An investigators dream..."Follow Me"...

Hey Family!

We had changes this week! I'm still here in Apopa and will be finishing my mission here. My companion is Elder Nelson. He's from Arizona and he's a great guy! He has about 16 months in the mission or so. I saw Aldo Thursday walking through the street. Actually he saw me. We were walking down the street when I heard someone calling us, I turned around and saw Aldo running around the corner yelling my name. It was so funny! I ran over to give him a hug and we talked a little bit. I told him that I'm going home next month so he has to come to church to see me off. Hopefully it will help him go to church. Aldo is the guy I was going to do the pupusa eating competition with. He said he'll come right before I leave. That night his mom was in Apopa staying with her brother when she called us up to go by her house and pick up some doughnuts that she brought us. She gave us a huge bag of doughnuts that she made! She's so sweet.

Fernando went to church with us again yesterday. We are going to have his interview tomorrow and his baptism will be Saturday. HIS STORY IS AWESOME! So his brother and grandma got baptized a little while ago but he never went to church or anything like that. He never really cared much about anything. We struggled so hard to get him to go to church. We finally did a few weeks ago. After he finally went with us we visited him a couple days later and he said that he had a dream...In his dream he was facing a black wall. There were also two black walls to his sides. He said he heard a voice behind him that said, follow me. It surprised him and he tried to turn around to see who it was but he couldn't. When he was finally able to turn there was nobody there. He told us that he knew it was Jesus calling him. Ever since then he's been a lot happier and excited to learn more and go to church and to get baptized! And now that their mom has seen the changes in both her sons, she also wants to learn more and go to church! Before she never wanted anything to do with the church but it's because when the missionaries taught her husband a long time ago they never paid much attention to her. But now it's her time to receive the gospel and join the family at church! 

Belinda also went to church. She goes to the other ward. She is 11 years old and the ward says that she can get baptized if she can keep going to church by herself. Her parents are members but are inactive and no one from the ward can go get her because it's too dangerous. But if she goes to church one or two more times she'll get baptized!

Everything else is going good for now. We have a few more people that are preparing to get baptized. But I'll have to tell you more next week! I love and miss you all!

Love Elder Markham

Last Change of the Mission...service opportunities can be interesting!

Hey Family!

Well it's my last change! I'm staying here in Apopa and my companion is going to a pretty far place. I'm excited to see who my new companion will be and what we can accomplish. We finished this change off with Wendy's baptism. It was also super spiritual because there was an activity for the young single adult group so when it was time for her service they all came in to support her! She was also able to bring her family that aren't members. Her uncle wants to learn more but he lives a little far so we are going to get his direction to the other missionaries. 

President Vasquez is coming out with some new plans to help the wards and stakes. One of them is a way to help families that haven't been sealed, get sealed in the temple. We visited a family, the Vaquerano family, with the bishopric last Sunday. The daughter wants to go on a mission real bad so she's been going to church by herself for 4 years. Everyone else has been inactive since then. But after the visit we talked to the family and they said they felt so special and important to the ward. They spent the whole week preparing to go to church. They even introduced us to a few of their friends that they have been helping. Yesterday they all went to church together! They were all so happy! They said that they had felt the spirit so strong that day and know that this is what they need to do. SO a little about their friend. He has a very hard situation. His whole family left him to go to the United States and he has lots of problems with drinking and smoking. He loves the Vaquerano family so much and says that they pretty much adopted him. He's always there with them so it's easy to find him. He's been helping with their house that they are working on. But he wants to change his life around for the example that they have set for him. His name is Carlos. I know that with the help of Jesus Christ he will be able to stop drinking and smoking and turn his whole life around. 

Here's a quick funny story with Carlos this week. So we saw some people that were carrying an entertainment center to their house. Carlos was helping them and it was huge so we decided to help. When we got to the house we quickly realized that it wasn't going to fit. We tried every way that we could but it was useless. The problem was that there were stairs right at the door way going up. So it was impossible to get it in. We stood there staring and thinking what we could do when Carlos suggested that we just brake down the stairs with a sledge hammer and a chisel. But before the owner could even say anything Carlos was already ripping them apart. By the time he was done there was a huge mess of bricks everywhere! After a couple hours we finally got it in and helped clean the bricks up a bit. 

I love you so much and cant wait to talk to you! 

Love Elder Markham

Garrett's Testimony of His Savior and of Eternal Families

Hey Family!

Happy fourth of July!!!!! With my companion we spent all morning listening to the few patriotic hymns on my flash drive. Then as all the Latinos called us for something I would say to them, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!! But they didn't really care hahaah. 

Well this week was great! Wendy passed her interview to get baptized this saturday! We also wanted to help Belinda, who's 11, get baptized but she will have to wait a few more weeks. But Wendy has really gone through lots of stuff but I know that becoming a member of the church of Christ will be a huge blessing for her. 

Yesterday we had an awesome sacrament meeting. The testimonies from the members were all so strong. This is my first ward here where once the bishop gives the time to the members to share the testimony, half the members run up to fill the stand. There were lots of great testimonies about the Savior. Which helped us so much because we were finally able to help a teenager named Fernando get to church. All his brothers and grandma are members. He just hasn't ever gone to church because he's never really been too animated (I think Garrett meant to say "excited" here...he can't remember the correct English words) to go. But afterwards we talked to him and asked how he liked it and he says it was great and wants to come back next week! He says he also wants to get baptized the 23rd of July!

I just want to share my testimony of the Savior that I know He lives. He is my friend and my brother. He is my redeemer. He gave His life for me so that I could live again. He knows how I feel during my sufferings because He suffered every pain of each and everyone of us. In the mission He has changed my life. I have felt the power of His atoning sacrifice. My sins have been washed through His blood. During my time here, He has walked beside me, testified with me and has never abandoned me. He is the way to the eternal life. And for His sacrifice I will be able to live again with my family in the presence of our Heavenly Father. I love Him and I know He loves me and I share this in His sacred name. Amen.

I love and miss you all so much! Talk to you next week!

Love Elder Markham

**This is something that Garrett shared in his personal letter to me that I wanted to share with all who reads his blog.  I'm so grateful for the experiences that he is having...and that he is being changed for good in many ways, and that these experiences bring him a greater love for his family and a knowledge that he will be with us forever.

Also, something I didn't tell in my letter but we visited a man this week who has had a blood cancer that wasn't too great. When we got to his house he was in a coma. We sang a hymn and watched him take his last breathes. It helped me understand the Plan of Salvation better and I know that we will all be resurrected after this life. I'm so happy for my eternal family. I have to go! I love you all soo much!!!! Talk to you next week! 

Love Elder Markham 

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