Elder Joe Sopal -Toronto Canada Mission: Week 7: Hats and Exchanges

Haha nope no snow not yet :P It has been getting a little chilly but not bad.

So we got a new investigator this past week :) Her name is becky and her daughter is Emma. Her daughter got her interested in religion as she wants to find a chruch for her daughter to be raised in. She wants to come to Church next Sunday and has been taking the lessons really well. She does not know much about religion or Jesus so we started from ground zero and it has been so cool seeing her start to grow a testimony of Jesus Christ and God and growing that relationship. We had a lesson this past week about the plan of salvation! It was so solid cause she had some past trials that really made the Plan of Salvation hit home for her! I love seeing the needs of the investigators met by the gospel of Jesus Christ. She had a baptism date set for Nov. 24 which I am excited to see happen.

So this week I went on two exchanges. One out to Leamington and one out to Chatham. The first one was with Elder Steele who is a sweet humble old missionary! He has been out for a year and a half. He is pree awesome in that he is super knowledgeable about missionaries and does spanish work. So he talked a lot about growing as a missionary and how to react to rejection and concur our troubles. He gave a lot of good advice. It was a pleasure to serve with him. So in his apartment his shower has a huge hole in the wall and is quite gross. Man some missionaries apartment are having trouble keeping them clean lol. But they had a piano and it was fun to play that and the ukelele.

Next exchnage I went out to serve with Elder Carter! He is super nice and pree cool! He does spanish work too. We did a lot of drop bys and talked to a bunch of spanish people. We taught a less active who is quitting smoking! It was cool to see that change he is making and how the atonement of Christ is helping him. They have a super nice apartment and also have some work out machine as well as leamington but for some reason we dont oh well. It was fun being out in Leamington because there is both a lot of Spanish people and Jamaicans.

Well this Saturday was the most interesting and unfortunate day. We exchnaged back saturday morning and went out to Mcds for lunch it was delicious! Then we went to teach Grazyana! It was a good lesson we helped her to finally come to a realization of the Godhead and how they are separate beings and also really pray and ask God if the Word of Wisdom is of God. We are enjoying teaching her and really trying to get her ready for baptism! After her we started over to a mebers place to go see how they were doing and taught about the importance of scriptures and how we show our love for God by reading his words.

After this visit we started off on our journey from downtown Windsor we were cruizing on our bikes going pretty fast when Elder Koceja hit a bump and started having troubles riding. He looked back and said he popped his tire on a huge bump that he rode over. Soon after him telling me I noticed my own tire flat as can be and now just riding on the rim. Elder Koceja and I rode 5 kms back to our apartment. We had no choice and had to get back to go to a members for dinner as we did not want to miss it. Our luck had been depleted and it started raining as we rode back home. That evening we had some delicious pizza! It was so good I missed having pizza. After we went and knocked on the huge houses along the Detroit River that are like million dollar summer homes.

One other exciting experience was yestorday we had two lessons where we had 5 rpls which are when people come and join in the lesson to our investigator! So we taught a bunch of people! They all came to listen. We taught a decent plan of Salvation lesson to some high school students at their house and they asked some solid questions. We are trying to help them establish a relationship with God. After we met this guy named Scott who had gotten into some anti material. So Elder Koceja and I were preapred for the worst. But it turned out to be a super infortmative lesson as we talked and discussed and bore testimony of the truth of our Church and the Doctrines. After the lesson we asked if they would read the Book Of Mormon and pray about it! Scott said no way haha but his wife Julie and his daughter Jade asked for a hard copy and really was interested as they both felt the spirit so strong during us talking! We left quickly while the spirit was still there! It was great!

Well that is all for this week! Kind of a boring week! But man I am loving the mission. It is great here. I would not want to do anything else but this. I love the people here I am meeting and serving. We are going to find people next transfer and this one and help them come unto Christ and enter the waters of baptism!!!!! I am so excited to be serving with Elder Koceja we are hitting it off while and teaching like bosses.

Well Till next week all! Have a great week and love you all!!!!!!!