To be honest, I was worried about the days leading up to Christmas because there is a common theme with everyone...they are busy. they have plans. they don't have time to meet.
However, God managed to help us stay not only productive but efficient in our work eventually leading to some HUGE miracles.
To set the scene for this amazing Christmas miracle, I first have to acknowledge the incredible ward here. We have plates, and dishes, and boxes full of food and treats. There is a bite taken out of everything just so I could taste it all! However, we physically could not eat all this food...that's how blessed we are! So, rather than feeding it to the dumpster at the end of the week, we posted an ad on facebook marketplace for free bags of groceries. Of course, faithless me didn't expect much from it since most of my ads don't produce much of an effect...but BOY were we wrong.
Within the first day, we had over 25 responses of people begging for food. My poor tender heart was shattered with every text I received of families losing jobs and not being able to buy food, or homes being burned and they had nothing, or people who are at rock bottom during one of the happiest times of years. My world turned upside (again) that people are honestly suffering. It broke my heart. We tried to give as much food away and even have more missionaries help us out or even drop off a few Christmas cards to spread some holiday cheer. We had about 3 referrals we gave out to missionaries and even a HUGE miracle in my area:
For those weekly readers of the "Elder Gardanier Newsletter," you all probably know that in my current area, finding people to teach is A STRUGGLE. Well this week was no exception. In fact, we were burdened down and "ready to turn back" after getting ghosted by Makayla and Christina who were supposed to be baptized the 26th. Well, after our facebook ad went rampage, we received a response from a lady (Jamie) who lives in our ward boundaries. She just asked for any food. My companion and I were dry with all of the donations we received but we had received some holiday cash from an AMAZING lady back in Highland, Utah. We ran to the store and bought this family some groceries and sprinted over to their house.
We pulled up and got a Book of Mormon ready and we saw this family come out onto their porch one-by-one. The family consisted of Jamie and Scott and then their 4 little kids all under the age of 9. I DIED. THEY WERE SO CUTE. They were all SO grateful. The mom got super emotional and all we heard were thanks. The dad was asking us about our church and even asked for a passalong card with the info to the church. We finished up by taking a few pictures...I honestly wanted to stay there for hours!!!
Well get this...not even an hour later, we saw on Facebook that this lady had posted those photos thanking us publicly, she even changed her profile picture to the one that we took, AND she posted a picture of the Book of Mormon.
My companion and I are honestly in awe still. It's cool to see how "man's extremity is God's opportunity." We were stretched trying to find people and finally, something worked even during one of the most busy times of the year! The best part is this miracle is one of MANY this past week. We are so grateful for the Hall family and just as the Zoramites in the Book of Mormon were humbled, we know that the Hall family agrees that "their afflictions had truly humbled them, and that they were in a preparation to hear the word."
Merry Christmas! Feliz Natal! Feliz Navidad! Joyeaux Noel!!!
-Elder Gardanier
Ps, today I hit 18 months a missionary and what better way to celebrate than Christmas and pickleball with my district 
. I cant believe I'm hitting the home stretch 
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