September 30, 2013

Heya Everyone and all!

I do plan on sending a letter sooner or later. This week has been pretty dang busy with DDM, and exchanges and all missionary work. Hopefully this week and perhaps today I can write/type a letter and mail it home so that the ward or others can hear how I am doing. I won't give too much information in this email. 

We gave our talks last Sunday and it was pretty swell. I got to talk about scripture study. It was pretty swell and I tried my hardest to make it 20 minutes even though it was only....10 :/. Oh well, the message I thought was pretty powerful.

Man, I wish I could tell you a lot, but I wanna send it in my letter back home. :/ Guess you will have to wait for a little bit ^_^. This email is going to be pretty dang short. But all is well in Creston. I have felt like this is my home and I don't wanna leave any time soon. I have grown to like this area and the ward members here. O, and also the food!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOO amazing!

Anyways, I have to go. I need to work on my long mail sent letter to home! Farewell and God be with you!

Another weeks zooms by!

Hello Family and Friends!

I got your snail mail on Friday and thanks for the pictures of Jayne! She looks adorable and can't wait to see her grow up and be able to get boys by just saying to them the way Phil does, "Heeeeeyyy!"

We went down to Calgary on Friday to go to a trainers meeting which was only about an hour and a half long. You know what that means? It took us 6 hours to drive there, stayed for about 2 hours, then drove 6 hours all the way back! It was a long day, but the Elders that drove with us I got to know pretty well. I also saw my old district and man did they change. They all looked really professional and missionary like. I asked most of them on an update in their area. They all said they got a baptism on date or are planning to. That is incredible! They are doing extremely well and I am jealous of them!

This past week we did mainly service and other stuff with members. We didn't have any current investigators so we talked to the members and others. We do plan on however to go on splits with home teachers to the less-active and that is pretty much our plan here in Creston. 

Remember when I told you we got a referral from the Stake Conference about 2 weeks ago? There is an area where it is about 45 minutes away from Creston and it is a branch called the Kootny Lake Branch or however you spell it. We got like 3 referrals from there now! Finally!!!!! Some work!!!!!!!!! We also have to speak in their sacrament meeting for 20 minutes! 20 minutes!!!!!! O man I am so nervous! I need to prepare a longer talk than my farewell one. Hopefully, the Spirit will help me.

The snail-mail does take quite a bit, but they don't send it to where we live. The zone leaders pick up our mail like every once a month and then we have to go get it. So, if I am not getting your mail or said I haven't, it is because I haven't picked it up yet. But thank you for the letters. I do look foreword to them each time. I will try to send a letter back home when I can or have time. 

Our week is going to be extremely busy with splits and exchanges and all that so hopefully I can catch up with all of it! Love you all and can't wait to hear a letter or email from you. Oh! We also stopped by this lake on the way back from Calgary and it is so blue and beautiful! I will send you a picture of it! Love you!

-Elder Justin Perucca

3rd week here in Creston...I think

I haven't got your snail-mail yet, and I haven't got the pictures of Jayne yet either.

But this week I got to meet my whole zone and they are awesome! They are quite hilarious! I enjoy their company and today for our P-day we are going back to our Zone and going to chiill with them! I am excited. Also, my zone is very into this card game called Magic. I am not into it as of right now, but that may change sooner or later. :/

Anywho, things have gotten better for me. Still getting used to everything. We have some awesome tunes though here! I can imagine some new songs that are coming out there since I left, but they missionary music here is amazing and I love it! Yes, they are pretty cheesy, but I enjoy them the same. I may send you an attachment of one of the songs I enjoy.

This weekend was a Stake Conference week so we got to hear from our stake. Also, someone from the seventy came. He spoke of us as missionary and the members as one team to bring the people to the church. It was a very well done lesson and I enjoyed it. Also our mission president came up too and gave the same lesson, but a little different. But it was swell all the same ^_^,

Chantel crying over her phone?? Hmph, odd! Silly silly Chantely. The phone hasnt died yet. Although when a phone tends to freak out the first thing you should do usually is take out the battery. Then it should stop and be ok if you leave it alone. She must have been texting her boyfriends or soon to be boyfriend. Also, she better have not deleted my pictures on there.

Congrats on Kaylee and Phil on their baby! I am super happy for them! Can't wait to see my neice in...two years -___-. O well, I am still happpy for them! Jayne sounds a very great name! Sounds british! And I love british! Speaking of british, I have been constantly meeting very british people out here and I really enjoy their company. I get to learn more about England and their culture. Their ice-cream here is pretty different than in the U.S.A. It is a lot creamer than what I have had. It is still really good though!

Anyways, that is all I have to report this week! Thank you for all your mail! With much love Justin! (This is the part when Mom starts to cry) ;)

-Elder Justin Perucca

Justin included this song as an attachment: Popcorn Boppin'

Start of Week 3 in Creston

I can definitely say that things here have gotten a bit better. We have 1 new investigator and we are working slowly with her. She is a pick a choose person meaning she wants to pick a religion and stick with it. She isn't a member, but she has gone to our church here with her aunt. We have only had lesson 1 with her and committed her to read the Book of Mormon. She agreed to do it. She didn't seem too excited about it, but she does seem interested to look into it. We will see how she is doing this week.

Other than that, we have 3 potential investigators meaning they haven't received lessons, but we just met with them tracting or street contact.

First one(s) was Michael and Heather: They are protestant and Catholic. They both are really nice. We knocked on their door, no one answered, but Michael came around back and saw us. We kinda introduced ourselves and he didn't seem super interested, but as soon as we mentioned we are going around sharing a message about Jesus, his eyes brightened up and said, "Jesus?! Well, come on back here!" It got us excited because we haven't really spoken to someone in a while. We got them kinda introduced in the gospel and are going to check on them this week to see how they are doing.

Second was JoAnn: She is a bit less accountable, and she is Lutheran, but she does seem quite interested in what we said. We did mow her lawn though in our suit and ties which was surprising to her. Ha! But we care for her and going to check back with her again this week.

Third was someone who said to come back later: We don't know her name or her family yet, but we are going to check out how she is doing this week.

The members here though are super funny I must admit. Although most of them are old, they are goofy and I love it. They do quite frequently now say "eh?" now, but I haven't been saying it or I just haven't recognized it. We did get a picture of me and my companion.

Pretty cool picture huh? It was Elder Mackay's idea! 

Anyways, could you remind me what my blog for my mission was again? 

Things are getting better and better here. Alright I got to go! Let me know what is going on back home some more!

Oh! The Mission Home address is:

7044 Farrell Road SE, Calgary, Alberta T2H OT2

There you go! Love you!

-Elder Justin Perucca

Hello! First week in Creston!

Well I have been here in Creston for 5 days I think! 

OOOOOOOOO Man! The first 4 days just were brutal! I came here expecting missionary work like in those district videos they showed in the MTC. O that is not quite true! Here you have to do many things and it is very hard work. The first 4 days we were here we were just going tracting and street contacting most of the time and kept getting rejected and rejected and I got so freaking tired of it. I remembered I kept thinking to myself, "This is what I am going to do for the next 12 weeks and perhaps more? I don't think I can do this! I don't want to do this! I want to be relaxing most of my time here!" It was a negative feeling and I hated it and I wanted it out! The mission is intensely hard. There seems to be a pattern here. Everytime you go somewhere new on your mission, whether is be the first time at the MTC, or the first time in Canada, or even your first area like Creston, you always have a very difficult time getting used to it. 

So as I was thinking these negative thoughts, I kept saying to myself: "Keep going. You are not a quitter! Keep pushing on." But the question of "How?" kept coming back and kept dragging me down. One night I got on my knees and ask our Heavenly Father to help my attitude to improve and to help me to serve him with all my strength. I prayed that not only I would feel better, but the many missionaries out here will have peace in their hearts. I also prayed for other things. As soon as my prayer was over, again as I shared in my sacrament talk, my heart was lifted and didn't feel like it was heavy anymore and I had a more positive attitude about it. This is the Lord's work! This is not my work or your work, it is His! 

Since then, my attitude on this mission has been much better and I enjoy the people here. Speaking about the people here, everything here is backwards! What I mean about that is that the old people here act like little kids and it is hilarious and I love it! The teenagers and young adults here however are stubborn and don't care much about life. It is one of the few times where I enjoy being around these old people HAHA! They do say "eh?" quite a bit here, but I don't think I will pick it up here. Maybe, maybe not. 

Church here is really fun also and super fast! Yesterday was the fastest church I have ever been to, but it was also very spiritual and I learned many things! I always look forward to church just because I feel comfortable being there and also the people here are very supported. We learned more about the Law of Tithing Sunday and it made me think about it in a new way. If we are WILLINGLY to pay our tithing and not begrudgingly, the windows of heaven will be open and pour out blessings on us. It was amazing!

I don't have a picture of my new companion quite yet. I don't really plan to till we want to really. I am weird! Ha, but my companion is Elder Mackay and he is from Las Vegas, Nevada. He likes helicopters and hopes one day to be in a army. Great...my first companion is training to be in the army. -_-. He is going to push me hard! But he is a great companion and has helped me to get into missionary work. He has the movie "The Testaments" memorized and we quote it from time to time and it is great.

I will send pictures of my old companion and other ones where I feel like I need to send though. I will probably send my old district pictures and a picture of Creston from my house. We are living in a members home and it is nice.

Well, i got to go! Got lots of things to do today and so little time to do. Love you and here some pictures!

-Elder Justin Perucca