Elder Joe Sopal -Toronto Canada Mission: Transfer 17 Week 5

Well everybody for starters I know how much all of you loved emailing me and sending me letters. I thank you all for the love and appreciation and support you have shown me over these two years. I would ask that you do not send any snail mail to the mission office or to my apartment. Thank you. So this will be the 2nd last report I send home. This transfer has been wonderful and a blessing from God. I have grown so much and been able to just work so hard and be able to see miracles come to pass. Last Sunday by complete miracle from God, Shemar, Monica, and Mallory all came to church out in Peterborough. It was a great meeting and we got to bond over a nice picnic at the Peterborough zoo. It was fun to be able to slide down a long slide there haha. Oh what it is like to be kids again. We had spent a few days taking sometime to call a lot of the members out in Peterborough and invited a ton of the YSA. Sadly we only had one show up from the area and she was aawesome! She even agreed to come out to YSA activities more! It was a great time bonding with the members and getting to know them so we can be able to help them in their own testimonies and help them to share the gospel. I have loved being able to focus more on the whole work of Salvation. A lot missionaries will get caught up with baptism but I know that that is not exactly our purpose. Our purpose is to help people to progress towards the next saving ordinance so they can continue to live and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel being Faith in Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It has been so much fun working with members whom are trying to grow in their faith and help them to see how the gospel can really apply to them and help them overcome the challenges they face! Oh how grateful I am for the people I have met and how I have seen the Spirit and the gospel help them. Monday and Tuesday we started our week with a great start and had 4 friend present lessons! We got to teach Monica and Mallory! So Monica had been praying about a date and she wanted to tell us her experience. She had wanted to do the 20th of September! We were so happy! One neat miracle was that we had planned on last Thursday to help her work towards September 20. The Spirit is definitely inspired haha. So cool how the Spirit helped all three of us understand when she would be ready by. I am so sad that I will not get to see her and Mallory's baptism but I hope and pray that by some odd chance maybe I will be able to come back for it haha. It is so crazy how you just wanna help these people and how you come to love them. I have never loved anybody as the people that we are working with and have in the YSA ward. Donovon one of our other invs has been doing well. We seem to be finding a lot of people in very similar situations. He was supposed to be baptized but sadly did not make it. So we will continue to work with him but I find it interesting how all of the most solid people we are working with are member referrals! I know that that is the best way to do missionary work! That is how we keep people in the gospel when we help our friends receive it. A lot has happened and even yesterday we had 4 people at church. It has been a wonderful experience. I love you all talk to you later sorry bye!