Transfer 13 Week 5

Well man the weeks keep going and going and going! So this week was quite interesting. Come Thursday we got another companion and took over an area in the ward. Elder Paul has come to join our companionship and we have now taken over their area. This was not foreseen nor really planned but it forced us to really rely on the Lord to pull through everything.  Okay so Monday was a pretty good day as we went and got booster juice and a hair cut. I was proud of us for not actually eating Albions at all last week. We are clear that it is not an addiction! We are going today haha. Its been way too long. Tuesday we sat in the doctors office waiting to get Elder Bowman checked out. He got set up with an ultrasound and we are pretty sure he tore something, we think it might be his meniscus. I finally convinced him to get crutches. At first he was awful on them and would trip and almost biff it. But I am pleased to report my companion is now a profession on crutches! When we have to do stairs he automatically hands them to me and than hops up or what not. It has been a great contacting tool for him and actually has helped him to just start talking to more people again. This has helped me a lot and now we are both talking to a TON of people every day. I honestly feel like we are becoming a lot better missionaries as we contact more people. We call it pity contacting haha. Tuesday we ran ESL class! I love helping out at ESL it is so much fun seeing that progression because you can visible see them progress with each class. Teaching is AWESOME! Wednesday we went out and worked. I pushed Elder Bowman a lot actually. He has been such a champ and I admire his determination to continue to serve the Lord despite the challenge he is facing. It motivates me and it is so sweet. I have come to love his dedication to the work. We had family home evening in the evening and learned about how we can better prepare for conference! I am so excited to hear from the Apostles and the Prophet. I love hearing their counsel and I want you to know that I testify to you all that it is from God. They have been called of God and want to help us return to him. They are serving out of their love of God and of all men. I know that the words they speak are the words of God. I would invite all whom has or have not watched conference to tune in and watch it. Bring a question, concerning anything and I  promise you God will answer it. If that does not happen email me and we can talk. I know that our Father in Heaven loves us sooo much!

Thursday was another great day! We had Zone Conference! We drove out to Mississauga and had it there.  In the morning we arrived early so as usual or as business man do in their suits we waltzed into the Tim's and got ourselves some breakfast! I will admit that I am going to miss dressing so classy! The conference was sooo spiritual! We learned about the Law of Justice and The law of Mercy pertaining to the Atonement. President invited us to repent and sin no more. It is always nice to have a friendly reminder and to evaluate yourself. I know that obedience as a missionary is sooo vital, if we are not obedient the Lord will not bless us and we will halt the work of the Lord through us. We reviewed the instruction we received about teaching the Godhead as we finish teaching the lesson to help the individual increase their understanding of it. I have seen the people whom we share this with and the correct understanding progress. People have a new understanding and relationship with their Father. I love how our Father in Heaven is not some unfathomable force or spirit or is some power but he is a literal being whom has a body of flesh and bones that is perfect just as his son also. He is like us and we are like him so that he can help us and bless us. if we did not comprehend one another prayer would be not essential nor profit us at all. At the conclusion of the conference, the departing missionaries bore their testimonies. It is weird seeing some of the missionaries whom I have known for so long are finally going home. This invited the spirit into the meeting so strongly and helped me to receive the answers I needed. We ended with the singing of "I know that my Redeemer lives". The Spirit descended upon the room and my heart felt like it was going to burst. I want to testify to you this day, and oh sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeemer lives. He lives and because of that I and we all can conquer death and overcome the effects of sin. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. 

So from that conference till the end of the transfer Elder Paul one of the missionaries in our ward is serving with Elder Bowman and I now! We are soooo excited to be working with him and are taking over his area too. So we are working on running two areas. I also had two more companionship's entrusted into my care and so we will have a busy week full of exchanges and helping them to move the needle in their areas. So this coming week we have a lot of challenges and things to figure out so we can finish this transfer strong. I pray that God will help us to accomplish this great feat of managing everything. I am so grateful for challenges even though they may be hard, I know that through faith and trust in the Lord we can overcome it and come out successful.  Oh ya one funny comment so we had Stake conference this weekend and I got to see A TON of members from old areas and they all said one thing that was in common, "have you lost weight?" haha. Oh man I guess I am working to hard on my 6 months of sexy. Well everybody I love you and hope you have a great week! Loves!

Transfer 13 Week 4: Birthdays & Albions

Our birthday cake - a few of the elders in our district all had birthdays in the first week of March.

Hey Yall!

the fancy meal from the Eaton centre

Well it has come to that time again, for myself to repent and write a decent weekly email. So in this one I will include pictures and my thoughts from some of my studies this past week! So the joys of the week. Within the ward/district, we had birthdays on the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Elder Bowman is now 20 and myself too. It is pretty cool to finally be over the teens. I am sad though as I have no excuse to be immature anymore haha. On my Birthday I opened a great package from my family and opened my bday presents! Thank you all! Unfortunately it was pretty cold outside and all our appts bombed. It was hard day. Not the best bday. But oh well. Monday was fun as we went to the Eaton Centre and I was soooo proud of myself for not buying anything! I wanna buy soooo much haha. But I know I cannot wear any of those clothes lol. It was a lot of fun but was definitely hard for me to be in that position. Never been a fan of malls as a missionary. 

 

 

the coolest food court

So I have been doing so good on memorizing spanish and working on memorizing my scriptures. We have finally got a cool RC to work with named Bro Dennis. He is an older gentleman and has a million books! He is pretty sweet and we are going to be helping him go to the temple! So on Wednesday we went tracting in some random buildings and well that always makes me feel better! Than in the evening we had FHE. I love FHE and I look forward of being a part of my own families night! I miss family time. But eh I guess we are all Bros. and Sis's anyways. Bro Ellis taught the lesson and he did a great job for his first time teaching. He is a RC of a year now. He is a bit quirky and nerdy but he is so awesome. A very loving guy. He taught us so beautifully about conversion. Densel, an RC, from my last area has moved into our ward and so he came and had a fun evening with us as we felt the Spirit and played a few games. Thursday was a good old planning day and of course we got Albions to go along with it! We went 5 days without it haha, We could not go another day without craving it. We actually ended up only having one appt that actually went through with an awesome person from japan named Fumiko! She came to ESL and we had a ton of fun teaching her about the gospel after. She has no background of God and so it will be cool teaching her from the very basics and helping her have experiences to come to know God. 

Albion's restaurant is the best

So this past week on Friday we had Sports night, I had a medical issue and than that night Elder Bowman took a spill and is now having knee issues. It was really bad but it was a neat experience and testimony building experience to me that you never know when you may need to give a priesthood blessing. So we must be worthy at all times and in all places. I am so grateful for this power that God has blessed me with! I was super concerned for him and now we are getting him looked after and going to a Doc's today! Heres hoping nothing to serious happened. We also had Zone Counsel this week! I loved it we learned about how when we teach someone about prayer we must share with them to have a correct understanding of whom the Godhead is. It is so neat the difference our prayers can have when we have a correct understanding of whom God is to us and how his Son, Jesus Christ works through him and also the Holy Ghost. Next week I will explain this a little more! I would encourage you all to watch the new videos of because of him coming out and also the video called always remember him! They are awesome videos go on Lds.org. On Sunday we had our firstr like official member meal appt with a family, the Roses. They are a SWEET family. they have the coolest house the is a modern or contemporary style home. It is like a bowling ally very rectangular. Then the kitchen is sweet! Oh good old Toronto with all its innovations! The Spirit was so nice within their home. I want to say to all the members that I thank you personally for the work that you do to invite the Spirit into your home. It is so important that us as parents and even kids do all we can to have the Spirit within our home as the decisions we make as a family are so vital and soo important for our spiritual progression. I hope that I can help my household to grow that same feeling of peace and love from the Spirit. 

My family loves me... my box of "sunshine" for my birthday.

our view from our apartment

our version of New York's Times Square

Transfer 13 Week 3

Well heyyyy everybody! How goes everything? Hope everything is well! Well this week was pretty fun! On Monday we cruised around and came back to the church to do Zone Sports. We played Volleyball with a deflating ball and pumped it up half way through the game haha. It got a bit annoying but oh well. It was a nice release from the stresses of the week. This week has been pretty cold. Our hands have been slowly losing feeling in our finger tips. Sometimes I wonder what people must think of us as they see us outside walking around at 8:00 pm in -30 weather haha shivering. If you think about it we really are crazy! We leave everything behind for two years, we pay to come out here, and talk with random people, get yelled at, meet some awesome people, and all this other stuff haha.  It really hit Elder Bowman and I the other night how crazy we actually are haha. But we love what we do and see we will continue to do it anyways! So one lunch session we had a the church we were doing some algebra and let me tell you I am soo rusty haha I will start making requests for tutors now for when I get home :P. The highlights of this week were district meeting was sweet. The Hermana's were sick which was really too bad but we called them over the phone and they participated with us! It was a great time and I am excited to continue to improve the meetings and help the missionaries feel more motivated to the work!

 Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Flake! He is one of the Spanish missionaries from our district. He is from AZ too. It was a fun exchange as we worked hard and I actually gained a whole new respect for language missionaries. They have to rely on the Spirit sooo much more than us as English missionaries. They put a lot more study and just have such great desires to learn the language. Sometimes I wish I could of served as a language missionary but I enjoy English work too much! Elder Bowman told me a interesting concept. The gift of tongues is really the ability to listen to the Spirit and not necessarily being able to interpret another language. This week was alright! 

Love you all!

Transfer 13 Week 2

Hola a todos , espero que todo está bien!

Well this week was pretty good! I am happy to report that we had almost the exact same numbers as last week haha but we this week have found two new invs! The first one is named Bro Makki. He is from Lebanon and speaks Arabic and Egyptian. We went tracting in some familiar territory, apartments! So he let us right in and he was like you are sent from God and messengers to spread the good word. We taught him in his door step and it was a great first lesson. He denied the invitation to get baptized but he will postpone his baptism till he learns about what our message has to offer and what the restored gospel of Jesus Christ has to offer. The other was a member referral. Sis. Charles invited her friend Sister Lucy to come and listen to us! They are Tongan and so they keep a close knit with each other! She is one of the non-members living in Ontario. Sis Charles keeps them on a radar. So we taught her over dinner but she is not ready nor willing to progress. So idk if I really count her as a new but we will continue to work and pray for her. It is better than nothin. But to go back to the Apartments. It felt so much more at home than tracting outside haha. We got more done in the 2 hours we spent there than the whole first week. 

So Densel from my last area moved into our area s now we have a recent convert to work with YAY! Family Home evening this week we learned about Honesty. Friday was fun as we had sports night and lots of people came to it. Saturday we went to go and met someone who could not find the ESL building so we went to pick them up but it turned out she was Spanish sadly :(. She would not be our invs. Oh well. Church was nice and ya.

This week was interesting as a lot happened but honestly I cannot remember very much. I promise next week will be better :). I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Transfer 13 Week 1: New Area

Hey everybody!

Well this week was a little bit more harder than most. I will be honest. I have been stressing and been just very tense I guess you could say. The change of transfer really shook me up. I am now serving in the Toronto North area. I am in the Toronto Ward! The building is awesome! It is a older church building and looks super sweet I will send a picture next week! We are right next to a HUGE catholic church that they put up after our church was built. My opinion is that they are trying to steal our members haha. So this area is actually around where my trainer Elder Koceja served. He told me many stories about this place and one of them was confirmed the first week we got here! There is a place called Albion's! He lovessss missionaries and we love him. All the missionaries who have ever served here go and eat at his place haha. We all have him on our speed dials. If you ever come to Toronto you gotta go visit there! So Elder Bowman is my new companion! He is from Arizona. He has been out just over a year now and came out with my first son Elder Lowry. Funny side note actually, Elder Lowry my first son and my second son, Elder Nugent are now serving together. They are killing it together and already have had a baptism! I love em!!! They both work so hard. Elder Bowman was involved in track and x country back at home and has a lot of athletic experience. He is a well seasoned missionary and will be a pleasure to serve with for the next while( Hopefully more than one transfer). He is a funny guy who tries hard and works hard too. We have stayed up a few nights tossing back and forth stories and getting to really know one another. 

Well now for the area. So we white washed into a little bit of a awesome part of Toronto. We are literally in the Downtown core and have the CN tower, Eaton centre, and a lot of other places here. We are mostly using buses, street cars, and subways to get around now! It is sooo much fun to contact on the Subway as you really get to know your timing and how long you have got. I love the sure number of people in this area too! There is def never a shortage of people to talk with! My goal is continuing to try to talk with 50 to 100 people each day even though it has been hard to do in the past week. I do miss my old area but this will be a new adventure for me. Now the work in our area is next to none. So one of the missionaries stayed in the ward and took all their invs and solid people with them, along with the food too haha. So we are starting from ground zero with invs and finding solid potentials. We have done a lot of finding this past week! Good thing I like finding haha. So we got into the area on Tuesday and was the earliest time I have ever gotten into our area. Than we went to Albion's our first day haha. We skipped a lot of meals this week as we had little to no food. Wednesday was our District Meeting and my district is all Spanish missionaries! It has been fun practicing my Spanish with them and getting more familiar with Spanish work! We had some technical difficulties at our meeting as the tv would not work and the Zone leader kind of rebuked me for it. I felt pretty bad things were not working. Than that evening and every week we have FHE! YAY I have missed that soooo much! So we got to teach the lesson! We planned to talk about the Prodigal Son and how we can always return to God and feel his love in our life. One of the non-members there was struggling with his faith in God and so it was a Spirit inspired lesson! What a coincidence! I think not haha. Revelation for the win! We had our Weekly Planning session and it was probs the most quickest one I have ever done! We spent a lot of time riding Subways and buses and it has been great. The temperature has beeennnn FREEZING! It has been -35 and even -40 some days here. On Sunday Elder Bowman and I went out and blitzed for ESL and we also decided to help out the Sister's as they have been so busy so we blitzed for them too. We put up 71 flyers this past week and we only needed to do 25 haha. It was fun! We froze our hands to the point we could both not feel them and could not even move our fingers lol. All in a day of a missionary in Canada during the winter haha. The ward is a very diverse ward and is smaller than most I have been in. Supposedly lots of people move in and out of it. It will be great getting to know the members! 

Oh the other sweet thing is that we live with 2 other companion ships in the same apartment! It is a party from 9:30 till 10:20 we also go up and chat and what not. I love being around and close to so many missionaries. 

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! Happy Valentines Day! and Family day! 

Transfer 12 Week 6: Baptism & Ballin'

Oh ya looking fresh in white! haha

the awesome bridge we found! 

We found a good place to see Toronto!

Our basketball clan! We balling every Friday!

Love these guys !

Well y'all,

The Weston west area is getting closed down! So both Elder Hatch and I are being separated and I am going to Toronto North, unsure of the area and everything. Heard it is a good area though. It is apart of the downtown core and should be fun! Demetri and Nat were both super sad that we were taking off and not coming back till later. I will miss that apartment and all the people in this area. There was honestly SOOOO much potential  that for now will remain untouched till they have missionaries there again. In our mission they are falling down to about a 3rd less than what we have now. So they are shutting down a few areas. 

Well this week we had Cayden's baptism! It was sooo awesome! He was so prepared and ready. We had actually a lot of people come to the baptism! We also had Densel's baptism too! Cayden was beaming all afternoon at church and nervous but ready. He had some questions about mission after his baptism and was like when can I get to go out there and serve haha. I love it! he is so excited to go to the Temple! I hope that he enjoys that experience and continues to have this fire for missionary work and the Gospel. Densel I had met awhile ago and was not our invs but might of been haha. He is a nice older brother from Trinidad. He made soooooooo many changes in his life and it was a special experience interviewing him. By witnessing him and speaking with him I have seen the Atonement at its finest again. It is so amazing how no matter what we do in this life that the Atonement will fix everything. I know it will. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I am sorry for any of the past people I have harmed, lied to, and did anything that was negative. I wish to make this right and will. I love you all and think you are all amazing. I pray everyday for you all. Know that. Please know that I do mean it when I say I love all of you. You are some of my dearest friends and family. I pray that you will be able to partake of the Atonement as I have had in my life and to see the change it will make in yours. 

Have an awesome week! 

member gave us some good cake! so rich!

from the apartments, a good ol'selfie.

My interview with Gigi for her baptism with the Sisters!

February 2

yep that's right! elder sopal is now baking brownies! so good!

this is our subway adventure!

this is the craziest thing I have seen in awhile! the building just started billowing smoke!

This is my get up for the cold haha! looking like a bandit

still writing my songs!