Teaching and Playing the Piano

This week has been SO HOT.

Béziers is starting to have a huge influx of tourists so street contacting has been in a variety of languages portages English Italian Chinese polish Romanian Yugoslavian German Russian etc its amazing how many languages are out there and I only know two. It really motivates me to start learning other languages when I get home I was thinking Arab would be pretty wicked. I have been learning some since half of Béziers habitats are Arab.

On Monday there was an old returned missionary visiting with his wife and friend. His friend was in the Paris mission and knew of Nathan Oaks. The returned missionary knew Andrew Gessel. His name was Josh Lapray or leprey or something like that it was fun to eat dinner with them.

Giouchino, our sweet investigator has been having some health issues. This past week he texted us and said I am going to the hospital. So we go over to the hospital as fast as we could and he was laying on his bed, in very broken french Italian he said they are going to give me a shock like a BOOM. His heart has been beating faster than normal so I'm not really sure what happened but he was going to be BOOMED and hopefully have his heart Boomed back into rhythm. He had brought his Book of Mormon and said he had been finding strength from reading it. So we gave him a blessing and the Spirit was very strong. He was released Sunday and came to church which was 3 days earlier than expected the doctors were very pleased by his progress it was an all in all Ensign worthy story.

Speaking of Sunday, I was playing prelude during the sacrament and found out it was one of the young men's birthday. Calito. He turned 15 and is a giant seriously looks like he is 20. He may be stronger than Elder Smedley and I combined. Calito does nothing but play video games ALL day and ALL night seriously ALL the time. so I received some inspiration that I should try and teach him the piano. That way when I leave the branch they will still have a pianist.

So I received this inspiration and right before the President de Branch stood up to start the meeting he looks over at me and says can you give a talk? I shook my head yes and realized not just one person but 2 people forgot to prepare talks so I had 20 minutes to fill. I stood up and it was a powerful experience I did not even cry but the spirit brought our three investigators to tears that were there it was awesome. I spoke on gratitude, sacrifices; repentance and recognizing the spirit.

One part I really liked was before my mission I always thought missions were a sacrifices but now that I am here, it has been a great blessing. I know that our Heavenly Father asks us to make sacrifices for us to test our faith. He not only blesses us when we do our part but he blesses us to do our part and it is no longer a sacrifice but a blessing. I invited the branch to make a goal to help Calito go on a mission in 4 years time. The spirit was very strong and I feel our Branch is becoming stronger and stronger.

Today during our preparation day, Elder Smedley and I have spent it at the church teaching Petito Calito how to play the simplified hymns he is a very quick learner and has been enjoying the piano. I have been looking for an electric piano so he can practice at home.

In any case, this is a great and marvelous work!

love,
Elder Garlock