Training again....and getting lost in the Jungle!

Hey everyone!

Well guess what! I'm training again this change! Except I'll be training an Elder straight off the plane haha. I got the phone call on my birthday at about 11:00 pm when we were already sleeping so it was a pretty good way to end it! My birthday was awesome! We did some service in the morning then went to Olocuilta to eat the best pupusas ever! And Sister Vasquez called me to wish me a happy birthday. It was awesome!

Yesterday we had quite the time. We went looking for a family that hasn't gone to church for a while. But we took a wrong turn in the jungle and got a little lost. Let's just say there were no houses...just jungle. And yes it was very hot and humid and going there was down hill. But when we had to go back it was all uphill! Those little football workouts I did in the summer were easy. I thought we'd never make it out alive haha. But it was cool because after we found the family and shared a lesson, about 4 or 5 of them asked us for blessings. It was a great day. We should be baptising Orlando pretty soon because we are putting together a thing to sell some stuff with the sisters in the ward so we can get some money. Also, some other people are donating. It's going to be awesome to finally help him! Well I have to go but I love and miss you all!

Love Elder Markham

Finding less active members and playing American FOOTBALL!

Hey family!

Well...it's official! I will never be wearing my suit again! They told us this week that suits are no more ahah. That kinda stinks though because it's already pretty used with a little hole in one sleeve. But anyway, this week was another week of entering in at 7:00 pm so we didn't have a ton of lessons. But on Saturday we did go to a lesson with a member to teach a less active sister. Then afterwards I asked him if he knew any members that lived close by. He took us to two different members houses and showed us about 3 more! It was awesome because we had been looking for the less actives for a while but the directions here are terrible! So it was impossible with out the members help. The only thing is that they weren't in our area haha. But the families were very happy that we came by. I don't have a whole lot of time today but I can't wait to read your emails! Oh! and today I brought my football to play with for p-day. It's AWESOME! I started playing catch with a few Americans then all of a sudden all the Latinos wanted to play. It quickly just turned into them running around in circles throwing it to each other so I just watched and talked to an Elder from the states haha. I love and miss you all!

Love Elder Markham

** A couple months ago the headquarters in Salt Lake City for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out with a new policy that many of the missions through out the world would not require their missionaries to take or wear full suits because of their hot and humid climates.  El Salvador was one of those missions.  This is also to relieve some of the financial burdens on families to send their missionaries out in the field.

Garrett is required to be in his apartment at 7:00 pm for safety reasons as the gang violence is getting worse in San Salvador.  We appreciate your prayers for his safety.

Lots of walking and extra time for Scripture study

Hey Everyone!

This week was a crazy week. So a few things happened last Monday just as we finished writing and we had to buy our stuff and head home because they shut down all the buses. Luckily we got the last one going to our house. We had to be in the house at 7 every day so that took a little time out of our schedule and we didn't have any buses until Friday! Tuesday and Wednesday we had to walk all the way to San Marcos where the church is. It's almost 4 miles away and took 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was quite the walk. But now everything is back to normal but our branch president still wants us in at 7:00 pm. With the extra time in the night I've really been able to do a lot more reading in the scriptures. I read Genesis this week and I have really developed a love for the scriptures. I can feel the Spirit so strong as I read the scriptures, there's no way they can't be true. I'm so grateful for what a huge blessing they are and for how much they have changed me here in the mission. I know that as long as we read the scriptures we will never be lost. I hope all is going well at home. I can't wait to see what's been going on! I love and miss you all!

Love Elder Markham

** Mom's note

Garrett doesn't share specifics about why some things happen for good reason...but because of the internet, I can find things out that maybe I don't want to know anyway!!  But I must trust in the Lord that He will keep my boy safe and pray every day that he will be watched over.  The Church also does whatever it can to keep the missionaries safe.  And it sounds like the gangs are getting worse in El Salvador, calling for Garrett to be inside his apartment earlier for safety reasons.  Here is what I found:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-elsalvador-violence-idUSKCN0QB04520150806

Hope... that all is going to go well...

Hey Everyone! 

I don't have tons of time today so I'll have to be quick!

First of all I got the birthday box mom and dad sent! It's awesome! I loved the cookies!!!! I couldn't believe what I was eating haha. I gave some to my companion too! And, well he didn't say much about them...but I loved them!!!! Haha, I also couldn't wait to check out the USB! It's so awesome! Thanks Dad! It's perfect with all the stuff I wanted! But it will probably take me the rest of my mission to listen to allllll that music haha.

Well this week was a stressful week! But this morning I was reading and studying in preach my Gospel about hope. And I learned a lot of great things about how we need to have hope that all is going to go well and that we will receive the blessings that God has promised us as long as we work diligently. We also had a super awesome lesson with a pastor this week from another church. We started teaching him about a few things and I lead it into baptism. Then my companion started talking about the importance of the authority to baptize. Then I shared Hebrews 5:4 and talked about how someone needs to be called of God. As we taught him he really seemed interested. I knew it was because the spirit was testifying to him because I felt it so strong. At the end of the lesson when I invited him to be baptized he even said yes!!! Haha, we're going back this week to talk and teach more. When we left my companion just said, Holy cow, the spirit was incredible. 

I love and miss you all. Hope all is well!

Love Elder Markham

A Great Week, a FUNNY story...and a Great Testimony from Garrett

Hey everyone!

It was a great week of finding great people to teach! We found tons of positive people that want to change their lives and learn more about God! I had a ton of great experiences teaching this week. First on Monday, we had a family night with an investigator and we were talking about Jesus Christ. I shared my testimony of how I've always felt Him in my life. I asked the investigator how she has felt Him in her life and she responded crying and telling us how she was left behind by her parents and as growing up it had always been so hard for her. She even thought about taking her own life a few times but didn't because she had always felt the loving presence of Jesus Christ. It was a super powerful moment. Then on Thursday we found another investigator who cleans the house of a member (of the church). We started to teach her about the church and how she can come to know that it's true through prayer. I told her about my conversion story.....I guess I never really told you guys but what happened is when I was about 14 or so getting ready to go to the temple, I remembered all my Sunday school teachers telling us to pray for ourselves if the church is true. I was in my room and said a kneeling prayer. I didn't feel anything crazy at first, just to read the scriptures. I opened the Book of Mormon to a random page and read in Alma. He was giving his testimony about how these things are true. That's when it hit me and I felt the spirit testify sooo strongly that the church was true. After I shared that experience I talked about how I knew God knew me better than I did and that we are all individual sons and daughters of God. The spirit was super strong and she seemed to really feel it as well. I'm so glad that I can be here and serve my mission in El Salvador...although it's far from easy haha. I love you all and miss you tons!

Love Elder Markham

Garrett added this later. 

**He found out that one of his first baptisms of a girl from a family in his first area (the Zepeda Family who always made him yummy treats and taught him how to make pappusas) resulted in the recent baptism of her Mother!  She was also happy to tell him that she got her first church calling...as a Young Woman's teacher!  (The Young Woman/Young Men organization in our church is for youth who are 12-18 years of age. They meet together each Sunday for lessons about our Savior, scriptures and other church related topics.  They meet once during a week in the evening for some kind of fun activity or service project.) He was so happy for her and her family!! 

Here's a funny story....

So we do a lot of walking here...and my shoes are pretty bad. But anyways...we were finishing up the night with one more visit. We were walking up this crazy steep hill when the bottom of my shoe just came off....yep. It was funny and my companion and I just laughed. I picked it up and put it in my bag and we continued walking. We went to our visit and they didn't notice I was missing half my shoe so it wasn't a big deal. Then after our nightly planning when we got back I glued it back on with some cement glue stuff....like a lot! ahha it works now but I have to squeeze these last few weeks out of them!  

(I have yet to find a good pair of missionary shoes for my boys!)

Mowing a lawn with a machete!

Hey Family!

Another great week has come and gone here in El Salvador! We had changes this week. I'm still here in Santo Tomas but I have a new companion. His name is Elder Flores and he's from Honduras. He has been in the mission for 20 months and so he's got a lot of good stuff that I can learn! This week was a little hard because a lot of our visits fell through and we had to stop teaching a few people because they decided they didn't want to listen to us anymore haha. But that's all part of the mission. We tried getting some new investigators and found a few positive ones in the streets. So hopefully we can see the fruits of these children of our Heavenly Father and help them prepare for baptism. On Saturday we had a pretty cool service project. We cleaned up the area of a hospital clinic area. The people were pretty happy. I got to do my old outside house job of mowing the lawn....except with a machete haha. I haven't seen a lawnmower for 9 months! Then yesterday when we were walking to a visit we passed a weird rain dance thing going on. We didn't stop to watch so I was really confused. There were guys in these weird costumes that looked really creepy dancing around with machetes and umbrellas....There were also a bunch of people selling really cool stuff for tourists buuuuut it was Sunday so I didn't get anything. That's pretty much everything for this week. I wish I had a cool funny story to share...maybe next week. I love and miss you all! 

Love Elder Markham

A few pictures from bowling...Garrett had to send his score cause he, Brock and Brad are always in competition of who can get the best score!

Elder Custodio (Garrett's trainer) went home...Garrett is going to miss him!

A hard week for Garrett's companion...Get well soon!

Hey everyone!

It was a crazy week. We ended up getting a total of 9 baptism dates and a ton of progressing investigators! We were teaching and finding like crazy! But then my companion got super sick Saturday and we couldn't leave the house. Our district leader and his companion came over to help us because we had to go get some stuff so he could take a few medical exams. Turns out he had a pretty bad stomach infection. My district leader and I had to go all the way to the hospital to take in two of the exams. When they told us it would take two hours, my district leader said we would return....so we walked down to taco bell to have dinner. We hadn't eaten anything all day because we were running around grabbing medicine and exam stuff and just sitting in the house helping him. It was a sad weekend. The mission doctor wouldn't let us go to the hospital until he had four exams from three different places.....everywhere closed at 12 in the afternoon!  He was still really sick Sunday so we had to stay home again. After we write and buy and stuff we might just go home again because he's not doing too well. Oh, real quick...when we went bowling last pday I won all three games and my highest score was a 180!  Beat that Brad! haha But that was pretty much my week. I love you all! 

Love Elder Markham