Elder Camree Gautavai - Georgia Atlanta LDS Mission 2012-2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Putting On The Miles, Witnessing More Miracles
Hello Family!
I imagine everyone is busy with the normal Saturday activities! I'm writing today as opposed to Memorial day because we changed p-day to Tuesday. However this next week all zone leaders and 7 district leaders will be coming to the mission home for a boot camp so we won't have time to email next week!
Miracles are all over the place! It really is a unique time to be serving a full-time mission, especially here in the South. We have been on 7 exchanges this week going everywhere from Atlanta, to Powder Springs, Fayetteville, to Conyers! What has been of great joy to me is that no day is ever the same and it allows me to constantly rely on the Savior for His help and guidance each day.
4 names you can pray for our Ka. and Sh., Tm. and Dx. In a couple of our exchanges we found these prepared families and they are progressing really well, have come to church and loved it, and are committed to be baptized! Through the spirit we were lead and guided to them and they were ready to receive the restored gospel!
Have a great week! I love you! Talk to you in June!
Love,
Elder Gautavai
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From: Elder Camree Gautavai
Date: May 24, 2014 at 10:07:23 AM MDT
To: Mom
Good Afternoon!
How are you?
I imagine someone is mowing the lawn right now? Grocery shopping about to take place at Costco's? lol Probably a surprise to be hearing from me today rather than Monday!
Because of Memorial day on Monday, and because we have a zone leader/district leader boot camp to be held at the mission home this next week, we will not have time to email next week. So we get to do it today! Summer is definitely here! It's very humid and hot, sweating all the time!
This new assignment certainly has prompted me to change and to change quite often with each day being a whole new experience in a whole different environment. I think of Elder Neil A. Andersen's General Conference talk about spiritual whirlwinds and through the different changes; but as we get sink our roots deeper and farther into the rock that is the Savior we are able to overcome all things.
We have been all over the place this week; starting in Atlanta, then heading to Powder Springs, back to Whitewater, to Conyers, and now here in Griffin. There really is no time to rest!
The neatest experience happened on exchanges yesterday! It's a constant reminder to me of the lessons that the Lord will teach us if we are patient and humble. We visited with a less-active sister/mother who refuses to come back to her Church due to the way her children were treated by an individual in the ward. She stated that she fully understands that she will be held accountable because she isn't coming to church; but that she will not, cannot, come and partake of the sacrament if she has no intentions of keeping her end. My heart hurt for her with great love. We assured her that she alone could not overcome this hatred towards the individual; rather that only through the Savior's Atonement and her total reliance on Him would she be then freed from this heavy burden. She then began to tear up and said she would reconsider her feelings. My companion on exchange with me said "I wish we could have done more" and I simply replied Elder the Lord taught us arguably one of the greatest lessons just now. It is simply that we cannot ever overcome feelings of the natural man on our own and until we totally rely on Him we will not have the strength needed beyond our own to overcome. Another important lesson is that our eternal companion must be deeply rooted with us in the consistent reading of the book of Mormon, prayer, attending church, and the temple (unitedly). How grateful I am to learn this lesson now than some time later (future).
Well I will hear from you next week by then it will be June! Amazing what is happening and at the pace it is happening!
Love,
Elder Gautavai
Monday, May 19, 2014
Loving The Life of A Traveling Assistant Missionary!
Weekly questions from home for the elder. His response in his return email today.
Q1. Are you settled into the traveling assistant role?
A1. Yes.
Q2. Do you need anything at this time?
A2. No, we're good.
Q3. Who can we add to our prayer list this this week?
A3. Matthew P. remember him!? Huge miracle while I was on exchanges we found him after two years, he hasn't met with the missionaries since Elder Morrill, Elder Fruean (the elder's trainers in first area) and I yet has been reading the book of Mormon every night and praying.
Greetings!
So amazing dad congrats! I absolutely love the temple and am excited for it to play a bigger role in my life then previously. It has already while here on the mission. Very cool.
Elder Weathers and I arrived home last night from our week of exchanges that took us all over the mission from downtown Atlanta, to Snellville Georgia (about the furthest northeast in the mission). We'll spend P-day here then are fixin' to head out for another week of exchanges and will return next Sunday!
I'm doing very well. There is still work to be done here with the time that is left! Sorry this is so short I will talk to y'all next week!
Love,
Elder Gautavai
Q1. Are you settled into the traveling assistant role?
A1. Yes.
Q2. Do you need anything at this time?
A2. No, we're good.
Q3. Who can we add to our prayer list this this week?
A3. Matthew P. remember him!? Huge miracle while I was on exchanges we found him after two years, he hasn't met with the missionaries since Elder Morrill, Elder Fruean (the elder's trainers in first area) and I yet has been reading the book of Mormon every night and praying.
Greetings!
So amazing dad congrats! I absolutely love the temple and am excited for it to play a bigger role in my life then previously. It has already while here on the mission. Very cool.
Elder Weathers and I arrived home last night from our week of exchanges that took us all over the mission from downtown Atlanta, to Snellville Georgia (about the furthest northeast in the mission). We'll spend P-day here then are fixin' to head out for another week of exchanges and will return next Sunday!
I'm doing very well. There is still work to be done here with the time that is left! Sorry this is so short I will talk to y'all next week!
Love,
Elder Gautavai
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
A Closing Assignment To Be A Traveling Assistant To Lift, Observe and Serve
All photos courtesy of GAM
Greetings!
What a powerful email Dad! Thank you for your faithful & valiant example to me and all those who come in contact with you.
In fact this way, the only way in order to receive the blessings that flow into our lives is through the atonement that enables us to be freed from sin, receive the gift of the holy ghost, and receive eternal life. We all must be baptized and continue to press forward with steadfastness by partaking the sacrament each week and acting in faith in participating in the sacred ordinances of the temple regularly. Again, it is through the gospel of Jesus Christ that we may lay hold upon the fullness of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Without the priesthood authority to baptize, without baptism, without the priesthood authority to receive the gift of the Holy ghost we all remain in sin subject to the demands of the law of justice and life would be for naught. We cannot repent without the truth and thankfully we've been called to bring the world His truth!
Till next week,
Love, Elder Gautavai
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Make Technology Your Servant, Not Your Master - Elder M. Russell Ballard
3-way convo with the elder's cousin, RM Jeremiah Tavita, his mother and father
Sunday, May 11, 2014
The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Blesses Families. I Testify!
A Final Mother's Day Visit From The Mission Field...
Monday, May 5, 2014
There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today!
Weekly questions from home for the elder. His response follows in his email today.
Q1. Really looking forward to being able to speak with and see you Sunday for Mother’s day. Do you know when you will be able to call/Skype? Where will you be calling/Skype-ing from?
A1. Not sure yet if I'll Skype, worse case scenario I'll call from the phone here at the office. I'll let you know I'm shooting for being available around 7 PM Eastern time.
Q2. I’d like to do a group call if possible, dependent on you and your brother’s schedule and availability. Our new meeting time is 11AM-2PM mountain time (2 hour difference with Eastern) we’ll work around you schedules. If you can get me contact info (name, Skype name, tel.) of the person you will be Skype-ing from I can setup a video call.
A2. If I Skype I will get you the info before hand.
Q3. Do you get a new companion in your last assignment as a Traveling Assistant..what will your days be like?
A3. I do Elder Weathers from California. Days will consist of traveling and doing splits with ZL's and DL's conducting trainings and helping each leadership companionship be able to then in turn go get "one companionship" and so on and so forth till all companionships clearly understand how to achieve our purpose.
Q4. Thanks for the names to pray on are there any others that we can add to our prayer list this week?
A4. Elder Taylor one of our senior couple members who had to return home to take care of health issues that were threatening his life. He is getting help and hopefully returning to us shortly.
Greetings from the South,
How are y'all over yonder?
I've noticed sometimes as I have conversations with people here in the south that I have become fully immersed in the culture, especially the lingo and phrases. Often times when I transition to a conversation with someone not from the South they ask me to rephrase what it is I've said..it's in those moments I realize that what I said made no sense...lol
What can I say other than the work in which we are currently engaged in is first and foremost so important and very fulfilling. How grateful I am for the opportunity I have to serve here in the South. I say it often, the people in the south are so unique in the level of respect that they have for the Savior and their love for Him and His sacrifice are second to none. This is missionary heaven!!!
There is so much work to be done this week in our mission leadership council and zone training meetings at the Atlanta temple. The focus has been increasing in our faith and expectations of what is possible in the work of salvation in particular members and missionaries laboring together to bring forward more baptisms! We are making this transfer the "transformation transfer, with one last hurrah!!" We have the goal that each leader in our mission has a huge lift in faith and expectations to achieve the key indicator standards that assuredly lead to the waters of baptism. So that's what my companion and I will be doing going on splits with each ZL & DL companionship this transfer training and showing each how to achieve the key indicators daily with the skills and faith necessary to do even more!
Isn't President Harding's miracle simply amazing!? Even cooler how quick Elder Holland was in boldly and nobly testifying that he is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ! Can you imagine what that scene must have been like?
Well looking forward to speaking with you this week!
Love,
Elder C. Gautavai
Q1. Really looking forward to being able to speak with and see you Sunday for Mother’s day. Do you know when you will be able to call/Skype? Where will you be calling/Skype-ing from?
A1. Not sure yet if I'll Skype, worse case scenario I'll call from the phone here at the office. I'll let you know I'm shooting for being available around 7 PM Eastern time.
Q2. I’d like to do a group call if possible, dependent on you and your brother’s schedule and availability. Our new meeting time is 11AM-2PM mountain time (2 hour difference with Eastern) we’ll work around you schedules. If you can get me contact info (name, Skype name, tel.) of the person you will be Skype-ing from I can setup a video call.
A2. If I Skype I will get you the info before hand.
Q3. Do you get a new companion in your last assignment as a Traveling Assistant..what will your days be like?
A3. I do Elder Weathers from California. Days will consist of traveling and doing splits with ZL's and DL's conducting trainings and helping each leadership companionship be able to then in turn go get "one companionship" and so on and so forth till all companionships clearly understand how to achieve our purpose.
Q4. Thanks for the names to pray on are there any others that we can add to our prayer list this week?
A4. Elder Taylor one of our senior couple members who had to return home to take care of health issues that were threatening his life. He is getting help and hopefully returning to us shortly.
Greetings from the South,
How are y'all over yonder?
I've noticed sometimes as I have conversations with people here in the south that I have become fully immersed in the culture, especially the lingo and phrases. Often times when I transition to a conversation with someone not from the South they ask me to rephrase what it is I've said..it's in those moments I realize that what I said made no sense...lol
What can I say other than the work in which we are currently engaged in is first and foremost so important and very fulfilling. How grateful I am for the opportunity I have to serve here in the South. I say it often, the people in the south are so unique in the level of respect that they have for the Savior and their love for Him and His sacrifice are second to none. This is missionary heaven!!!
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| All Photos - Photocred: GAM |
Isn't President Harding's miracle simply amazing!? Even cooler how quick Elder Holland was in boldly and nobly testifying that he is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ! Can you imagine what that scene must have been like?
Well looking forward to speaking with you this week!
Love,
Elder C. Gautavai
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