Hey everyone.

So, few things. Don't be weird-ed out if you get random phone calls from people with questions about me. Yeah, it is a little strange. The deaf community is very different then any of us have experienced before including Devin. The thing about it is unlike hearing missions then the people I meet and become friends with will not go away after my mission I will have them for life. If that makes sense like hearing people will be friends but over time it will degrade, unlike Deaf people.  Once they make friends they normally keep that connection for life.  I not sure what the difference is.  My companions have even had people from the mission stay over at their family's homes. I don't expect that for you as we live in the middle of no where. Just be warned. 

 Anyway. we have a few interpreters in the branch. I do end up doing it sometimes, as well as most other meetings for my deaf companion so I get plenty of practice for that. As for voice interpreting I use that some times as well to voice for my companion for nightly phone call as he is the district leader. So, I am learning. Am I good? depends on the day. 

What is up? I'm still doing good. Food is in short supply. Mainly because I eat so much but. That just means I'm working hard right? Maybe it's the working out. Who knows right? Anyway. The work is actually kind of slow as we tend to be boggled down doing some thins that may or may not be part of missionary work. It is church work just maybe not missionary work. But, no problem. We solve that problem. So, our investigators are running few but we have seen some progress in members helping with the work so hopefully soon we will see the benefits of that. I actually have a surprise for all of you. I have another poem to share. Hope you like it. My companions love it, here goes:

Faith in ever footstep that is what they say 
But the amount required increases day by day. 
Sometimes it is impossible to keep moving forward.
You must sink to your knees and seek the Lord.

How others do it you ask yourself again.
No matter what happens they always win.
But yours is not the case you usually fail.
It seems no-one is listening to your silent yell.

Stuck on your knees gasping for air.
Caught in the mist of the temper's snare.
You pray with all your fading might.
Right before the darkness wins you see a light.

So what do you do with this chance given?
Arise once more to the call of the world you live in?
From my soul to yours comes this simple plead.
When in fear or doubt, let the Lord lead. 

Hope you like it. Anywho. That is all for this week. Love you.

Keep Keep.

Elder Galloway. PS: 'Member to smile. It helps!
PSS: LIVE FOR THE LORD! 

Oct 12, 2015

Hey everyone! How is it going?

So I'm still alive. I'm doing pretty good. I'm so sore because we have started doing P90X in the mornings so there's that. I'm getting pretty buff so that the important thing right? I'm still so skinny. Anyway. This week had been pretty good. Lots meeting new people, we need the new Elder soon there is plenty of work to go around. I love it! I'm meeting so many cool people here. My signing is actually improving so that is good. Maybe one day I'll get the hang of it. I felt to share part of a page of my journal from 9/20/15 it reads:

"I feel everyone has that one topic that they can relate very personally to. Something they can explain really well, why can they? Because maybe they have a lot of experience with it, or maybe they just understand it well. 

This often begs the question(s). What is mine? What is it I have a lot of understanding in? What can I help other people understand? Faith? Hope? Purpose? Life? 

How do we find what we we're good for?"

The answer is very simple. Lose yourself. Serve others. Do as Christ. Remember simple does not mean easy.  Christ taught that "whosoever shall lose his life for me shall find it." Or something like that. I'll look it up later. The point being. God will help do not doubt this. EVER! But I promise you that as you lose yourself in helping others you will be happy in life, and you will understand what it is you are good at and what you can help people with the most. Once you find that talent. Try your best not to bury it. That does not help anyone. 

Hmm, the scripture for today is Alma 5:49-51. Read it. Love it. Live it.

Keep Keep.

Elder Galloway.

PS: 'Member to smile. It helps.

PSS: LIVE FOR THE LORD!  

Wednesday October 5th, 2015

Hey guys!

Well, Oh boy. Sorry I'm late with the letter transfers and all. Interesting thing with that, as it turns out I will be learning Spanish as well. Guess the Lord felt the need to transfer me to  the Spanish branch. Just kidding guys. Totally ASL all the way. But, yeah transfers puts us back a little bit because we help out because we have the most miles so we help out and drive people to their areas. 

Yeah, we are allowed to eat with members four nights a week. We usually meet with members Sunday and Monday night, the Brand President and Ward mission leader, the other vary. We also have a set lesson/dinner on Tuesday night with a member family that lives super far away like 1.5-2 hour drive. so we do that every Tuesday. And we eat pretty healthy. Just recently we got a bunch of MRE's from a member in the Army. So we eat those sometimes. And no worries about the package it gets here when it gets here. I'm doing awesome. 

We found out the new ASL Elder's name is Elder Hess he'll get here in NOV so looking forward to that. It has been a long week this week.

General Conference went pretty good we only had to interpret for most of it. For our deaf and blind nonetheless. So that kinda hurt afterwards. It gets super tiring after signing for so long with someone else's hands laying on your the whole time. But the talks were really good, we learned a lot. It's interesting the Wisdom they give us a lot we have to look for but most of it is right there. Makes you realize what you can do to become better, which ties in with what we have been teaching this week that is Christ like attributes. Which is something everyone needs to work on. 

Also this week I have started a book of everything I need to do after the mission, there is a lot to do in this world. No worries I am staying focused most of the stuff I put down is church related. My journal is getting huge. I have so many thoughts about the Gospel during my mission that I have never had before. I can't wait and have a hard time waiting to share them with everyone. I think in the last 30 days I've been here I have written like 45-50 pages those are full pages. So tons of learning going on. I'm keeping up with my reading and just finished the book of numbers like two days ago. It is soooo boring. But, It must be important right? Well, I'm doing awesome. I love all of you! 

Elder Galloway

P.s. 'Member to smile.

Sept. 28th, 2015

Hey Everyone!

A bunch of stuff this week. It has been an awesome week. Our numbers have just been super high in pretty much all areas. So that is amazing. We found two new investigators, both of which show promise. I have also set up and started this crazy study plan because we drive around in cars all day so I have all that time. The plan is this I will read
-Old Testament

-New Testament
-Book of Mormon
-Doctrine and Covenants
-Pearl Of Great Price
-Joseph Smith Translation
-Joseph Smith Matthew
-And the Bible Dictionary

All in 125 days. So, That is a huge amount of reading. Day four today And I'll already finished with Genesis. So another thing this week is we had our deaf blind members pass the sacrament yesterday. Which was super cool. I helped with that and guided one of them along. It was AWESOME. So this last week as been the best week in the mission (for ASL) in a long time. Just so much of everything. Didn't I tell you things were going to pick up? I plan to keep it this way. We'll see how that goes. Something I have notice while serving is people have so many different problems. SO MANY! How do we fix this? How do we overcome the problems we have? It so simple! SO SIMPLE! Just be like Christ. Stop focusing on yourself and doing something for someone else. Serve. Turn outward. Stop turning inward. This will solve so many problems. Of that I have no doubt.  The quote for today. Because I have a quote for every day is this:

 "He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free!"

 I beg you guys. Just do it. Live like Christ. Do for others what you would do for yourself. I promise if you do that then most if not all your problems will either disappear or cease to be important to you. I heard some where. Maybe I thought it but whatever the case it says:

 "It is easy to give your life for the Lord, to die in his name. It is harder to live for him."

 Let us be worthy to bear his name. We already do if we are baptized. But we need to be worthy of it. Let us do what is needed to have him be proud of us. This is my simple plead: "Come unto Christ and be perfected in him." Do as he did, walk as he walked, follow him, find the lambs, feed the sheep.

Just some of the simple thoughts of a growing young missionary.

Elder Galloway.

PS: 'Member to smile. It helps.

 

Sept 20th, 2015

Hey Folks.

What is up? I'm having tons of fun out here. I love it. This last week has been the best one yet. We have had some really good days. REALLY good days. And some awful ones. I haven't fallen asleep in any more lessons yet... Which I did the first week if I never told you that. Luckily it was with a member and they've seen a lot of missionaries so they understood. Apparently it's not uncommon to fall asleep during your first week here. So a little bit more about the area I'm serving in just so you can understand a little bit more about how huge it is.

The Deaf population is all over the place that's why we have such a huge area. Most of the members live outside the mission. That's why we don't stay in it. And my companions. One is deaf with an cochlear implant. (<--- District leader) The other is hearing and is showing some signs of Carpal Tunnel. Which is not good for signing, So he may be pulled from ASL for a little bit.  

Right now my area is from the Canadian border down to Shahalais (A town) and from the Ocean to Rocky Mountains. So yeah, and there is three of us to cover that. Luckily we will get a new elder on Nov 3. So we'll split North and south again. When we split the half way point will be in about Seattle area. So still huge areas.There's only one Branch in the Seattle in all of our area with about 25-30 active people. So that's a little sad. But all in all the Deaf community is huge. Tons of people. I've met a lot of cool people so far. 

Driving is crazy here. So terrible. But, I'll get the hang of it. I think I want to be a race car driver at some point in my life. You guys need to see my journal it's so much better of a report of what has happened. I'll put it on the blog after my mission. It's pretty good. I've been told it's very poetic. So there's that. Hopefully soon I'll be able to send pictures of everything. 

That's it for now. Have fun.

Elder Galloway

PS: 'Member to Smile. It helps.  

Sept. 14th, 2015

Hey guys.

What's up? This is my second week here in Seattle. It has been a little better than the first one. We are getting settled in the place now. Everything back to normal. I've had my first interpreting experience, as we had zone conference which is a 7 hour meeting with lunch in the middle. I interpreted not the whole time thankfully, but a lot. It's a lot harder than you would think. So remember I mentioned we might be able to go to a Deaf Expo in Portland? Well, at this point in time it looks like a no. So, there's that. So our investigators are doing pretty good. They are all progressing pretty well. Our Branch is still super small. We get maybe 30 people every week. But it's our goal as a Branch to become a ward in the next few years. So I will be helping with that. I'll be excited to see how that works out. I'm not as tired as when I first got here. But, I still tend to be pretty tired. Shocker. It's a hard life serving the Lord. Some of the missionaries before me didn't quite make the cut from what I hear. Anyway. I recently wrote another poem I thought I'd Share with you guys. Here goes:

Oh be faithful, Oh be wise.
When the world calls: Arise.
The task at hand is not for fun.
We are to do what must be done.

Set apart to do his great work.
Laboring wherein Satan doth Lurk.
Forget not Obedience is key.
For the Lord God workth in mystery.

Rather let us say "I will go and do"
than "I'm slow of speech and tongue too"
Open your mouth and it will be filled.
For even Jesus did what the Father willed.

So let him be our guiding light.
Go forth forever trusting in his might.
The end.

It's pretty simple. But I hope it helps with something. I think that is it for this week. Have a glorious week. Talk to you next time. Later. 

Elder Galloway

PS: 'Member to smile. It helps.