Week 15

 Hello Friends and Family!

This week has been unique! On Monday I woke up with a little cold. Covid has been blowing up in Florida, so our mission medical advisors recommended that I quarantine to be safe. We have been tested for covid, and the results came back negative. I am feeling much better, and I am anxious to get out of our house!

These are interesting times we live in. While it is disappointing to be quarantined over a cold that you had a week ago, I also recognize that as good citizens we have a responsibility to protect those around us. When so much is at stake, it seems that proceeding with caution is logical. With all of that being said, our mission doctors have given us the go ahead to come out of quarantine starting Tuesday. Elder Murri and I are excited to get out again. 

While we were stuck at home, we were still able to do some missionary work. We taught lessons over zoom, reached out to members in our ward over the phone, and tried to use technology to bring others closer to Christ. Our quarantine was an opportunity to recognize that I should be doing more missionary work over Facebook. I have posted some videos of Elder Murri and I playing hymns to various Christian Music groups, and I plan to post more in the coming days. 

On a side note, we were in a small car accident this week. I was stopped at a stop light when all the sudden we were rear ended. Everyone was okay, and we feel very grateful that no one was injured!

On this coming Wednesday we have our transfer calls! Every six weeks we have the possibility of moving to a different area. We get a call that lets us know where we will be serving and who we will be serving with! Elder Murri and I are both excited to see what the future has in store for us. We are anxiously waiting for Wednesday!

Because of covid, I wasn't able to go through the temple before my mission, so I am preparing to go through the temple now! My studies this week have been centered around this preparation. In temples we make promises to God to become better people. It is a joy to learn about the temple, and I feel so excited to go through with my family in mid-November. Normally missionaries aren't able to see their parents on the mission, so I feel lucky that an exception is made for missionaries who haven't gone through yet!

I look forward to writing to you next week, and I hope you have wonderful weeks! Each of you is an inspiration to me, and I feel so lucky to call you my friends! 

Love you all!

Elder Garff

Week 14

 Hello Family and Friends!

This week has been a good one! Elder Murri and I are finishing up our second transfer together, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to serve with him. He is a wonderful example to me, and in this last week we have together, I am excited to try to take as many gems of wisdom as I can!

We had the opportunity to try squirrel yesterday. We were at a fish fry with 15-20 people (all kin), and when we walked in, the matriarch said, "Oh goody, them Elders 'bout to try themselves some squirrel". I found myself in that wonderfully uncomfortable situation that I find myself in quite often. I let out a chuckle. Surely they can't be serious. It had to have been a joke; it would have been a funny joke. Then I look around. I realize that I drove down a little dirt road to get here. I am 20 minutes from any semblance of civilization, and even then the town consists of less than 1000 people. There is a full fish in popping oil on your right. I am in a situation that gives new meaning to the phrase "deep south". I look over at Elder Murri and he gives me a nod. It is the kind of nod that says "Godspeed". With a mixture of excitement to have such a southern experience and horror, I dish myself some squirrel. I opted for the meat around the ribcage and the arm. As I am trying to pull the meat off of the ribcage, the man sitting next to me recommends that next time I opt for a leg - much meatier. See below for attached photo of the squirrel. 

It kind of tastes like pork, but with a little more of an aftertaste. Had it been hot, I think it could have been pretty enjoyable. It was cold and slimy however, so I think next time I will check the temperature before dishing some up. 

On a more spiritual note, we taught an extremely rewarding lesson this week. As missionaries, we rarely use reason when we are teaching. We rely on what we call "The spirit". We believe that the spirit is a member of the god-head who gives an overwhelming sense of peace and testifies of truth. When someone experiences the companionship of the spirit, it makes that individual want to do good and helps them understand truth.

We are teaching someone who is dating a member of the church, and the last couple of years has brought some trials in his life. He lost his teenage son to suicide, and he is looking for a way to live with him again. He has turned to the Book of Mormon and the gospel of Jesus Christ for answers. There are very few times that I have felt the spirit as strongly as I did during that lesson with him. We are anxiously looking forward to our next lesson tomorrow. 

Elder Murri taught me a very important principle this week. I asked Elder Murri why he thought the spirit was so present during our lesson with this particular investigator. His answer was simple, but also profound. "He wanted the spirit to be there". It seems that as hard as missionaries can try to bring the spirit to a lesson, it is ultimately up to the investigator to accept the spirit and allow it to impact their life. This is not to say that we don't have an impact on the spirit; the investigator's intentions just matter more. I am thrilled to have had this experience, and I look forward to seeing how our friend continues to progress.

I wanted to follow up with the experience with Jacobi that I shared a few weeks ago. We have continued teaching him, and he is eager to learn. Due to some health concerns, Jacobi has agreed to be baptized as soon as things with covid have relaxed! It has truly been a blessing to get to know him and we look forward to continuing to build our relationship.

Love you all!

Elder Garff

Week 12 and 13

 Hi Friends and Family!

Week 12

This week was a blast. The highlight was General Conference. For those of you who don't know, General Conference is a biannual church-wide meeting in which the leaders of our church speak to us about how to become better people and how to follow God more effectively.

Our church leadership consists of a prophet and his two counselors, 12 apostles, and other leaders like the relief society presidency, the quorum of the 70 and others. This General Conference felt especially timely; many of the talks were directly related to COVID-19 and the state of affairs in our country and world. 

For those of you who didn't have a chance to watch it, I would highly recommend it! I always find it interesting and inspiring to hear the thoughts from accomplished and experienced people about God. I want to share the words from our prophet, Russel M. Nelson. We believe that he is the mouthpiece for God on Earth today. While we don't worship him, we give special attention to his words and try to follow his counsel. 

I would encourage you to learn about him. He is an amazing man; before being called into full-time church service, he was a world renowned heart-surgeon and helped develop the heart and lung machine that has saved countless lives. 

Russel M. Nelson spoke about the Hebraic meaning of "Israel". According to scholars, Israel translates to "Let God prevail". 

I want to give a little bit of background concerning Israel and the Abrahamic Covenant. Abraham was a prophet of God. God made a promise to A

braham that if he and the human family made and kept promises to be faithful, they would be blessed. This promise was given special attention by his grandson Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel as a sign of his devotion to God. Israel had 12 sons and gave them unique responsibilities and authority to act in God's name. This is where we get the "12 tribes of Israel". While these 12 tribes of Israel remained faithful for a time, they eventually broke their sacred promises to God and in turn, God allowed them to be scattered (for example by the Asyrian and Babylonian invasions), but God mercifully promised to gather them someday in the future. 

Our church believes that the promised "Gathering of Israel" is happening right now. I want to be clear that Russel M. Nelson's message wasn't speaking out against the Israel-Palestine conflict, rather was a plea to "Let God Prevail" in our everyday lives. President Nelson taught that in order to gather Israel and reinstate the covenant between God and his children, we must allow God to prevail in our lives. We must hold up our end of the deal by making and keeping sacred promises with God to do good. Among these promises is a promise to promote love and respect amongst the human family. President Nelson said, "We are all children of God. God doesn't love one race more than another". 

Everyone has the opportunity to make sacred covenants to God and become part of Israel: the human family that has decided to "Let God Prevail" in their lives. Baptism and ordinances in holy temples are how people make these sacred promises to God to become part of Israel: to become part of letting God prevail.  

Week 13

This week has been another fun and rewarding week. 

We have done a lot of service these past few weeks. When people in the south hear about free labor, they do not hesitate to put you to work. Since being here, I have learned a lot about demolition, as well as how to frame a house, put walls up, put drywall up, put together a car-port, and I have gotten a lot of practice with moving furniture. We should be learning how to insulate a house any day now. While all of this manual labor is hard, it is also necessary to work off the nightly massive fried dinners that members so graciously and constantly feed us. I have attached a photo of one of the houses that we have been working on. We still have a lot of work to do, but we have made a lot of progress. On Saturday, we were putting up some walls for the house shown below, and I found myself accidentally standing in an anthill. My legs are now covered in fire-ant bites, but I now have another quintessential Floridian experience under my belt. 

The Blountstown-Bristol area spans two counties, and both have weekly food pantry days. We have been volunteering with both of them for the last few weeks, and it is amazing to see how much food we give out, especially with such a small population in both counties. People are so willing to serve and donate food. It is an amazing sight to behold. 

We have also started teaching some new people. It is such a joy to see people progress and learn about the church, but perhaps even more rewarding is being able to see the change in them as they strive to live better and more fulfilling lives. 

Love you all!

Elder Garff

Written by a baptist Preacher Harrison and his companion Elder Murri have been talking with

 

• • Sep 18
  • 2 min read

Why I Love my Mormon Neighbors

As a Christian we are called to love our neighbor. This does not give us the right to exclude anyone from this particular calling, no adjective placed before neighbor can change the calling of the Lord to love them. However, this does not mean that we do not speak truth, in fact, because we love we must speak the truth.  This particular message is dedicated to my Mormon or LDS neighbor. 

I love your zeal

Some of my favorite people that I have ever met have been those young Mormon missionaries you sometime see going door to door.  These are young men who have sacrificed two years of there life to spread their beliefs and have done so essentially at their own expense to see people come to believe like they do. This is the kind of commitment orthodox evangelical churches need we must love our neighbor enough to cross the street and world to see people trust in Jesus Christ of the Bible alone. 

I love your family values

The LDS church has historically taken strong stances in support of traditional marriage, against abortion, and pro-family. These are all things that evangelicals can and should rejoice in together. We rejoice when the family is supported in society and traditional values based on scripture are applied. 

I believe we will not go to heaven together but we will be persecuted together

While this is not a place for apologetics or debate I believe that the message of the Bible and the message of the LDS church differs on how one is made right with God. To the best of my understanding the Bible clearly and articulately teaches that the only way to be made right with God is by repenting and trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone for salvation. To add any other requirement to salvation including but not limited to baptism, laying on of hands, and enduring faithfulness is a false understanding of the gospel. According to Galatians anyone who trust in a different gospel than what Paul preached, which was salvation in Christ alone was excluded from eternal life. (Gal 1:8) This is not to mention the major differences we hold on doctrines such as the trinity, the Bible being God’s word alone, the Godhead, God being God from all eternity, Jesus being the creator of satan and not his spirit brother, our heavenly state, and ultimately where people will spend eternity all of which are crucial matters of doctrine.

However, with all that being said I do believe that this world will hate us both and persecute the LDS church in the same way that it is persecuting evangelical believers. 

So to my fellow evangelical believers I want to encourage you to love your Mormon neighbor. Do not assume what they believe. Ask about their faith and share with them yours and how it differs and remember the command to love.