Transfer 5 Week 5

So anyways to catch up on the last little bit of past week. I loved conference this past past week! It was honestly sooooo good. I learned a ton from it. Something that has been sticking out to me the past little while is how important covenants are. By studying my covenants I have made in my life up to this point has really influenced my testimony and understanding of the Gospel. I am so grateful for the time I had taken to study this out. Some of my favorite talks this past conference were Henry B Eyring's, Richard G. Scott, Ronald A Rasbands, Dallin H. Oakes, and m Russell Ballard. I really enjoyed the Follow up story Elder Ballard shared. As a missionary I had a good chuckle. So during the Saturday session we went and got lunch and than came back. it was nice to sit down and enjoy the shows that played during the sessions. Elder Lowry and I had the chapel all to ourselves so i went up to the front and played hymns well practiced playing them! I am slowly but surely getting better each time I play. The afternoon session was really good but we almost missed it! One of the members who we will not name came to join us at the church. She came in and we were like oh shut we do not have another mail here. So we decided to go outside and do some laps around the church waiting for members to show up. Thank goodness someone did! So we missed the first 5 mins. But man I treasure conference time! As I have said in the past as a missionary conference becomes so engaging and I just crave every word! I hope I can take the captivation I have acquired to conference back home with me! So in the evening we had a delicious steak dinner at the church for the Priesthood! Sunday was quite good! We ended up having Janus at church and more members came for the morning session. I thought we might have another Windsor moment where they were more missionaries than members haha. We got to go out on Sunday in between sessions to visit with Scooter and the Smith family. It was really nice because they are actually from High River. They have been here for about a year and a bit. They also lived in Okotoks too for awhile. It was exciting to find out that they knew many of the same people that my family does and they loved Bishop Hershey from the High River ward. So it was cool because my aunt is his daughter! Anywho it was a good time talking with them about Southern Alberta. It actually made me miss home quite a bit. We had a pretty good ending of the week though.

Well this week now. So Monday we went hiking and visiting some water falls! We got bored and decided to go on an adventure and so some of those pictures i sent out from the water fall hike haha. I will maybe send some other pictures to you all. Man it was so awesome! We went to the Devil's punch bowl and also Albion falls. I enjoyed Albion falls better because we went and stood in the water fall! Well just put our feet into it. Elder Cowley and I enjoyed playing at the falls.

Tuesday we had the weekly soup kitchen! I actually remembered to get photos this time! I get to wear that classy apron every time. At District Meeting, we had a good old guilt trip discussion. So as a missionary you will be presented with some of the following: The Parable of the Lamps, The Consecrated Missionary, and the 4th missionary. As you read from these you will call yourself to repentance and want to do better. So this is what I am trying to do in my life and consecrate myself and become a better missionary. Thursday brought weekly planning again. Friday was a very quite day as we did a TON of finding. oh ya btw! I have had talked to over 9000 :P i looked this morning but i forget the exact number. Saturday we went to help a member with their basement and clean it out. They had a flood down there. Sunday was a decent day we only had Scooter and the Smith's come to church which was nice to have them there :)! 

This week was another great week. We kind of had a slower one but it was not to bad. So this past week was a little bit slower but Sunday we got to see Scooter and the Smith's. We had a solid lesson with them and talked a ton about concerns with the church. I was surprised that the lesson went that well. Scooter is awesome! At the age of 4 she was drawing out the Plan of Salvation! We love teaching her. Janus is doing well this week too. We are trying to help him prepare for baptism but he has yet to get his answer. We are struggling to help him find his answer but we hope God and I trust God to help us! Velma and Gab are doing great they are moving right alone! We found out they should be able to get married real quick! So we are excited for them to get married and than for Velma to get baptized! We were able to reconnect with Jasmine this past week so we hope to be able to met with her and help her to progress in her learning of the Gospel! It was so awesome we found out she has still been praying every day! It is so awesome to have people change and see their change to come closer to Jesus Christ. So ya that's a little bit about our invs this week. We sadly won't have a baptism before the end of the transfer but hopefully we can leave some baptisms for the next missionaries to come into here. We are excited for this week as we should pick up 8 new invs for our lack of new people to teach this week. Well I have really come to love this area and the people I have met! I am so grateful for this transfer as it has helped me to really become a better missionary and a better witness of the truth! I also had the chance to memorize My missionary commission! It has definitely helped shaped my understanding of who I am supposed to be. We literally are servants of Jesus Christ selected personal by revelation to come to this area. To do and say what Christ would do if he was here personally ministering to the people whom he has sent me to. I am so grateful for all the people I have met thus far and for their testimonies and for the experiences I have been able to have. I know this gospel is true. I know without a doubt in my mind that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, whom through him the Gospel and the church was restored to the Earth in this last dispensation. I know that Jesus Christ is the son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world and mine own personal Savior. I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of him and I have found great strength and found my testimony growing as I have read from it! I love you and if any of you wish to grow your testimony and have the Spirit witness the truth of what I have shared unto you, pray about it. Love you all bye!

Transfer 5 Week 4

Well this week was another awesome week! We were able to raise our vision again. We achieved Standards of Excellence again! This week was super spiritually tiring. So starting with Monday we had did not have our weekly dinner with the Poulin's sadly. So we were quite sad. But than we went over to the wonderful Atkins. Bro Atkin's is a awesome! He is much younger and crazy than he looks. So its always a hoot when we go over to see them. Dinner was delicious and than it was off back home to do some good old 12 week. Tuesday was our soup Kitchen day. But it was also April fools! So we decided to play a joke on Elder Lowry and than we went and played a joke on Elder Cowley and Judd. We bought some silly string and we went and tag their car! It was so funny. They were so confused at first who did it and when we got out of our meal appt they sent us a text saying, "well played boys." haha Elder Lowry and I had a great laugh about it. I will send some pics sometime soon of this event. Dinner at the Mills was super good! I had my first chicken fingers on my mission. I was quite enthused. After we almost burned her daughters hand off with our object lesson of faith. I love doing my object lessons! After we went over to visit Velma and Gab. We found a quad in our appt and we brought it to them! They were so happy. It was like kids on Christmas. Velma has been doing awesome she has been off the smoke for awhile now and she sees the blessings of it! So Elder Judd got the most pranks played on him we froze his sheets and put princess sheets on his bed haha. it was quite a funny day and joke. Wednesday came and we had a decent morning. We had dinner at the Oliver's. Than we ran over to the church and taught Janus. Than we participated in young mens. It was fun as we played table tennis and basketball. It was a ton of fun. We have so much fun playing with the young men and Olivia came and joined us too. It was a good time. Thrusday was not to bad. Friday we had Zone Training in Hamilton. The fog was super thick but it was a really good time there! Saturday was conference and I will comment on conference next week! But we are going hiking cya all! have a awesome week! love you all!

Month 6: Dinner Appointments & Night at the Falls

Well this week was great! We entered into it with such a Spiritual high from Elder Bednar and our huge mission conference. Monday eve was another great night at the Poulin's! So, Ian held us for ransom to take him to his house and in exchange for dinner. So we got there and all the girls abandoned us to go see Sis. Clarkstone and see her dress! So they came back and we had some delicious tacos! Plus we had homemade pizza. It got loud again that evening. We got into some discussion about who Ian's wife would be and planned out who he would marry and how he would find her. It was fun planning wife planner haha. We continued to talk about a ton of stuff and enjoy some good conversations. After we did our object lesson on repentance! It worked super well before we did it there and then when we went to  go and do it, it failed! It did not become completely dry :( I was so sad! It would have been the best! I will have to show you all some of the awesome object lessons I am learning out here.

Tuesday rolled around and another day at the Soup Kitchen! Man time just keeps flying by. I love serving and talking to all the people there. We met this lady outside who said we could not talk to her and we had to stay 100m away because she got into a court case with the church and some other stuff. We kind of laughed and keep going. So far this was a first for me but an interesting encounter.

Wednesday was one of the best district meetings ever! I will send pics but we bought swords and a dragon fruit! We got Elder Lowry a comfy chair and set it up around a round table! It was so awesome! Then we had district meeting and it was good as we talked about what we learned and remembered from Elder Bednar's address. It was awesome! I played the opening and closing song on the piano! I am slowly getting better and faster at playing it.

That evening we had dinner with the Williams! They are a super nice older couple. She made a delicious chicken dinner with mash potatoes, salad and everything! i swear if we keep eating like this we are so going to get fat! Than we had Ward Council after and we had to book it to the Church. Lately we have been struggling with arriving right on time so we usually have a plus or minus two ETA. Ward Council is always awesome because of Bro. Sager he makes everyone die with laughter. We always look forward to this evening as we get some good laughs. After we helped set up for the RS and YW broadcast on Saturday. Than we had some fun driving home and we raced someone! It was fun to do with Tiwi :) Surprisingly Tiwi did not get mad at us much! So we just followed them all the way home and we all had a great laugh about it. Thursday came and we woke up and realized yet again it was weekly planning. I feel like just yesterday was weekly planning. But i was so excited for that evening! Elder Cowley and I were to go on exchanges for friday! So we ended up spending Friday together and we all had a sleep over friday night haha. Thursday night we got  to see the Falls with the lights on them! It was sooooo cool! That night we stayed up talking a little too late but it was a good eve.

Friday came and now we got down to work! We ended up getting kicked out of some apartment buildings. Then some others we tracted them out and met some pretty cool people. It's crazy how many of them have such funky smells. There was this one we were trying to get into we had no one who would let us in than we tried the door and it opened! This church is true! We met with Andrew Fraser a less active member who is so sweet. We felt so bad we wrote down his wrong number and he had gotten ready to go to church last Sunday but we could not contact him. So this past Sunday we got him a ride and he LOVED church. He was so excited and really enjoyed us teaching him and talked so much about how we helped him to remember everything he had ever learned.

Elder Cowley had to buy a energy drink because we were so dead then we continued forth to our other appts. We met with Janus at the church with Olivia. She had never gone out with the missionaries before and was really nervous and did not know anything about it. but we talk to her about it all and how awesome and easy it is. So she became super excited and we sat down and began teaching janus, our chinese investigator. He is now one of our progressing investigators. He is still nervous about coming to church but we are excited to help him continue to progress! Well during the lesson it took a turn and we ended up following the Spirit so big on that lesson! Olivia did soooo awesome! She followed the Spirit and did everything to a tee! We decided we would take her out more for how awesome of a member teacher she is.

Right before the lesson her Dad who was in the office four meters away from us texted us asking us to come over for dinner so we did! We decided to have two dinners that day. So we ventured over to the Poulins and had some delicious chicken, with rice, and veggies. It was a nice little dinner around there kitchen island. We talked more about teaching and serving a mission. It was a sweet night. then we ventured over to Velma's and Gab's. She made us "Goulash" or however you spell it, i thought it was called hamburger helper haha. So we ate that and I keep scooping more onto Elder Cowley's plate! We got sooooo full! After that long evening we ended up getting back to our apartment and we were super late so we had a sleep over with Elder Judd and Cowley. Man sleep overs as missionaries are the best! We had a pull out bed and everything so they enjoyed their stay. Well our exchange was fun and we worked hard!

So now about our investigators: Janus is our chinese invs. He is really starting to come along! We have been meeting with him for awhile now and he is really showing so much desire to know if this is what God wants for him. It is so cool to hear how he came from not believing in God to now, where he knows God has a plan for him and he does not want to disobey God. We hope to help him prepare for the 20th for baptism. Meggaen who is an awesome girl! She is still reading up a storm and learning tons. She is like Janus in that she did not really believe in God so we have to try to help her really establish that relationship with God. But other than that Meggaen has enjoyed church and loves the feeling she gets when we met with her. So one of our next steps is just really help her to recognize God is telling her through her feelings and thoughts. This past week we did not have anyone at church sadly other than Andrew. But I am so excited for conference this next weekend! I would invite everyone to prepare for General conference and read Mosiah 2 and then find some things you can do to prepare spiritually for it! I promise you as you do this conference will become more Spiritual and help you to be more receptive to the Spirit. 

Well everyone! have an awesome week! Love you all!