South Carolina Columbia

  June 2 Hi Everyone,   This week was a pretty standard one.  I went on more exchanges and had a good time! We have been teaching a guy named Fred and we are hopefully working towards him being baptized on June 14th.  I really hope he makes it.  I have been teaching him my whole time here and he is making some pretty good progress. It has been great to see!  He said that he would pray about the church and he said he did and received a great answer! My companion and I were really excited to hear that!  So I have been praying for him to make it!   This week is transfers so I might be moving! We will see!   Love, Elder Gurney

May 19 Hi Everyone,   This week was a pretty fun week! I went Spanish for two days and that was fun! I google translated a prayer during our studies during the morning to hopefully use it but the Spanish missionary I was with didn't ever let me say anything.  It was all good tho because it was probably pretty bad anyways. But other than that we didn't have much happen. We did get to meet some cool people and this week should be a good one.   Some flooding pictures from last week.   Love, Elder Gurney

  May 5 & 12 Hi everyone, This week was pretty fun! I was able to go to zone conference and got to see everyone in the zone.  President Hamblin gave a training on baptism and it was really interesting hearing the difference between our type of baptism and other ways.  It was a great conference and during lunch I sat next to President Hamblin and we chatted it up a bit.  Not much else notable happened this week.  We have not been seeing too much success but that's alright.     May 12 This week was a pretty quality week.  We started out by going on exchanges with the APs and I got to stay in my area with Elder Forese.  He's a cool missionary and this was our second exchange which was fun.   We have been working with a man named Fred.  He really wants to get baptized but has some habits that he needs to break or make progress.  I talk to him every day to encourage him.  I think that if he had...

  4/28 Hi everyone,   This week was transfers and sadly Elder Enoch was moved out.  He is now up in Greenville.  Before he left he gave me a nice seashell necklace.  Everyone in the area is missing him.   My new companion is from Utah.   So I'm back to being from a cooler place than my companion.  Elder Cannon is a really cool guy and he was also born on March 13th.  So he is exactly 3 years younger than me. It was fun going to transfers because I got to see a bunch of cool people like the legendary Elder Flint from Simpsonville first.  It was great.  But other than all that it was a pretty normal week.  We are spending most of our time working with our recent converts.  Some of them are needing a lot of attention.     Love, Elder Gurney

  4/21 Hi Everyone,   This week was a great week! We went to the Temple with the Kyzers and it was awesome.  Brother Kyzer has been a member for 5 years and when we were sitting in the waiting room he said that he had sat in this room so many times wishing he could have his bride with him and now he finally can.  We did baptisms and it was awesome being there.  I also ran into Elder Buckhoff! He is a service missionary in my first area and it had probably been a year since I had seen him.  He was at the temple and it was funny talking to him.  He said I was the first missionary he remembers.  

April 14 Hi everyone,   This week was a pretty great! We went to the temple as a mission on Tuesday! It was really nice being there with everyone!  I then went on exchanges with Elder Lockington who I have been in the same zone with for 9 months.  It was fun talking and working with him.   He goes home in a week and we did some walking down memory lane.   For pday,  we went to the zoo and that was a lot of fun! The zoo here is apparently a top 3 zoo in the world.   I am excited for this week because I get to go to the temple with Paula, she was baptized a couple weeks ago. It will be great! I have never done baptisms here so I am excited!   Love, Elder Gurney

4/7 Hi everyone,   This week was a super busy week but it was really fun! We had some big meetings with a bunch of missionaries and then a big zone meeting.  It was hectic.   We then had General Conference and I made it on the big screen! They were talking about the hurricane that came through here a couple months ago and how we were all big help and then I popped up on screen. So I got a shout out during general conference which was awesome.  HA!  It was right after conference during the world report but it was fun to see myself.  Anyway this week we have a mission temple trip so that will be great! Love Elder Gurney