January 21, 2115

January 21, 2015

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well it sounds like you guys had a BLAST this week! LOTS OF FUNSEEKERS :) I can not believe that Lauren's team did not win! but like dad said, at least they did not lose! I loved the photos haha the water tornado was super cool! Bah rich people! ;) J/K that looked like a wicked rock that hit your windshield, hopefully you can get reimbursed from the car insurance! Lots of fun though!

SO like I said last week, we are preparing these three kids for baptisms. Katy was supposed to get baptized last week but we explained that because her sister did not go to church two weeks ago, she has to wait until this weekend to get baptized. So Katy decided to wait with her sister! They have had their interviews and are ready to enter into the water. They will be baptized on Friday because on Saturday they have a Young Women's activity and they want to go to that :) its going to super sweet! Katy loves the church and everything about it as well as her sister! We kind of hit a wall with Nixon though. His mom got upset that we were trying to baptize him, and so we sat down and kind of Macheted her haha. She felt bad and said that she would pray with Nixon to see if this Saturday is the day he should get baptized. 

We found this new investigator named Jorge, and he is SUPER awesome! He loved the church this past weekend and is stoked to go this coming week! I still have not visited him because the night that Elder Hayes and Mataalii went to visit him, I was on divisions with Missionaries in my district, making them feel super good because they brought 11 investigators to church!! But what was just as cool was that we also brought 11 people to church! It was super awesome! Sacrament meeting was packed with a huge attendance of 181 people! I know for back home that is smaller than normal, but for our little ward here in San Judas that usually has 140, was HUGE! But it was kind of a disaster after that though because they did the Area Plan for 2015, which first was 2 hours long, and second, they just sat and talked about baptisms for the dead.... Lot of confused investigators after that. But we fixed everything haha.

Well President has put the goal of 2000 baptisms this year!!! If we baptize 167 people every month we will meet this goal! But because this goal comes from the Lord, so we know we can hit that goal for 2015!! If we complete it, we will go down to San Juan del Sur, which is the nicest beach here in Nicaragua! When we come back here as a family, we will have to go! It's super pretty, from what I have heard. The only sad thing is that, I go home December 10, so that means I will work really hard to hit the goal, but never reap the temporal blessings!!! Spiritual blessings I will be loaded with!!! haha. But as a companionship we are doing really well! We work with members almost all of the nights so that we can do divisions and get double the work done. 

Well that is my week! I hope you guys have a great week!!

I love you a lot

Elder Naisbitt

January 14, 2015

JANUARY 14, 2015

Dear Mom and Dad!

What great news that you were able to meet with the doctors and see that the transfer will not be too bad! That makes me happy! I really hope that all of this stuff with the new drug works out so you can keep fighting the cancer with all of the strength that God has given you! I love you Mom so much! 

Well the past two weeks have been mixed together with a lot of different things it sounds like! Lauren running from all different places getting to work and going to soccer! I would be so tired! I'm glad ash is still loving basketball! I got his letter yesterday! I have the greatest little brother and Sister! Tell ash that I will be working on a return letter and that should come sometime in the future :) 

So these past two weeks have been super duper crazy! We had some radical changes here in the office! First off there is a new elder here in the office, named Elder Mataalii (from LA, but family from Samoa). He will be my replacement here in the office, so this is officially my last change here in the office.... :,,,,,,,( How sad! I have come to love this so much and be under so much stress, that its hard to imagine not having it. but I'm super pumped to be going back into the field as a full time missionary and not have to deal with all of this stuff haha. Anyway, Elder Mataalii is super great and will do a great job at being the general secretary. So right now Elder Mataalii and Elder Hayes are in a trio, which is fun, it is just hard to teach because its really awkward to pass the time, but we are getting used to everything! This change is going to be really awesome! One because of our companionship, two because something else really huge happened! President changed us out of Hialeah and Memorial Sandino, to an area next door called San Judas!! This is the greatest area I have ever been in! We will be baptizing 4 this month, and we already have one completed! There was a kid in the ward who was baptized, but could not get confirmed, so we confirmed him a member of the church last week! Super awesome! We have a possibility for this week named Katy, and she is super solid and is pretty excited for her baptism, and we have her sister the following week named Yahoska, as well as another kid named Nixon! Nixon was a huge miracle that we were able to get his parents permission! We went last week and talked with his mom about baptism and about how he was preparing to make this covenant with God, but the mom was not happy about it, and would not give the permission. So we left trying to figure out what we should do, so we came back a two days later to try again, but the mom was not there, just the Dad. The Dad however was super open to us and our purpose as missionaries, and that if Nixon wants to get baptized he can do it, we just cant force it on him, so we agreed to that, and he signed the permission!!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO! 

Caty and her pet Pig

This area is so much more blessed than the last one, as well as the fact we are able to go into all of the area and not have to worry about getting robbed and beaten!   I'm pretty happy right now! Well except for what we have to do tonight... 

There is a missionary heading home for reasons which are private, but he his taking a bus back to El Salvador (Area Pres. Order) so we have to get him to the bus terminal at 4:00am, and he does not get in from Bluefields until 1:00am, so we will not be sleeping tonight because we have to weigh bags, and what not. Then we are sending his companion back to Bluefields at 5:00am on a flight from the airport. His companion is Elder Roney, I don't know if you remember him but he was in my MTC group, so we will be up all night driving around....lots of fun. we are also preparing ourselves for the 4-6 of February because that is when Elder Duncan (area President) is coming for a mission tour. So that is what is coming on the horizon for us here in the office! Lots of crazy stuff! 

Just to let you know, I'm still district leader, nothing has changed about that, just the area and the missionaries in my district. 

I love you guys so much! Thank you for all that you do for me! I love you a lot!

Elder Naisbitt

New Compl that will replace Garrett in the office in February
Elder Mataalii & Garrett

Caty's pet pig

January 1, 2015

January 1, 2015 Garrett didn't write the week of Christmas, but we had an awesome phone call/Skype.  

Dear Mom and Dad!

It was so great to be able to talk with you last week! It was super great to see the family and to actually hear your voices! I miss that A LOT! But it sounds like you guys are loving the Christmas gifts! The ping pong table is pretty awesome! I am sure everyone is loving it! Naisbitt house is the party house again! :) That is too bad to hear that Ash was sick, that's awful! Hopefully he is feeling better today! :) I hope you guys had a great New Years Eve and are having a great New Years Day! I hope everyone has made high goals that will make 2015 the greatest year! :) 

Well not much has happened since I called! I threw some photos on Drop box of the Multi-zones and the fun we had! There is a sweet photo with Elder Hayes and I with Boas and Sweet hats! :) It was super fun, even though we could not participate very much, everyone else had a BLAST!! Thank you so much for the really sweet letter Dad and Mom that you wrote! I have it kept nice and safe in my luggage so it does not get destroyed! I loved how you wrote it dad, I knew I had changed, but its hard to see the change from a personal view. Thank you so much! I hope you guys received your Christmas package! The mission this year baptized the most it ever has in the whole time of it being a mission! We baptized this year 1724 people! More than 500 people than last year! I'm super pumped to see what President makes the goal for the next year! I bet it will be in the 2000's! THIS IS THE LORDS WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow I get super emotional when I share my testimony because I now know with all my heart that this is the Lords work! and I know that we are called of God by his living prophet Thomas Monson! This is the true church of God! Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the God's church again upon the face of the planet. I know that He does all of this so that we are happy and have the life eternal. I have been studying lately in the end of 2nd Nephi after the Isaiah chapters. This scripture, I love and explains what I was saying about how and why God loves the world so much. 2nd Nephi 26:23-24 

  

23 For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness.

24 He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

I love this scripture a lot because really God wants all of us to partake of his love and his light that is given from Christ! i know that this is the true church of God and that all of these things in the church are true and if anyone will experiment on the words of Moroni, which are read, meditate, and pray to see if the Book of Mormon is true and if the Church is true, they will receive a testimony from the holy Ghost that these things are true! I love The Lord!

Well the only cool thing that happened yesterday was the New Year celebrations! The Nicaraguans every year make these little dolls called the old man, which signifies the old year, and all of the old habits, and so they get a bunch of old clothes and stuff the clothes with a bunch of fireworks and firecrackers, and at midnight they light the doll on fire and it basically blows up haha :) it is super awesome! I put a few photos of one of these dude they had hanging from a telephone wire, and how he looks :) the tie on the front is a strip of firecrackers, and they wrote on it 2014. It was super creative! :) Anyway so we got back to the house around 10pm from a members house, and by the time we were all ready to for bed it was like 1130, and that was when we the noise began! It was so crazy! it sounded like we were in a warzone! there was just a continuous sound of explosions and bombs! wow it was amazing! It would be super awesome to have the chance to come back here this time of year with you guys! :) so by the time the fireworks ended, it was like1 am, and that was about when we finally fell asleep! crazy night!

Well that is about our week! next week is change week, so I probably wont be writing for two weeks, but if I get a few minutes i will shoot you an email to let you im doing great!

Hey this can be outside of the letter, but i have ordered two books from Amazon, two missionary reference scripture guides to come to the house! Hopefully they get there soon! When they do, could you just toss them in a package down to me? That would be super duper awesome! You guys are the greatest! And if when you are sending that package, could you throw in some candy, like DOTS and Oreos :) Elder Benson just received a package with these two monster huge boxes on Dots and now I'm craving some :) that would be the greatest of the greatest! I love you so very very very much!!! :) 

Elder Naisbitt