Mormons add to your beliefs, not take away

I love, love, love that our church adds to people's belief, not take away. That's something that I do day-to-day-to-day everyday here as a missionary.

"Let you come to our church and see what we can add to your beliefs, we won't take away your beliefs or stomp on them, we'll add to them, like a puzzle. It's fun!"
- President Gordon B. Hinckley

You see, our church adds to people's beliefs in a kinda different way than what you think. When people come to our church and want to be members, we simply ask them to talk to the missioanries. The missionaries (that's me) would then sit them down and start to tell them what to believe, in a sense, 'adding' to what they already know, line upon line, letters upon letters.

How do we do this? Simple. When the missionaries visit you, they'll tell you what to believe, letter upon letter, then we'll tell you to stop believing the things you use to believe. In this sense, we 'add' to what you believe, but first, we have to 'subtract' everything you use to believe, and then the sum total is your new beliefs! It's fun!

Now, for the next step, you have to 'divide' the number of beliefs you have by the sum total of the new beliefs you are going to have. This will give you your 'net ratio' of beliefs to non-beliefs, or 'past beliefs' as we call them in the church. For the last step, you just have to 'multiply' your new beliefs with the amount of tithing you're going to pay for the rest of your days, so that would n10%, so the formula for new beliefs is as follows:

New Mormon Belief Formula:
Ωbeliefs ÷ ∆beliefs x n10% = ∑ ∞Jesus ∆power

That's it. We don't take away anything, as you can obviously see for yourself.

Pray for me,

- Elder Gandy

The Testimony and the Care Bear Stare!

I was trackting out some apartments yesterday with my comp. It was a little cold, but we put on our coats and headed on out to do some good work. We knocked and knocked and knocked for the Lord. But alas, no one answered. But one.

His name was Joshua, a 30-something latino with a definitive accent. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying at times, although he was willing to listen to us go on and on about Jesus.

Then finally Joshua started going off about how the Mormon church was founded by a treasure hunter, which I quickly started humming a hymn in order to drown out his evil words.

But then it hit me: Care Bear Stare!

You see, you cannot destroy evil, or make it smell bad, only by the power of your own testimony (which is how we won the great skirmish in Heaven of 00'). You have to really, really, really stare, or bear, your testimony: Chest Out! And Bear!!! To this day, when church members go up to the pulpit on Fast and Testimony Sunday, they usually say, "I'd like to Bear my testimony," in solemn acknowledgment of the work the Care Bears have done for all Truth Bearers.

This is also why the Care Bear's did so well as a popular 80s cartoon; it preaches the eternal truths of dealing with unarmed combatants and soothsayers by using magical Testimony Powers. The Care Bear Stare Technology was a decisive advantage with the war on evil, and it continues to this day to be a powerful tool to fighting Stan and his forces.

The creators of the Care Bear's were actually acquainted with Testimony Technology through their contacts with church members in the late 70s and early 80s. They then used this same powerful force to teach kids every where how to defend themselves if they were ever in a dangerous situation.

I used my Testimony Powers against Joshua that night, and after 15 minutes of Powerful Testimony using the Care Bear Stare Technology, Joshua finally succumbed and told us he would go to our church on Sunday.

I just know he'll show up!!

Pray for me,

Elder Gandy

My Mission is my 2nd Childhood

Ahhh, to be young again...yup, I'm living the dream; I'm living my 2nd childhood here in the mission field.

You see, my Mission President is my father, or Papa - and his wife - Mama. It's wonderful!! We get to eat all together for Christmas at Papa President's house. Mama President is there, with their wonderful family. We all sing and play games together, and then we get to eat some Christmas turkey, sometimes there's marshmallows there for me to eat :-)

It's great, because my Papa President tells me where to live, gives me my monthly allowance, tells me how to comb my hair, when to sleep, when to get up, who my friends will be and my house buddy (companion). It's wonderful!! Then we all get together as a big family during zone conferences and we get up and just cry and cry about how much we love each other, and our brother Jesus, and how we like to sign songs about Jesus.

It's wonderful. And then, Papa President meets with me at least once a month all on my own. We talk about life and about how I'm doing. He tells me stories about people long ago and what they did so they pleased Jesus. They're the best stories you've ever heard. After the stories, he asks if I masterbate at all, and then gives me a big hug when I tell him that I don't (although I do hear funny noises coming from my companions bed at night sometimes).

Living my 2nd childhood is the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's wonderful!! I don't have any responsibility; I can focus 110% on doing what I'm told to do, everyday. And it feels so good!!

Don't you wish you could serve a mission and live your 2nd childhood? You can, if you decide to get baptized. Do you want to get baptized?

Pray for me,

Elder Gandy

I was caught in a Pornado

I wanted to share with you an incredible and spiritual sacrament talk I heard this past Sunday. Brother Johnson, the 2nd counselor and a man in his mid forties with streaks of gray in his dark brown hair, was giving a talk on something super duper important.

Brother Johnson was talking about the ever present threat on families that are happening in society today. He chose to use the metaphor of the tornado that hit recently, and the destruction that it left behind. The damage that was done to the families in its path, and how they will never be the same again.

there are storms in our every day lives that can still leave behind just as much pain and wreckage in our lives, those terrible storms are called: Pornados.

Here's my notes on the talk, feel free to copy them down and pass them out to the youth, especially the young and inactive males.

(elder gandys notes on the talk)

1.How easily it is to get caught up into a Pornado.

2.How to be saved by getting into the root cellar of the lord (the church and its members)

3.How to survive by eating the pickled preserves of the lord (scriptures and fast offerings, and some chicken).

Pornados are super dangerous. What is a Pornado? Simple. A Pornado is when a young man or some inactive, or otherwise active male of the church accidentally clicks on a spam ad in his email. It's starts very innocently enough. One click on something you had no real idea what it was, like - hey, it's me - in the subject line of your email. Then you click on it, and before you know it, you're starting at a full breasted sweedish woman with bosoms the size of school buses.

Then the Pornado hits. Suddenly, all of a sudden, you start clicking and clicking on any dirty picture in sight, click, click, click, click, click, oh no!!! you're in a Pornado, click, click, click, click, then, like in a flash, there's a release and your keyboard is sticky, you're in the eye of the storm.

But before you can get out, you've reached the end of the eye, and you're caught up into the Pornado's rath again: click, click, click, click, click, more bosoms, more legs and succulent sweedish women licking their lips at you, click, click, click...it is finished....

You've just been spiritually stabbed to spiritual death by Stan's evil ways, and you don't even realize it.

Brothers and Sisters, don't ever get caught up in a Pornado - say no to them and sing songs in your head all day.

Pray for me,

Elder Gandy

The Three Nephites

I know, I know, I'm only supposed to share super secret special spiritual moments amongst close friends, or in the ensign, but I couldn't help but share this one.

The night the three Nephites saved my life.

This happened before my mission. It was a cold and stormy night, like most nights when something awful is about to happen, and something awful did happen. I got a flat tire.

You see, getting a flat tire on the side of the road is one of the most scariest things that can happen to a person, because as we all know, there's usually trickery afoot when there's a flat tire (yes, the workings of satan) because as we're all taught from our parents, satan has control of three things: the water, flat tires, and the Chinese.

So there I was, sitting outside of my driveway on the street trying to go to early morning seminary when my tire was flat. I did not know what to do. I remembered those childhood stories my mother told me about flat tires and satan, how he's always on the prowl to find the right tire to deflate, and today he found mine.

Just then, like a miracle, my car starting bumping and jostling, I didn't know what it was and I was scared!!! Could it be the prince of the dark? Someone, or something, was out there, doing something with the tires.

I started to defog my window because it was foggy, and out in the distance, I could scarcely see an image of a personage surrounded by light. But I was so sacred, I yelled at the person through the window, "get away from my car, Stan!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs (stan is my mom's name for Satan, so it doesn't give him power when we call his real name).

Just then, I slammed on the gas and my wheels started peeling out, making a sharp schreeching sound. Then, as the wheels started moving, I rolled over something. Right then, an awful sound came from one of the three Nephites, "GAARRHHH my F###ing leg!!!!" "You ran over my F###ing leg you idiot!!!""

It wasn't the three Nephites after all!! It was my Dad trying to put some fix it flat in my tire (sorry dad). I accidentally rolled over his foot when I slammed on the gas.

And that was the one of the most spiritual stories of my life (please only retell this when you feel the spirit prompts you with special feelings in your body). I just thought I should share this for some reason on the internets, hopefully it will help someone get baptized.

Pray for me,

Elder Gandy