Past and Present Apostles

Well Hello everyone!!! This past week has been crazy and fun at the same time. I have had a tone of fun at the CHL and our project that we have been working on is almost done so we're hoping that before the summer hits that all the talks will be up for everyone to see and hear. I'm super excited about that because I want you all to hear from Bishop/Elder LeGrand Richards. He has such inspirational talks and so many amazing messages in every talk that he gives. I honestly can't tell you how much he has changed my life and how much he has influenced my life for the better. My district has been great and I really love spending time with Elder Bastian. Him and I get along really well and we have been helping each other out throughout the transfer. I really can't wait till you can all enjoy what I have had the joy of listening to this past week. I love all the wonderful people that I am blessed to be around every day. Oh my goodness one of my favorite senior sisters is Sister Ashcroft. She is such a sweetheart and I love her to death. Almost every time that we would see each other she would give me a big hug. So I am getting my Grandma hugs out here. 

Saturday and Sunday were the big highlights for me this past week. Saturday I got the pleasant surprise of getting to see amazing people from old Parowan: Clay, Cort, Angus, Tessa, Mikey, and maybe a few other people but I'm terrible with names and I forgot to bring my camera that day but thankfully Elder Dunn had his camera and was able to get a picture. I also had the pleasure of seeing them at Music and the Spoken Word for a brief while which was great.

Transfer's happened on Tuesday, First off I get the pleasure and amazing blessing of having Elder Jensen as my new companion!!!!!! We both looked at each other when we saw our names getting transferred together and I'm now serving in the Family History Library Services zone. Looking forward to it and I'm really excited for it. Also my P-Day has switched to Thursday this transfer.

For my spiritual thought this week. I actually have a request for all of you to do. So Elder LeGrand Richards has a few good talks on Lds.org and on the LDS app. from 1971 to 1980 I would strongly encourage all of you to take a few minutes before you go and do the things that you do to enjoy the end of your day. I would ask you to listen to a Conference talk or two from the older ones. Now I'm not referring to anything from 2000's up. I'm meaning to start from 1970's and work your way up back to the present. Yes our church today is a lot different from what it used to be. But everything from the past is still being preached today. Nothing that we hear from our apostles and prophets today is new news. They were teaching the same things and I feel like we can learn and have a greater respect for the doctrine today if we know for a fact that what we are hearing and being asked to do is still being preached today. I just love to hear from the apostles and prophets of old because it brings a deeper respect and a deeper and greater understanding for the doctrine and I leave that with you.

I hope that all of you will have a great time and I hope that you will have a fabtabulous week this next week

Love all of you so very much,

Elder Gatlin

Sunday Morning Surprise!

Pics from ward family that attended Music and the Spoken Word and ran into my missionary!

Elder Gatlin & Cort Dunlap

Mikey, Angus, Cort, Mr. Walker, and Elder Gatlin

Elder Gatlin and Parowan High Peeps

Elder Gatlin & Cort

Live in the World, Not of the World

Hello everyone!!!! This week has been kinda all over the place. Saturday was a really slow day. But it was decently busy so it didn't feel as long. Sunday was a really awesome day! Church was awesome as usual, we had a fireside with President and Sister McKnight, the 1st counselors to the President. They told us a little bit about their lives and about some spiritual experiences that they've had. Then the Blood moon right after that. That was really beautiful. Monday was quite an awesome day. We had a snow storm that day and we got like a foot and a half of snow. It was Crazy!!! But My District (Elders Bastian, Dunn, Lane, and I) along with Elder Meijia and Foxworth braved the snow storm and we went to Panda Express for lunch. It was great. After we got back from a great lunch, Elder Allison invited me and my companion over for the afternoon to play games and hangout for the day. That was super fun and I enjoyed every second of it. We played Coup the card game, which is German I think but I remember playing that game in High school and that is a lot of fun and a few others till around 5ish. Then we went home for dinner and we had Elder Rangus, McNeely, and Elder Hail and Royal over and we played Super Fight till just before the activity for the evening which was watching "The Prince of Egypt" OH MY GOODNESS I forgot how amazing that movie is. It really is an accurate description of the story of Moses and how the Egyptian culture is. But other than that I say it was a Fabtabulastical week!

Now for my Spiritual Thought for the week. So this week was a really fun week and I had quite a few good experiences. For the Sunday Lesson we had a lesson from the Come Follow Me manual. The topic quickly shifted towards faith in the Lord and how we really need to think about how we act and what message we are sending to those around us. We need to make sure that we have that deep connection with our Father in Heaven and how we need to maintain as best we can a safe environment in the home. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are wanting to help us down the path of Righteousness and want to help us become better Disciples of Christ but with all the distractions around us and everything constantly buzzing our sensitivity towards his still small voice and his countenance, it's easy to get lost in the world and slowly becoming of the world. We all need to at the end of the day need to look at our day and try to find out where you could've been closer to our Savior and could've listened to him a little bit more. We need to make sure that we are living a life just in the world and not of the world. I leave this with you and I hope that you all will have a Fabtabulastical week and do all you can to make every moment count.

Love you all, you all are the best!

Stay Beefy!

Elder Wyatt Gatlin

Read the Book of Mormon

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!!

This past week was kind of all over the place but I did the best I could to enjoy it. Wednesday was a super boring day, but I'm glad to have friends that made the time pass by faster.  My Companion had a doctors appointment at the mission office that he does every 4 weeks and that went from 9 - 12:30 and I couldn't really go anywhere so that sucked. After we went home for lunch we went back to the Mission office for the meetings we had. I had an appointment with the development counselor to help set my life for after the mission and help me decide what to do after I get home off my mission. Not sure why I met with him already but oh well. Then Elder Lane had an appointment with President Fenn at 3:30 but it got pushed back and all his appointments were behind schedule. So his didn't end till after Night Zone started which is around 6:00. I just went to zone before he got done. In the Mission Office we have, we can be there together but not have to be right next to each other the whole time. That's one rule that everyone likes cuz, you don't have to be in the Mission office at the same place as your companion as long as you are both there, you're fine. But yea.....

Zone is going Awesome! Our project is a month ahead of schedule and we are just finishing up the second half of it. After we finish that part the Conference talks from 1938 up to 1970 will be up on some church website so that you can all listen to the previous general authorities that I have been blessed with to hear from. I've really enjoyed it. I'm loving the tours I've been able to give and helping people with other various things that we can do.

My spiritual thought for this week is a little bit different. So with the new year and the Gift that President Santa Fenn Claus gave to us was the Journal Edition of the Book of Mormon. That new challenge has been super fun and really great because it gives me different things to focus on besides the one that I took a picture of. As I'm reading through the book of 1 Nephi, I found a few more things that I didn't other wise think of. I found more ways to mark other verses and know that most verses have multiple meanings. It's made me think about that God has given us the wonderful book and the foundation of our religion, he didn't give it to us to read once and know everything. He gave it to us to Read, Ponder, Study, and Think. My Mission President has multiple tubs of the Book of Mormon, massive tubs that are full of fully marked Books of Mormon and to this day he says. "Now I may have read through this book a large number of times but, I still find things that I don't already know and don't fully understand because we all are constantly learning. We will never know the whole and all of the doctrine in it. But we can do our best to catch up to what he is giving us everyday." That really helped give guidance to me and helped me understand that Gods power is everlasting, and so is His counsel to all of us if we are willing to yield ourselves to His will and listen to the Holy Ghost.

I love and appreciate each and every one of you very dearly and I love this doctrine and the Book of Mormon more and more each day and I know that as you continually study it, you will also learn to fall in love with it as well. I hope that you all will have a Fabtabulous week and I hope that you will all strive to have the constant companion of the Holy Ghost.

Love all of you very much,

Elder Wyatt Gatlin

Are You Moving Forward or Backward?

Well everyone, this past week has been a pretty good one. It's kinda been all over the place to be honest but I still enjoyed what I could. Sunday was the first time for the two hour church with the last hour study at home. I really liked it actually, up here we haven't quite got the location figured out yet but we're doing it in the break room as of right now. I really am enjoying the new Curriculum and the spirit it brings into the classes. I like how it's presented more as a discussion rather than a lecture and all of that fancy stuff. 

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by way fast. The Conference Project that my District is working on, (Elder Bastian, Dunn, Lane, and I), is due by the end of February and we are almost done with it. We only have about 10 years left to do. Then we will go back through and check it and make sure that everything is good to go. Saturday my district went on a hike and you have to pass through a dog park to get there but it's still really fun to do it. Every time that we've gone there have been over 12 dogs there. Which seems like a lot but it's a massive park, but the Hike was really good and super fun to go on. I'm glad that we have at least one hike we can go on.

Monday and Tuesday not much actually happened, We just went to zone and gave some tours of the Foundations of Faith Exhibit which is really cool because you get to see the documents that had the original translation on them, and see a history of how the church came about and how the Lord puts his hand in everything that we do. I think it's really important after everyday to take a moment to reflect and try to see the lords hand throughout the day. 

Wednesday was Mission Conference and then we had Night Classes that night. Oh my Goodness it was so good! President and Sister Fenn Spoke and had an amazing message on how we need to have more Charity in our lives. Charity is more than love, it's the never ending love that Christ has for each and every one of us. Also that night for night classes Elder Clark (One of the Assistants to the President), had a lesson on repentance and how important it is to not take that for granted and to try daily to improve and not make the same mistakes that we made the day or week previous. No one is perfect but we can all try our best to become an even better Disciple of Christ. It was also stated in one of those meetings that even though all of us don't constantly wear a Missionary name tag with the name Jesus Christ on it, but we all need to take upon us his name and wear it upon our hearts and represent the church and the Lord Jesus Christ better. We may need to make a few changes on how we're acting and how we may be speaking in public because what we say to others can either build up the church or bring it down. 

My spiritual thought I have for the week would be this, Imagine a line across a paper. Put Christ on the right side and Satan on the other side. President Fenn and the Assistants have taught us that we need to constantly be aware of what direction we are moving on that line. We are either moving forward or backward, there is no standing still. "There is no Stagnation upon the Line!" as President has stated in previous meetings. Even if we feel like we're standing still, we're going backward because we aren't continuing our climb up towards him. Our progress towards Christ, is like walking upward on a downward escalator. We can't stand still because we will move back ward, It's a constant up hill battle that we are fighting as Disciples of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. As soon as we start to realize that and as soon as we accept that fact, we will soon become better saints in all that we do. 

I hope that this week we can all strive to become even better than the person we were years ago and I hope that you all will have a Fabtabulous week!

Stay Beefy!

Elder Wyatt Gatlin

The Mission This Past Christmas

Well Everyone, Happy New Year!!!!  This week has been a blast! It's been super fun, lots of games were played. Tons of Laughs were shared and Spirits were enlightened. I'm blessed to have made so many friends up here and to have all of them so close by. Elder Bastian and I had lots of cool conversations about games and some things we used to do and how to help each other out here. My companion Elder Lane does that with all of us every once and a while but I'm just bonding well with Elder Bastian who shares an apartment with me. 

Hope that this next year that we are all blessed to be in that we will take time to reflect on this past year and our spiritual growth and how deep our roots have gotten this past year. I know many of us either make goals for the year and don't keep them or we don't make goals at all because we know we aren't going to keep them. But there is one goal I know that all of us can keep because the Prophets have been telling us and giving us this assignment since the Prophet Joseph Smith, and that goal is Scripture Study. Not just reading them daily but going through and reading to strengthen a certain gospel doctrine principle that we may be lacking. Now I know that all of us have days where we may forget to read or we feel it's too late to read because we put it off till it's too late. But putting of our daily scripture study is denying yourself the blessings that the Lord is ready and willing to give to you, when you open the holy and sacred Book of Mormon. You also need to open your mind and be willing to submit to his counsel and to his will and what he want's you to do. We may not like the answer and counsel that he gives us but we need to give heed to it and follow him. 

We need to more humbly follow him rather than following him because you're following the crowd, or your parents told you to or some other reason. We all need to find our own reason for following his footsteps on the path. We all, as this new two hour church schedule is starting, need to focus on how we are following our Lord and Savior and how you think you can improve. I hope that you will all take this challenge this year to further improve your spiritual growth.

May we all have an amazing week and all build each other up along the way

you are all Fabtabulous, Stay strong, and as always......Stay Beefy

Sincerely,

Elder Wyatt Gatlin