Several baptisms and many more to come...Garrett loves sharing the Gospel with the Good people of El Salvador!

Hey Family!

We had the baptisms for Roberto and Maryori this week! It was a lot of fun. First Roberto and Sonia got married. We helped a family cook them hamburgers in the morning and the wedding was in the afternoon. After everyone had eaten we had the baptismal service! We had Maryoris in the night so that her mom could make it when she got back from work. She was really happy to get baptized!!! Now we are planning for July! Pretty crazy that July is coming up right??? Well here's what we have so far. And all this happened Sunday! After church we went to the stake center because we always talk to the bishop about the work in the other ward that we help called the Refineria. He wasn't there but we found the ward mission leader. His name is Mitchel. He said, "Elders! We have lots of work to do with in the next few weeks. And we need to do it now!" So we went into a room to talk. He told us about an 11 year old girl from a family that are members but she hasn't been baptized yet. They are coming back to church and she wants to get baptized in a couple of weeks. There's also another sister in the ward that was less active and lives with her boyfriend who isn't a member. They both have been going to church now for a couple months and the boy friend wants to get baptized the 16th of July and get married the 9th. Then he said he has a few more he is still working with. After that we went to visit America with her husband and children. She was baptized last week. We found Wendy there. She is the niece of America and was living with her for a long time but never got baptized. She went back to live with her parents but now she's back again! It surprised us when she said she talked to the Bishop and they decided on a baptismal date together. We asked her when she wanted to get baptized and she said Saturday! haha it was awesome but she was drinking coffee last week. So she has to wait until the 9th to get baptized. But she is super excited! Then another member told us that he had been talking to his friend about the church and he wants to learn more. So we visited him and his wife with the member named Melvin. They said that they were getting married this week and would love to get baptized! If someone is already married or getting married that means they are so prepared by the Lord here! So that was our Sunday pretty much. It's amazing how much the Lord has blessed us with all this work but making it easy because we have had all the members helping us. Here we see how important the members are in the missionary work. This ward doesn't have full time missionaries but they will probably baptize the most in July!

The Zone is doing great! We finished the month with 25 baptisms. Which is a ton for here! I have never seen a zone baptize that much. The zone that baptized the most last month baptized 19! As a zone we are preparing to baptize 30 in July. We know we can do it but it's not just us that are bringing the Gospel to the children of God. It's also Him Himself with His Angels. I love being here! I love missionary work! I love you all!

Love Elder Markham

More baptisms, and getting mistaken for the FBI!

Hey Family!

It was one of the best weeks yet!!!! So we ended up having the baptisms for the Elias Family, Etel and America! America is an investigator that has been listening to the missionaries for such a long time, a little more than a year! Last week we fasted with her so that the Lord would put into her heart a baptismal date. Wednesday we went to her house and she told us that she wanted to get baptized Friday. We thought that she wanted to get baptized next week then she said, no in two days! haha so we helped her get ready and we had her baptismal service Friday and yesterday she was confirmed. The service for the Elias Family was Saturday morning. It was very special. They were all so happy. They got confirmed yesterday as well! Saturday night was the service for Etel. Once again, it was a very special experience. Her mom was there and Sunday she came to church! We hope to help her parents start coming back to church with her and her sister.

Roberto didn't get married and didn't get baptized this week because he was a little scared haha. But he says this week for sure. We kept visiting him and helping him to have faith. So we will have his wedding and baptism Saturday. We are also going to have Mayori's baptism Saturday. She is the daughter of another investigator who can't get baptized until she gets married. But her daughter wants to get baptized now and we don't know when her mom will be able to get married. 

Friday we had an awesome zone activity! We took pictures of families with a special banner for Fathers day and wrote the directions down of the people to go by and drop the pictures off and see if we can talk more about how Christ can bless our families. We got 180 referrals in three hours

! It was awesome! There were always people in line to get their picture taken! I mainly walked around inviting people to go get their picture taken, but it was funny what some of the people said when they didn't want to. One guy told me he wasn't going to get his picture taken because he knew we were going to do other things with the pictures. I thought...what could those other things be... Then I remembered that everyone here thinks that we are from the FBI. Wednesday an investigator told us that on the news, they were saying how we aren't going to be let in to the neighborhoods anymore because we are here to watch the people and not really to teach about Jesus Christ. hahaha

I miss you all so much! 

Love Elder Markham

Garrett loves what he is doing and found an old Friend

Hey Family!

So this Saturday we are going to have 5 baptisms. The first one is a little 9 year old girl named Etel. Her whole family are members but her parents are less active. Her brother and sister go to church but they never helped her to get baptized. So we taught her this week and are going to do her interview today. She is really smart and is great! We are also going to baptize a man named Roberto. He has been living with his girlfriend who is a member. The missionaries have been visiting them for a long time now but they never wanted to get married. But now they finally have said yes. So they will be getting married this Saturday and then he will get baptized. We also have the Elias Family, pretty much the best name right? (Garrett's middle name) haha There's the dad, Alexander, the mom, Saida, and their daughter, Alexandra. Alexander's parents have been members for a really long time so they pretty much got them prepared for us. The parents started bringing them to the church for about 6 months to clean it every Saturday. They loved serving and had a lot of fun with it so they kept going with them to clean up. Then they finally started coming to church and listening to the missionaries just a few weeks ago. They were already married and didn't have any problems with the word of wisdom. They were super prepared by the Lord. They are such a special family. I love Alexandra because she's a little quiet 9 year old girl that is very shy. She always sits there during the lessons quietly, then when we ask her something she just smiles and doesn't know what to say. We are also going to have a few more baptisms in the coming weeks.

ALSO! Yesterday at church, I started walking towards an older sister in our ward. I couldn't see her very well but I felt that I had known her for such a long time. When I said hi to her, she turned around and kinda shouted for joy and almost gave me a hug haha. It was Adela from San Patricio. She was the lady that gave us dinner every night and her son also always helped us with everything. His name is Aldo. She lives here in Apopa but when her other son was killed she went to San Patricio for a while to get away. But now she's back! She says she's kinda living in the two areas but she said I need to visit her and help teach her brother. Today we are going to see if she's there. But it was really specially to see her here again.

I love you all and miss you so much!

Love Elder Markham

Garrett continues to be converted...

Hey Family!

Well this week was awesome and crazy at the same time. First of all about the area and the zone...In our area we have tons of baptismal dates for the 18th of June and a few more for July. Twelve investigators went to church yesterday. There were a few people sick that didn't go that always go as well so next week we will have more. We actually don't have just one area. We have three. But that's because there are two wards that the missionaries got taken out for some reason and now we are in charge of helping the investigators in that area progress and get baptized. The zone is huge! There are 10 companionships and they are all spread out pretty far. For example, Friday I broke my record for being farthest from the capital when we took a bus ride to an area called Chelatenango for 3 hours. It's on the boarder of Honduras. We did interchanges so that I could do an interview for an area over there. But the zone is great. We should have around 30 baptisms as a zone which should be the most out of the whole mission this month.

My companion is Elder Sabey from Utah. He's great! I love having a focused companion who wants to work and be obedient and wants the salvation for the people. Friday we went to Presidents house for our Consejo de Lideres. It's the meeting with the assistants and other zone leaders. We just talked all morning about last month and what are the goals and plans for this month. I really enjoyed it! 

The ward we have is really great too! I've been able to meet some people that are so sweet and have huge testimonies. I love learning from them because they have been a huge part of my conversion. Everyday I feel more converted to the Gospel with a greater desire to serve the Lord. It's crazy that my time is running down. Just about everyone I talked to this week had to remind me by asking me when I go home but I'll just keep working hard. I love the mission so much! I love and miss you all!

Love Elder Markham