Over halfway through, I'm starting a BLOG..... July 2nd, 2013

  I have many friends who have started a blog when their son or daughter have left on missions. People can check in when they have time to read and when the missionary comes home, you can easily make their letters into a book! Sounds great, huh?  So as I have time I will enter earlier letters. Now that Josh has been gone 1 year, 3 weeks and a day... I can say that it is WONDERFUL. It is a highlight for us to get his weekly e-mails and hear all about his mission. He is an amazing Elder and is working so hard and bringing others unto Christ. We love him.   :)

Family,

Well, sorry we couldn't email yesterday! Since it was Canada Day, all the libraries and things like that were closed. Since I was just finishing my time at the MTC during last year's Canada Day, this was the one and only "real" Canada Day that I'll have on my mission. Pretty much, Canada Day is like the 4th of July, except without the color blue and with the fireworks display too late for kids to stay up because the average Canadian bedtime for kids up here is seriously like 7:30 pm (you have it good, Jed and Jacey) and it doesn't start getting dark nowadays until after 11:00. But it was a fun day! They had a little parade and everything.

But, life is good in Kitimat! We're working with a lot of awesome people. Kitimat is a very diverse town because of the wide range of skill sets needed for the different companies that work here, and so they'll bring people who have those skills in from all over the world. Our branch president is an Australian, for example, and kind of a character. The other day we were let inside a home of "Wolf and Rani". Wolf is a German with a heavy accent, and Rani is an East Indian with a heavy accent. They both wear the clothes from their native countries, and seem to be worlds different, but they've been married for like 40 years or something like that. There are lots of Europeans and Asians. We've befriend the Asian guy, "Bill" who owns the Subway here, and he usually gives me a free cookie.  Kitimat is a great place. It's weird that we've been here for almost 3 months.

We've seen a lot of miracles in the past week as well. We're always looking for new people to teach, and we're promised that angels are preparing people and "declaring it to many". The other day, we were leaving a corner store, and the girl behind the register called to us and said that she had recently been in an accident and rolled and destroyed the van she was in, but she walked away perfectly fine. We had talked to her mom recently, and given her a pamphlet and apparently talked about how Jesus Christ can save us. Her mom is now convinced that the reason that she was okay was because of Jesus Christ and because of that pamphlet in the car. You know, we can't really see all the ways that Heavenly Father is preparing people to be taught, but He certainly is, and this is certainly His work.

We're still working closely with a lot of awesome people. The Boysons are still coming along, and Samantha is doing great. You know, we even take for granted that we know what's right and what's wrong. Samantha is 23 and has never really had a very strong religious background, and so she is just full of questions about what's okay and what isn't okay, because she wants to know what God wants her to do. We really are blessed to be in a position to know what commandments God wants us to follow, and to know how we can return and live with Him in our families. We really are a blessed people. We usually just take that for granted! We're so blessed to have a prophet to help us know what we need to do to be happy. The church is true!

And mother, Elder Atwood is awesome. You're right, I usually don't say too much about my companions. He is a world different from Elder Holtby! He is a hard worker and becoming a great missionary. We joke around a lot and have a great time in Kitimat. We had quite different interests/jobs back home (he made airbags in Brigham City and did mixed martial arts, wants to join the army and eventually become a federal marshal) but we aren't too different. Random thing that we do... we have some dry erase markers in the bathroom, and each time we use it, we draw something else on the mirror before we leave, so after a while we have quite the masterpiece. Good times.

Well, I hope that everybody has another good week! Trek and the trip looked like it was a lot of fun. Congratulations on your ace medical terminology work, Jenessa. That's quite the accomplishment. Hope that everybody has a great week!

Elder Blotter