Well!
It's been another great week
up in Kitimat! Lots of good stuff is happening. Everything is green.
Isn't raining as much. Really, there's nothing to complain about! When
you're transferred up North, you have to pay about $125 to good ol' Air
Canada for checking an extra bag and for overweight fees, which is well
over half our monthly allotment, so we've been having to make do eating a
lot of perogies and pancakes, cause they're cheap. Perogies probably
taste pretty close to manna, so we're not complaining. I still don't
know why America doesn't have those.
Sometimes in missionary
work it feels like you're blessed not "because of" but "in spite of"
your best efforts. We go out every day and pound the pavement and knock
doors and try to shake it up by street contacting in parking lots,
because everywhere else is pretty devoid of people to talk to. But... in
the end, most of the best people that you spend the most time working
with kind of come to you. There was this first nations
lady (Samantha) sitting outside of the apartment building neighboring
ours the very first day, and we talked to her and got her phone number
before we even went into our apartment for the first time. We joked
around that she was going to be our first baptism, and we finally met
with her this past week. Her boyfriend (Wilfred) was at her apartment
when we first arrived, and as he was leaving, I invited him to stay to
listen to us share a message about Jesus Christ. He kind of shrugged and
sat down with a "oh, what the heck" kind of attitude, and as we shared
the message of the Restoration, he just loved it. We set baptismal dates
with both of them for June 22nd. We came back the next day and taught
them again, and they're awesome. They want to get married and baptized
on the same day.
Meanwhile, we also set
baptismal dates (for the 22nd) with the Boyson kids, and we're totally
in the good books with Sister Boyson. Sister Boyson a few months ago was
very anti-missionary, but she's warming right up. Quite a quirky bunch,
but we love them none the less. BUT... this Sunday, with some sad turns
of events, neither of them was able to come to church. Gah! But just as
we were in the throes of devastation outside of their apartment, Sister
Van Horne, a member who came to pick up Samfred, (our name for Samantha
and Wilfred) asked us about "who the Justine lady at the church" was.
And... we had no idea. But it turns out, that a young family from
Kitimat spent a few months in Alberta to take some kind of a training
course for the dad's occupation. While there, they talked to this LDS
guy about what we believe, and they loved it. So this woman, Justine,
had no idea when church started. So she left her husband, Aaron, with
their kids and came to the church every half an hour starting at 8:00,
until 10:00, when church starts. And we're meeting with them, now, too.
And... she's 20. MY AGE. Quite weird to think that somebody my age could
be a parent of 2 children. But that's beside the point. Now there's 3
awesome families in the teaching pool. Lots of awesome miracles in
Kitimat! And really... the church is going to have to build a new
building. The one that we are currently in is getting a little cramped.
It really is miraculous the
number of people that we have been able to find and teach in Kitimat so
far. The Lord has truly blessed us in the work here. The church is true!
There are a lot of fiercely religious people in Kitimat, and we've had
the chance to talk to a lot of them. The bottom line is that what we
believe is true. It's good. It's from God. It's better. People just
don't know what we believe! They don't know how awesome it is! They hear
"Book of Mormon" and they don't think "beautiful account of Jesus
Christ in America" they think "weird cult book". How awesome it is to be
able to share the gospel with people and to be able to open people's
eyes to divine truth.
And may each of you, in
whatever position you're in, have the courage to open your mouthes when
the opportunity arises to talk about the gospel! It can make a huge
difference. Some random LDS guy talked about it with one of his
classmates, and a seed was planted. Who knows what will happen with the
von Schleinitzes (yep. That's their name), but what a miracle that that
family is now! Even in Mormontown, USA, we're probably placed in
situations like that all the time, we just don't notice it.
Hopefully you all have a great week! Talk to you then,
Love,
Elder Blotter
PS- We totally saw a grizzly
bear in town the other day when we were out tracting! It was across a
ravine from us, but it was big! It was the first one we've seen. We
think God protects us, because we hear a lot of stories of grizzly bears
"getting" people's pet dogs, but we've never run into any. But this is
bear country. Our P-day tradition is to email and then to eat at Subway,
and although I haven't seen it, apparently there is a clip online
somewhere of a bear going into that very Subway, scaring an employee,
and then leaving. Apparently it was on Jay Leno or something like that.
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