Gage's countdown

Monday, April 21, 2014

Feb 24th email

We had an amazing week this week. Elder Kahne and I have been working hard to rebuild this area, and we are finally seeing success come from our labors. The beginning of the week was slow, rough, and almost discouraging. We were not seeing anything come from our hard work. We were out of things to do, and didn't know what else we could do with our days. We just went out and tried to talk to as many people as we could through tracting and street contacting. When we were starting to get down and really feel like we weren't going anywhere, the Lord pulled through for us and blessed us with an amazing day on Saturday. We found 2 new investigators through tracting, made it into many doors, and talked with a lot of people. We were also able to find some promising potential investigators as we helped some non-members move into our ward boundaries. It was so nice to finally have a day where we got a lot done, after struggling all week.

Yesterday Elder Kahne and I performed "How Great Thou Art" in Sacrament meeting. I played the piano while he sang in French. It was pretty awesome.  All the members said they loved it, which made us feel pretty triumphant inside. We even had an investigator there and quite a few inactive people that we got to come. The mission president and his wife even came! We love seeing President and Sister Lewis, so it was so nice seeing them there to support us.

We had a great lesson with our investigator Alvin this week. He is really interested in Family History so we brought our Family History Specialist of the ward with us. Brilliant, right? We were wanting to teach him the first lesson, but we ended up talking about family history while teaching small principles here and there the whole time. The spirit was still super strong, and he said he really likes the feeling we bring, and that he will be open to what we have to teach. So we are going back to teach him this week. I am grateful for all the prayers for him and the Veirs. It is really making a difference with them. I would appreciate additional prayers on Alvin's behalf, that he will feel the spirit testify of the truthfulness of our message, and also for the Veirs, Brett, and Shannon that they will be open to our message and feel the same thing as we teach them. Prayer is such a powerful thing, and I know that it will help them come closer to baptism.

The mission president also knows how powerful prayer and fasting is, so he sent this out for everyone to read. Please Help us out:
“Mission Fast:  Because we are behind in our goal to baptize 801 truly converted people during 2014 we decided that we would like to invite all of us in the Mission to fast this coming Sunday, March 2nd  to again plead with the Lord to bless our Mission with more baptisms based upon our faith, obedience and hard work.  We read Helaman 3: 35 “Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.”    As a Mission we desire to become stronger in our humility, firmer in our faith and to yield our hearts to our God.  We desire to bring many souls unto Him.  Our 2014 baptism goal was inspired.  Now we must urgently do all in our power, including petitioning our Heavenly Father to bless us with sheaves upon our backs as we thrust in our sickles with our might all the day long as we labor with Him in His vineyard.  Will you please join us in this fast?  In addition we felt we should ask you to invite your families at home to join us in fasting on March 2nd, a regular Fast Sunday, in our petition to Heavenly Father.  Will you please copy this Mission Fast section from this email and paste it into your weekly email to your family?  Will you add a personal note asking your family to join us in this fast?”

Thank you so much for all the help and support. It is hard to be away from home, but being a missionary is the greatest thing I have ever experienced. I have never learned so much and grown more than I have these past 7 months. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ always being there to comfort us in time of need. This church is amazing, and I love spreading it to the people of Folsom.

Love you all bunches
Elder Gage Black

We also received this email from a ward member in Gage’s Folsom Ward:

Dear Brother and Sister Kahne and Brother and Sister Black,

Bonjour and hello!

Your sons did a wonderful job in Sacrament Meeting today singing and playing the piano, "How Great Thou Art".  Elder Kahne sang the first three verses in French and the last verse in English.  It was beautiful, both performances were flawless, the spirit was powerful.  It took 15 minutes before the tears stopped flowing from my eyes (maybe also it's because I also have a son serving a mission).  A member of the stake presidency spoke following their musical number.  He also was touched and in tears.  The mission president and his wife came to our ward to hear them perform.

Our entire ward loves your sons.  You have raised wonderful young men.  We are so happy to have them in our midst.   They are wonderful missionaries with strong testimonies.

Love,


Sister Wendy P.

To see a video of the elders practicing go to:

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