Another first week

So I hope y'all remember the first week of being with Elder Cox in Yorkton because I had another "first week" this transfer. So here it goes.

Firstly we had a girl disappear. Straight up that's what happened. We get this call from Mama Dy. (full name reserved) telling us to get down to the R.s because one of their daughters didn't come home from school. We went into panic mode and got down there as fast as we could. Pause for a moment. The geography of the Battlefords goes like this. Imagine a river, a decently sized one, with hills on one side of it, the North Battlefords side. On the other side is the Battlefords side. So basically we were busting it from N. Battlefords across the bridge to the Battlefords side. While we were going across the bridge we saw, on the opposing traffic bridge, an ambulance coming from the Battlefords with it's light on. We thought for sure that she was a goner when we saw that. But, when we got to the R.s house we saw Mama Dy. animatedly talking to a RCMP on the street and the R.s by the house. When we got out Mama Dy. shooed us to the R.s when we asked Sister R. what we could do and she said "find her" so we did just that. We were told to go talk to people where she got off of the bus and on the second house we knocked she opens up the door. Elder Stevens was looking the other way at the moment so I'm like "Elder Stevens is that her?" He just jumped with surprise and a thousand things were going through his head. It was a wild experience. I had a massive crash from all of the adrenaline. 

So the second thing: (this one isn't so crazy but is comparable to closing the Melville house) we went to Saskatoon to get our Subaru fixed and basically spent the whole day in the Stoon. I was able to get some dice though :D 

So the third was we went and had dinner with the relief society president and her family. That in itself isn't so bad but, she is notorious for hating missionaries. She straight up ignored missionaries from our district holding the door open for her and saying good morning. Elder Stevens way of explaining it is that he didn't understand the fear of God until he met her. So yeah. It was a great experience. I'm being totally serious about this I didn't find what was so scary about her. I mean she's an immigrant from England and she is very brutal with how she says things but IDK maybe I'm just not easy to scare. She did get on missionaries cases for not reading the book of Mormon before their mission until I told her that I had read the Book of Mormon 2-3 times, the Doctrine and Covenants 2 times, the New Testament 2 times, and the Old Testament once before I left on my mission. So yeah, Good stuff. For all you missionaries that I email. Be obedient it works out :) 

Love youz. Have a great week :) 

*from my email*

Haha funny story about the dinner with the Bs.. To begin I still don't have the fear of sister B. I don't think Elder Elwood had that fear as well when he was here. But anyways the food was great and it was actually kindof a lot of fun because they have four kids that are 8 and younger. The youngest is just barely learning how to talk and she said the prayer on the food and throughout the entire meal was talking about how the food was good and tasty. This is the funny part: Sister B went on a short rant about how missionaries can't really testify about the book of Mormon if they haven't read it and how missionaries read it for the first time in the MTC. I then told her, after she asked, that I had read the book of Mormon 2-3 times and I had read the Doctrine and Covenants twice the New Testament twice and the Old Testament once. And then Elder Stevens piped up that I had finished the Book of Mormon while here. After that she didn't say much about that subject. After the meal we gave a stellar spiritual thought on fasting and praying. It was really good :)

THE BATTLEFORDS

So I made it safely here. I'm now with my third companion who came out about 20 months ago. It's kinda been fun serving with so many people who came out together. I'm sure we'll do just fine because he's already taught me how to play Yugioh and I'm going to help him figure out Dungeons and Dragons stuff. It's a pretty good deal :)

So basically the two things that are really different about this place is that there are actually hills. HILLS!!!!!! IT'S GREAT also I think I can feel the earth rotating. It's kinda wild but I can't really explain it any other way. Also as far as I know it hasn't really been any colder here than Yorkton so that's good. Honestly the plains are just a mess of cold. When you get up into the tundra I'm pretty sure it's warmer there on most days. 

We have already seen a miracle happen here. There is this lady in the branch that the missionaries from past years have warned to avoid. There was a legit sign written by a typewriter that said "avoid sister B." and we're having dinner with them next Sunday. She has never fed missionaries much at all and in the first week of me being here she is feeding us. Welcome to the Battlefords it's going to be a great next 6 months. I've had someone tell me I'm going to enjoy the summer here :) 

I think that's all I can think of right now. Love y'all. Potatoes gonna potate

*from my email*

The drive to Saskatoon wasn't really that bad. I've been in an outlying place so far so 2 hour drive is like nothing now. But, the fun part about it was that I was with three other guys that came out with me and it was all our first legit transfer. Also we got to drive the truck which was so much better than a tiny subaru. Since I had to go to Regina first it took a little bit longer than 5 hours to get there. 

Basically what happened was I went to Regina thursday night stayed the night in the Lewvan apartment with Elder Elwood. Which is always fun. But, in the morning I took all my belongings and went to the stake center. We then loaded everything up and we left to the Stoon (Saskatoon). We got there at around lunch time and I found Elder Stevens and we stayed for a little bit then left. It then took us about two hours to get to the Battlefords because we had low visibility. It was a fairly long day of traveling but it was nice because I got to catch up with people and meet some new people.

Tis the life of a missionary

So... I'm getting transferred out of Yorkton... It's been a great 6 months on the 19th but all good things must come to an end. It is time to begin at a new place in the mish. I'm getting transferred to Battelfords. It's basically a banishment which I am ok with that. Outlying is the way to go in this mission if you ask pretty much everyone. I'm going to be 2 hours north of Saskatoon or Stoon as we like to call it. If any of you are familiar with the province of Saskatchewan that is dang fetching far North ;) So yeah the next time I email it'll be from the far north.

Other than that the good news for the week is the family of five did indeed get baptized and it was a wonderful experience. I was so glad to be a part of it :) We were also able to get one of our investigators to it and also to the confirmation which was up on the Cote reserve an hour away. It made it even better that our Mission President was there and straight up told her that she was going to be baptized very soon. It was a great experience.

Sorry for the short email again. It's been a crazy day with everything happening. I'll send some pics though. they are worth a thousand words :) Love youz

I'm not dead yet

Sorry but this one is just going to be to tell y'all that I'm not dead. I spent a little bit too much time on emailing specific people who emailed me so whoops. I would like to drop the bomb that in our district we're going to be having a baptism of a family of five so that's great :D Oh also I met Mart mcmorely or something like that. He was a player for the Edmonton Oilers and he was a back to back Stanley cup champion with Wayne Gretsky. So WOOO :)

Love you all. have a great week without 70 k winds like I'm having :)

Pure Water

So since I'm pulling up a blank as to what happened this last week I'll start with a highlight of this week. So as background the water in Yorkton is terrible. It smells of chlorine and has made me sick a few times.. not too terribly sick but it's not fun. Anywho we were getting sick of it so we made some calls and got a jug of water approved. Not like a jug that i'm used to back in Utah but a five galloner that we can refill every time we need it. There is a lot of people around here that have already gone this way and we were just behind the bandwagon a little cause you know, poor missionaries. But, having this "reverse osmosis" water has been wonderful.

Another fun thing that happened was yesterday during church I had a lesson. It was supposed to be the fifth sunday Branch Presidency combined lesson but they delegated it to me the day before I gave it :) Lot's of fun :) But the highlight of it was that we did a roleplay like missionaries do all the time but with part of the branch. It was a lot of fun and they really got into it :) I was glad that I thought to do that :) 

Also another fun story. So there I was... since I'm the only missionary that has piano button pushing expertise. I was playing the piano for that meeting and Elder Cox was conducting. He was dead tired from exchanges so he was out of the loop so after the third verse of the song he shuts his book up pushes down the stand and gets ready to sit down. I was taken back by this and forgot to press the button for the fourth song so I said "Elder Cox we have another verse" fairly loudly so everyone heard. At this point Brother H. was just keeling over laughing his head off. It was pretty bad but it was fun to talk about after it was all over :) 

That's all I got it's a quick one this week. BTW we actually had above freezing weather this week

 \m/ -__- \m/

 WOOO! it was good :) Love you all ;) Potatoes gonna potate