Report from Burnaby

Well hello, family!

Just like that it's been another week here in Burnaby. It's been a good week up here! We've found some pretty interesting people to teach, and had our investigators come to church. Missionary work in the lower mainland is always pretty exciting. Yesterday, we had an appointment with a 7th Day Adventist family from South Sudan with a member from West Africa, immediately followed by a home teaching visit with two white as white can be Canadians, immediately followed by a brief exchange with one of the Mandarin speaking missionaries where we went and taught a half French/half Filipino couple who has a Mandarin-speaking exchange student. (We had an appointment with a Latino part member family we were bringing an East Indian member, Bro. Raj, but the appointment fell through. C'est la vie.) Man. It's the best. Lots of people everywhere. Missionaries not excluded. There are 2 sets of Chinese missionaries here, Korean missionaries, Spanish missionaries, us, and then two sets of sisters, one of them in the North and then one of them covering the YSA aged people, and then a senior couple. We'll just be out tracting or street contacting or getting a ride in a members car and we'll see other missionaries. It's crazy.

The work this week was good! We went on exchanges in New Westminster at the beginning of the week (all the cities here do sound very British-ish. Surrey, Langley, Coquitlam, Queensborough, etc) and got to teach some pretty cool people over there. Alan Mileta is still just struggling with the word of wisdom. His wife, who we think is trying to go for "nurturing and supportive" is still doing things like giving him a ride to buy cigarettes after Sacrament Meeting. He's down to 10 cigarettes a day. But... he smokes them half a cigarette at a time, so he's having the same number of smokes. I guess progress is progress. It's hard to see somebody who knows that the gospel is true, has a family who is waiting for him to be worthy enough to be sealed together, and just can't get rid of something as gross as smoking. In the words of President Kaberry, the Australian branch president from Kitimat, it's "untidy".

But, Mark is doing well! He came to church today, even though his cousins were over. Which, for a 10 year old kid with less active parents, that's a pretty big deal. Choosing to come to church over playing with cousins? Not to mention that he's reading the Book of Mormon? There you go Jacey. I'm teaching somebody that's just about your age. He should be making his baptismal date of September 22nd.

Well, we did see a lot of miracles this week! We've been seeing a lot of fruit come from just focusing on the basics. We focus on finding time when people are on the street and at home, from 5 to 7 pm, and doing a lot of work with part member families. Mission life is pretty simple. If you keep the commandments and apply the principles of Preach My Gospel, ye shall prosper in the land.

Oh, and I randomly have an Ohio State folder that I sometimes use to put stuff in. You usually find a family that you click with in your areas, and one of the families here, the Johnston family, saw that, and we found out that they were in Ohio for about two years of the same time that we were, from like 1999-2000ish. Except they were in the Student Ward. I think we went to the Riverside ward or something? Apparently there's another member that was in the Riverside ward in the Burnaby ward that would have maybe known us, but I'm not sure, because I haven't talked to them yet. Still, it's a small world.

Well, love you all! have a great week! I have a few seconds left before the time runs out. I might be able to get more, but I'm not sure. In any case! See ya love ya bye!

Elder Blotter