Elder Gallagher

My email doesn't like to work anymore so I haven't gotten any responses but there is a chance I'll be on later. Or is it just that you forgot about me? I hope not! I had a pretty good week despite the week being a little slow.

On Tuesday I took Elder Welch to get some Indian food in little India. It was pretty good but not as good as the place that we went to in NYC. He had never had Indian food before. It's a strange but tasty Gallagher tradition. Not many people I know love Indian food as much as us. I remember the time that I took Rach to Bombay house in Provo UT with Grammie and Aunt Heather and she liked it I think? She's good at trying new food now!

This is the last week of the transfer so I will know next week whether I am leaving or staying and what's going on. It's kind of weird to have a chance of being uprooted and put in another spot. I'm pretty used to it by now though. My official new release date is JULY 29th 2014! So already there are 10 months left. So that will be the day I get on a plane! I really can't picture that but It'll happen. Last night I had a dream and it only had people I know from my mission haha. It's weird that a year ago I was in Long Beach helping Nicole Reed quit smoking. As far as I know she is still doing really well and goes to church now! 

Last night Elder Welch was on the phone while we were walking and I started talking to a woman named Ruth who was walking home from somewhere. She was a very nice and we talked about the church and walked for about 15 minutes. I explained that I was from NY and what I was doing and that Elder Welch didn't have the same first name as me (Elder). Most people ask if we're brothers since we have the same first name. I'm not exactly sure how that clicks in people's heads... Anyways! She was really genuine. It felt like we were friends before even though she was probably in her 40's and I'd never seen her in my life. She expressed concerns about how all the churches say they are right and how there is a lot of hypocrisy which turns her away from religion. I really do understand all of the confusion when it comes to religion in the world. There are literally thousands of churches that all preach essentially the same thing: Love your neighbor etc. I think there are more Christian churches here in Southern California than maybe any other place. It looks a little ridiculous to put faith in just one or in any at all. That is kind of where she was coming from. I think most people expect me or anyone from a specific church to just literally hate people from a different faith and sadly, that is sometimes the case. I know that all churches speak some truth. They make better, happier people. The difference, I explained to her, between the thousands of other churches and the one I represent is priesthood authority or basically the power of God. She was right when she answered and said that most churches claim that power and authority. We usually always think we are right. It is pretty awesome despite that fact to have evidence of the claim that we make and I was able to talk to her more about the Book of Mormon (http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1256696369001) and a modern day Prophet. No one can know of spiritual truths without prayer so I invited her to pray about what we talked about it and see what God wants for her.

Most of the things that are going on with me are about church though haha I bet you wouldn't have ever guessed. I heard that the church may be shortening the church block from 3 to 2 hours from a member that was sent a random survey. This might be the only time in my life that I get really excited about church news. This morning as we were doing laundry at "fiesta laundry" the English news was on which surprised me. It looked not so good so I'm a little curious to what is going on. It is pretty nice to not have to worry about anything but the people I help.

I'll probably be on later so email me back! Love you!

Silas