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
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