conference. I´m excited that I get to watch it twice (hopefully), once in Spanish and then again in English. Funny story: I got chastised and basically told I was a "sinner" by the branch president and my companion because we watch conference in the house instead of going to the chapel. But then I found out that they only watch Priesthood, Sat Morning and Sun. Morning in the Chapel. I almost chastised them, but decided not to. It is so weird how different this tiny branch in Spain is compared to our home ward in Mesa. Our ward is soo so awesome!

A little side note: in Zone Conference, I met an Hermana (Hailey?) Flake, and it turns out we´re related. She´s a descendent of William Jordan Flake, and so we are in the process of figuring out exactly how we are related, but who new I´d travel halfway around the world, hang out with a bunch of "Mountain View Punks" and meet a long lost cousin. I also met an Elder Orr from Thatcher who knows the Russels, so that was interesting. He was a little surprised that I knew where Thatcher was though, it was super funny.

I also had the opportunity to go and "pluck" almonds this week. We went out to an Almond/Olive orchard and picked almonds with our branch president. We then went and planted beans on a farm and it was super fun.

One of the Elder´s in Lorca got sick this week, so his companion asked me to go stay with him for a day (cause I speak English and so does the sick Elder) so he and Elder Simon could work in both areas here in Lorca. That was fun. It was quite strange and relaxing to be able to talk in English. 

I am also increasing my skills as a futbolista. Everytime we play (which is twice a week, Saturday Morning and Mondays for Pday) people tell either me or my companion that, and translated directly, "I give them fear". I think it´s so funny, because everyone and their dog can run circles around me. That´s not entirely true, I have a much higher endurance than most anyone I´ve played with, and I´m also bigger than everyone who is playing (which is super weird for me) and I´ve figured out how to stick my foot in front of the ball and then pass it, so I´ve got the basics down. It´s soo fun to play. And, what makes it even better. We are gaining friends and people to teach from playing!

And during all this fun we had, we still found time to teach. We were not able to meet with Yeccy this week, and so she was not baptized, but we will be meeting with her next week, and will help her continue to prepare for baptism. One of our friends from fútbol is named Figo, he is 16 and from Peru. He´s not exactly investigating the church, but is searching for the truth and we invited him to start with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He accepted and said he is coming to General conference. We also had a lesson with Flo, FINALLY!, and she is doing great. Her husband continues to open up, and hopefully soon we will be able to teach her in her home.

Well, that´s about it for the week, plus I´ve got to run. Love you all, and have a great week!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett and Elder Patterson 

His District

the rain in Spain...

Well, it rained here in Spain just like it rained back in Mesa, but I missed it. This past week, I was basically in Málaga for a Zone Leader/District Leader Meeting, even though I technically wasn´t either. But I am/will be District Leader for the Lorca District whenever this transfer technically starts. I am excited for the responsibilitly, but a little scared as well. There will be 6 Elders in our district with the new Elders who are coming to Lorca, and they will be here on Thursday. It´ll be super fun, I just hope I´m ready.

Well, like I said, I wasn´t in Lorca preaching this past week, so I´ll tell you a little bit about the crazinees that happened in Lorca, and some experiences that I had in Málaga.

First Lorca:

According to our companions, as soon as we, Elder Patterson (our old DL) and me, left on the bus, it started to rain. Hard. It rained so much that the sewers started overflowing into the streets and apparently it was pretty crazy. I was a little disappointed that I missed it. Then they went to Huercal-Overa, where Elder Miller (Elder Patterson´s comp) is serving and they worked over there for a day, and it rained all day there too. But as they left to work that morning, they locked the keys into their apartment so they couldn´t get back in, and the keys to our apartment were also locked in their piso. Luckily they had the keys to the new apartment in Lorca (where the new elders will be staying) so they had a place to sleep, but that was about all they had. They ate dinner every night with the Branch President, and so they were fed that way, but everything kinda went crazy while we were gone.

Meanwhile....

I was on a bus for 8 hours as we went down to Málaga. Elder Patterson had gotten a ride in the Zone Leader´s car, so I was with the Super Hermana Entrenadores (or, SHE´s, or sister training leaders), some Elders from my zone who also were neither District Leaders nor Zone Leaders, and the leadership from a zone called Alicante. I basically talked for those 8 hours with the SHE´s, Heramanas Cano and Stark (Hermana Stark served for 3 months in Mesa waiting for her Visa before she came over here), and one of the Alicante Zone Leaders named Elder Powell for the whole time. It was such a great experience for me to have an opportunity to talk to missionaries who had been out for at least twice as long as I have and to recieve their advise and hear about their experiences, to practice my Spanish, and to learn about their lives before the mission. It was so much fun. And to top it all off, there was a crazy-awesome hail storm in the middle of our bus ride. There were huge chunks of ice just slamming against the top and sides of the bus, and you couldn´t see a thing out the window. It was really awesome.

Once we got to Málaga, we just went to the mission home and ate dinner and hung out there that night. The next day we went to the chapel in Málaga and had a huge meeting with all the Zone Leaders, SHE´s, District Leaders, and then some future Zone Leaders, SHE´s and District Leaders as well. There were about 50 missionaries there, and it was awesome. I felt a little inadequate at first, but that soon left and I felt just fine being there.

I also ran into Elder Hooper and Skousen for the first time. They are both from Mountain View, and it was great to see more people from High School.

We learned a lot about how to help missionaries overcome trials and dificulties in the field. It helped me realize ways to overcome my own struggles, and helped me to more fully realize the importance of being patient and loving, so that´s what I´ll be working on for this transfer, being more loving and kind. Wish me luck!

Well Gotta go. Love ya!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Here are some pictures he sent from his last baptism from a couple weeks ago.

 He baptized Fernando, the 9 year old kid, and Kevin, the 20 year old kid, baptized his parents Danilo and Pila

another great week!!

Monday- 

We started having FHE´s with part member families and less active members. Today, we had one with a family from Ecuador. Their names are Ramiro (nonmember) and Angela (member) and they have 4 kids: José (member, 11yrs old), Alex (member, 9yrs old), Miguel Angel (3yrs old), and a baby girl that I never can remember her name. It´s hard to teach this family, because Ramiro isn´t a member, but doesn´t want to be taught formally, so we will go and start teaching his family something super basic (like obedience) and then they (they being both Ramiro and Angela)  will start asking questions about the Book of Mormon and about the way the church is organized, and what we do as missionaries, but then when we testify and try and commit them to do something, they don´t really want anything to do with it, and stop listening. So it´s a challenge to teach them, but we are getting better, and apparently Ramiro didn´t even use to listen or talk to the missionaries, but now he says hi to us in the streets and everything, and he´s even started coming to church more regularly that some of our members.

We also visited a member named Tuga Licha (he´s from Ghana and he´s about 32). He is a super strong member, and I love him to death. We talked about Enos and how after we have felt the effects of the Atonement, a natural result is to feel the desire to share the Gospel.

Tuesday-

We had a lesson with a Less Active member named Alberto (19) and his younger brother who isn´t a member yet, Romel (16) about the plan of salvation. I think they are from Ecuador, but I´m not sure. Alberto´s a good kid, it´s just tough for him to get to church sometimes, and he´s having trouble getting rid of his earings, but more on that to come.

We also had a lesson with an investigator Nancy (from Ecuador, 40ish) and her two sons, Anderson (14) and Luis (13). They are a good family, but it´s hard to get all of them together at the same time. We have taught them the Restoration probably 6 times, and we are finally ready to move on. It´s been a good learning experience on how to teach people, not lessons (PMG chp 10).

We also had a lesson with some members who are some of the only Spaniards in our branch. Their names are Juan Jose, Providencia (Provi for short) and Juan Jose hijo/Jr. (or Juanjo for short). They are great, Juan Jose is the Elders Quorum Pres. and Provi is the Relief Society Pres, and Juanjo is the Gospel Principles teacher (he´s also 18 years old and is going to Greece on his mission in 2 weeks).

Wednesday-

We had a lesson with Jose and Stiven in a park. Jose is a non member who has to get married before baptism and Stiven (11), his son, is a member who we are reactivating. I think they are also from Ecuador.

We also had a lesson with a member, Georgina, from Mexico. And she let us know why she is a vegetarian. You all would be proud of me cause I kept my mouth shut. She taught us that when we eat meat, we partake of the carnal instincts of animals, and the natural man gains strength over the spirit. Yeah...

Thursday-

We had a lesson with Fernando (9) and his mom Carmen. They are from Ecuador, and he is getting baptized this Saturday, the 24th, and asked me to perform the ordinance. I gladly accepted. I hope his mother will follow him into the waters of baptism soon.

We had a lesson with Samuel Ogbor (Nigeria, over 40). He is the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency, and loves to mention that "nothing can shake (his) faith" and I believe it. He´s a strong member.

We had another lesson with Alberto, about piercings. We taught him house his body was a temple, and set a date for him to get rid of his last earing (He has already taken off 3 or 4 others and decided not to get tattoos, so he´s trying, he´s almost there). Today, was the last day to wear his earings, so I hope he´s following through with that. His phone is broken, so it´s hard to get a hold of him. He also lives 15-20 minutes away in bus, or a 45ish minute walk (unless we walk at my pace, then we could get there in 30ish min). Unfortunately, his little brother, Romel wasn´t there, but we are going to teach him soon, and reactivate his desire to be baptized (his dad wouldn´t let him 2 years ago when his brother did for whatever reason).

Friday-

We had a special training in Murcia (one of the major cities in our part of Spain). Hermana Deere taught us about the parable of the talents in the bible. And President Deere taught us about asking inspired questions in lessons and learning how to listen to both the investigator and the Spirit, because that is how we will know what to say. It was a great training.

That night, all our lessons failed us, so we were walking around contacting in the street. Nobody wanted anything. We found this 20 year old guy sitting on the sidewalk and I asked him if I could sit next to him. He said yeah, so I sat down and started talking to him about the Plan of Salvation. Then his girlfriend showed up and he had to go, but I hope that those seeds we planted will start to sprout sooner or later.

Saturday-

We went over to Felix (60ish, Ecuadorian) and taught him and his son Carlos (19ish) and his daughter (12ish). We were going to drop him this lesson because he doesn´t want to change anything in his life, but when we walked in, his son, Carlos, asked us if we brought another movie (the last time we watched "Our Heavenly Father´s Plan" and he liked it) and said he really liked the last movie. We asked him what he liked about it, and he said he liked how it talked about the Purpose of Life, and how we are never alone. I hope we can continue to teach him by the spirit.

Sunday-

I continue to play the piano in sacrament meeting. I continue to practice the piano so that I can try to help and bring the spirit to our meetings on Sunday, and I get better every week.

We had a lesson with a couple from Ecuador, Pilar and Danielo, who have been attending church for 13 years and just got married so they are now ready to get baptized. They have a 20 yr old son Kevin and an 11 yr old son Antonio (I think) who are both members and their family is awesome. I didn´t know they weren´t members until 2 1/2 months into the mission. We reviewed all 4 lessons and the baptismal interview questions with them during Sunday School, and they are now choosing a baptismal date, and will be baptized within the next month.

After church a man named Nikolas came to the church building. He is from Romania and is 45 or 50ish. His 15 month old son had tuberculosis about 2 months ago, and Elder Oldroyd and I went to the Hospital and gave him a blessing. Well, he´s better. I don´t know if he´s cured or what, but Nikolas said that the doctors said that the baby, Silvu, his body took the medicine very well and now he no longer needs to stay in the hospital. And he came to pay his respects to God. We will be trying to work with him in the future.

That´s been the week.

It´s good to hear that everythings going good back home.

Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett's new Companion

So, my companion´s name is Elder Simon. He is from Argentina (the South part, I´m not exactly where from, but his city´s name starts with a c I think) and it took me about a week to understand him due to his accent. In Argentina, instead of saying, for example, tortilla, they say tortija. It was nigh impossible for me to understand the words he was saying, let alone the fact that he was speaking Spanish. He loves Ironman (the superhero) and basically everything to do with Marvel comics, and absolutely hates DC comics and superheroes. And he hates the heat. When he left Argentina, it was snowing, and he got here and its 90-95 everyday, so I´m loving it, but he´s dying. He also got sunburned, and I didn´t, which I thought was weird because he´s brown and I´m white. He constantly refers to himself as a Lamanite and I am therefore the Nephite, I just hope I´m a Nephite during a righteous period.

This week, we knocked about 1,000 doors, that´s not an exaggeration. But we found several people that said we could come back, and a couple actually let us into there homes for a few minutes. There was this one Muslim guy, who barely spoke any Spanish, and he let us in, gave us some dates and some fried peppers (I only ate the dates cause I knew what they were) and then we tried to talk to him and I had to translate the muslim man´s spanish to Elder Simon and vice versa. We went back to give him a pamphlet in Arabic, but he didn´t answer his door. We´ll probably stop by the next time we´re in the neighborhood.

The biggest thing that we started to do this week, was to visit all the members. ALL of them. I gave a talk last week about Elder Andersen´s talk from last conference, and we are checking up with the members to see if they have prayed and done as Elder Andersen asks us to do. We are also making a greater effort to try and contact all the Menos Activos in the Lorca Branch (There are about 150 on our records) and see if we can´t help them remember why they joined the church or remind them the reasons that they should´ve joined the church for. One Less Active member is Anthony. He is from Ghana and has been a member for about 3 years. About the time that I got to Lorca (about 3 months ago) he stopped coming to church. He was without work, without a house and fell in with the wrong crowd, and started having problems with alcohol and smoking. I met with him this week, and talked to him about the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and Law of Tithing, and Church attendance, and he understood them all (which is a miracle in and of itself because most of the time, my African brothers don´t understand anything the first time I teach it to them) and as he said the closing prayer, you could tell that he was repenting and trying to do better.

I found out something very sad about our African members this week. There are several African churches here in Lorca, and the preachers in those churches tell their members to not associate themselves with the Africans that attend our church. The members of our church of African descent literally are without friends here in Spain. I can´t fully describe the situation in words, but it´s horrible that they have to live through this, but their faith is so amazing. They understand that Christ is their Saviour and that this is his church. They attend the church even despite the racism that takes place within the walls of our own church. How faithful!

Investigators: These first 3 have been handed to us, and are the fruits of the hard work of members and/or missionaries. It is great to have this hope that I am hopefully planting seeds that later someone will be able to reap the reward and joy from.

Pilar (and her husband): These two Ecuadorians have been attending church for the past 13 years, but have been unable to be baptized because they were not married. They have two sons, one, named Kevin, is a priest and is a great guy, the other is named Anthony (I think) and he is about 10, and it also a great kid. They recently went to Ecuador for a vacation/to get married, and are now ready to be baptized. We are currently in the process of reviewing the lessons with them, and organizing a baptismal service.

Jessie: Also from Ecuador, her mother, Paquita (also Fransisca) is an endowed member of the church, and Jessie has been assisting since before I came to Lorca. She told us this week, that she believes the church is true, she just needs to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon before she gets baptized. I thinks that´s great. She´s reading the Book of Mormon in English and she´s currently in 1 Nephi 1:9. When she told us that, the only good thing I could think of was that at least she knew exactly where she was in her reading. We are going to work with her to help her gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon as we reteach her the lessons.

Juanjo´s French professor (I don´t know her name either): Juanjo is a 18 year old member of the church, soon to be a missionary in Greece. His professor has been studying the church by herself for the past 3 months and has read all of the Doctrine and Covenants and knows the church is true and wants to be baptized. The only problem is that her husband is a little against the church, so we can´t go to her house to teach her, and I don´t know how he would take it if she was baptized. But I have faith the Lord will bless her with a way to join the true church.

Nancy and Luis: Someone that we actually found/were guided to. Nancy is a mother of 3 and Luis is her 13 year old son. We have only met with them a few times, but they are willing to read and pray, and let us into their house. More on them to come...

That is about the extent of what has happened this week. I love you all and pray for you.

All the best (as my African brothers always say)

Elder Garrett B Turley

Parts of Garretts last couple letters

July 15th

I have no clue where to start. After almost 3 months of hardwork in the field, and a little more than a month in the MTC, I have been blessed to not only witness, but perform a baptism! There are not words to describe the joy! D&C 18:15 is the only thing that I know that describes it. It showed me a different side of the Atonement. Obviously for Vito, it washed his sins away, and he is clean. But for me, it wiped all the worries and stresses from the past 4ish months, and replaced that with complete joy and happiness. I can´t describe it. I love you!!

Let me tell you a little about Vito. He is the head of a wonderful family. He has a wife, Elena (member), a son, Luis (non-member), two daughters, Rosie (not-yet-a-member) and Kerly (member). They are a great family, and strong in the Gospel, and I look forward to continuing to work with them.

But the funny thing is, that right after the baptism, there was the feeling of almost, "What do we do now?" The other Elders in our district told us that we´ve got our baptism for this area, so now we´re off the hook. Don´t worry, we´re still working, but it was kind of a weird feeling that we´ve accomplished (once) the "goal" of missionary work. I know that we are here to help people develop faith in the Atonement, show that faith by repenting and being baptized, and then using the gift of the Holy Ghost to help guide them to endure to the end of their lives, but still, after a baptism, everything is just awesome! and you feel complete.

Anyway, life goes on. I made tortilla de patata for the first time this past week. It turned out pretty good, but I´ve still got to practice making it. We are struggling with getting new investigators, and holding onto the investigators we do have which is rather frustrating. We´ll invite them to come unto Christ and do all we can to help them see and feel the importance of that, and then leave it in their hands.

Some of the investigators that we do have are:

Olga and David: A mom and her son that were a reference from a member, and really like the Book of Mormon. Olga has told us that the Book of Mormon is easier to understand than the Bible, and that she really wants to read it. David is 9 or 10, but has a really good understanding of the scriptures. We´ve just really got to work with them on pray. We asked David to give the prayer after our first lesson, and he looked at his mom and then started spouting off this poem as fast as he could with his eyes open and everything, and then finished and then looked around, and said, "Amen". It was the weirdest thing.

Carmen and Fernando: Also a mother and son who use to come to church all the time because of a missionary that use to be here in Lorca. We asked the members about this missionary, and they said that literally 15 investigators came to church every week just because of him. And so I think she´s just listening to us for kinda the same reason, to see if we are gonna be as cool as the last Elder that she knew. We´ll see what happens there.

Jessie: Daughter of a member named Paquita. She´s like 45 and use to be a teacher in Ecuador. We are helping her and some of her friends learn English and teaching just little messages of the Gospel to them, so hopefully one of them might start listening to us. Jessie, knows a lot about the church, and comes quite often.

That´s about all that´s happening in Lorca these days. The weather´s still nice and there is always a breeze, which makes life even better.

I love you all and am keeping you in my prayers!

Elder Garrett B Turley

July 22nd

Well, I´m technically a trained missionary. But now that I´m trained, they told me I´m training, so I will be picking up my new companion (here in the mission, they call the missionaries you train your sons/daughters, so I´ll be going to pick up my son tomorrow). Pray for me will ya? I decided that like it says in Alma 32, I can either choose to be humble right now, or be forced to be humble in a couple weeks when I figure out there is no stinkin´ way I can train with just my knowledge. I hope and pray that I can choose to be humble.

This past Sunday, we had what seemed to be like a ton of people at church. We had 50 people at church, including 7 investigators. We were so pumped. When we talked to our branch president about it, he said, "Before the earthquake, we had like 80 people attending regularly. 50´s nothing." So I guess we got excited for nothing. We also have 2 investigators that just got married (Her name is Pillar and I don´t know his name, I didn´t even know they were investigators until yesterday. They have already been attending church for quite some time, and their testimonies are super strong. But they will be getting baptized sometime in the next couple weeks.) And we have another couple getting married, hopefully, in August. This couple is actually the daughter, and would be son-in-law of Vito. So just about the whole family will be members after this.

July 28th

So the first 24 hrs of training, were the hardest 24 hrs of my life. I thought I had been getting good at Spanish, but I couldn´t understand my companion and we had almost no one to visit, so we kind of just winged it and tried to visit old investigators. Over the past couple days we have knocked over 300 doors, and we are finding people to teach. One man, named Yuria, is from Bulgaria, and we watched the Restoration video with him in Bulgarian. And guess what, the church is true in Bulgarian as well. I could feel the Spirit, and I hope he could too. We also found a lady named Nancy to teach (we were literally led to her house by the Spirit, it was the coolest thing ever). We are stopping by there again to continue teaching her. I am now playing the piano in church officially (I even have a nametag!) and I feel kind of bad for the members, because I´m not exactly the best pianst. I have this feeling that pretty soon the Pres. Luis (our branch president) is gonna kick me out, and play the piano himself. But I´ll keep trying until that point. I also gave a talk yesterday on Elder Andersen´s talk from last conference called, "It´s a Miracle" and I hope the members got something out of it. I encourage you to read it, and do what it says, to pray about who you can share the gospel with, and "names and faces will come to your mind" and "you will see your own miracles".

Life is good, and the work moves on. We are getting so many new missionaries in this next transfer, 35 if I heard correctly, and we just received 21. The Lord really is hastening his work.

I love you, and hope everything goes well with school and work and at home!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Elder Oldroyd, Vito, and Garrett

These are Pictures of Garretts apartment

Dear everyone,

As of right now, I have been a missionary for 3 months and 4 days. Who would´ve known that the time would fly so fast. I thank the Lord for the many blessings he gives me and the many, many miracles he lets me see everyday. I would like to share a few with you.

First off, the Gift of Tongues. To start off with, I´m not fluent. But, I will say that my abilitly to speak Spanish has increase so much since I left home. The Lord has placed certain Spanish speaking Elders in my path that have helped me so much to learn Spanish faster than I could´ve hoped. And one thing that makes it even more of a blessing, is that I probably speak English more that 50% of the time here in Lorca, both to my companion, and we teach a lot of Africans. It´s funny to hear people tell me I´m basically fluent, and it is a blessing to get compliments from native Spanish speakers on how good my Spanish is. There have been several times where a native will ask me how long I´ve been out in the field, and when I tell them 2 months, they think I´m lying. It truly is a blessing from the Lord to be able to communicate half-decently with people from halfway across the world.

The importance of members! Pass this message on to everyone you can. I gave a talk yesterday in church, and talked about how we can see miracles if the members and the full-time missionaries will work together. I started off by saying that I was a representative of Christ, and then I promised blessings that would come from the cooperation of members and missionaries together. It was powerful, and it was amazing to hear some of the words that came out of my mouth as I was saying them. It was nothing to fancy, and it was given in broken Spanish, but as I talked to this small branch about how we could become a ward, the Spirit just continued to fill the room more and more. I spoke for almost 25 minutes in Spanish to this branch, and then my time ran out so I had to hurry and bear my testimony. I wish I could´ve spoken longer. A couple hours after church, we brought a member to a lesson. The exact things that I testified of in Sacrament meeting played out before our eyes. As we brought a member into the home of this investigator, his name is John, they immediately became friends (probably cause they were both from Africa, but still...) and John opened up. The Spirit was so strong, and he didn´t want us to leave. I hope and pray that everything else will go well with him and that we will be able to continue to work with him and the members.

Right after that lesson with John, we got a call from this nonmember that comes to church everyweek, named Rosie, who just needs to get married before she can get baptized. Anyway, Rosie told us that her father wanted to be baptized. Rosie´s dad (I don´t remember his name, it´s the same as some city that is close to Rome and starts with a "B") lives in Ecuador, but had come to visit the family, and came to church to listen to his youngest daughter and child, Kerly, give a talk. This 14 yr old young woman, gave a 10ish minute talk on faith. It was wonderful! And now her father wants to get baptized. We are going over to teach him tonight, and hopefully everyday between now and a baptism.

Yes dad, we have investigators, but more of them live outside of our area than live in our area. We have a friend named Khalifa, a Muslim from Morocco, who is currently living in Morocco and calls us at least 2 a week, but we can´t call him back. We committed a family in Ghana to go to church a week or two ago, over the phone of a member here in Spain. A Romanian son of our Heavenly Father committed to read the whole Book of Mormon this week, but lives in Barcelona. And one of my Ghanaian brothers named Sunny, lives in Murcia and is ready to hear the Gospel.

Some of our investigators, are a Ghanaian named Alfred. He wants to be baptized, and one of the first questions he asked us, was "Who in your church has the authority to baptize me?"
Simon is another of my Ghanaian brothers, and he is scheduled to get baptized July 27th, but keeps telling us he needs to read more of the BoM before he gets baptized.
John, is another one of my brothers from Ghana who we visited with a member on Sunday. He loves the Gospel, and was literally falling off his seat as we taught him. He attends the Evangelical Church, but says that if God tells him in his heart to follow our church, he will.

With any luck, we will have 4 baptisms in the next month. I pray that we will be able to find the answers that these people need, and that the Spirit will communicate to us how we can best teach them.

We watched the broadcast this morning at 8 am, as it was being broadcasted live at midnight here in Spain. I am not yet priveledged to get on Facebook and have blogs going to share the gospel, and we don´t have Ipads yet, so I´ll keep praying for that, but we get along just fine without them. But I encourage everyone to look for missionary opportunities. In whatever you are doing, and as you seek those opportunities, the Lord will bless you with them.

I love you all, and wish you the best of luck being Member Missionaries!

Elder Garrett B. Turley

Here are some awesome pictures. We´ve got some FuFu, which is an African dish made with cow hide and pig intestines. Then a giant dish of Paella. Also some pictures of me with some members and other missionaries. Love ya!

Garrett, his investigator, and Elder Oldroid

statue of Jesus

Garrett learning how to make paella

Garrett's Email is:
garrett.turley@myldsmail.net

Garrett's address is:

Felipon de Cope

33 3^◦ E 28600

Lorca, Murcia

Spain

Well this has been quite the week. A lot has happened, and the Spirit has been strong.

Last Monday was my first Pday. Elder Oldroyd (He just happens to be from Mesa, he lives a couple miles away from me, and we graduated together. It is a small, small world) and I went and got haircuts from a Moroccan guy, and we both look like Moroccans, pictures to come next week, I can´t send pics from this computer. I took almost 100 pictures just in the last week, there is so much cool stuff here. Anyway, we got haircuts and went and played soccer for 3ish hours with a bunch of nonmembers and one of them invited us over to his place to talk with his family. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways.

A normal day for me consists of waking up at 7:30, excercise for 30 minutes (usually we go for a jog in Spain), and then we have shower, breakfast, and study time until 11:30. After that it´s time to work. We come back to our apartment at 2pm for Medio Dia, and have more study time, and then head back into the streets at 5:30. Then we work until 10:15-10:45 at night, and then lights out at 11:30. It´s super tough not to take a nap in the middle of the day, especially right after a huge lunch and then we have to study. We don´t get fed too much here, so we are on our own to make food. Basically, grilled cheese sandwiches are where it´s at.

So this past week we have had many adventures. We had Zone Conference, in Murcia which was awesome. There are so many beautiful pictures there, and I´ll be sending those home soon. We also had some super spiritual lessons, and several experiences where we were paying attention to, and listened to promptings. The Spirit is just so wonderful, and the more you listen to it, the more you recognize it. What a wonderful truth.

I am growing more accustomed to talking to random people and trying to talk to them. I invited a random guy on the street to come to church with us on Sunday, but he didn´t want to come. One of these times though, someone´s gonna say yes, and it´ll be awesome!

Here are some of the people that we´re teaching right now:

Mirian: This is our number 1 investigator right now, and we are going to challenge her to baptism this week (possibly tonight). She is from Honduras, and is alone here in Spain looking for work. I don´t know why she came to a country with 27 percent unemployment looking for work, but whatevs, I´m not complaining, cause now we are teaching her. She has a wonderful understanding of The Gospel of Jesucristo, but as soon as we try and apply that to our church she kinda shuts down. We have to figure out how to teach her simply and bodly is what Elder Oldroyd is saying, and so we are going to teach her simply about the Restoration tonight. Wish us luck... (oh yeah, she came to a church activity and church, and read the Intro and testimonies in the front of the BoM, so she was keeping commitments before we even extended them).

Saturday: What a great guy! He is also super knowledgeable about the Gospel and is from Ghana. It is soo fun to speak English with these guys. It is a whole different language. If I come home sounding and praying like a black guy, don´t be too surprised.

Angel: A great guy who knows a lot about the church. He asks question after question about the church, and we can show him the answers in the scriptures, and I think he feels the Spirit. We are going to try to take more control of the lessons in the future and tell him that these lessons will answer a lot of his questions that he has.

Those are all of our really good investigators right now, and I really hope that we can touch all of their lives for the better.

We almost got robbed by gypsies this week. Well, kinda. Elder Oldroyd thinks so. I was oblivious to the fact that we might have been getting robbed, so I´m not exactly sure what happened. But we are gonna go teach the family sometime soon. We just aren´t gonna bring anything that they can steal from us except for some Books of Mormon.

I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. It was such a great opportunity for me. I feel like my Spanish was half decent. I´m pretty sure that I sounded the same as I did back home, just talked slowly and thoughtfully, which was really helpful cause it gave me time to think of how to say things. It was a 10 or 15 minute talk, and I didn´t even share half the stuff I wanted to. I led the music again this week, and also helped prepare the Sacrament. There are supposedly 180 members of our Branch, but we have 20-35 show up every week, so there are a lot of people who do double duty in the Branch. It is amazing to see the strong members of the Branch step up and help the work of the Lord move forward.

Scripture of the week is Luke 22:32. This is one reason I am out here. I have felt the Spirit more in my everyday life here than ever before. There´s a spiritual experience to be had behind every corner here in Lorca. And it reminds me of something Elder Holland has said, that the mission is as real as life will ever get. This is Real Life, capital ´R´capital ´L´ and it can be the same for everyone, regardless of whether they are on a full time mission or not. I invite you to look harder for the Spirit in your everyday lives.

Well, that´s about it for this time around. I love you all and wish you a happy week. Know that I am praying for all of you, and working hard.

Love ya!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Well I´m here and safe. Everything is going great! Spain is awesome. I have no idea where to start....

Well, I´m in Lorca and my trainer is Elder Trenton Oldroyd, a fellow Toro. Went half way around the world, and the first companion I get lives on Gilbert and McKellips. It is such a small world. There is so much to tell that there is no way I could write it all down, but I´ll try my best.

So I spent 2 days in Málaga, at the Mission home one night, and at the Castillo´s the next (they are JR and Tracy´s friends, also from Mesa). Spent a couple hours in Malaga doing missionary work with an Elder Brown who has since left Spain. We taught a Muslim and invited him to church, Elder Brown made me teach the whole first lesson in Spanish to a member, and I felt bad for her. And then I got my first real taste of Spanish (real Spanish) food. Chicken, tortilla, and pasta. It was delicious!

After that I took a bus and then a train to Lorca. While on the train, I got to talking to this guy about the church. He started asking about the Godhead and such, and I was able to answer his questions. Then I invited him to pray and he said he couldn´t pray to a God that let good and bad things happen. He had a BoM at home, and I asked him if he would read 2 Nefi 2:11. He said he would. (This conversation lasted for about 15-20 minutes, but that is basically the shortened version of all that I said/understood). But it was a testimony to me, that God will help me communicate if I will just open my mouth.

In Lorca, I´ve been tracting (we call it touching doors or Tocar las puertas), helped in a primary program, helped teach an English class to a bunch of little kids, was the chorister in church on Sunday, and bore my testimony during fast and testimony meeting. I just love being able to feel the spirit in 2 different languages.

I´ve helped teach two lessons thus far here in Lorca, both of them to less active members. And there are two languages that you have to learn here: Spanish and Black Man English. I think the latter is harder. There are so many people from all over the world here. Lots of people from Nigeria and Ghana, people from all over South America, Slovakia, tourists from all over Europe. You name it. There´s even someone from NY City here.

Our piso (apartment) is awesome. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a front room. It´s way bigger than I thought it would be. But showers are kept to under 5 minutes thanks to the ¨hot water heater¨. But anyway that is just about it. The food is great, we´ve got to cook for ourselves for the most part, but every once in a while people will give us food. The guy at the grocery store gave us a free loaf of bread the other day.

Life is good! Thank you all so much for everything! Love you all, and am praying for all of you!

Elder Garrett B Turley

1st day in Spain!!!

nice view

Garrett and his Comp.

In front of the towns church building