September 26, 2016

So this week there wasn't too much stuff that was out of the ordinary. So I apologize if my weekly isn't as full as it could be. But, There has been some good stuff going on work wise

The first is a part member family that is well on their way to activity and baptism for the two young ones. We were able to commit them to baptism before Halloween. So that's exciting hopefully a good birthday for myself :) But, as part of that lesson because we're teaching two guys ages 8 and 9 we have to keep it entertaining or the younger one will be out bouncing around in the living room. So for our object lesson this time around we did it with balloons. One was filled up with the breath of Elder Moore and the other with water from the tap. The idea is that the one with no substance represents baptism without the gift of the holy ghost and the other with the gift. So the fun part is when the fires of trials (a lighter) come into your life the one with no substance pops. But, when it comes into your life when you've gotten baptized with the proper authority and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. (this is where the audience groans and gets back) The balloon does not pop until after the lesson the kids throw it somewhere outside after getting the dirt bike to run it over :) It was pretty fun :)

We also had an extremely busy day this last week that involved about 5 lessons. Probably the most lessons I've had plus the most that have actually followed through in a row. It was pretty good because we had a member come out with us and we didn't get lunched three times in a row :) It was a good day :) 

We were also privileged to have a member of the district presidency come and talk on sunday and have a potluck after. He gave a great talk about how he as a young convert and branch president came under a lot of fire from his congregation. He was doing the best he could and his wife kept on letting him know that the lord qualifies those he calls. But, because he had only been a convert of a few years and had half of his children in that time period he had a lot to learn. There was a posse of members who came to the Stake President and told him all of the "wrongs" that he was doing and how he needed to do better. The stake president gently told them that he knew all about that because he was in weekly correlation with him and reprimanded them for instead of helping him they were hindering him. This was a shock to him as a young convert and as a branch president and he told us he wondered how he made it through that time but, that the members of the branch did help him out in the end and that now that small branch is close to becoming a ward. It was a good meeting. 

I think that's all I've got. I love y'all and I hope you have a great week. 

I'm Waking Up (to ash and dust)

#radioactive

So this week has been a week of blessings and miracles. A lot of it has come from my triumph over the natural man i.e. waking up right at 6:30 and staying awake. Now you might wonder why such a small thing would yield such large results. I wondered the same thing for a long long time. But, President Craig answered that question of why. 

Doctrine & Covenants 121:45 Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. 46 The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.

So for some reason this clicked. It just fit into place and because I now "the why" I've been doing a thousands times better. Now, has it actually worked? I would say yes. I've seen so many more blessings this week than I have in a long time. A lot of them have come in the form of my confidence waxing stronger and the Holy Ghost being with me so much more. Other ways have been the blessings of getting a great referral from our Branch President and still having investigators that we thought had disappeared. Overall a great week for blessings and a terrible one for yawning ;) 

So now for a couple fun stories. The Fort Frances Elders had a baptism in their branch and it was great to go to :) Elder Tippets who had taught the family came down and it was fun to catch up with him. It's great for their branch because they regularly have only about 11 people who come each week 4 of which are missionaries. We were also all able to go out to the island which is always a fun time. The Zone Lords showed us a tradition that we missed out on because we all whitewashed the area. That was skipping rocks. So now whenever we go we make sure to skip rocks :D

Which brings me to the next part. This last Saturday we had some service out on the island which was a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've done some good service. The first thing that we ended up doing was tearing this chicken wire out of the ground because they had dog runs on the island. The Sister would breed Huskies at a show level and had a few places to keep them. The chicken wire was in the ground so they wouldn't burrow through. But, because they were in the ground and had lake rocks all over them it was a pain to dig out. Eventually I just got a bit angry with them and started tugging at them which ended up working quite well :) The chicken wire acted as a strainer for the rocks which was great. While we were doing that Elder Romeril was out just chopping down dead trees with a chain saw and making them into small pieces. He got permission from President so it's all good :) After that we had lunch which was great as usual and then Elder Romeril and I got to go spelunking. At least it felt like spelunking. So because the house is on an island it gets to bedrock pretty quickly and Elder Romeril and I were the only ones willing to go under the house. I thought it was a lot of fun honestly but we were tasked with insulating some pipes for the water. I'll send some pictures hopefully if my camera charges quickly enough. Overall it was a good day. 

Finally while Elder Moore and I were mowing a members lawn we found a frog. Same as above sending pictures if I can :) 

Overall I rate this week a 5 out of 5 :) It was a good one. I hope y'all have a great week. Potatoes gonna potate

The Burning

So I finally got to burn a shirt. Finally :) It was a small little gathering but all four of us burned our shirts for the first time. It's a bit unique being with people who came out with me again. I'm so used to nearly dead missionaries :) But, I'll be sending pictures and hopefully some sort of video but, if not it'll come home when I send home my sd card.

Another big thing this last week was finding out about how well my previous areas are doing now. There was another baptism in Yorkton with a lady that I tried setting stuff up with her husband. I couldn't believe that it had happened but the angel said Look, and I looked and beheld that it did happen :) It's crazy how well that area is doing now. It was even in Melville who hasn't seen a baptism in years. It's good. Also in North Battleford. There was a less active lady that Elder Wilson and I tracted into who is now having her two kids baptized. I wish I could say that I taught both of those people but, I did not. That being said I'm absolutely positive that I had a guiding and driving influence that led to both of those. It's amazing to see can happen over time. 

We also went into Winnipeg again this week. That drive is a killer. I thought driving 2 hours every other week was hard. It really doesn't stand against 4 and a half hours though... But, It was a good time. We had a wonderful ZedTM put on by our Zone Lords. It was all on stuff that I've been working on so hats off to the mission for being inspired :) After the ZedTM we went to Mongo's which is a Mongolian grill that was soooooo good. I might've got something weird in my food because I was sick for a couple days after but it was worth it. 

Finally this was an exciting one for me. We were able to, over video calls, go to the open house for the Winnipeg Temple. We were able to see the land architecture for the lot that they're going to have it on. One of the things that I really enjoyed about it was the fact that they had a lot of places to park your bikes so it's a lot more community friendly. It's going to be a little larger than the Regina Temple probably mainly because it's got a basement. But, It's the first of it's generation of temples so it's going to have a unique structure when compared to other temples. It's planned to have Tyndall stone which from what I gathered is a local stone to the area. It'll be good :) Sadly, however, it's going to be completed well over a year after I get home... Oh well Just another excuse to make it back up here :) 

That's all I got for now. Love youz and I hope youz have a great week

Thunderstruck

So first of all a shout out to Brady for asking me how we're able to ride a boat in our area and not be in trouble. So basically there's a member who lives out on an island (another reason why I think I-falls is a bayou town misplaced from Florida) and the only way to get to her is by riding a boat. So some mission president ages ago approved the missionaries out here to ride out to her island. We go out there every Tuesday after district meeting for lunch and it's just a good time. Pretty much all of us have decided that we want an island when we get rich :) We're going to be burning shirts out on the island next time that we go there so next week I'll have some good pictures and videos :)

Now for this week. We have been having crazy thunderstorms all week long. Probably nothing like what Elder Andrus went through out in Florida but it's been crazy. One of the nights we were in the apartment and there was flashes every couple seconds and one of the thunder strikes about made me have a heart attack it scared me so bad. I'm also pretty positive if we had an earthquake our apartment wouldn't stand because of how much it shook with just thunder. 

Another highlight of this week was going on exchanges with Elder Talbot. He came out in my group and it's been fun getting to know him. During the exchange we were teaching someone who was very against some sort of religion. He grew up in the LDS church but he fell away when he was 16 so he was getting really riled up. Elder Talbot was sick of him telling us to give our spiel and then interrupting us when we started talking. So he sassed him pretty hard about that and he finally let us talk :) Long story short the next time we saw him he was a different man somehow. I don't know what happened in the time between visits but he really wanted to talk to us for some reason. It was great :)

Another wild thing that happened because of exchanges was when I was on exchanges with Zone Lord Griffin we visited this older guy and he was really distracted but something we said touched him because again he was a different man when we came back. He told us we made him a believer and that he had been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and really felt the spirit of it. It was wild because of how he was the last time we saw him was completely different than when we went back. 

Overall it's been a good week and guess what we're driving four hours to the Peg again this week! Whoo... So probably more stories with that again :) Love youz and have a great week :)