It's July in Kitimat

Well, hello, Family!

It has been a good week in Kitimat. It's been hot, though! High 20's might not sound hot to Utahns. But it is! Other than that, life's been good! Since Kitimat is close to the ocean, a lot of people give us fish and prawns and stuff like that, and so I'm learning how to prepare and cook seafood. Haven't died yet... Transfer calls are today, but we have a hunch that neither of us are leaving, because President Tilleman called us this morning to talk about getting an interview for Samantha and didn't mention anything about a potential transfer... so we think we're safe. But only time will tell.

We've seen a lot of miracles this week, however! We've been working with the Boyson family for a few months now, and they've certainly come a long way. They'd never been to church, and now they're weekly attendees, Sister Boyson got annoyed at us the first time for not calling ahead when we came by for the weekly lesson the last missionaries would have on Friday, and slowly they've adjusted so that we teach them several times a week and usually have daily contact. But, they've been dragging their feet about baptism, and it seemed like they might become one of those part member families with like 6 sheets of teaching records in the area book. But lo and behold, this week, Daniel Boyson asked to meet with President Kaberry and ourselves after church, where he confided that he had received an answer to his prayers. He said that he had done what we had been telling him to do every day for weeks and he prayed and asked if he should be baptized. He said that that night he saw a dream where he was baptized, and he saw sins that he had committed in the past being washed away, and a tree that he said is kind of like the tree of life in Lehi's vision. He says he's seen that tree in dreams in the past when his mom has wanted him to be baptized into other churches, but in the dream the tree always dies by the end of the dream. In any case, it was a very cool experience, and since Chelsea (11 yrs old) has been more or less just waiting for Daniel (17), they will be baptized in the next two weeks. Miracles happen. It's definitely an example that if an investigator is attending church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying, they will eventually get an answer that it is true, even if it takes a while.

We had another lessons with Jim Johnson this week. I'm not sure if I mentioned him before, but he's an older gentleman that has kind of been everything from atheist in a biker gang to Satanist (he's described some... pretty weird things that they do. Probably 'nuff said in this situation) to Jehovah's Witness to Pentecostal. He's a scriptorian. It's been about a month since we stopped meeting with him. He received a lot of unfavorable material from his pastor, and we resolved most of it, but he has a few things that he decided to hold on to. But, he was talking about how he loves the way that as missionaries we teach people, compared to how other faiths proselyte. He had a hard time describing it, but he meant that we "have the Spirit".  In short, he's still reading the Book of Mormon and is about halfway through it, and we just have a feeling that he's going to realize it's true as he reads it. You really come to appreciate the Book of Mormon on your mission. Not only does it really contain a witness of Christ and a solid foundation of true doctrine, but it really helps people receive revelation and ultimately come unto Christ. It really is a blessing. God is good.

The work in Kitimat is doing well, though. It's a small town, and we've already knocked every street a few times, but we're still finding people to talk to. It's good to be in small areas, because when half of Vancouver is your area, you can almost get lazy in finding because if somebody says they're not interested, it's kind of silly to force a conversation with them when an ocean of other people are walking past, but in Kitimat, you have to seize every finding opportunity as a chance to teach and testify and invite the Spirit. It's easier to erase the imaginary line between "finding" and "teaching" and you are just always teaching people on their doorsteps and inviting them to hear more. The worst thing is when you know somebody is feeling the Spirit, but they still choose to reject the message you're sharing. Gah! People's agency, sometimes. Still, enough people are interested to have a lot of interesting conversations in Kitimat. There are Jamaicans, Irish, Canadians, probably an American or two, and some First Nations people in the teaching pool. You can tell from the area book that this area has kind of been a "refiner's fire" area, but to me an Elder Atwood, it really hasn't been too rough here. It's bigger than Burns Lake! We have certainly been blessed.

In short, if I am transferred, I'd be sad! The North is the place to be. The members in the branches up here are just awesome. We'll just drop by a member family just to ask a quick question, and they'll end up feeding us dinner. (We'll have to start coming up with more valid sounding questions...) But, the church is true. Miracles are happening in Kitimat! And I hope that you all have a good week, and enjoy your summer. Talk to you next week!

Elder Blotter

Kitimat is Bear Country...