March 30, 2015

This week was pretty slow as well. It basically goes like this for most of the week. In the morning and afternoon times, people can't really meet with us because they are either at work or they are home without a priesthood home so we cannot really visit them. That is usually what happens in every single area I have been in and it is pretty tough to find stuff to do during that time that is still effective. Tracting is out of the question since this area has been tracted out a billion times already and everyone already knows who we are. However, what seems to work, as always, is to work with members. 

We met with Jordan this week and dropped the Law of Chasity bomb with him. Surprisingly, he took it well. He understood what we were talking about. However, we don't believe that he understood the steps he needed to take to get to baptism concerning the Law of Chasity. Next time we do meet with him, we are going to put an emphasis on him and Seline to be legally married before they get baptized, or to move out and get baptized. By the way Jordan is cancelling most of the appointments we set up with him, it will probably be a while since that will happen.

As for the piano videos, the purpose of the video is to help link people back to the church website or anything the church websites. However, I will consider what hymn(s) would be well known with others. The thing is as well is that my missionary facebook doesn't have any non-member friends so it wouldn't be too much help yet. 

Our transfers are next Thursday and they changed it back to whether we will know on Tuesday if we get transferred or not. That way, I will be able to tell you guys whether or not I or my companion will get transferred or not. We both think that we are both staying this next transfer. If not, well, I will be disappointed, but will still endure. My companion and I had so much fun together and we hope to continue that fun-age.

I am still holding on to 265 pounds. If I remember, I was this weight around my senior year of high school. I believe I am making good process, but I am starting to slow down on the P90X and focus a lot more on the basketball thing. Speaking of basketball, I have improved so much on my basketball skills here on the mission. Remember how I said missionaries have different nicknames out here? Well, one of my nicknames that I just got this transferred because the way I play basketball is "White Ninja". Apparently, I am not really noticed and get the rebound out of no where and put it back up. Whenever I do this sort of thing, the team I am one always yells, "WHITE NINJA! AND HE VANISHES!" because I am only noticed when I get a rebound or put back. So, instead of Perucca or Parooka, it is now White Ninja. 

I am sorry these letters are getting shorter and shorter. I seem to notice that the more I am out here on my mission, the smaller my letters get at home, and it doesn't help when you guys can see what I am doing on facebook most of the time now. 

It is now question time:

Question #1 for you, do you watch all five sessions of General Conference at a Stake Center near you?

Yes, that is usually the default choice. However, there is another option and that is to watch it at a members home if we so choose, but usually members go to the stake center.

Question #2, do you try to bring investigators or less active members to attend and watch with you?

Well, of course. It gives them the opportunity to listen to prophets and apostles to figure out if they are called of God or not.

 Question #3, I believe the question was: do you think that family history work would/should count as missionary work?

Well, in a way, yes. You are giving the opportunity to people in the spirit world to learn more about the gospel and be able to accept those ordinances. Do I believe family history should be just classified as missionary work and that's it? No. I have had many members here whenever I ask them to start doing missionary work or invite others to church activities, they usually respond with, "I am already doing family history work so that is missionary work." That is a bit lazy. I am not saying that family history is bad. It's not. But substituting it for missionary work is not a very good thing. 

Well, that is all for this week. Love you all and can't wait for conference and talking to you guys on Mothers day soon.

-- 

-Elder Perucca

Slow week and possibly will continue

This week was not very good for us because appointments keep falling through. But we still tried to meet with several members here and there to keep them updated on the ward mission plan. Speaking of which, what is our current wards mission plan? I have always wondered if that was ever part of our ward. 

We did meet with one of our part member family however. His name is Alex Currie. We showed him the Lord, I Believe talk from Elder Holland and he liked it quite a bit. It lead to a discussion where we talked about acting on the faith we do believe. This led him to bring up that he was lacking on his reading of the Book of Mormon. We suggested that we would read the Book of Mormon with him so that if he had questions along the way, he could ask us and it would help him understand more of what he just read. He hasn't contacted us on whether we can start or not. We don't know if he is ignoring our phone calls or just trying to avoid us all together. 

Like I have said in the previous letters I have sent, we are trying to strengthen the ward members based on Richard G. Scotts talk last conference. We are kinda helping the young men do a mission prep class. Sound familiar? :). It is kinda what I did before my mission, but not as long. It is a good idea and gets the young men excited for missions.

My current weight now is now 266. It sucks however when a member tries to feed us and it is my favorite food and I usually pig out on it. I usually control myself more if it is not my favorite kind of food.

Sorry I didn't say much in this letter, but there is not much to report on like in my last area where stuff happened like crazy. But I will now move onto the question part of my letter.

Question #1: do you get very many questions or interaction from people who are not members of the Church right now on Facebook?

Only if I have people that are not members of the church on my facebook profile and I don't have any so far because I can't find them quite yet. No one has really asked me questions yet so I am just waiting for that anyway.

Question #2: how do people you do not know "friend you" on your missionary Facebook account to allow the gospel discussion to take place. 

I usually look up their mutal friends to see if I really know them and then if I add them, I ask who they are. If they don't respond, then they are not interested or not available. There are some people who I do not know who keep adding me and they seem to just want to be friends with missionaries

Question #3: Did I get my package?

Yes I have and I have not opened it quite yet since you told me not to open it till easter.

I really sorry this letter is short. But there is a video I posted on facebook of me playing piano if you guys wanna check it out. Love you all! Take care! 

Online Proselyting

Hello one and all! As you could have guessed, we got approved for facebook for missionary purposes like sharing the gospel or talking with our investigators. If you have any questions about my facebook account, you can read the status on both my missionary page and also my regular one. If you still have questions about stuff, I am available for chat on my facebook and can answer questions whenever. It is also pretty cool because I can see what is up at home and in greater detail like Braden at the Jazz game. That was pretty epic.

This week we only met with Jordan once. Seline was up in Calgary so we only met with Jordan once. We read the beginning of the war chapters with him and that got him really excited to read more about it. He told us he was going to keep reading more after we left since it was kinda late. We haven't heard much from them since, but we are still trying to keep in contact. Hopefully sometimes we can Skype in Seline so that she doesn't miss out on certain things.

Other than Jordan and Seline, we have been working with less-actives and members. The goal is with members is, and I may have mentioned this before, is to help them to follow the ward mission plan which is to strengthen them spiritually so that when the time comes for them to share the gospel with someone, they can do it simply and easily. That is the main focus with members. We are also trying to help find through members which means find people to teach from referrals from members. Lots of people have people in mind. But I am not sure that they will be in our area. Oh well, we do what we can eh?

We have been hearing a lot about movies here especially Cinderella. I have the Soundtrack of it on my mp3 player here and the music sounds awesome. It will probably be on my watch list when I come home :). Other than that I will have to do my research to see what kind of movies I will go and take a look at. 

My weight is now 274. I was a bit lazy to work out today, but that is not the only reason. There has been a horrible sickness going around in Lethbridge and Calgary. I just barely got it Sunday, but other missionaries got it throughout last week. They kept cancelling basketball in the morning. So we didn't play much basketball in the morning. But I did good maintaining my weight by not eating as much this week. 

Question time!

Question #1: Do they have any training as to what to put on facebook?

They had training on it last transfer and told us the basic. It is basically don't do anything stupid on it and keep everything focused on the gospel. 

Anywho, that is this week and it was a pretty short week. The mission gets more and more faster each week. Before I go I got one more thing to announce: Prepare for a lot more piano videos. :) Take care!

Pretty Slow week...but still happy!

Hey ya'll! My 19th month mark is coming up pretty fast and I am super excited. The mission is going so fast and it is hard to answer someone sometimes when they ask what we did on a certain day. Sometimes it is a bit awkward when members see us forget some things we did. The members of this ward are very chill for missionaries and are very willing to help. But here is the problem with that: The ward that we cover is pretty small compared to the rest of the stake here and the people they want to share the gospel with are outside their area and when they report that they did for missionary work, it is usually outside our area and the it benifits other missionaries. I am not saying that it is bad that other missionaries get the results for member missionary work, but it doesn't give us the investigators that the members are working with. However, me and Elder Bienz feel great when we extend a commitment to someone for missionary work and they get really excited for it and follow through with it. I don't expect to have too many investigators to work with here in this area. There are plenty of less actives and members to gain trust from and plenty of them do already. 

We tried to work with Seline and Jordan this week, but they kept pushing back the appointments from day to day. We are not sure why exactly. Elder Bienz told me that this is not normal for them to do. Seline was going up to Calgary to take care of her mother who just had surgery for her brain tumour and she will be gone for about a month I believe. So it will be mostly Jordan for quite a bit. But we plan to skype Seline in when we get approved for Skype or a member brings a device so that is possible so that we can teach the the Law of Chastity. They haven't learned it quite yet and that needs to be discussed before they get baptised. It seems that they are very comfortable with the ward and don't want to leave. They just wanna find an answer for themselves so that they know exactly what they are doing. 

 My companion and I are getting along super well. We always have something to say to each other and it is like there is no silence between us. We love everything the other persons love. We have tons of laughs and it is awesome. He could possibly be my favourite companion. I may get two transfers with him which I will be happy to do so. 

As for my working out progress, it is going great! Every other day I do P90X in the morning and do basketball every morning with the Zone Leaders and the APs. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the APs are in our zone. Anywho, guess how much I loss this week? ;). 5 pounds! Whoooo! I am 265 pounds and if this continues I will be pretty fit when I come home. My companion is a good motivator for that and so is the rest of the zone. Because we share a car, we walk a lot more than I have previously so that will help my work out routine. I am pretty pumped about it!

Alright Question time:

Question 1: Did Kade, the boy in your last area, get baptized?

As far as I know, I believe so. I will ask people in my last area/zone. 

 Question #2, do they do do Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time there in Canada so you have to go through clock time changes twice a year as well?

As far as I know, we do all except in Creston. I am not quite sure about the other times, but I am guessing that yes they do the same.

Question #3, how long has Elder Bienz been serving in the area?

This is his 2nd transfer here so about 2 months.

Question #4, how do you "work with the unmarried" to get them married before they can be baptised?

What we usually do is teach them lessons 1-3 and if they bring up that they want to be baptised, we suggest ways to prepare for that. Sometimes the next step is planning the wedding or to move out and get baptised then. It all depends on the person and what the situation is like. Lesson 4-5 discuss a bit about the Law of Chasity.

Well, I think that is all for this week! Hopefully appointments will not fall through as much this week as they did last week. Love you guys and see you next week!

Back Home...in Canada

So Transfers just happened last Thursday and I did explain the process of it last time because it changed. SoWednesday I got a call that I was going south of the mission which is like Lethbridge and anything south of that basically. So Thursday morning I packed up and headed out. I was not very happy that I was leaving that ward, not just because I got close to that ward when I was there, but, again, I wasn't able to witness another baptism that I was able to help out with! This happens every single time which frustrates me. I am still mad about that a bit, but not much. However, I do love the south of the mission more than the north of the mission. The members are more willing to do missionary work and the people are a lot nicer which I love. So at transfers when they announced it, they announced the zones that I thought I was not going to be at last. One by one, the zones I thought I was going to be at kept leaving and being taken. Fraser, who drove down with me and was my previous zone leader, were very confused on where we were going to go. Then it got to the last zone which was Lethbridge West which if you remember was about my second area. I got put with Elder Bienz who is a sweet kid and I was now in the Copperwood Ward which is RIGHT NEXT to where I previously served and lived! I was freaking out because I could visit the members I have previously served around and say hi to them and see how they are doing. Copperwood is a family ward, but it is a whole bunch of Newly Weds. That is pretty sweet I think because young people when they try to teach the gospel to others they do it more simply other than most old people who teach deep doctrine to people. But that is why we are there I guess. 

My new companion is Elder Bienz as I have explained before. He is from around Mesa, Arizona and, guess what, HE LOVES SONIC AND NINTENDO STUFF LIKE I DO! I am starting to see a trend here. Whenever I am in Lethbridge I have nerdy companions. Except this one is not as annoying as Elder Smith was. He is pretty chill and let me tell you, he is a great teacher. When he stays on topic of the lesson he is an amazing teacher and he is not even year yet. Plus he and I totally agree how to do work here. We are no longer in leadership. Just regular missionaries and that is just how I like it :). 

The weather is very different down here than in Calgary. IF you remember, it is very very very very very windy! And plus it is still in the winter so the snow comes often and it comes with force! That is why we do Hot Chocolate stand on Friday. We did that this past Friday and I had a great time doing it. We went crazy giving people Hot Chocolate to people. They kept asking what it was about, and we just responded that we wanted to warm their souls and that Jesus loves them. People are really happy down here than Calgary. It was so much fun to do it with other missionaries who know what they are doing as well.

We have two main investigators right now. They are on date somewhere in April, but we feel that we are probably going to push it back because they have to be married to be baptized. They still haven't had an answer for themselves quite yet, but we are working with them. I only remember one of their names and that is Jordan. We will give you guys an update on them later on in the transfer. :)

We do have a scale here to that I can measure my weight over time when I lose wieght. My current weight is 270. I will update you guys weekly on that.

Alright, question time!

Question #1: During transfers, do you travel to you new areas with other missionaries who might be going to the same zone, district, etc.?

All the missionaries that go to the south of the mission go on a bus or the vans that APs drive. There are times however where missionaries drive cars down there that need to be down there and sometimes I ride with them. That is what me and Fraser did.

Question #2, how would you rank the areas you have served in as far as affluence and humbleness?

Hmmm, well that depends on members because some are different than others. But if I had to rate from 1 - 5 with 1 being the worse and 5 being the best.

Creston - 3

Westbridge - 4

Parkland - 1

Pincher Creek - 5

Bow Valley - 2

Copperwood with what I have seen - 4

Well, that is all for this week. I will see you guys next week! Love you all!