Month 6: Spring & Soup Kitchens

I messed up last week! Sorry haha. This is for week 1 of my 5th transfer! Well Hello to all again! Well my Prince of a companion is with me for another transfer! So I will get the lovely pleasure of serving another transfer with my son. I have come to love my son as one of mine own :) He is my pride and joy! I am surprised how well we get along! I am so grateful i have yet to have one of those companions who gets your flustered by the way he brushes his teeth. So this is one less transfer I could have that happen haha.

Well Niagara Falls is beautiful, what can I say. We have been having awesome Spring Weather with a mix of a crazy blizzard on Wednesday! But now its as beautiful as ever and i am enjoying just wearing my spring jacket. People always said the weather is super different here compared to back at home. But I have come to the conclusion that there is very little difference so take that humidity. So I guess I will do a run down by day and than talk about our investigators. So Tuesday we got to go to the soup Kitchen again! I do apologize for not taking any pictures there. I am most forgetful and lose my marbles a lot! So next time I will take pictures! If I remember. After that we went and did a lot of tracking and OYMing. Wednesday rolled around and we ended up having a crazy snow blizzard day. We being the brave souls ventured out and shoveled people walks and went tracking to get people to take some sympathy on us and let us in! It did pay off as this past week we got 5 new investigators! We went and hung out at Sis De Meels house who is a super sweet, "missionary mom" if you will. She is super nice and really giving. It is always so much fun going over there and chatting with her. We ended up heading back home to park the car and make some calls and sip some nice hot chocolate. Thursday came around and it was nice again. Good old Weekly planning day and we ended up shoveling 4 peoples drive ways! Our backs were killing us! So i have made it my goal to get fit! So now Elder Lowry and I go to the Chapel every morning and we play ball! I have started running lines again and am slowly getting back into shape. So that plus shoveling equals death haha. 

Friday came up quite fast which was our District Meeting. It was awesome our new District Leader is Elder Cowley back from Windsor! We were so happy to be re united! So now in my district we have Elder Cowley, Elder Judd from Strathmore Alberta!, Elder Reranus, and Elder Roberts back from Windsor days too! It has been awesome having this sweet district! Anyways it was a good district meeting! I got to play piano for the hymns and it actually was not to bad! So I am definitely getting better. For dinner Friday we got to go over to the Brogans and have a delicious meal. Sis. Brogan is super sweet and owns her own antique store which is pretty awesome. So her house has lots of cool old stuff in it. 

Saturday was upon us. This Saturday we got the great privilege of moving someone in Fort Erie. So in the morning we moved a member. It was a TON of heavy stuff. I had to carry this tv cabinet that weighed probably a ton, all by myself and keep it from falling down the stairs. I had never sweated so much in my life! But man I was so dead after that move. We destroyed our backs, Elder Lowry always let me take all of the weight. But he helped move stuff none the less. As we continued on our day of moving we actually ended up getting left behind. We went and had to put some stuff away and the member told us that he would meet us in the front so we did and than he was not there haha. So we got stranded. He had driven home and was told by the people that he had forgotten us. 20 minutes later he was finally back for us and we continued on the move. Then after the move and all that crazy catastrophe we finally headed back to Niagara. 

Before on our trip out to Fort Erie, we had a crazy experience. First off,  the road layout in Ontario is awful! We went driving down the QEW and we accidentally somehow turned onto the Duty-free way and then before we realized it, we were on our way to BUFFALO! We started to cross the bridge and freak out! I was so nervous haha. We finally got a chance to flip a U turn and go back through Canada Customs haha thank goodness we had little to no troubles. So that was pretty exciting. Than we went and had Dinner at the Taylors. We had a delicious Chicken Stir fry! The Sunday we had a pretty good day! We had 2 people at church and we also finished the week with 2 progressing. So we hit S.O.E.! 

So our investigators now, are Velma, Meggaen, Jasmine, Ed, Jim, Sebastian, Cale, Terri, Kayla, and Pat. We have a sweet teaching pool. We also have some awesome potentials Amber and Jessica who we are waiting to see. So this week we had a awesome experience with Velma and Gab. They had an awful day and really just was done with everything. So they came home and decided to read from the Book of Mormon. Their home and their minds were calmed and placed with the feelings of the Spirit, peace and joy. Is that not awesome? I know that the Book of Mormon, if you will let it, will bring you so much peace in your life as you truly read it and apply the teachings in your life. I have seen our investigators literally devour the Book of Mormon and just read pages on pages! They love it. I am so excited when we met with people and they have actually read! It makes the teaching a lot easier and helps show us their real desire to know. This has been Meggaen, Velma, and Jasmine who are all reading up a storm. The Book of Mormon is a book with a promise that all who read it can come to know it is true and will bless their lives for the eternities if they will but pray with faith in Christ, a sincere heart, and real intent. I have seen this promise applied time and time again and the challenge taken. God will always answer our prayers and has answered our investigator's prayers about the Book being true. I know that even for those who are members of the church. Continually apply this promise in your lives to strengthen your testimony of the book of Mormon or any teaching or principle. Than continue onto the pathway of conversion. After we have received a testimony we are now trying to become converted to the Gospel which is where we see a permanent and fundamental change. We see this in our behavior, our willingness to accept and conform to God's will, and to follow the teachings of Christ as closely as we can. 

Now that we have people to work with and people who are progressing we are helping them to receive answers and to set a firm date in mind to work towards for baptism. That is one of the hardest things for me now. Just trying to help people enter into the waters and follow through on it. I know that the Lord will help us do this but it will take patience and diligence on our part. I am so grateful for the progression I have seen in all of our investigators. So this past Sunday was awesome because we had Velma and Maggean at church. I love having investigators there because it gives us more to do and helps us to be more involved in everything! Anyways this has taken me way to long this week :P Love you all and have an awesome week! I will try to keep you all updated on everything! With our progressing Meggaen and Jasmine they have both received answers from God when they prayed :) It was so awesome to hear! So now we need to help them recognize them as such and help them progress. :) 

Well i am rambling a lot but have an awesome week! Talk to you all later! 

Elder Sopal signing off....

Month 6: Bearing Testimony of Faith, Testimony and Conversion

Well this week was definitely a major highlight of my mission! I had a once in an mission life time opportunity. This Saturday we were able to attend a mission conference where Elder David A. Bednar would be instructing us. It was sooooo sweet! We also had 3 general authorities grace us with their presence, Elder Fauster, Elder Suarres, and the presiding bishopric counselor Dean M. Davies. We were asked to prepare by studying three talks about Faith, Testimony, and Conversion. Elder Bednar, even as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, is so humble! He is also So down to earth. He knows his stuff, but he still recognizes how much he needs to learn. He told us a little about what he would do to learn from the scriptures. He goes and re reads a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon where he asks a question, and highlights every thing that relates to a word in the questions or an answer to the question. After he finishes the Book of Mormon he will write a one page summary on the answers to the question he learned from reading the Book of Mormon! This is one of the best ideas ever! I am definitely going to start my own collection when I get back home. He made a joke how his kids wanted to steal his books and read them. But he said that they could not, he would with his last breath strike a match and watch every last book burn before he would pass on from this word. He is so much more personable and friendly as he went on through the meeting. He appeared a lot different from the times he talked on General Conference.

A common theme throughout the entire conference was Go and Do! Many times we pray for something to happen or for some miracle to occur, but we need to pray for the strength to go and do it Now! And to go do it. Faith is a principle of action of going and doing. Many time people will say "If I only had enough faith I would have more success" He says that Faith is not us changing the Lord's will to our will but us Changing our will to follow the Lord! The will of the Lord will happen either way! It was Eye opening for understanding and for ways I can improve myself!

 His first thing he says is "Don't Write down Anything That I say" He goes on and on about Mormon Culture,  or traditions where people write down what the speaker says and not what the speaker means. He explained that he thought it was not the greatest idea. He established something very interesting from the get go. We were to read 3 talks before hand about Faith, testimony, and conversion. Then he let it go around with missionaries raising their hand and speaking about what they were able to learn from the talk. Afterward he would speak about what they said, and summarize it and then expand upon the points he spoke to us about! And Repeat! This was the tone for the rest of the meeting. He talked about the pattern for teaching which he was taking us through. 

He had us prepare and study then he asked us these questions about what we learned from the talks or the material we gave him. Than he would talk about that and expound adding bits of doctrine to it and his own testimony. He would invite us to answer a question of his after we told our insight or our revelation we received. One of my favorite tidbits I learned was that "Faith is action and fear is the opposite to faith and is inaction". This process continued throughout the whole meeting. He asked us what we were learning about how this process worked and then the last hour was on our questions we had for him and the other seventies. This conference focus was on faith and using our faith to be agents and act rather than be acted upon. He would never make us do something we did not want to nor did he make any other person answering the question do it. He invited them to do it making them agents for themselves. This is exactly what we need to do in all our situations we are in whether it be parenting, teaching investigators, or teaching a class. We must have the students become agents rather than objects waiting to be acted upon. I would encourage you all to read these talks and than to strive to apply this process of teaching! He also talked about playing the "dopey guessing game". Another part of Mormon culture is where in class you play guess what is in my mind and you have the class or person try to give an answer that you have already formed. He encouraged us to repent and never to do this again :

) I would encourage all of you to get away from this "foolish tradition" and help to make all in your classes agents! I will strive to do my best to not to too anymore! 

Faith: Music With a Message

This conference was something amazing and very influential. I learned A TON! It is truly the Spirit that is the one who teaches us all and the Spirit definitely did edify us! The cool thing about the Spirit was that it carries the truth unto our hearts rather than into our hearts. We must accept and be willing to act on those impressions we receive. Oh man! There was just so much I learned. I can say to you all and to the people of Ontario without a doubt in my mind. We are truly lead by men of God and there are 15 men who are called of God to be Prophet, seers, and revelators. I know they lead us where we need to go and I know that God would never let them lead us astray. I have met these men and I know that they are inspired men of God who can commune and receive revelation directly from God. I am so grateful for them and they knowledge and counsel they impart to us! No one can tell me these men are not of God. I also got to shake hands with and stand face to face to Bednar. It was some of the coolest moments I will treasure forever. After the conference we went and had a huge missionary luncheon and than we took a posterity pictures. It was awesome to see missionaries I had not seen since the beginning of my mission. The drive back was not to bad and pretty great! 

So this past week was good. We now have 3 progressing invs. Meggaen, Janus, and Velma! It was awesome to see these amazing people exercise their faith to start to make covenants with our Heavenly Father. Meggaen is still reading and learning like crazy! We are so excited to be able to help her in learning more about her Father in Heaven and helping her to receive answers from Him. It is so awesome to see investigators take the invitation to pray and ask with so much desire and than to have the experience where He does answer them. Janus is our Chinese friend. He has been living in Canada for 2 years now and is still learning English even though we think he speaks it pretty dang good! We got to take him on a church tour this week and he LOVED our church and the pictures. He also loved the idea of finally being able to be baptized and whipped out his phone and set a date for himself to be baptized on Apirl 20! We were super excited! Than Velma too is working towards her date! She is down to smoking only a few a day and we are excited to help her with the quit smoking program! This program is a missionary program and I have seen it work to help so many people to overcome this harmful addiction. Velma is so happy to be able to quit and work towards quitting for her own health and the Baby. It has been a great week being able to help them learn more and to help them to recognize the Spirit more easily in their lives. 

This week was another awesome one as we hit SOE again! I am so grateful for the Lord making it possible for us to see so much success these past two weeks. We had a ton of Dinner appts this past week which helped the week go by quicker! Monday night we of course do our weekly dinner at the Poulins! It was of course another great time! I got made fun of for spilling the spaghetti sauce on my collar after saying I have yet to do it. We got to celebrate St Pattys day by eating a very green supper! It was for sure an evening of fun! I think this is the one night I always look forward to the most! There's not to many other times during the week where I laugh as hard as I do on Mondays. 

So something funny that I have been doing since it has been snowing her a ton but now I cannot since the snow is gone is parking on huge snow banks and making Elder Lowry climb over them. He always gets a good laugh out of it as I continue to do it sometimes and make him work to get out. 

Other times I have been easier on him and let him out before we park. Just a funny side note. On Sunday we got to have Stake Conference in Hamilton! We drove up with the Poulin's to it. We had Bishop Dean Davies come to speak to us there. It was a super good meeting and awesome because we had people there! The ride up to Hamilton was great as we discussed what we all learned from Elder Bednar the previous day and other affairs.  It was kinda squishy but a fun ride. Ian is pretty awesome! We just talked the whole time coming back about his many adventures. Its fun to be with that family as there is never any quiet time. That evening I decided to make supper for my companion and man was it ever good! We finished off the week with some amazing food! It was one of the better fun filled weeks of my mission! Well this is our week sorry it is all over the place but it was a sweet one! Love you all and have an awesome week! 

Love Elder Sopal! 

I got a letter from another Missionary Mom

As Elder Joe's mom, I obviously think about him often and boys don't always share concerns and worries by letters.  I was overjoyed to get a letter from another mom who is is Elder Joe's ward who has been watching out for him.  here is what she wrote:


 I am a missionary mom here in St. Davids, one of many in in our ward.  Lots of moms have sent sons off on missions so they are very kind to our missionaries especially to outstanding ones like your son.  Your son is a fireball and quite a contrast to the last few we have had here.  He is doing an amazing job of training Elder Lowry who makes a great companion to your son.  We are hoping they did not get transferred, he sent your e-mail address so I am assuming he would have told me if they had been transferred but then they are men......  

Your son is so organized and determined in his missionary role and can't do enough for our ward.  They have a few people they are teaching and very excited about their progression.  I buy milk and bread and sometimes fruit and vegetables for our guys every week to help with their budget and pass along coupons for the fast food places, not good I know, however , they are well fed in our ward AND they get donations of food from R.S. sisters.  They have been here for meals lots of times since arriving here and love to visit with us.  My husband being a non-member is golden to them to talk to (he attends church weekly and supports me 100% plus) so they have a great excuse to drop by.  They had dinner here a couple of nights ago and we all had dinner together at my friends last night, one of the best cooks in our ward I must say and her husband is Stake President so also a solid place to visit.  They gave (led by your son) an excellent message after dinner last night that had my husband mesmerized and participating.  

I had asked your son, if he had run into any "young" new missionaries and he told me he was one of them, guess that answered my question, I would not have guessed.  Elder Lowry is a more mature "older" missionary so they are a dynamic duo.  They get to visit with Elder Bednar next weekend at a special conference we are having here leading up to Conference in April so that will be quite a thrill, our conference will have the first Bishopric attending so that will be amazing for us. 

 So I will keep you posted about your sons experience here from a missionary mom's perspective and so grateful he is serving here in our area.  He is a great young man and will be greatly rewarded for serving the Lord with such passion and fortitude.  Cheers,  Norma de Meel

Month 6: Birthdays and Bednar

 Hey Everyone!

Well another transfer has come to pass! As always with transfer calls being last night i was super nervous and just could not focus. Well turns out I am going to Timmins!!!! Jokes. We did not receive a call at all. So Elder Lowry, my son, will be staying with me for one more transfer at least. This past week was awesome! We had a solid week. We are now back to finding 5 new investigators and tearing it up! This past week we met Jessica who is just starting her family. She has a little boy who is 3 years old and is living in St Cats. She is super nice and we saw her walking in the parking lot so we ran to talk to her! Talking with everyone pays off! She is super excited to learn how her family can be together forever and has wondered whats inside those big beautiful buildings we build ( Temples). We also picked up Pat as a new investigator who was a former. He is an older gentleman from England. I love Pat he has the best stories. It is always so much fun going over and chatting with him and hearing the stories hes got for us. We struggle with being able to teach our lessons haha because he LOVES talking. Sometimes I feel like he just wants to talk because he is lonely. We love Pat anyways though. Jasmine and Meggaen are both doing awesome! Jasmine has been reading A TON from the Book of Mormon and asking so many good questions. Jasmine and Meggean will be coming to church this next Sunday! We are so excited for this coming Sunday as we might have a few more people at church. We also have Velma who is a referral from a member. She is reading and praying about the Book Of Mormon and she is coming to church. She this past week asked us to be baptized! So we will try to help them overcome their concerns and prepare for baptism! I really hope all the people we have thus far will continue to progress. Than we have Terri who is apart of a part member family. He has been really wanting to learn all he can about the Plan of Salvation and also temple work! We are just trying to help him understand the need to perform ordinances in this life rather than wait for the Spirit World. I love all the people we are working with and love being able to have people to teach and help progress. 

Well this past week was the last week before transfer calls. Monday night i got to celebrate my b day at the Poulins. I am sure the pictures made it on facebook. It was fun they got me some cute presents and some yummy chocolate! Than we did our lovely object lesson! We have been having fun playing with fire! I will try to send my family a video of my awesome trick I do for a cool baptism object lesson!  I am running slowly out of object lessons so if anyone has some good ones let me know! They are an awesome family! We love going over to their house and just talking and being with them. They are all so kind and treat us like there own. I love that family! It is always memorable when we go over. When we go over its funny how it can get loud and we always end up picking on Olivia. Last time Erica, one of their daughters, and I teased Olivia about not liking Grape Juice. We just enjoy ourselves.

got a pair of his favorite socks

blowing out the candles

gifts

Elder Magnum & Elder Joe

Tuesday came and we got to go on exchanges. I got to go with Elder Magnum. We stayed in our area while Elder Lai and Elder Lowry walked around Niagara as either of them drive. Elder Magnum and I went around St Cats all day. We had a good morning of studying Chinese! I now know how to say "Hi, how are you in Chinese?" It was always awe inspiring as i watched Elder magnum contacting Chinese people and I would just stand there with my mouth closed and smiling because I knew nothing! I do not think I have ever felt more useless than that on my mission. By the way my Spanish is coming a long nicely. I was able to contact someone in Spanish the other day and go through the first vision and so on and invite them to learn more. It was pretty cool! Elder Lowry was not expecting it. Anyways we had a great exchange that was where we picked up Pat and Jessica and talked to a ton of people. It is so cool how God will put people into your path as you show your faith by planning the night before to work around specific names. We also got to met a pretty cool less active member who is trying to come back his name is Andrew. He has two kids and is a RC. He has a lot of really cool tattoos. It is always fun asking people stories of why they got that one or that one and it is always an interesting answer. It was fun serving with Elder Magnum for that day though. 

Elder Lai

Sunday was good as we had a few people at church and it was a little warmer that day. This week it is supposed to be colder which I am not looking forward too but oh well. On March 22 we will get the amazing privilege of meeting and hearing from Elder Bednar! I am super excited for that day! Well to all who have read this I hope you have had an awesome week! And I hope you will continue to have a great day or night or week or month! I love you all dearly and know that I miss you all! Your all amazing and so supportive! Thank you to all who have written to me and sent me things! Love you all! 

Elder Sopal signing off....

Week 24: Frozen Falls and Mormon Music

 Hello to all!


Well this is the last week of this transfer! So crazy! Time has flown by sooo fast. I have felt like I have been here so little time. I have come to love Niagara Falls so much! The people here are so nice compared to Windsor :P haha jokes they are maybe a bit more nicer haha. it has been pretty cold. We had a slow first few days but Tuesday came and we got to go to the soup kitchen again. We have always enjoyed going there and its awesome being able to talk with all the old ladies. They still call us hun or hunny haha. 

Tuesday night we got to teach Mary, the new member lessons and went over the temple and the Plan of Salvation. It was a super good lesson. We all had a full stomach as our Ward Mission Leader fed us! He made us steaks! I have not had steaks in soooo long. The food here has been so good. The members are so giving and caring. It makes focusing on the work a lot easier. So i cannot complain about the food. 

On Wednesday we went contacting down at the falls. It was fun to see so many people again and talk to so many people. We talked to a lot of foreign people! I love going around and contacting. When we contact we are to ask a question to them which we can teach and testify to. The trick is using the Spirit to ask a question that is inspired and from heaven. Elder Lowry was having trouble keeping up to me in talking to people. It was funny to watch him for the first little bit chase after me as I ran to person from person contacting them. Well I have gotten over 7000ish people now I believe or actually more than that. My journal is at home so I cannot remember the actual number. 

We got to go over to the Oliver's for dinner. They made a delicious dinner and then we had a quick Spiritual thought and we were off. My new favorite scripture is found in Moroni 10:32.
" 32 Yea, and come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."


I love how this Gospel is one of change and one of progression. That if we are not growing or stretching what are we doing with our faith? Are we just putting off trials or not letting ourselves be molded into who God wants us to become through our beliefs. Progression is the key to salvation. If we have no progression we do not learn. We hinder ourselves and deprive ourselves of the joys in life we can experience from progression. It is so true that when we serve God with all our heart, might, mind and strength we get the most out of what we are doing. i have seen that in my missionary work as i am striving to become consecrated. I am so grateful for Christ and that even though we are imperfect through him we can be made perfect. 

After this we packed our bags and headed off to Stoney Creek for the night to stay there before we headed out to London for Zone Conference. That night was fun as we got to go driving in a blizzard and white out ( which reminded me more of home haha). We jammed out to Mo-tab and other christian music! Elder Lowry and I make the best Singers. We got our snacks for the road from McD's. When we got there we got to hang out with Elder Cragun and Elder Roberts. It is so interesting being able to see other missionaries apartment and how clean ours is compared to theirs.
  

Niagra Falls (February 2014)

  Thursdaywas Zone Conference. We had zone conference which was awesome this week! It was really energizing! We had demonstrations of using members to help get investigators fellow shipped, we had role plays that were about contacting and striving to use family history to try and find the interest rate of multiple people. It was awesome! One of my weaknesses in missionary work is using family history. I have never really used family history in my contacting approaches but hey it must be inspired! So we are excited to try it out more and learn how to talk to people about family history stuff. It is nice approach I think because it allows us to talk about their families and the importance to them. It has helped us get into some doors of different people that otherwise we could have not got into. It is awesome to see that so many people still value families and that they really do want happiness, peace, and joy for their families. It is always my favorite part when we let them know they could be with their families forever. Some people really do ponder that and than they ask us how and it has provided for some great opportunities to relate the gospel and share about the Plan God has given us. I really enjoyed Zone Conference, I always have. Unfortunately we did not have an apostle come or anyone. But on March 22 we get to have an apostle come to talk to the whole mission! I am so excited for that day! I wonder who it will be! The possibilities could be endless. 

We spent pretty much all day sitting and learning and all that good stuff. We learned and got to know more of the history of why the church was restored in 1800s and learn more of the apostasy and the Godhead. it is interesting to note and to read the Nicean Creed. All those who are not familiar with it I would encourage you to read it and to know it as it helps us to build an understanding what all the other christian churches accept as their fundamental doctrine upon the Trinity. I would invite you all to study the Apostasy and the Godhead. There is so much to learn from those topics. I love the history aspect of it and have all the dates memorized and the events that lead up to the restoration. I know the Apostasy did happen and all that I learned helped me to re-affirm my testimony that there was no other way or time for the restoration of the Gospel to come about. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God and that he indeed did restore those plain and precious truths that were lost during the Apostasy like the roles and understanding of the Godhead. It was fun to see all the missionaries there too!  I love the Spirit that comes from being surrounded by so many missionaries! We were feeling the Spirit every single second of the day. After that day was over we headed back to Niagara. It was a nice long drive but we had been sitting for too long. Elder Lowry and I were ready to go out and work.

  Friday came and the weekend came and we had not found any new investigators yet. It was kinda slow. But we saw some huge miracles this weekend. We got to met with a guy named Trevor who is 21 and in college. He is super nice and his family is super awesome! they invited us right in after awhile of tracting. It was nice to warm up and teach some nice people. Than we also got to teach Jasmine! Bro Miller called us the night before and set up an appt at his place which was super awesome! We got to teach her in a members house and the Spirit was super strong. It was nice to be able to do so and see her readiness to hear the gospel and to really want to follow it in her life. She is younger and is about 17. She had no religious background but wanted to find out more about who Jesus Christ was and is. Since than she has been so solid as a investigator. She loves the Book of Mormon and is reading it everyday. Our next investigator was Velma. A less active member from Nova Scotia had been trying to get a hold of us for awhile and we did not know that. He had the wrong number so the Bishop called us and told us about him and so the Sunday evening we taught him and his girlfriend Velma. She too is super prepared and really nice. She has a huge eastern accent. She and her lovely boyfriend will come to join us at church next Sunday. She also asked us to be baptized! So we are hoping that she will progress towards that. On Saturday we went around and taught Lisa who has finally acknowledged that she needs to be re baptized and so we are awaiting her to pick a date and go on from there. We are so happy that the Lord has finally blessed us this past week with such a good weekend! I am so grateful for the miracles we have seen this weekend. Well that was our week :) I love you all and hope you have an awesome week! I will tell more stories about the investigators next week! Love you all and everyone be HAPPY!


While walking to a few locations in this frozen iceberg area of a city I had this poem come into my mind:


Step by Step, a fellow's shout
free from pain there is no doubt
Lord, Lord stay Thou near by.
Reminds me of a prayer once said
of a young boy pleading on his bed
Lord, Lord stay Thou near by.
Through all the world there are perilous times
frozen with fear the wind still chimes
Lord, Lord stay Thou near by.
Walking by faith I don't completely understand
my personal course on the Lord's plan
Lord, Lord stay Thou near by.
A testimony that comes from the heart
A man with a black tag willing to do his part
Lord, Lord stay Thou near by.
A son giving willing to be heeding
by his father all the time pleading
Father, Father stay Thou near by.