Learning Patience

Hey Everyone!

This week was awesome! I had such a great time and it's weird to think that it's almost been a month since I've been in El Salvador! 

I have learned so much in my personal study! This week I learned about having patience. Thomas S. Monson said that we will always have trials in our life and we need to be patient to get through them. It is always on the Lords time and they are always specific for each individual. This helped me so much. I love study time in the morning! This week is my first baptism for sure! The last one had to wait for just a little longer. But the man is Osvaldo like I talked about before. He is amazing and already has names of his parent and siblings to do temple work for and is sharing the Gospel with many people. He is a great example to me. I am so excited for this Saturday and its going to be a great experience! We had 11 investigators come to church this Sunday! It was a huge success! I hope that they felt the spirit and continue to want to come! We have a few more baptism dates for December! My Spanish is improving every week! Many people are saying that it's really good for the time I've been here so I guess that's good. But I still can't understand too much especially at church and when people talk a lot. But I can definitely understand and talk a lot more!

I miss you and love you all!!!

Love Elder Markham

Still Learning Spanish...and just call him Colipoki

Hola Familia!

This week was great! We are teaching more people and got a few baptism dates. There are times where I feel like I can speak Spanish and other times where I feel like I can't. I can talk pretty well with my companion about gospel stuff and that's pretty cool. But during stake conference this week I didn't understand a single thing. But I can still talk with a few people about other things. I know its getting better and it just takes time. Tons of little kids are always asking me, how do you say this in English...how do you say this? it's funny. At times I forget my name because no one here can say Markham. Its marrcun. So my companion tells them its like bacon...don't ask why but it doesn't even help anyways. So most of the members just call me colipoki from the other side of heaven.I feel like a giant here too. Everyone points and likes to compare their height with mine.

This week we found more investigators! We now have 12 new ones! Its great! We are inviting our investigators to visit the temple with our president on December 20th!

I love you all and miss you!

Love Elder Markham

Garrett's teacher (in front) and his companion at the MTC

Sunset from the MTC in Mexico

Teaching the Gospel and BIG Spiders

Hey everyone! 

This week was great! Tons of stuff happening every day. People have been putting up Christmas stuff since the first week of November! So me and my companion got a little tree and some lights. Its great haha. 

We started teaching this man named Osvaldo and he is super awesome...even though I have no clue what he and my companion are saying. My companion tells me most of it after. The Spanish hasn't clicked yet so it makes it super stressful. I can pick up key words and stuff though. Anyway, we met this guy in the street last week and he said we can come teach him. We taught him the first lesson and it went great! Then we taught him the second time about Joseph Smith and he loved it. We had to watch the video on his laptop because his TV wasn't able to change to Spanish so the video was super quiet. During the movie his neighbor started blasting super loud music and we couldn't hear at all. I remembered learning about specific prayers in the MTC so I decided to say one. I asked that the music would stop so that the spirit could be there and just as I was finishing the prayer, the music stopped. It was so cool. Then right when the movie finished the music came back on! We asked if he could pray to find out if Joseph was a true prophet and he said yes. We all got on our knees and as he started to pray he started crying. Then he kept thanking God for sending us and for everything else. Afterwards he said that he knew he was a prophet. The third lesson I asked if he would be baptized and he's like yeah yeah of course...but can I teach these things to my religion class I teach? It's amazing the people the Lord prepares to hear the Gospel.

A few days ago I contacted about 9 people in one night. We had exchanges for a day and I went to a different area with an Elder from Nebraska. He is pretty new as well and as it got later in the night we didn't have much to do so we just contacted people. 

I saw my first Central America spider last night. It was huge! I asked my companion and two other members we were with if that was a spider because it didn't really look like a spider at all! They all said yes like it was nothing and how they get way bigger.

I miss you guys a ton and I love all your emails!

Love Elder Markham

Finally in El Salvador!

Garrett and his mission President and wife: President and Sister Vasquez

Garrett and new missionaries arriving October 27th, 2014 El Salvador San Salvador East Mission

Hola familia! 

I have been here in El Salvador for a week now! I don't have a lot of time so I will be quick. Getting here has been a huge cultural shock for me. Its very different and hard to get used to living here. Most houses are about the size of our living room and the other houses are just tin shacks with dirt floors. But I am beginning to love it here. Mom and Dad really treated us like kings. The only problem I am having is with the language. If I can just learn the language then this whole mission will be easy. My mission president is awesome! I love him! So is my trainer Elder Custodio! 

During our lessons I can't say a whole lot because of my lack of vocab...I also have no clue what anyone is saying except for key gospel doctrinal words. But I can still teach just fine when my companion has me speak. The Natives really look like they are listening and nod their heads and the spirit is strong when I teach. I tried talking to a guy on the bus to see if we could come give him a lesson at his house. He just ignored me and kept looking forward. I asked if he could understand me and all he said was yes...

There's this family called the Zepeda family and they are always giving us food and stuff. Every other family owns a store in their house and the Zepeda family are one of those people. They are also bakers so they always give us bread and this really good juice that I love from their store for free! Its awesome and they are so kind. I think their baptism date is this Saturday. I invited these two investigators to be baptized the other day on our first visit and they said yes!!! It was great.

Real quick...here's my Christmas list... Nail clippers and tweezers; mine got stolen from my bag at the airport. Pepperoni sticks, krystal light packets, and anything else you want to send. I will try to think of other things. Probably not anything that I need to cook because we don't really have things to cook with. We have members cook for us and we pay them.

I miss you all so much! If Brock and Trevor have any advice for me on learning a language in the mission then that would be great. Thanks! 

Love Elder Markham

Off to El Salvador!

Hola Family!

Since I leave Monday and I won't have a pday for a while I get to email you guys today! This week has felt like graduating school again. We took our district picture and stuff so mom should be getting an email of the slide show they do for all the missionaries that are leaving. Then on Friday we had a super long day of meetings for when we leave and stuff. And I finally got one of your letters! It was the one that you guys sent the day of conference. It was so great to hear from the kids! It made me laugh reading about how Charlie needed to go to the bathroom really bad on his way to the football game and how those two guys face masked him! How rude! Also it sounds like Blake is destroying on the field and making all those fools look bad! JJ sounds like you had a good time listening to GC and Aubrey and Areah are doing good in gym! I also loved the pic of the El Salvador Temple! I cant wait to go there! I also loved Dads pic of us playing catch together! Those letters made my day 10x better! 

I cant wait to go to El Salvador! Only two more days! I'm ready to get out there except for I feel that my Spanish needs a lot more help! We started packing our bags today. It finally seems real that I'm leaving. I hope you guys get this and write back soon! I love and miss you all! See you in El Salvador!!!

Love Elder Markham

Garrett is on the largest row far right

Stuck in the old elevator!

Holy Cow! I only have a week left here! Today is my last pday! Its awesome! I got my flight stuff yesterday and there's only two other missionaries riding the plane with me. I'm going to the east mission and the other two are going to the west Belize mission. Its nice because our flight leaves at about 4:30 pm on Monday which is perfect time! The rest of the people in my district leave at 2:30 in the morning on Monday and everyone else going to central America has to wait until Tuesday at 2:30 in the morning. We will probably leave the mtc at about 1:30. We take a lunch with us and we get dinner on the plane even though its two hours and 10 minutes. I am so excited and so nervous. I can do just fine when giving my testimony and talking about most people but I can't understand the natives when they talk at all! But I'll get used to it pretty quick. 

The other day when me and my companion were teaching one of our fake investigators during our lesson, she said that she was up all night with her sister in the hospital because she just had her baby. So through out the lesson she would pretend to fall asleep. I didn't like it but my companion loved it. Then we taught our other investigator. The lesson we were teaching was about the plan of salvation, but she had a question about baby baptism before we started and because of all the things I have learned here, I was able to open right up to Moroni chapter 8 and share it with her. I learned that my scripture study before my mission was really bad. So I have really tried to do better and look up certain questions that investigators might have and that was one of the topics I looked up. I really felt the spirit and it was awesome. Our fake investigators are also our teachers so afterwards she came up to me and really sincerely told me how good it was and that she really felt the spirit.

Yesterday was full of some cool stuff. First we were at our service time and we were helping get ready the bags for the new missionaries. We had to carry a bucket full of bags where they prepared them down the stairs to where they got stored. Brother Jones is in charge of a lot of things here and he said to use this elevator for the...experience...I looked at it and how old it looked. It was awesome and knew it would be fun! So my companion, Elder Worden and his companion all got in it. It was really cool because there were two doors you had to manually shut, then you would turn the light on and press the button. We made a few trips but on one of our last trips up, it stopped working and we were stuck in the elevator. The light was still on and there was a window that you could see out. Brother Jones came by and just looked at us as we started to smile and wave to him. He then tried to open the door but they didn't move so he had to call the security guys to come get us out. When they came they were all taking pics of us through the small window and when they got us out they wanted us to stand by the elevator and take more pics of us. Needless to say it was pretty fun and we were in there for about 30 minutes. Then last night we were practicing our farewell song for our last sacrament meeting and the beginning starts off with me and Elder Worden singing a duet. I don't know why they all wanted me to sing it but I think it sounds pretty good!

I'm glad to hear that you are all doing well and I cant wait to read your emails this week! I'm sad because the letters still haven't come. My next email will probably be from El Salvador! I love and miss you all! 

love Elder Markham

Garrett loves the food at the MTC while others don't...but he had this short story about it...it sounds like the cooks will be glad when he leaves for El Salvador so they don't have to fix so much food for him!

But I'm always going up to get seconds and sometimes thirds. Until one time I was getting my third or so and the cook looked at me, smiled and said, Elder Markham, when do you leave? I said two weeks and he said, good. While he was still smiling and gave me my food haha

Finally a short city visit outside the walls

Hola mi Familia! 

I still haven't gotten your letters yet. I hope they all get here before I leave! Also, sorry for the late emailing. We didn't know until last Friday that we were going to the temple today. It was amazing and I will send lots of pictures! I got to see a lot of the city which was pretty cool! It is really different though! At every stop light people will walk through all of the parked cars asking if you want to buy something or if they can wash your windows. It was interesting...All the buildings are so packed together!!! I need my space. The temple was really cool but we couldn't go in because they are fixing some stuff so we just went into the visitors center and watched some videos and stuff. It was a great spiritual experience. They have a store there and I was able to get a really cool backpack for 15 dollars. Sunday was amazing too! We had some great lessons on the priesthood and being missionaries. I loved it and could feel the spirit so strong for the whole day. Its weird because I only have two more Sundays here! Last night a couple elders wanted some blessings in our district so I got to participate in them. 

I met a sister here from Hillsboro but I can't remember her name. She's in my zone actually! Then there's this guy here named Rocket Fuell. Yes his first name is Rocket and his last is Fuell. He's super nice too! He is always telling me good job while we play bball together. He will say stuff like, that was a Beautiful move! haha  He hurt his ankle\foot the other week and it was pretty gross but he's fine now. 

Love Always,

Elder Markham

** Side note:  I asked him if he got to taste any real city food and if his Sunday meetings are the same as we have here?

Garrett: We didn't stop anywhere. We had buses and went straight there. And yes the store was on temple grounds. Sundays are a little different. We have priesthood, district meeting, then sacrament, then after lunch we have a class then devotional, then after dinner we get a movie (spiritual church movies).