Hi-duh g-why!

Family!

Sorry for no email yesterday. Preparation day has to be on Tuesday in my new area. Speaking of... cra-hay-zy news. I haven't had a small transfer yet. Whenever I get moved, I kind of go all over the place. And... I'm now in... drumroll... going

Haida Gwaii. Yep. I'm in Haida Gwaii. The Queen Charlotte islands. I can't even believe it. It's a whole other planet up here. You'll probably have to google it to find it, but more or less it's the clump of islands off the coast of northern BC, just south of Alaska. So beautiful here. And it's crazy. I have always wanted to serve in Haida Gwaii, but I never figured that I would have the opportunity to serve there. Sister Tilleman described it as President Tilleman's "jewel". Missionaries were put on Haida Gwaii for the first time in over 40 years around when I I came into the field, and a branch was started about a year ago. In the first transfer meetings I attended, Pre goingsident Tilleman was always talking about the miracles that were happening on Haida Gwaii. When President saw me at the transfer meeting, he just shook my hand and said "don't blow it." Ha ha. (He's such a great mission president. He's absolutely going to be a general authority.) going going

We just flew in on Saturday. We used to fly into Terrace, drive to Prince Rupert, then take an 8-10 hour ferry to the island, but then they found out that at the end of all that it costs the same to fly us straight there from Vancouver ($1,000 for one person, one way, per trip). And it's just beautiful here. There are a few small villages along the Northern half of the island, but it's extremely small. There just aren't a lot of people here, and so the style of missionary work here is a lot different than in Vernon, where you're just kind of a teaching machine that goes from lesson to lesson finding and teaching like crazy. The culture here is very different.

Here's how the past 2 days have gone...

Sunday: Wake up and study. Grab the "church in a box" with some hymn books, 2 sacrament trays and white tablecloths, and a gospel art picture in a frame. Drive through the little village that we live in, Queen Charlotte City to a shed thing/First nations community hall, and then set up some chairs, and wait for about 10-15 people to arrive to have a little 2 hour church meeting. Pretty much everyone there is a returning less active or a recent convert, except for a family from Vernon that works for the RCMP, who is stationed out in Haida Gwaii. After the meeting is over, we drive for 1.5 hours (Beautiful drive. Everything is green here. It's usually around 50 degrees here in the winter. There are tons of things that are just unique to Haida Gwaii, though. For example, driving down the road there are just tons and tons of these little deer that are about the size of a lab when they're fully grown. They don't have any predators, so they're just all over the place.) the North part of the island, where there's a little village called Masset, where we set up some more chairs and put together second service for the people that live up in Masset. The only people there are us, the Masons, a senior couple from Saskatchewan serving in Haida Gwaii as "leadership support" missionaries, one member, and 2 first nations recent converts. All the people here are just awesome.

Monday: Monday we planned, and then went finding. There are some islands close to town that you can only access when the tide is low. When the tide is high, you're pretty much trapped on the island for 12 hours. But... there are houses on them! So when the tide was low, we sprinted out to the islands, and were trying to find all the houses connected by roads for ATVs. We found and taught a this hippie guy, but by the time we were out of the lesson, it was getting dark and we almost got trapped on the island. On Haida Gwaii there are pretty much just a lot of natives and people who just want to escape from the world. A lot of reclusive people. In the evening, we taught one of the chiefs on Haida Gwaii. We're literally teaching a chief. They're such great people. Everybody here is just so nice. All of the members just do so much for you and take care of you.

Today, this preparation day has been crazy. A gallon of milk is $8, a box of Mac n' Cheese is $2. Groceries come in on a ferry Monday night, and the produce (which is insanely expensive) is usually gone in a day or two. I'll probably only have an hour to email, instead of 2, which might make it so that my emails are shorter. Sorry about that!

My companions right now are Elder Rose and Elder Owens. Elder Owens has been here for about 6 months and will leave in a week. He's just here showing us around for now. Elder Rose and I will be staying. They're both awesome and are from Idaho. Elder Rose is from Idaho Falls and is pretty much your good-natured Idaho potato farmer. I'm for the most part sure that Haida Gwaii will be my last area. When you're here, you're usually here for a while.

I miss Vernon a lot! There were so many good members and converts there.Toni Edenshaw, it turns out, is half Haida. I have to go find all the Edenshaws here... They have amazing things up here. Haida art is like world renowned. And... it's all pretty much made here. They have this valuable rock here that only formed on Haida Gwaii called argellite. Elder Owens has a carved wolf worth about $800 sitting on his desk that was given to him.

But in the end, I'm just really excited to get involved in the work up here! We're just going to find all the people we can on this island. It's a small, small place, and there have been missionaries here for a while, but we're going to do everything that we can. Even just being here is a miracle. Thanks for all of the emails and support, everyone! Hope that you have a great week!

Elder Blotter