Transfer Week #13

This is now the beginning of the transfer week. But for some odd reason things have changed on how transfers will go this week. You noticed that this week I am emailing you on Monday which is supposed to be on Tuesday. However, they changed that because of the different schedule for transfer week. We now email on Monday and that is our P-day. Then on Tuesday it is our regular day where district meetings are held and regular proselyting hours are in play. Then on Wednesday, we wait around the afternoon time and we wait for a call from the Zone Leaders to see whether or not we get transferred. I do not like this new way because it doesn't give us enough time to say goodbye to everyone we want to in our ward. It is very short notice and it is something I am not used to.  

Anywho, this transfer is the transfer where my mission dad is going home. Pretty happy day for him I would say. He has been talking about it every time I see him when he comes to visit. For his coming home Present, I bought him some movies for him to watch when he gets home that he hasn't seen. I think he will really enjoy those when he gets home. I love my mission dad and I am happy to say that I am the missionary I am because of how he trained me and how he was around me. He was a very chill missionary who knew the emotional struggles of missionary work and knew how to deal with it. I would have probably gone home if he did not train me right which I believe he trained me right. He is awesome!

This week was the same old week as it was last time. More service and some lessons with Kade. Our lesson with Kade went pretty dang well...until the ending again. Not because people had a problem with the end point which was enduring to the end, but they started talking about other things that were not related to the lesson at all and it got so off track that they forgot what we were talking about at all. I believe Kade got the best of it though and he got what we were talking about, but the others not so much. We have a lesson with Kade again today and it is going to be on lesson 4 which is the commandments and the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. This is the lesson we  fear is going to conflict the others in believing. We hope that Kade's family will not have a problem with this point and be able to continue in the lessons. He does want to be baptized on the 7th of March and it seems like he is ready so far. I am a bit sad that I might not have the chance of seeing the baptism or be able to witness it. This happens every single time in my area and it really frustrates me that I can't be able to see the next step of the people I worked with and got so close to. I am sick and tired of it and I don't want it to happen now. This will make me super mad if I do get transferred this transfer and I won't be able to see Kades baptism.

This last week as well, we went on exchanges with eh AP's. Elder Kelly, who is English, came with us and we did our normal work as usual. Elder Kelly is a sweet kid and he has only been out for about a year. But he is old age wise. He is a convert and he knows much about the church. We met a couple lost sheep people and visited the people that Elder Kelly wanted to go see that he knew. It was a good exchange and me and Elder Wiser liked it very much.

We have also been teaching this member family who the mother of the family expressed that her faith was fading and she wanted to gain that testimony that she had back. So we have been teaching the missionary discussions with her and we believe we nailed down her concern. She doesn't understand the necessity or how to use the atonement. We gave her an invitation to read and pray about that certain subject. We just gave her the basic steps to know what the atonement is and how to gain access to it.

Also, two random individuals came to our church this Sunday just because they said that they were curious about our church. We showed them around and took them to Sunday school and the last hour classes. They told us that they were really happy throughout the meeting and liked it a lot. So much that they invited us to their church this Friday. So...we do plan on going, but we weren't planning on that invitation. But also, one of the individuals that showed up asked me what I was going to do after my mission. I told him I wanted to go into music or if that doesn't work computer stuff. The problem that I told him is that I don't know what the next step into music that I should take. He told me that he would email me a video that explains what I can do or classes I can take to get more into music. I gladly accepted this advice and hoping that this video that he shares will help me figure out what I want to do after my mission.

That exercising plan sounds great. Only one problem, I don't know exactly what my weight it now since I don't have a scale. But I will gladly accept that challenge and I will let you know what my weight is and what it will be in the future. Love you all and take care!

That Golden Week/Lessons every missionary thinks of before their mission

Hello one and all! Sorry for not emailing you on Monday. Apparently here in Canada it was a long weekend because of Family Day which is why the Libraries were closed so that is why we couldn't email. But I am here now and so now I can email you freely.

Oh boy, oh boy! Where do I begin with this week? Well remember last time I emailed you and I told you that more and more investigators are coming in. Well, that didn't stop! We got even more now and it is so much that sometimes I forget who we have for investigators. Isn't that crazy? Now I will tell you of the lessons that we had this week as well for we had plenty of them. Some very good, some bad.

First off, Kade. President Stephans finally came back from his trip and we could finally begin to teach Kade. We began teaching him actually on Sunday. We taught him basically around 2 which is like right after church. We taught at his grandmas house and all of Kades family came as promised. His Grandparents, his mom, and his stepdad. They are came to the lesson because they wanted to make sure Kade knew what he was doing and they could see what we were all about. The thing is that this first lesson was just...perfect. The spirit was super strong and everyone understood what we were talking about. The Spirit was also very strong when we recited the first vision. We invited all of the family that was there to start reading the Book of Mormon and pray while they read to see if it is true. All agreed surprisingly! And they set up another lesson with us on Monday which was yesterday. We taught about the Plan of Salvation then and it went pretty good until the end where people were questioning the different degrees of glory. We gave our back up for up and asked them to study for themselves of the plan of salvation and the pamphlet that we gave them. They agreed and so they have a little task for themselves before we come back this Saturday where we will teach the 3rd lesson. I for sure hope that they do this so that they can understand more of what we will teach next time.

We also had a lesson with a women named Saxon. Well...it wasn't really a lesson. It was more of a bible bash session that got us no where. She wants us to come back, but I don't want to come back because there is no point to. It would just be another bible bash session. We are hoping if we do meet her again, that she will agree with the lesson order and we can teach her those.

The members are getting better and better at missionary work! We don't have to do the inviting usually. It is them who do it and it turns out great! I love it! We were helping move this family out of our ward and they were giving stuff to another person who was not a member. When we did move everything in to her home, the member that was with us extended the invitation for us to start teaching this woman and she accepted! That is amazing! Missionary work is not hard! Members just make it hard on their selves to do it so that they believe they can't do it and they complain to ward leaders and missionaries. To those kind of members I say to them 
to grow up and trust in the Lord more.

Now there being a DLB in the mission, I have many opportunities to see leaders of the mission like Zone Leaders and APs. However, I can see a bit of corruption in our leadership as a mission. Every Zone Leader doesn't give there honest opinion. When they do say something, they say whatever pleases President hoping that President will like them to be and AP. They are all power hungry and it is just terrible! I don't like it when leaders do this and it doesn't help me to trust them.

Well, I got to get going you guys. Got to start this 6 months of exercise so that I can be fit when I get home! Bye you guys! Love you!

Hello Ya'll! Almost 3/4 done with mission!

This week was mostly a service week and boy was there a lot of it. We did a lot of driving. Plus we were working with a lot of our investigators like Frank and Annie and Edward. Cade did get permission and we are going to start teaching him this Thursday. He seems very golden and he is ready to be baptized from the looks of it. Things are doing super well. The members are starting to trust us a lot and love us as missionaries which I think is very crucial to missionary work. If the members don't support you or don't like you, the transfer is going to be terrible. Good thing that the members can see that we have investigators. This sort of bothers me because I don't think member trust should just come when a investigators comes. I believe members should always help missionaries no matter what the missionaries have to teach. It will make the missionaries life so much easier and put them in a good mood to stay out on their mission. Lots of members thing it is just the missionary that influences himself to go home, but there are different factors that fit in there.

I do believe a mission is not for everyone. But still when people don't go on their missions or when they come home early, their families start freaking out. It is not the end of the world if someone doesn't go on a mission. I have seen what a blessing it is to go on a mission and yes that could be used to encourage people to go on missions, but let us not use shame or disappointment to motivate people to go on missions. Then they are going out for the wrong reasons.

This Valentines day is my 18th mission birthday. When it hits that means I have only 6 more months left on my mission. Things are going pretty dang fast and I am loving it. I will be home before you know it.

The reason I want to go to UVU is because of the friends I will have there and it just feels right. I don't want to live at home so I hope to find a place to live.

The Book of Mormon studying is going great! I love it! I am now remembering what happens at certain parts in the Book of Mormon. And when I re-read the Book of Mormon, I can just read my side notes and remember what I just read. It has helped me a lot!

Sorry for such a short letter this week. I promise for a longer one next week. More exciting things will happen next week and I will have plenty to talk about. Love you all!

Dinner with the missionaries

And they just keep coming...

Jeez! Can this area get any more investigators and work for less-actives? They seem to be coming in a snowball effect. More and more just keep coming and it is great in some ways, but in others it isn't because we just don't have time for all of them in one day. We got a guy name Edward from the Mandarian missionaries and from what Elder Wiser could tell me is that he is not too promising, but he still wants to learn. We did splits with the Mandarian missionaries so that is why Wiser knows more about it than I do. I went with Elder Olson to the Foot Hills Stake to help him interview this investigator down there with President because she did a couple of serious things that have to be brought up with President. I played with this little kid while they were interviewing this lady and we had fun playing a bit of soccer. I have kinda came to some conclusion. I am really good with relating to kids and gaining their trust. This is one of my strengths that I have realized. Once you gain the kids trust, the parents can see that their kids like the missionaries and like to get to know us too.

Anywho, this week was mostly less-active work and lost sheep. We are almost done with the list that the ward has given us. But the work won't stop there because the ward council keeps giving us names to go visit and get to know. I like it because every time we did this with other ward council, they didn't really give us any names and we had to do like a whole week of like tracting and finding and you guys already know my feelings on tracting and the such. If the ward and the missionaries work together, it work! But it takes trust so that is the price of that.

Frank and Annie are still progressing and we are meeting with them weekly still. Cade wants to wait till President Stephans comes back to start teaching him. We heard President Stephans will come back around the end of this week. We are waiting to hear from him to begin setting up plans to teach Cade.

Something I have been doing this past week is pretty interesting to me on how much it works. It has been a while since I have been reading the Book of Mormon because of my love of Christian books and that book that you guys sent at Christmas time for me. But I decided to try reading the Book of Mormon again, but I have a tough time remembering certain things that I read and what is on the page I just read. So what I did is get a new Book of Mormon for myself and what I have been doing is writing down by verses that stick out to me what kinda happens and what I learned from it. Now when I look back through the Book of Mormon, I know what I am reading and the background of it. It is also a good source for dinner messages. Call it notes on the side, but I call it my own commentary of the verses I highlight. I love doing it on my spare time.

We don't really keep tract of our proselyting hours. We just focus on how we can help the ward and what works best. I don't really like to keep tract. I mean sure, I can keep tract and I do write down our key indicators, but I don't like to base my work on numbers.

That is pretty cool that BYU Idaho school starts then. But I was kinda thinking I wanted to go to UVU. It just been on my mind.

Well, that is all I got to say for this week. Around next week it will be close to my 18th month mark. Love you all and take care!

Holy Member Missionary Work!

These week members have been helping us so much and I love it so much! We have been giving them the challenge to write their tesitmony in the Book of Mormon we give them and then give it to someone that they know whether they be active or not active or they can give it back to us so that when we give out Book of Mormons, they have a testimony of how the Book of mormon has changed their lives. The members have been taking it well and they been doing it. This Sunday we had 3 people come up to us and ask for Book of Mormons to do just that because people announced in church that they did that and it got people excited.

We met with Frank and Annie this week for a lesson. We taught about enduring to the end. But we also learned something during our visit. It is Annie's divorce that we are waiting for. After it is done, Frank can marry Annie and then Frank can get baptized. We also asked Frank if he had any concerns about what has been taught to him, but he has none and he is totally gong hough on getting baptized as soon as he gets married. So we are still waiting for that. Big waiting game!

We also asked Cade about his permission with his father. He just got permission to recieve the lessons! Yay, we can start teaching him! Problem is that the person that wants to teach him at his house is on vacation in India and won't be back in 3 weeks. So, we are probably going to teach him somewhere else like at young mens or at another persons house. Cade is really mature about it so we believe he is understanding all of this gospel talk. He is still good for the baptismal date for March 14 and hopefully we will be to if we teach him everything. But if everything falls into place, we should have no problem with it.

This ward I believe is what I thought every ward was going to be like when I got in the mission. The ideal golden ward. However, the same thing can not be said for the other wards in the stake we are in. We had a meeting as a zone with a person from the high council I believe. He kinda oversees the missionary work here in the stake. But here is the thing. It was just mainly him complaining for members that missionary work is too hard and that the missionaries don't know who their missionaries are. He was saying that ALL members go to bed at 12 and wake up at 5 so they have it hard. I kinda have a hard time believing that all members go by that schedule. And if they don't want to meet with us, that is fine. There is nothing else we can do than just to invite them to here us. But when they complain to this high council guy, that is kinda taking it too far. When member missionary work works, it is amazing! When it doesn't, then the work is brutal for the missionaries. If members don't help the missionaries in the ward, then the transfer is going to be a long while. And it is almost like it is torture for the missionaries.

The members have been giving us a lot of names to see and I am so grateful for them doing that. That way we don't waste our time just tracting 24/7 which I don't believe in at all. It is all about meeting with members and helping them understand what is being asked of them. As a missionary, it is not all about obedience. It is all about love. If you love the Lord and the people you are serving with, then the rest of the attributes that a missionary should have will fall into place. 

Jeez it has only been the first week of this transfer. That was a long week! I hope it doesn't be like this the rest of the week this transfer. Well, that is all I have to report on. But guess what?! 24 more weeks left! ;) Love you all!

Transfers come with surprises and the Sunday even came with more surprises

 This was an exausting week! Getting ready for transfers was a tiredsome event. Olsen wanted to say goodbye to a couple of people. Plus he had to pack and he was nervous of who he was going to get as well. Like I said last time, transfers is a nerve racking kind of time. We didn't know what was going to happen. The ward was pretty sad that Elder Olsen had to go. They were grateful for his service to this ward and helping them in the missionary work. He will be missed I guess.

So now the moment you have been waiting for. Transfers and the results for them. Now Elder Olsen got to go to the North Calgary Stake with a no so popular missionary. Actually, he is quite hated for some reasons. I hope he will do well with him. We heard that the area was good so that is alright. Elder Carlton got Elder Behm who I like very much even though he hasn't been out for quite sometime. He is cool. Then there is me. I didn't get a companion who was still north. I got one who was coming from the South which was good because I wasn't a fan of the missionaries I saw from the north. So I went to transfers a bit later with the Zone Leaders to get my companion. And my companion is Elder Wiser who is a cool kid.  He has been our for 13 months now and he is from Logan, Utah. Surprise was through was when he was called to be my companion, they also said he was a district leader. Now we had no idea this was coming. We just knew the Spanish Elders who were district leaders left our zone and so we thought they were going to divide out the sisters into the remaining districts. But nope, Elder Wiser is so the district leader over the 17th wards sisters and the Arbor Lake Sisters. You know what that makes me? The DLB again!!! YAY!!!!! But we can't really go on exchanges with the sisters, but we can go with the zone leaders.

Elder Wiser is sweet! He likes soccer and likes music just like I do. He doesn't play music, but he loves to listen to it. He looks super young and many people think he has only been out for a couple of months. Haha! I will probably send you a picture sometime.

This week has been mostly finishing up the Lost Sheep work. We either get no one is home oe people just send us away. We weren't really expecting anything else. The ward was hoping that we get imformation about them.

However, our members are so much in the missionary mind. They have been giving us refferalls and also bringing their friends to church. It is pretty dang awesome. The Jones family brought that chinese woman again named Grace. She really wants to study our beliefs to think of a decision. We have been trying to set up an appointment with her. Hopefully that follows through.

Plus I have news on Cade our "investigator". The reason I put it as quotes because we haven't taught him quite yet, but he wants to learn more. He just needs to get his dads permission still. But good progress is being made because his dad bought him a full quad set of scriptures. Plus Cade has chosen his baptismal date already. March 14! We were freaking out when we heard this news! It is awesome! We just have to start teaching him however!

Question time:

1. How is the eczema?

Still getting better. Still have quite a bit on the legs, but everywhere else is fine.

 2. how old were the boys?

Around 15ish. The boy was nativeish that stole the stuff. The others wre just watching. They didn't steal anything else.

Question #3, could you tell as missionaries that the person was getting confused or just overwhelmed?

Usually I can tell when that happens. I think most missionaries can tell, but we don't want to get in the way too much when the members wanna teach.

Well, got to resume our P-day. Love you guys! Take care!