Elder Doug Galloway

Hey everybody!
Well another week has come and gone. No news on my knee yet. I’ll let you all know whats going on as soon as I know what is happening. Well transfers are upon us and it is exciting. Elder Phippen goes home in three days and is super excited. He is still working hard and excelling instead of enduring to the end. Well we didn’t do a ton of tracting since its not very fun for me right now but we did do about 10 hours of it. We are still teaching Kevin. Not sure if I told y’all be he has a date as of right now. He is kinda excited but we are really excited for him. We have seen him once this week. We are also teaching a girl named Margeaux. We had been trying to teach her but she is super busy and then a couple of days ago she called and was like “hey when are you two going to come teach me more?” That made our day when that happened so we are really excited for her. Other than that not to much going on. We have some trainings to give on Wednesday and Thursday but that is about it. I love you and hope your week is awesome. Oh by the way its 65 degrees out right now. love ya!!

Love
Elder Galloway

Hey everybody,
This week was crazy. First off on Monday I fell and some how re-injured my knee. I will keep all y’all updated on what is going on. We just worked and did what we could for the rest of the week. All our real solid investigators had stopped progressing and so we went over and dropped them all. Nobody wanted to progress. It was hard. One of them though wants to be baptized on February 4th. We are super excited about him. On Wednesday we had a leadership training which I had the chance (or curse) to train in. It was really fun to stand in front of everybody and about 30 minutes into the training somebody raised their hand and asked “why is your right knee so much bigger then your left one?” Haha evidently you could see it through my suit pants. I knew they were too tight. The training was awesome and I learned so much from the other leaders. Friday I did an exchange with the elders in that are in a town called Sevierville. It’s pretty much like the Vegas of Tennessee. It was interesting and a lot of fun. We taught this couple who wasn’t progressing at all in the gospel and at the end of it the lady looked at me and asked me how old I was. I told her 21 and she said “man you’re way wise beyond your years.” I just laughed and moved on. That was our week though. I love y’all and hope your week is amazing.!!!!
Love
Elder Galloway

So Doug has an MRI on Friday. Any prayers on his behalf would be appreciated!

Hey everybody,
Well another week is gone… Elder Phippen is kinda scared since he has two weeks left!!!! This week has been crazy. We had two District meetings since we try to see our whole zone every other week if we can. There are three districts so we can see the district we are in every week on Thursdays and then we switch off with the two other districts on Friday. It makes for a lot of meetings. On Tuesday we had what is called zone leader council were we meet together with the other Zone Leaders and talk about how we can help our zones reach the mission goal. It takes most of the day but it was amazing to see the revelation that comes in those meetings when we truly are trying to do the will of the Lord. We have tons of investigators we are teaching and hopefully we will be getting some baptisms before the end of the month. We have three or four people who are so close to being baptized. Its so awesome to see. Last night we had just got in from the CES fireside and I changed into my basketball shorts and hoodie when we got a call from a member asking if we can come to the hospital to give his grand-niece and grand-nephew a blessing. I quickly changed and we went over there. They had gotten in a bad car wreck that should have killed them. When they were found stable at about 11 we went in and blessed the grand-niece. After that we had to go since the grand-nephew was still in surgery. He got the brunt of the impact and they weren’t sure if he was going to make it. We did a prayer with the family and gave the mother a blessing. We all got the impression that the grand-nephew was going to be alright and that he would heal up and have very little permanent damage from it. As we got back to our apartment we still had to finish our reports for the night. As we wrapped everything up and went to bed I felt humbled by the opportunity to serve. In the past year I have seen the Priesthood change lives for the better whether it be healing or overcoming addictions. It truly is God’s power here on the earth today. It’s such an amazing blessing to be able to do what He wants to do. I’m so thankful for all y’all. I hope that you all stay safe and have an amazing week!!! LOVE YA!!!!
Love,
Elder Douglas Galloway

Hey everybody,
This week was a really fast week. Like Brian we ran into a lot of drunk people. Nobody came to church because it was a holiday so they were gone or busy plus our church moved from 11:30 to 9 am. We officially go to six hours of church with the YSA branch and Knoxville First ward. It’s crazy. Nothing really exciting happened this week. We did two exchanges one Monday/Tuesday and one Friday/Saturday. Both were awesome. The first one was with one of the assistants to the president and was a lot of work and fun. The next one I stayed in South Knoxville and Elder T. Smith who I trained came here while Elder Phippen went to Farragut with Elder Reed. It was so much fun. It was so nice to see how Elder Smith has a such a strong desire to do this work. I love it. It made the work fun. Our zone is really struggling with baptizing this month. There are only five dates and three look like they will be dropped really soon. I hope we can just do the Lord’s will and baptize more people. Elder Phippen and I have really enjoyed our time together so far. He goes home in three weeks and is at the freaking out stage and working as much as he possible can. Its really fun. We are having success in our area and hopefully we should be getting some solid commitments soon. Hope all is well back in Boise. Hope y’all get some snow soon. Love ya!
Love
Elder Galloway

Hey Everybody!
Well this week was gone before I knew what was happening. Elder Snow and I enjoyed our last days in the Clinch River Area. Tuesday night we went to say goodbye to David. It was really hard and he really didn’t want us to leave. We really didn’t want to leave their home. Such is the life of a missionary. Wednesday were transfers. Its always exciting to go to transfers and get a new companion and a new area and to see everybody that you love. I was put with Elder Phippen in South Knoxville. Its a great area and the ward was really excited to see me back. I was here for three weeks before I came home for surgery. When we got to our area on Wednesday we went out to lunch with a member and then we went to some appointments. We are teaching a guy from China who is a really solid investigator and then we saw some less actives. Thursday was much the same. We tracted and saw some people and went out on a team up. Friday we had to drive up to a district meeting that was about 50 miles from our apartment so it was a good time to get to know Elder Phippen. The man from China came to church on Sunday and we are hoping to baptize him and his wife. He heads back to China soon and he loves the Book of Mormon. Bishop gave us a charge. He wants us to baptize someone every three weeks. We know we can accomplish this goal. We could use all the prayers we can get though. Other then that not to much is going on. Just another week in paradise.
Love yall!!!!
Love Elder Galloway

Hey everybody,
This past week was crazy fun. We went ahead and worked really hard seeing less actives and making sure Elder Snow’s health would recover. We went to the Doctors for his ears on Tuesday and he found out he had a fungus in his ears. Good thing we went in. It happens a lot here in the South evidently. President Irion asked me to go get my knee checked just to make sure it was healing well so on Wednesday I went in to see Doc. Smith. He was in the Pellissippi Ward so I know him pretty well. He had felt my knee before I had torn it and when he looked at it and he and felt it he gave me really good news. He said the graft actually feels a lot stronger than the first time I had surgery. I’m so thankful for a wonderful family who has been with me through this hardship of having such a bum knee. I’m really thankful for the doctors who have gotten me back to being 100%. It’s amazing how the Lord has blessed me. I never have pain in that knee now, just aches and I can deal with that. I got back to the apartment and check my mail on Wednesday and got a letter from the mission. I have been called to serve as a Zone Leader again. Feeling overwhelmed and yet so excited for the opportunity to serve my fellow missionaries and try to help them accomplish their purpose of strengthening up the wards and branches. When we do that we will always baptize. The week has been such a blur since then. My district did amazing this past week. We had two baptisms and the elders and sisters just keep working so hard. It really has been amazing to learn from some of the best friends I could ever ask for. I love y’all and hope your week is amazing!!!
Love
Elder Galloway

Hey,
Well another week is gone. I have really been enjoying this past week in Clinch River ward. I’m pretty sure that I am getting transferred. We will see this week what they say. Life has been good. David is doing amazing and even though we don’t have many new investigators we have some really strong potential here. We have really gained the ward’s trust since they are starting to give us referrals left and right. We got a new ward mission leader which should be good. David is doing awesome. It looks like he is going to have to go and have some surgery. He is having some physical problems. I went on a really good exchange on Friday/Saturday were we were able to commit a lady to baptism. The district is doing amazing and I’m learning so much from them. Well I love y’all and hope you have an amazing week!!!!
Love
Elder Galloway

Doug also put this in another email to me that I thought I’d share.

Ether 12 talks about faith and lets us know that faith can move mountains. On my mission I have seen mountains moved in my own life and in the peoples lives that I teach. About two months ago I started to teach this man named David. One of the first things he told me was that for 34 years he has been drunk, high, and addicted to tobacco. When he told me that I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to help David overcome his mountains. I started to pray and fast for him and quickly we learned that he never had been taught that these things were bad. I shared with him my personal testimony of how through Christ Atonement we can overcome these mountains known as addictions. We focused a lot on the Atonement. As soon as I started to pray for him all my fears went away and I was able to teach by the Spirit. David started to show his faith by studying the Book of Mormon. He wasn’t just reading but he was “feasting upon the words of Christ.” I remember walking in to teach David about the Word of Wisdom. We shared with him everything he should be doing and what he shouldn’t be doing. Tears filled our eyes as he said he knew he needed to stop and he hadn’t drank or done drugs since we first started to see him. We gave him a blessing so that he could overcome another mountain–smoking. For the next month David struggled but he went from 6 packs a day to 1 or 2 cigarettes a day. We had to move his date back twice but we knew he would be able to overcome it. We went over Thanksgiving day and David was there and was so happy. He had gone 5 days without smoking and this was the first Thanksgiving in 34 years he could remember since it was the first one in 34 years he had been sober for it. On Saturday the 26th of November David was baptized and confirmed a member for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His sins were washed away and mountains had been moved by his faith. David has never been as happy as he has been for the past two weeks. Miracles happen and will never cease to exist as long as we have faith. I will always remember the faith of David and how he moved mountains

Hey everybody,
Well another week and another holiday done with out here. I’m really not sure were time goes. It feels like just yesterday I was having surgery and now its been over five months. It was a great week here. It started off slow since Elder Snow has been fighting an ear infection which is still going on, and so Monday and Tuesday were kinda lazy days. Really boring for me but we were able to go see David. He was doing great on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday we had interviews with President Irion. The interview was good. I really do appreciate all that President has to do for us. He has a calling I’m not sure I could handle that’s for sure. On Thursday we went to two Thanksgiving Dinners. That is always a big plus. I made sure to get really full for ya mom so you don’t have to worry. On Friday I was on an exchange with Elder Kreyling. For those who don’t remember him he was in my MTC district. It was so much fun to catch up and enjoy being with an old friend. We had alot of fun. Saturday was an amazing day. We got up and exchanged back and then we did some work and around 4 pm we headed to the Grove Park building since ours doesn’t have a font and cleaned out the font for Davids Baptism. We filled the font and set up for his baptism. I don’t know if words can describe how wonderful his service was. In all my time as a missionary I have never felt the spirit as strongly as I did on Saturday night. David was so happy the moment he came out of the water. I knew he was prepared for us to teach him. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to teach and learn from David. He was confirmed at his baptism. Life is going good. Nothing else exciting happened this week. Love y’all!!!
Love
Elder Douglas Galloway

I wanted to share a paragraph from the letter I got from Doug today.  I guess he’s glad he went back out.  :-)

So Elder Haleck of the 70 came today.  It was so much fun.  He pointed out how strongly the Spirit was in the room the whole time and then said, “Elders and Sisters–this is the only time in your life where you will feel the Spirit in a meeting like this as strongly.”  It is true.  2 Nephi 32 talks about after we are confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost then we can speak with the tongues of angels.  Mom, we were taught by an angel today.  I felt like I grew so much.  I also learned that there have been times where my companions and I have been those angels for our investigators.  Mom, I never want to leave this work.  On the way home I was thinking about how soon that my mission is up.  Tears came into my eyes.  I’m excited for school and all but this is the most honorable thing I have ever done.  I’m going to be far from perfect my whole life but I know this all is true.