The Church is true in Vernon

Family,

Well, it's been another great week in Vernon! It's weird when I start writing emails now, I don't even really know what to write about because I've forgotten what happened last week and what happened this week because everything kind of blurs together. I have to pull out my planner and remember what week was this week. But, it's been great! There have been a lot of miracles over the past week! And it's beautiful here in the fall. It's finally back to the season where we can rake people's leaves for service and things like that, and it's not brutally cold yet. Fall is a great time to be a missionary.

Our teaching pool is doing great. Steven has stayed completely clean from alcohol and smoking. It blows me away how well he has done. He would smoke a ton and then drink 9 cans of beer every night-- he knew that not because he was capable of counting, but because there would always be 6 cans left in a case when he sobered up the next day. He's completely clean now, and he's going to be baptized on the 3rd. He rents out a room of a house, along with one other tenant, and we found out that the lady that he rents from is a former investigator, who is actually very promising and has committed to come to his baptism. The other tenant, Tim, is another alcoholic who we've seen sober probably one time. He always barges into the room that we're teaching Steven in and talks about how he's looking for his cat, which has always been bad interruptions, but Steven told us that he told him that he always tries to come in to the lessons because he wants to learn because he's seen the influence that it has had on Steven. So, we tried to let him stay at the lesson we had with Steven yesterday, but he was drunk. So he would ask a really sincere question with tears in his eyes, and then we would answer it... and then he'd stand up and start acting like a dinosaur. So we committed him to be sober for our lesson today. Alcohol is so gross. We'll see how that goes. But still, lots of miracles coming from that one building.

We're teaching a lot of other interesting people, too.  We had a few people come to church with us. We got one of our investigators, Sean, to leave his "Nerd Cave"/basement where he does nothing but play video games to come to church. Sometimes you're tempted to stop teaching people because "they're not going to keep commitments, I mean come on, he just kept talking about why he believes in Norse gods last time," but they surprise you. Regardless of what somebody's background is, the gospel "is for them". He had to go in the foyer in the middle of Sacrament meeting because he can't handle crowds, but he still put in the effort to come.

Other than that, it's just been a busy week of finding and teaching. We see miracles every day. It really is crazy how at the end of the day you can look back and just see how everything kind of fit together to make it a great day. Like, we were flipping through some potentials, and kept on calling one named Ashley and finally were able to meet with the family, and it turned out that she was the spouse of Gary, a former investigator who didn't get baptized because she didn't want him to. But now she's kind of had a change of heart, and we were just able to contact them at just the right time to start teaching them. Another time we got sidetracked talking to one guy for too long, but we decided to knock just one more door before leaving the complex, and found this awesome lady, Tracy, who had an LDS grandma and was really excited that we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses. She kept on telling us "you really knocked on the right door here". Enough of those experiences just add up and at the end of your week it's just really amazing to see all the stuff that happened.

Oh yeah! For like the first time in my life I had to go to a doctor other than Dr. Blotter for a day-to-day kind of thing. A member gave us a canned ham, and I was trying to open it, but the opening mechanism on the can broke, and I was trying to pull it open with my hand, and it totally sliced my fingers open. It was my first experience with Canadian health care too. I... survived.

Well, life is great. At night by our beds Elder Baker and I are always like "Are we here already?" And Elder Baker is great. Um. Well mother, if you need more facebook stalking ammo, his name is Brad Baker, he's from Raymond Alberta. He says to look up "bradbaker121" and watch the Backstreet Boys videos on youtube. He says he says he's the "handsome one".

Well, it was great to write all of ya. I'll send some more pictures of Vernon. Hopefully you all have a great week! ...Mosiah 28:3!

Elder Blotter

Re: Life's Great in the Okanagan.

Josh is a good boy.


Roger Mann

Life's Great in the Okanagan

Family!

Well hi. Hope it's been a good week! It definitely has up in these parts. It's full fall up here, and it's starting to get pretty chilly. I still feel blessed to be able to have dodged the rainy season in the lower mainland, though. It feels a lot more like Utah around here. In fact, Vernon actually does look a lot like the Bear Lake valley, actually. Mountains and lakes. Most of Vernon is like a big maze because it's mostly not a grid, and it's built mostly on the sides of mountains in a valley. For our workout in the morning, we just run up and down this massive set of stairs that just goes up and down a hill that connects 2 streets. Vernon is a beautiful place, though. A fall wonderland.

 From the pictures that you sent home. It looks like the family is doing well! I could see the video that dad sent of Ness and Jacey's duet. Good work, Jacey Lou! You're going to be a piano star. (You too, Ness. You too.)

Anyways! The work in Vernon has been going great. I love being a missionary. Every day here feels kind of like an adventure. I wish I had the time to just share all of the miracles that we have every day! I'll just talk about how last night went, for an example. President Tilleman promised the mission that every companionship could have a baptism in October if we all did everything that we could, and we've had a few baptismal dates for October, but for unfortunate reasons, a lot of them have had to be rolled back into November, and so we've been struggling to get out investigators into the waters of baptism this October. Over the past few weeks, we've had awesome lessons with Steven (the investigator who knew and believed the Plan of Salvation before we taught it). A few nights ago, he threw us his cigarettes and committed to never smoke again, but he's still been struggling with drinking. Last night, showed us his bedroom, which was just filled with empty cans of beer, just cases and cases worth. So, right then and there, we started cleaning his room with him. It was like being able to physically watch the atonement work. We totally smelled like booze, but after we went into the kitchen and just prayed with him that he would be able to completely stop and be able to be baptized by the end of October. All of this made us really late for our next appointment, and the member that we rode to the lesson with had to leave the appointment early, and so we get out of the lesson smelling like alcohol and carrying a half empty container of coffee, the last of his supply, and realize that we have no way of getting to our next appointment. So we just start running to our next appointment, climbing over fences and things, handing off this bag of coffee stuff as we go. We get to the appointment, and the investigator, Toni, that we were meeting with, was just sitting there having some bonding time with the bishop and his wife, and she had actually been reading and praying, and was doing great. Man. You just go home happy. 

Ha ha. After the gospel principles lesson on tithing this Sunday, he heard that tithing funds support missionary work, and so he wanted to just directly give us his tithing money. People like him are the people that you're looking for.

In any case, the work is going great here in Vernon. We're finding lots of people to teach. I'm really beginning to have a greater appreciation of the relationship between faith and success in missionary work. With faith, you can find somebody new to teach every hour that you spend finding. Elder Baker is really good at looking past the humdrum of missionary work and doing everything that you can when talking to every single person, and so it's been cool to learn that from him. And working with all of the missionaries in the zone has been great. We get to hold phone conferences with district leaders to talk about how we can help the zone grow, and we get to go on exchanges with struggling missionaries. We're going to be going down to Kamloops after preparation day today to work with a set of missionaries down there.

Well, love you all! Sorry that I don't have more time to write! The church is true. If there's time, we're going to grab our cameras and send home a few pictures.

Elder Blotter

Elder Blotter and Elder Baker in the car....

Maybe a little chocolate pudding?

The Week

Elder Blotter

As I sit here writing this email, I ask myself wasn't I just sitting here writing a letter like a few hours ago?  I tell you, a week comes and goes like nothing anymore.  I think that work makes it that way.  Work for me is a stabilizing force.  I feel much more normal with a good 60 hour work week filled with backed up schedules, emergencies, difficult surgeries etc.  I guess I am a little like Grandpa Blotter in that I need that to be happy. 

Anyway, how is Vernon?  I hope that things are hopping up there.  As the dark of winter sets into the Canadian landscape maybe people will search for meaning in life and find two smiling Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I hope the zone has set a steady course and is on target for true success!!!  Word on the street is that Vernon is quite a  nice place.  Getting us complacent members to hasten the work is the goal.

Here on the homefront, all is well.  The fall is very nice and my favorite time.  It goes back to my farming childhood.  Fall = No Sprinkler Pipe.  It is as simple as that.  Jacey played in a little soccer tournament on Saturday.  Jed is in limbo and we are looking for things to keep him busy so he does not cause trouble.  That kid is a huge child.  You will die when you see him and the sheer size of the kid.  He is taller and weighs more than Preston Blotter, who is 12 years old.  He also has naughty tendencies, but is very funny and has a lot of character. 

Ness is slugging it out at USU.  Part of her loves it, and part of her is stressed by it.  This is a familiar chord for the Blotters.  Comes with the territory of taking worthwhile classes.  She is doing great though, and seems to be able to get good  grades.  So far she as done okay, even with the Ensign chemistry class.    With all the girls on missions, she also seems to attract the affections of billions of recent RM's who are coming fresh of the advice of their mission presidents to go directly home and find 'the one' and take her to the temple.  All said and done, I think she is doing quite well.  Strong testimony and strong convictions in that one.

As for me, I can't complain.  I have a very rich life, with many blessings.  I was teaching Claudia the basics of driving today, at the cabin, in the Gator, and as we veered toward a cliff I thought, it has been a good life!  (I am doing Juan Hevia of Spain a huge favor and trying to teach her to drive)  With a little help maybe Juan can avoid two totaled vehicles, one per child, like me in that first year. :)

Well, hope the week is a great one.

Love

Dad

Re: Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

Oh this is so delightful to read. His emails will make a great book. A collection of memories that speak so eloquently of peoples hopes and their rewards of having faith.  Thanks this made my day.

oooo

sally

Tell Nessy hi and that we are so proud of her.

xxoo

Sally

Re: Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

I love you Josh, and I loved this e-mail. I'm glad to know there was a REASON for not being able to give you a long awaited hug last week.  :)

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

Family,

Oh man. What a great week it's been. I love Vernon. We just went to this "Bee World" place that had honeybee nests or whatever you call them in between sheets of glass that connected to the outside world by little pipes, and they had a table where you could try like 20 different honeys made from different plant sources from like orange bloom to buckwheat. Then we went to this famous Davison's orchard, to get some apples and apple cider. And then, because we decided that we're only going to be in the Oke once in the fall, we paid some exorbitant amount for an apple pie. But we're excited for it. Once you leave the lower mainland, BC has a lot of farmland, and we're right in the middle of it, but it's beautiful country. It's Thanksgiving today, too! The first of probably two thanksgivings, because any excuse to eat Turkey, people will take, so we'll have an American Thanksgiving too.

The work over the past week has been great. We were on exchanges with other missionaries for the first half of the week. We were in Clearwater, a little BC town that recently reopened to missionaries. It felt a whole lot like Burns Lake, and there was a brand new missionary serving there. It brought me back to the good old days. I love the fall. It's weird, but I think it is my favorite time of the year. We also did some work in Kamloops with some other missionaries, and had a Zone Conference. It was a busy week, but it was great, and we had the chance to find some new investigators. We were able to set a baptismal date with one of the "eternal investigators" there. Miracles have not ceased.

Oh, and Mom, At the zone conference, President Tilleman told me that there was a recent convert in Prince George who has non-member family. He's preparing to serve a mission, and his family is just absolutely livid that they could only talk to him twice a year for 2 years, and so President Tilleman went to personally meet the family himself. He says that they were getting more and more heated, but he told them the story about how we had permission to meet together, and chose not to, and that was one of the things that finally called them down. President Tilleman thinks that that's why the situation happened. So, Mother, there you go. There was a reason, and it helped a young guy in Prince George.

Well, the work in Vernon is going great. We've been reflecting on a lot of different ways that we can "hasten the work", and after hearing a story about it, we decided that we were going to start running from house to house to talk to more people. The first time we committed to do it, we got out of our car and started running to a lesson across a parking lot. There was a man slowly making his way across the parking lot with a walker, and so we jogged over and started talking to him. Long story short, he's this delightful old man named David who is going to be baptized later in November. His brain runs a few seconds slow, and so we'll teach about something like priesthood authority being restored, and a few seconds later his face just lights up with this huge, sincere smile. We have a few more baptismal dates for the end of October, and then a few for early November, and so we have been really blessed here in Vernon. People really are just placed in our path. We were "ministering" on a street the other day, and we knocked on the door of somebody who was having a birthday party. Someone came out and started talking to us, and enough people were curious that at one point we just had 7 people on the porch listening to us.

Well, it's been a bit of a learning curve over the past week. We get humbled all the time by the things that we forget to do or the stuff we don't handle... ideally. But we're learning a lot.

Well, love ya, family! Talk to you next week.

Elder Blotter

PS- Mom, you are the only person including the whole Vernon ward that has actually asked us who is in our teaching pool. Way to follow the prophet. The names of our baptismal dates are Rose, Toni, Steven, David, and Vicki. If you could pray for them, that would be great.

Oktoberfest in Hyde Park

Elder Blotter of Vernon, BC

Well it has been quite week for the Blotters here in Hyde Park Utah.  It sounds like you are very busy in your new capacity and area.  Word on the street from a few of my patients, Vancouver RM's, is that the Vernon - Kelowna area is the best part of the mission.  I have witheld that information because I wasn't sure if you would ever get over there.  You have a propensity for remote northern towns.  I'm sure that you will like Vernon quite a bit.  Being a zone leader will also be a fun experience. 

Zone Leader 101:  A big challenge is to do everything that you need to do to be a good zone leader AND find and teach people within your own area.  Big challenge, but to lead, you must do this.  People are pretty good and identifying leaders who assume the do as I say, not as I do,  category.  My zones were a reflection of my area.  When we had things cranking in our area, our zones were usually cranking as well.  It is great to be bold and flambouyant,  but at the end of the day humble street contacting and figuring out how to get the members to do missionary work are paramount to success.  It is good to try to get others to think big, and not allow bounds or limits on what they can achieve.  Successful people are often those who think a little over the top, and are not afraid to take risks.

Leading a volunteer corps can be daunting, and it sounds like you learned that in the first few hours.  Very very few people in this life will have the motivation that is hard-wired into your DNA and you must learn to accept this and work around it.  The key is to figure out not how to make someone conform to your expectations, but rather for them to improve in their own realm and achieve something better.  Learning how to bring out the best in people is a key skill that not all possess.  Lift those around you, patiently.

At times accountability is daunting.  Stake Presidents, Bishops, Mission Presidents, other missionaries.  Ultimately, you are accountable to The Savior, and you have to let go of the worries of the others.  A feature of the Blotter personality is pathologic worry.  Excessive worry.  There are things you cannot change.  Fight the fight tooth and nail but do not give room for excessive worry or anguish.

Enjoy the mission.  While there are stresses for certain, it is a time that you should try to find time to enjoy. Your mother and I spoke in church today and it was kind of fun.  The heart of my topic was Elder Oaks talk on "No Other Gods Before Me".  It is amazing how many other gods we place before The God of Israel.  Certainly some things that I need to work on, but getting the members to be motivated is key.

Well, on the homefront,  I'd have to say that things are pretty good.  Your brother Jed has developed quite a sense of humor.  He is really funny to be around.  The dentist put a little flouride that does not taste great on his teeth the other day and he asked, "Show me some mercy, and give me some water."  He is always just saying and doing goofey stuff.  His football coaches love him though, and he is already being recruited for next year.  Jacey is just as sweet as ever.  Love that kid.  I took her and her soccer friends to the Haunted River Trail last week and we had such a fun time.  I walked through that thing with a bunch of 9 year old girls who had a death grip on my coat. 

Grandpa Blotter seems to be recovering quite well, which is fortunate and is back to his old self.  Grandma is as spunky as can be and relishes her missionary grandsons.

Well, hope the week is a great one.

Report from Vernon

Well, hello, family! 

Oh goodness. The last week has been one of the most awesome weeks of my mission. It has been super busy, and time has just been disappearing it's gone by so fast. I love Vernon! It is a little bit different than the Hong Couver area, that's for sure. I haven't seen mostly grass-covered mountains since... the MTC, but up here it pretty much just feels like a colder and a little less dry version of Utah. And I love the people here. This is great. Since last emailing, there's been a lot of spiritual feasting. Wasn't conference awesome? There were a lot of great talks. A lot of revelation received. Transfer meeting and mission council were both awesome, and I feel like I have learned a lot about the principle of faith. When you have faith, you really can do everything.

My new companion, Elder Baker, is awesome. Totally awesome. He's from a little town in Alberta. (Mother, if you're planning on facebook stalking, his first name is Brad) We have just seen a lot of miracles over the past few days. So, our mission has reached a point over the past 3 months where we've had about 40 of our brothers and sisters join the church. Awesome. 3 years ago it was like... 12. This month, the goal is for every companionship to baptize (and then an extra 20 or so. Ha ha) and to reach a goal of 145 baptisms. Which is awesome, but it's going to take a lot of faith, work and miracles. I don't have a tremendous amount of time to write, so I am just going to type really fast because I have a lot that I wish I could write. 

So, after setting that goal in mission council, we were super excited. So, after mission council, we're staying with the zone leaders in Surrey, and we have a few hours to go out and work before the day is over. So the elders drop us off someplace completely random, and one of the Surrey elders, Elder Kennedy, who is a 6' 10'' full-ride-to-BYU-in-basketball-or-football-he-still-needs-to-pick kind of guy. He's been out for just 6 months or so and is a zone leader (President Tilleman doesn't really do "traditional" leadership assignments. We got Spanish speaking sisters for the first time, and there aren't any spanish-speaking sisters to train them. So... they're just training each other. They're in Canada, so they won't starve, but... good luck teaching lessons and speaking at church and stuff.) Anyways, he leans out the car window as they are driving away and just says "I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ that if you do all that you can this evening you will find 5 new investigators and set 1 baptismal date". So, we just went at it. 6th door that we knock on, a voice yells "Come in!" So we do, walk up a set of stairs, and find these two guys sitting there watching TV. Initially, they kind of want us to just leave, but we just sort of sit down and start talking with them, and in the end we set 2 baptismal dates with them. Boom. We walk outside, there's a guy walking home. We teach him the first lesson on the street. Boom. We realize that it's dark rainy, and we don't have a phone, so we walk back where they dropped us off, and they are nowhere to be found. We get a Serbian man to call them, and we leave a voicemail telling them to come back, and just hope for the best. We then start talking to this 17 year old black guy who met missionaries before, and read the Book of Mormon for 4 days straight after meeting them, and then didn't know what to do so just kept moving on with his life. Suddenly, the Surrey elders, who had gone home to do something lame like weekly plan came back to pick us up, and we set a baptismal date with him and taught him on the street. Then, we drive back to the street that the Surrey elders were on, and we both just start knocking on doors. And the Surrey elders found someone. 5 new investigators, and 4 baptismal dates. Miracles.

Anyways, we travel back to Vernon, and ever since then, we've just still been seeing miracles. It's been great. We don't tract. We just teach people that aren't investigators yet. And if you have enough faith, people will listen to you. Man. It's so good. We have a plan to baptize weekly, starting this weekend. But we'll see. It just seems like the Lord is placing people in our path. We taught a member's neighbor yesterday because the member just did their part of asking their sick neighbor if they would like a blessing. (That is so easy to do. Member missionary work is not hard to do.) We taught someone who was weeding outside of an apartment complex where we were going to contact an investigator who didn't have a phone. We stopped somebody who was jogging last night and he was a receptive less active guy. Heavenly Father is so good! There are so many miracles everywhere! We're teaching this guy named Steven who in a lesson, when asked what the meaning of life was, said "You guys might think this is weird... but I think we lived with God as spirits before we came here, and we're here to get bodies or something." Ha ha. Really. God is so good.

But, there have been some interesting challenges as well. I thought that calling for the results for the week would just include writing down numbers. But sometimes district leaders report that nobody in their district found a new investigator, or that they had areas that didn't teach any lessons, etc. You have to discern if it was a rough week and they need to be built up, or if they were lazy and need a bit of chastening, and you have to help them see what they need to do to help their districts improve. In the end, how somebody serves a mission is entirely up to them, and, because the Priesthood only works on principles of persuasion and meekness and love and righteousness and all those other good things in D&C 121, you can't really tell anybody what to do, and the only way somebody is going to listen to you is if they feel your love for them and they respect you. And there's challenges like for one of our investigators to get baptized by his date, he's going to have to quit cold turkey on smoking, and for him to do that, it's going to take a ton of following up. But we're out of our area for the first part of the week to go on exchanges with a two different areas that are struggling. And there's a zone conference this week, and we have to give a training on planning to two zones and President Tilleman. Whew. Pressure's on. But it will be good.

Oh man. I typed fast. I successfully got it all done. Another miracle! Well. Love you all. Hope you have a good week!

Elder Blotter

PS- I usually forget to add this. My address here is 4015 15th Ave, Vernon, BC V1T 8H1.

Re: Burnaby

MOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmm....

June 2014 sounds great. :) You should do that! Particularly because shipping is really expensive. But tell Jacey that I love her and I will send her a letter in the mail. Tell Sue Ann that her letter just got to Kitimat, apparently. Elder Atwood texted. He is staying in Kitimat for 7.5 months... ha ha. And good work doing missionary work! In the mission, we would call that a quality gospel conversation, or QGC. Love ya mom. You're the best. Thanks for the package.

Elder Blotter

Thanks for the umbrella.....I should have asked for boots. :)

Family,

Well, Mom and Dad, I hope you've enjoyed your romp in (quite literally) my stomping grounds over the past few days. I'm glad that you had the chance to witness a Vancouver 1st Ward testimony meeting, meet some of the cast in Vancouver. Isn't it great up here? Maybe you were able to figure out how everything keeps getting wet here. We just can't figure it out, because "it never rains in the Canada Vancouver Mission". Mother, I did get the package, and thanks for the umbrella. Unfortunately, I won't be needing it for very long! Transfer calls came, and I am going to be serving in Vernon, in a more-East region of BC that is referred to as the Okanagan. My whole mission the Oke has been a place that I have always known existed, but for the most part it was just a place of unknown location where if missionaries were called to serve in I had no idea where were they went I just didn't see them for a few months. Apparently, it feels like a colder version of Utah, and there will be plenty of snow. But at least no rain! Northern BC is much further, but since you fly, travel time isn't as bad; I have a 6 hour bus ride in my near future. So that's fun.

Speaking of fun, this week really is the definition of fun. Today was our temple trip day (see attached picture below) and so we got to go to the temple for (at least for me) the first time since April. The temple is the House of God. It was a very powerful experience. I am so glad that I am still going to be in the mission field to see a few of the converts I've had the chance to work with go through the temple. Anyways, that was today. Then on Thursday, there is transfer meeting, Friday is mission council, (which I've never had the opportunity to attend before but is a monthly meeting with the mission presidency and the zone leaders), and then Saturday and Sunday is general conference, the "Missionary Super Bowl". So really, let me tell ya. Life is rough. Really, really, rough. :)

This past week was quite a humbling learning experience, though! Seriously. So, get this. We had 11 confirmed, "solid", member present lessons fall through, and so we didn't teach a single member present lesson this week (the "standard of excellence" for the mission is 3). Lots of them cancelled with not enough advance notice to tell the members or no advance notice and the investigator just didn't show up. Other than those, not a single scheduled lesson actually took place. Not a single one. It felt like being buried in cement. To make matters worse, the weekend was supposed to be a very lesson-packed weekend for a "mini-mission", where a pre-missionary from another stake came and stuck with us for 2 days. We originally had 3 different splits set up where we figured he could pick which appointment he wanted to come with us, but... every single one fell through. Every single appointment. Yep. Every one. I was floored. We still managed to teach a few lessons, but they were all from finding situations where we were talking with someone on the street and found a quiet place to sit down and have a lesson, or the visits we had with less actives and recent converts. And, as Mother and Father dearest can attest, the weather wasn't the best over the weekend, and our poor mini-missionary didn't have an umbrella. We felt bad for him. (His last name was Portuguese, Teixeira, which you pronounce tuh-shay-duh. I feel bad for good ol' Sister Mann sometimes) He has adequate practice in dealing with multiple dropped appointments, though. So that's good. If he can handle 2 days of that, he can pull though 2 years in some balmy mission where you're teaching all the time.

Anyways, moral of the story. 1) Every teaching appointment that you have is a blessing from God. The people that you're teaching aren't because you're good at finding and planning or whatever else, because even sometimes when you're (frantically) doing everything you can, appointments will still won't happen. Heavenly Father is the one who is in control, and the work moves at His pace. 2) If you're doing everything that you can, that's enough. You can't run faster than you have the strength to. I feel like I've had to learn that my whole mission. In fact, I still haven't probably haven't learned that. We probably could have done more. C'est la vie.

The church is true. The temple is the house of God. Joseph Smith was a prophet. The Book of Mormon is a just a big message from God and the teachings contained inside bless lives. I don't have much more time to write because the temple trip took up most of our p-day, and we still need to get groceries and whatnot, and transit takes a while. But, talk to you next week, and from Vernon!

Love you all,

Elder Blotter

Elder Francis and Elder Blotter at the Vancouver Temple

Burnaby

Elder Blotter,
      I just started driving this afternoon in hopes of finding a Target. I was looking for an umbrella for you. There was an accident on the freeway and it wasn't moving so I exited. I wasn't really sure where I was at that point. After a few blocks I see a sign that said, "Welcome to Burnaby"! I about died. So I see a huge mall and pull over and go in to a luggage store and purchase an umbrella. I decided since I was that close I would just drop off the bag since it was in the car. Hopefully it was there when you got back. I dropped it off around 5:45. And Dad said I should have at least added some kind of treat. Sorry. Do you want me to go but some Canadian candy and tell Jacey it's from you?
    After seeing East Hastings, I was so happy to see Burnaby. It seems like a great area! Much safer. Ok, I needed nylons for this Ohio State dinner tonight. I walked down some streets looking for tights. I felt kind of impressed to go to this little shop. I met a lady there who was nice. Once she found out I was Mormon, she just kept smiling and was so excited. She asked me what it meant to me to be Mormon. She asked a few questions and told me she was going to go home and research about Mormons. I asked her for a paper and I wrote down Mormon.org and lds.org. She was so good and had a sweetness about her. After I left I thought of all the things I should have said. I want to go back and see her again.  :) I wish you and your companion could act like you need pantyhose and go right in there! I guess there are sisters who maybe could.  :).  I wish I had a Book of Mormon with me.
      Well, Vancouver is very beautiful. And it is a HUGE city. We still need to ride the Sky Train. The food is AMAZING and I can see how you could gain weight in this city.
      Good luck with the great work of spreading the gospel. I simply loved Patrick from the moment I saw him. It's like he is family or something. He just looked at us like he was so thankful to us. That really was a highlight for us.  Love Mom

The Sunken Garden, Butchart Garden.

Capilano Suspension Bridge.