Shout out from Vernon!

Family,

What a beautiful week it's been and what a great blessing it was to hear all of your lovely voices. Just from the pictures I can tell that there was a pretty good haul at the Blotter home! I have no idea why Santa gave Jed anything with 2 wheels and a motor, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun. Christmas week was great! We had the chance to do some finding in a time that people had (relatively) softer hearts and more time to listen, and we had the chance to work with all of our awesome investigators here in Vernon. It's weird that you only get 2 Christmases as a missionary!

The work in Vernon is going extremely well. We've been realizing how blessed we have been after we've looked at our area boundaries. It's a really blessed place to be. Our area is actually a pretty tiny thing in the world right now (We found out that Vernon has 35,000 people, 70,000 if you include outlying areas, of the which we have none in our area except a little town called Oyama, and there really isn't anything in Oyama) and there are currently 4 sets of missionaries in Vernon. We live more up in the foothills of the little valley we live in, and when you look out the window of our apartment, absolutely none of the buildings in view are in our area, it's just the stuff kind of tucked away in a corner. But, we have a lot of people to teach, and a lot of people just so close to baptism.

Yesterday, for example, we were pretty much living with the Kruger family. Not really, actually, but we've been working with them for a few weeks now, and they are just doing so great. Sister Kruger was excommunicated when she was younger, and Brother Kruger isn't a member. They have 3 kids, and they're all awesome little goobers. Anyways, they've been working on quitting smoking, and they committed to quit smoking on January 1st, but Sister Kruger decided that their quit date was going to be yesterday instead, and so we dropped by a few times to share scriptures and interrupt almost-smoking breaks. The Kruger family is great. Over the course of us being there, either one of their kids will have a diaper/pull-up failure on the furniture next to us, or their crazy dog will jump on us and turn us into dog fur carpets or something along those lines, but they're pretty much our favorite family to go and visit.

And the rest of our teaching pool are doing well, too! Toni is still out of town for the Christmas season. She's down in Victoria. But she's going to be baptized. Sooonnnn. April is doing well, but was also out of town. We did see some Christmas miracles though! Everybody's favorite thing to say on the day after Christmas was that they were in the middle of eating dinner, regardless of what time it was. So we started asking if we could come in and eat with them. And you know what? We had some takers. We ended up having some pretty cool lessons and finding some neat people to teach. Also, we got our fair share of turkey. 2 birds with one stone.

Okay... Mother... here is an Elder Fitzner stories. I asked him how he would describe himself in one sentence and he said "beachwalker, songwriter, poet". In Weekly Planning this week, I opened a 100g bag of chocolate covered almonds and put them on our desks. Elder Fitzner proceed to dump the entire thing in his mouth. And... they couldn't fit in his mouth. But he still tried. They apparently lodged in his throat and he started to choke, and I am laughing and don't know what's going on. He stands up, walks to the middle of the room, and pukes. Ha ha... But seriously, he's a good missionary and we've seen a lot of miracles.

Well, the church is true! The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. Being a missionary is more on the front lines and we get to see it's influence help people change every day. There's no better way to spend your time than as a missionary. It's amazing. Thanks so much for all of your support! Talk to you next week!

Elder Blotter

:)

Dear Elder Blotter,

      I only have a minute to write but I want to tell you that I loved being able to talk to you on Christmas and feel of your spirit and love. I want you to know that I love the Savior and am so thankful for His atoning sacrifice and His love for us. I don't know why I was born into a family with the Gospel in Lewiston, Utah but I want to do everything I can in my life to repay that blessing and for the knowledge I have of the plan of salvation. I love the Gospel. I love my Father in Heaven and I recognize the blessings in my life. Thank you for serving a mission and helping others to come to Him. 

     We are off to take the Hevia family to Hardware Ranch right now. This has been the craziest, busiest holiday season ever. Dad's work has been so busy. Griffin coming the week before Christmas and the Hevia's the 10 days after. I will breath a sigh of relief in January. But life is good and we are blessed. I hope you have such a wonderful week and know we are thinking and praying for you. What is Elder Fitzner like? You haven't told us anything much about him. I love you to pieces.   Love, Mom

New Year.

Elder Blotter of the Okanagon,

Well, we did enjoy our 60.00 minutes of conversation with our young stripling warrior up north.  It sounds like things are continuing to go well and you are actively engaged in the harvest.  A well known movie producer made a 4 DVD series entitled "The Bible".  It is quite well done, and interesting.  It is pretty accurate, with a little Hollywood bling thrown in.  You will like it. We have it on Blue Ray.  (yes, even the Blotters have gone Blue Ray.)   Anyway, it really surprises me how much things change, and even more how much things stay the same.  A covenant people begin in a promised land, and flourish under the blessings of the Lord.  Prosperity leads to excess and wickedness with pride and arrogance.  The wickedness increases and  societal norms begin to break down.  Good becomes evil, and evil good.  The few faithful are considered extreme, weird, and foolish.  The Lord sends disciples, teachers, and prophets as a voice of warning.  They are rejected, and the people  are destroyed.  This happened from the creation right on down to the present time, and on both continents.  We are in the same cycle now, and you are basically a modern Jeremiah, or Abinidai for that matter.

Well, the news of the week for us, is the visit of the Hevia family from Asturias, Spain.  Wow.  We have Juan, Begona, and Paula, with Claudia already in place.  They said that they wanted a 'ski holiday' and who better to provide that than one James W. Blotter.  Well, I took them right to Snowbird with visions of riding the tram and busting down the Upper Cirque.  Well, we got to the top and I realized that they really don't ski, and they don't have real mountains in Spain, and I have no concept of skiing difficulty.   A little crisis then unfolded as altitude sickness set in, panic seized them, and things melted down.  This was followed quickly by a 300 yard, sliding, yard sale of a crash with papa.  The tears were flowing and the whole mountain mobilized to save our Spaniards, from, well, me I guess.  Needless to say, they are done skiing, and now we have to find some way to entertain for 10 days.  

Aside from the above, we love the Hevias.  They are fun, and witty, and very much like us despite being a world and culture apart.  Juan and I are both 46, worry about our childrren, love our good looking wives, and hate taxes and big government. 

The timing is a little rough, because I am on the tail end of of my busiest month of my last 4 years.  Wow.  I have performed a mind boggling number of complicated surgeries this month.  Christmas was a blip on the screen for me in a life consumed by blood, sutures, wound, scopes and lasers.  While most families gathered around singing carols sipping cocoa I was using a Xomed high speed drill to drill a hole into the skull of a 79 year old Grandma to let this foul pus out of her head because it eroded it's way into her eye.   The only thing more complicated in my life is Jacey's soccer team!  I feel blessed, in that the Lord helps me with difficult trials.  I am an instrument in his hands to answer prayers and play a sacred role in their lives.  I alter the bodies created for them by the Great Jehovah himself.  That why l listen to the Book of Mormon on the way to work. 

Well, I hope it is a good one.  The Lord is counting on you to be that instrument in his hands!

Love

Dad

Christmas Morning...

Merry Christmas!

Family,

Merry Christmas! What an exciting time of the year. Actually, it just feels extremely weird that it's already Christmas. I can't believe that I'll be chatting all of you on the 25th. It's strange that it's already been a year since I was being dragged around with my jaw on the floor trying to adjust to Vancouver after being in Burns Lake for 6 months! One of the good things about being in Vernon as opposed to Vancouver is that this year, it's a "white" Christmas. Christmas just doesn't jive with moss and grass and flowers and lots of rain. (Plus, it's a balmy +3 degrees outside, so we get the best of both worlds in the Okanagan. It really isn't that much colder here than Cache Valley)

The past week has been a great one. Since Elder Baker was gone, and Elder Fitzner didn't arrive until Friday. And with transfers and Christmas calls and the monthly meeting with the Stake President, and a bunch of not-that-exciting administrative stuff, combined with working with the teaching pools of two different areas, it was just a really busy week. And when you're a missionary, being as busy as possible is a good thing. Because I was the only zone leader left holding up the fort, there were a whole bunch of decisions that were made kind of... one sided. For example, they put some sister missionaries in our ward (Our area was super small. And now is super smaller. They probably just put in another set here instead of a place with more wiggle room because the work is going well in the Vernon 1st Ward. But still! 4 sets of missionaries in Vernon! The work is hastening!) It kind of felt like cheating to pick which areas to keep in our area and which parts to give to the new sister missionaries, but we gave them a good chunk of Vernon and the promised land of Armstrong, so they should be all right.

Among other things, we had the biggest polygamy throwdown since Wilford Woodruff and Warren Jeff's great-great-grandpa. We've been working for a few weeks with April, our polygamist investigator, and we finally just had to lay out everything about polygamy and how she would need to find out if Thomas S. Monson was a prophet of God and commit to leave that lifestyle behind if she wanted to be baptized. It went very well, and her concern now is mostly that she doesn't want to get divorced if her husband wants to stay on the path that he's currently traveling down. Just in talking with April, it's helped me realize that we're very blessed to have a prophet on the earth today to give us guidance from our loving Heavenly Father. What a confusing world it would be if we were left to try and pick and choose and guess at what our purpose in life was meant to be. We have a path directly back to our Heavenly Father laid out for us, and we've been given the agency to choose to follow it for ourselves and see the blessings that follow in our lives. I can't think of better Christmas presents! 

Toni, the eternal investigator who we just love to death, is totally going to get baptized when she gets back from Christmas break. We've been working with her ever since I came to Vernon. It's almost been like a funnel with her. We've slowly been working through her concerns, and she's just made so many awesome changes in her life.

Family, I want each of you to know how grateful each one of you! Thanks for all the support that you've given me over the past months. And I'm grateful for this beautiful Christmas season when we can reflect on the Savior and ultimate gift that he's given each of us. I hope that you all have the merriest of Merry Christmases!

Well, talk to you soon! I'm going to try to send off that Christmas package home sometime today. The Canada Post probably takes 6 months off for the Holiday season, so I might not be able to send it until next preparation day. But... Merry Christmas!

Elder Blotter

Elder Blotter's Testimony read in Sacrament Meeting, December 22nd, 2013

ELDER JOSH BLOTTER-

          I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. I know that He knows each of us. I know that He is our Advocate, Redeemer, Brother and Friend. I know that when we act in love, we serve him, and when we sacrifice, He sees it, and He blesses us so much more than whatever we gave up. He is our example, and when we follow with an eye single, we are filled with light and happiness.

     Our Heavenly Father is a perfect, loving God. A God of Mercy and a God of Justice. For him to be able to create this beautiful plan of Redemption and become more like Him, there would have to be one willing to literally go through the darkest of dark, experience the most bitter of pain, bleed from every pore, and pay the ultimate price for us. And he did that, so that we can have the opportunity to return to live with our Father. He suffered for each of us. He knew every rebellious mistake that we would make, and he still chose to extend the ultimate gift, the greatest gift of all time, because he has a perfect love for us.

           It is because of Him that we can change. I know that the only way, literally the only path that leads to happiness and light and love, is through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth of the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and becoming as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father".

            The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is just that. I know that. And I know that as a missionary, I am doing his work, and what He would do. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

Feliz Navidad

Elder Blotter, of Vancouver Fame,

Well it sounds like things are happening in Vernon BC.  Which is a good thing.  The sad thing about those good companions, like Elder Baker, is that it is like poof and they are gone.  The difficult ones, like Elder Holtby, put a new meaning to the word time and all eternity.  It is the difficult ones though, that teach you the most and give you the  most life skills.  Hopefully your new arrival will be a great Elder, with an eye single to the Glory of God.  

I have been a little surprised at how much success you seem to be having.  It is a great thing.

We had a great Christmas program today.  One for the ages.  As you know, Chris Corcoran gathered up the testimonies from the missionaries in the ward, and had their Mom's read them.  Yours was a great one, and it was a good experience.  Your mother was a bit of a wreck, but she powered through.  She was crying before she even got up to read the  testimony.  It was a fun thing to do.  I hope you had a great ward program up in good old Vernon.  I never was homesick at Christmas time, due in a large part to the opposite seasons.  It was just weird in Argentina where they celebrate Christmas in the heat of the summer, with fireworks and drunken debauchery.  

When Landon's mom got up I thought, Holy Cow, Landon will be home in just over a month!!  I am quite proud of Landon.  I did not know if he would make it, and he had a tough start with a jerk of a companion who made fun of him and belittled him.  But make it he has, and it will set his life on a great trajectory.  David Nielson is also doing well.  His dad says he is a distict leader and likely keeping at least most of the mission rules.

As for us, we are all doing well.  The Beav opens tomorrow and the fam is headed up.  I have to work, but that is okay.  Someone needs to fund the expedition, and I have learned that funding things is my primary role in life.  Griffin Dubanowich is visiting this week.  He will be attending USU next fall, so that will be fun.  He is a good kid.  Those Dubanowich boys love Utah.  My theory is that deep down it may have something to do with the abundance of lovely, wholesome, LDS girls of European descent.  Like your sister. 

Well, I am off to sleep, because the office has been really rough these days, but I am grateful to be busy and have a lot of work.  Looking forward to Christmas and a little authorized chit chat with out favorite missionary.

Dad. 

Re: We're just devastated up in Vernon

He's just the cutest! I laughed at his joyful reunion with his wallet.

We're just devastated up in Vernon.

Family!

 

Elder Baker is getting transferred! Isn't that the worst?! We only had 2 short transfers together, and he's gone. Transfer calls come on Monday, but his came on Saturday because I'm 99.9% sure that he is going to be an Assistant. (We should have just been less obedient so that he could stick around... just kidding. But still. :)) Right now, I'm sitting an emailing with a missionary from the Vernon 2nd Ward, and our next companions will come later on Friday. So that's the transfer news. We were just not happy about that at all. And we probably have 1,000,000 cookies in our apartment because everybody that we visited for Elder Baker to say goodbye to seemed to have a plate of cookies on hand. And crazy! It's Christmas time again already. And we're just going to keep findingteachingbaptizing. Mission life. It's the best.

 

For me and Elder Baker's last supper, we went to a sushi place that we've driven past a million times on the way to our apartment, but never eaten at because it has a sign that says "No swimsuits allowed. Thanks, management." Because of that... we've always figured that... eating there might be a mistake. But then, we decided that we would just have to, just because we always drive by it. Long story short, the waitress didn't speak English very well, and she mistook our order for a much larger one that would have cost about $50. Even with BC prices, that's a lot of sushi. Over the course of negotiating what amount we would pay (they ended up only charging us $30) the waitress noticed our name tags, and she has a friend in Japan that is a member. We were able to talk to her about the gospel as well! We'll hopefully start teaching her soon. We're sushi'd out, but it was worth it.

 

This week was a good week, but a busy one. We were on exchanges in different places for most of the week. Our first exchange was in Kamloops, and the second was in Salmon Arm, and in both of those exchanges I served with missionaries that I had previously worked with either in Vancouver or Kitimat. It's fun to see how missionaries grow and change and improve over time. Elder Baker says that I look totally different than I do in the pictures from before I was leaving, (It's probably just because my face is... slightly more... round. Ha ha) but it's interesting to reflect on the changes that I have made over the past 18 months. And fortunately there's still plenty of time to grow. I'm really excited for the next 6 months!

 

This week, we also had an awesome zone meeting. We talked about Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25 and not selling your mission "birthrights" for the "natural man". Meetings like that are kind of intense, because you go into them thinking, "Hm. Our whole zone is here, and expecting 2 hours of spiritual feasting and enlightened guidance... what are we talking about again?" But... it works out, and you usually don't even have time to talk about everything that you planned to talk about. I don't know if that equals "spiritual feasting and enlightened guidance", but our zone is awesome, and they put up with us.

 

This week we were very blessed. It was P-day, then we were out of our area for exchanges and zone meeting until Wednesday evening, then Thursday is Weekly Planning day, and we left after the planning session for an exchange until the ward Christmas party on Friday evening. And then Elder Baker to pack and everything, so we really just weren't in our area a lot.  But the Lord knew that we were doing everything that we could for the week, so we were still very blessed in our efforts. On Wednesday, we had to schedule a lot of lessons so that we could still be helping our investigators progress, but when we did have time to go out and find, the first person that came to the door was interested, and his roommate was a foster child who was raised in an LDS home and really loved it there, and so we're teaching that family. When we went to an appointment on Friday, the investigator had to cancel, but as we were walking back to our car, we talked to this lady who was walking somewhere with her daughter, and invited her to the ward Christmas party, and we ended up teaching her, too. Missionary work really isn't "our" work, we are just very blessed with miracles every day that help the work move forward.

 

Well, the church is true! Merry Christmas, everyone! And happy birthday, Mother Dearest! I have a Christmas package that I am going to send down with a bunch of Canadian candy and other miscellaneous stuff. I haven't been able to send it because I was temporarily separated from my wallet, but I fortunately had a joyful reunion with it and so I have the funds to send it home now. It won't make it by Christmas, but... It's the thought that counts! Love you all!

 

Elder Blotter

December

Elder Blotter of the Vancouver Mission

Well, I hope that life is going well up in BC.  It sounds like you might just be hastening the work with your efforts.  I get the sense that you have hit that point in the mission that you know how to get things done and keep a busy schedule.  That is where true happiness comes.  I was studying the Book of Mormon this week and came upon the scripture in Mosiah 12, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that  bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.  That can be you and your companion in the same way it was Abinadi.  Old Abinadi did not have an easy go of things, for sure, but he sure did quite the convert through his efforts. 

We went to the MoTab Christmas Concert, and it was fabulous as always.  I think Claudia liked it quite a bit.  We are trying to get The Spirit to work inside of our secular little progressive European student.  Society unfortunately is starting to embrace evil on a large scale, and this is leading to the disintegration of families.   I'm not sure how the Motab paragraph ended up with the disintegration of the family, but keep fighting the fight as the family is the fundamental unit of eternity. 

Your mother's turns the big 45 tomorrow, Dec 16th.  Big day for her.  I'm glad that somehow 23.5 years ago I managed to convince her that I was the one.  In doing so, I set myself on a course for true happiness.  I hope she feels the same. 

Jed and Jacey are doing great,  we measured Jacey today, and she grew 1/2 inch in 2 months.  She is changing quickly right now, and I hope that she can stay as sweet as she has always been.  She is learning the piano very quickly, and likes it, and she is a great little singer.   This may come as a shock, but she is musical, yes there is a musical member of this family after all.  Jed, well, he is doing well also.  He says the funniest things.  He is a funny and fun kid. 

Jenessa finished finals and did well.  You are sure to hear about it as she got a 4.0.  She was the highest ranked student Chemistry overall.  Only missed one question on the final exam, and went into it with a 98% average.  I take credit for giving good chemistry genes.  Maybe they come from Grandpa Blotter.  This is good for her,  she has put in the effort, but been rocking as a college student.  She is one of those kids who blooms more in college than some more difficult high school days. 

She went on a date with Joe Day. 

Well, with that bombshell, I'm off to bed.  This holiday season is killer for me from a work standpoint, but I am greatful to have work, and opportunities. 

Love

Dad

The Spirit of God....is Burnin' in Vernon.

Family,

Well, just like that it's been another week. Man, it's weird how quickly time goes by. It's been a great week! Time is certainly not going slowly. There were a lot of spiritual outpourings this week. We were down in Richmond for mission council earlier this week, and it was an amazing experience. For the year 2014, the mission set a goal for 2014 convert baptisms, which is probably 5 times the number of baptisms that we'll have this year. The work is hastening! The faith of the missionaries in the council was just awesome. In the Canada Vancouver mission, we've started to find more new investigators in a one year period than there are members in the province.

This weekend, Kelly got baptized! (Toni's is now for December 15th) It was a beautiful baptismal service. Kelly really was a miracle. The highlight of the service was her testimony at the end. She stood up and bore a brief testimony of the Book of Mormon and the spiritual power that she can find in the pages, and then she talked about how her entire life she has been searching for the truth, and has explored tons of different churches, but "3 weeks ago the missionaries knocked on my door, came back the next day, and I've known that I have found the truth ever since". She's such an awesome convert. It really has been a blessing to have taught her.

Okay. I wish I had all the time in the world to write down all of the crazy spiritual experiences that we have every week. One of them... so, President Tilleman promised us that if we do everything that we can every day, we will be able to find at least one new investigator every day. One day we went all day without finding anyone in between our teaching appointments, and we just kept on thinking of that promise and we were questioning if we had done "everything" that we could have that day. We ended up finding our new investigator that day at 8:56 as I was backing up Elder Baker (fun missionary safety rule) so we could pull out of our parking spot and drive to the apartment for the evening. This guy walked by the vehicle, and so I stopped him, and Elder Baker got out of the vehicle and we ended up teaching him a lesson right on the spot there.

Last night, we had our FLDS investigator to the Christmas Devotional. She loved it. It's amazing to realize that we have a living prophet on the earth today, who can give us messages directly from Heavenly Father. What a blessing that would be for the whole world, if they would just listen to the message that we share. It's made me reflect on the blessings that the gospel brings to those who actually apply it in their lives. Every day we're on the streets and getting glimpses into people's homes. And guess what? People need the gospel! In conference, Elder Ballard committed the whole church to "reach out to just one" with love as a gift to the Saviour. I hope that everybody remembers to do so! It won't go unnoticed by those watching from Heaven.

Well, Merry Christmas, everybody! Happy birthday next week, Mother! I guess next P-day will be the 16th so there will be another email then, but still! Sorry, this email might be short! We have a baptismal interview that we have to conduct that we need to get to! Love you all lots!

Elder Blotter

PS- 

One of the pictures is us and Kelly. 

In the other one, Steven Rasmussen (who is doing great over in Ontario and still going strong since his baptism,) is in between me and Elder Baker. Drunk Tim (still a work in progress) is on the end.

Grandparents Day.

Grandparents Day in December.

December

Elder Blotter of the Vernon Zone:

Hoping that all finds you well in Vernon.  Mission councils are a big thing it sounds like, with a fair amount of travel involved.  I guess it is an opportunity to take in the beautiful countryside of BC.  It sounds as if the work is hastening in British Columbia.  I think that it is hastening world wide.  The signs of the times are being fullfilled.  That Isaiah, he seems to be right every time. 

I just finished a great historical book about the geopolitical events at the time of Christ.  Wickedness abounds; however, I don't think we have surpassed the Sanhedrin at the time of Christ.  I would not want to be Joseph Caiaphus right now, I will say that, or Herod Antipas or Herod the Great for that matter.    But most of all, I would not want to be Caiaphus, the Chief High Priest.  I have decided that I want to take my family to Israel and need to work out the timing.  Having been there is so helpful to gain a true perspective of the events.   I had quit an experience at the Garden Tomb and Golgotha.  I needed no guide to tell me what happened there.

Probably the biggest family event would be the arrival of Ethan to the Republic of Korea.  He made it safe and sound, and rumor is that he has a good first companion.   He lost 20 lbs in the MTC, which is strange, probably muscle mass.  It is a rather sedentary place by nature.  I'm sure that he is learning a lot, lessons that only a mission can teach, and lessons that can be challenging.  In the MTC he wrote us that his district was working so hard that 'the devil cringes when they wake up for the day'.  Only Ethan. 

Jed continues to be Jed.  No calls from the principal or the bus driver, which has been nice.  He says funny things.  Jed, Jacey, and I went skiing to Snowbasin yesterday.  It was C-O-L-D.  8 degrees and blowing snow.  They are tough little skiers and we just forged on.  A little hot chocolate goes a long way.  They were devastated though, that there were no tots.

Jacey Lou is just fun.  Couldn't ask for a better 10 year old.

Jenessa is studying for finals like her life depended on it.  The kid works very hard, and I doubt there are many freshman putting in more effort.  She is looking to nail down a 4.0 this semester, which is pretty darn good in my opinion.

Well, hope the week is a great one.

Love

Dad

Buster the Elf

Man. I love this.

Love ya Mom!

Elder Blotter

What's Happen'n in Vernon.

Family,

What a great week it's been in the Canada Vancouver mission! The church is just way too true up in Vernon. And this is totally the best place to be in the winter. It's been above freezing pretty much all the time here. It's snowed a few times, but nothing has stuck yet. It's got nothing on Burns Lake, and it's not rainy at all like Vancouver is. 

It's weird to think that it was Thanksgiving down in the States this week. Elder Baker is Canadian, and even after 19 years of being an American I never really got around to figuring out what day Thanksgiving is supposed to be on (last Thursday or 4th Thursday or something like that?), so we didn't even think about it except for maybe day of. So, no turkey this Thanksgiving! I think the last time that I had a dinner appointment was Canadian Thanksgiving, and that's probably one of the maybe 2 I've had in Burnaby and Vernon. We don't really eat in members homes. From 5 to 7 is "prime proselyting time" and we don't eat meals in that time frame, because that's when everybody is home. 7-9 is consecrated member time and we're asked to visit 2 members a night, but we're supposed to look for "teaching opportunities, not eating opportunities". It's kind of weird to think about, but we literally find 10 times the number of new investigators than the mission did 3 or 4 years ago and we teach 6 times as many lessons with a member present. Our mission president is inspired. 

Well, this week has brought in some changes. Steven Rasmussen has left for a month to go visit his family in Ontario. We told him he's going to find a wife in the YSA over there. We're still working with his roommate, Chris. It's been really cool to work with him, because Chris is this 19 year old kid who has been in prison for drug use (he used to say stuff like "I like rap when it's real. I like 50 Cent and all, but he's never been shot in the jaw." ...but then he found out that we don't think saying stuff like that is cool. So he stopped.) who never would be interested in meeting with missionaries if we knocked on his door, but he's seen the effect that it's had on Steven, and he stuck around for a few lessons, and so now he's totally willing to meet with us and experiment with praying and building a relationship with God. His first few prayers have been awesome, because of how sincere he is about it. He'll keep on wanting to start over or ask questions in the middle of the prayer just because he wants them to be perfect. We set a baptismal date with him for the end of December.

We're also working with a lot of miracle people! The Lord really does prepare people and put them in our path. A part-member family moved into the ward from one of those obscure BC villages in the middle of nowhere, and they're really humble and want to change. They're the kind of family that has a "Family Home Evening" board with pegs on it, but instead of hanging names or stuff on it, they use it as a storage device to hang aprons and bags and stuff like that on it. So they're pretty cool. They have a bunch of little kids that make teaching really hard, but they're cute, so it's good. Our mission president has promised us that if we do everything that we can, we should be finding one new investigator every day. Man. That is so true. One day we had gone all day without finding our new investigator for that day, and it was about 8:55, and I was standing behind the car backing Elder Baker before we went home for the night, when this guy walked past the car. So we stop him, and start teaching him right outside of the complex that we in and he became a new investigator. The church is true!

Kelly and Toni are both going to be baptized this weekend! Kelly has just loved everything that we've taught her. When we taught her the Plan of Salvation, she just described it as being "perfect". When you find somebody that's elect, you just think back, "what if we had gone to a different area that day? What if we had knocked on her door when she wasn't home?" Things just work out. Heavenly Father just kind of orchestrates everything the way that it needs to happen. We found out that they are probably putting sisters in our ward next transfer, and the vast majority of our progressing investigators are female, and so it's good motivation to baptize them all before we hand all of our female investigators off to the sisters that will be put in.

One thing that we've been focusing on is how we should be talking with everyone all the time as we go throughout our day, even if it's on P-day and we're shopping, or whatever else. After traveling back from exchanges recently, went to eat at this all-you-can-eat sushi place, and where we were sitting, we were sitting right next to this couple that was eating. So we starting talking to them, and tell them a little bit about what they do and just had a little gospel conversation with them. Turns out that the man had roots in Raymond, which is where Elder Baker is from. And when we got up to pay, they said that they had paid for our food! Maybe that was our Thanksgiving miracle.

Anyways, the church is true! We're about to drive to Kelowna to get on a bus and head down to Richmond for mission council, which will be a spiritual feast. But hey. We'll talk to you all next week. Thanks for the emails!

Elder Blotter

DECEMBER is here.

Hello there!   How was your week? Did you get to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a nice family? I hope you got a 2nd dose of Turkey on Thursday. We had dinner here with the Jorgy's. Today Ethan leaves the MTC and flies for 14 hours to Korea. I guess he's been hungry since he arrived at the MTC and is very excited about the food at the airport. Alison sent a picture of him and a Korean companion at the MTC. The Korean came to his waist.  Ha ha

     Well, Jed is so excited about Buster the Elf. (He named him).  He can hardly wait to wake up and find out where he will be and what he did in the night. I sent you a picture of what he did this morning. It is so fun to have J and J little enough to still believe in the magic of Christmas. Claudia has had fun helping to decorate the house for Christmas and listening to Christmas songs and helping me address Christmas cards. And I know she is very excited for her family to come the day after Christmas. 

        

       So, has it snowed yet in Vernon? Today and the last few days have been sunny and pretty warm. They say tomorrow the wind and cold and snow is coming. I took G and G Jorgy to church yesterday. They hadn't been since Easter when I took them last. It is quite the thing to get them ready. It takes a while to get them ready! I have to do everything for both of them. Put on my Dad's shoes and socks, shave him, wash his face and brush his teeth, comb his hair, clothes, tie, belt. And then to start with my mom!  But I put him in that wheelchair and got him there. It was exhausting but I could tell they both loved it. I am at an interesting stage. The cycle of life. They once changed my diapers and now I change my dad's. But I love them so much and am so thankful for them both.

     All is well at home. We are blessed in many ways. Life is not perfect, but it is good and we are happy.  :)  Can't wait to hear from you today and see how you are. We pray for those sweet souls you are teaching. They sound awesome.     Love you so much,  Mom