Good Gow!

Family,

 

Well, it's been another great week on Haida Gwaii. The sun is shining, the bald eagles are doing their screechy chirping thing, and the ocean is calm and blue. The only thing that is off in the world is that I feel kind of queasy from eating a whole bunch of gow just barely. That's probably not how you spell it, but that's what it sounds like and nobody you ask knows how to spell it either. The native people just love love love love love to eat herring spawn on kelp. They love it. We just helped Bunty and Wendy Green, this awesome Haida couple, carry in their groceries, and somebody had given them just oodles and oodles of it, and they fed  us some. Wendy said that she "would give us a little taste" which translated into a massive plate full of it for each of us. Apparently it was a better year for the herring than it was for the kelp, and so they had a lot of herring spawn not attached to any kelp, and so there were some pretty good sized piles of that too. And we ate it all! Honestly, I actually really did love it. It tasted really good, and the texture definitely isn't... western, but it was really kind of fun to eat. But about 15 minutes after leaving, my stomach notified me that my ancestors quite preferred to eat wheat and chicken and stuff like that. But still, gow is surprisingly tasty! They gave us some to take home and so Elder Mason will probably take some pictures of it, knowing him.

Good Gow!

 

 

Speaking of the Masons, they just got back from a 4 day trip down in Gwaii Haanas, the southern, uninhabited parts of the island. They went on a boat in the open ocean that was about the same that one multiple day white water rafting trip we went on. He probably sent pictures of that too, but they saw whales and ruins and all sorts of awesome stuff. Going down there has got to be on the bucket list. Seeing how there aren't too many people to find teach or baptize down there, it probably won't be on our to-do list, unfortunately!

 

Anyways, the past week has just been great! We've seen a lot of miracles in our finding and teaching in the far reaches of Haida Gwaii. It really doesn't matter how many times a street has been visited, the Lord is constantly preparing ways for us to accomplish what He has commanded us to do, and so we always somehow manage to find people to teach. You know, whether you're commanded to find, teach and baptize, or build barges and cross an ocean, or get brass plates from a powerful and wicked man, the Lord is going to blesses those who are entirely obedient. In this mission we have our consecrated finding time where in between 5 and 7 pm, unless we're in a lesson, we're out finding because that's when people and families are most likely to be home. A lot of people initially resisted. (What if it hurts our relationships with members if we're not having dinner appointments? etc.) But, the mission acted on the revelation that was given to our mission president, and it's just almost unbelievable how much of a difference that it's made. It's been the same with increasing the number of quality conversations we have with people about the gospel. (Elder Ballard told us to have 20 per day, then we're going to move and shake until every missionary companionship is having at least 20 per day!) Between that and some other things that have been implemented, the number of new investigators that the mission has found has just been phenomenal. At the beginning of my mission the mission fasted that we would be able to find 100 new investigators in a week. We now find around 1500 new investigators in a week. And this is in British Columbia, a province that is supposed to be secular and irreligious and whatever else! We just can't believe how much of a difference has been made here as we do our best to focus on the things that the Prophet and Apostles have invited us to do in Preach My Gospel and through the communication that they have with President Tilleman.

 

We hear so much about "hastening the work". It is. It is hastening. It's awesome. But, as we like to say, the Lord is happy, but he's not satisfied! We tend to place too much emphasis on technology or things like that as being the main agents for change in the hastening of the work. Technology is great. It really is. It's a tender mercy and there are things that just couldn't be accomplished otherwise with it, particularly with genealogy and things like that. But speaking from the end that I'm on, I just have something to say. iPads do not hasten the work! Facebook doesn't hasten the work! Facebook will be fantastic way to stay in touch with people after the mission, or I can just imagine how cool it would be in a planning session to have where all your potential, current, or former investigators live plotted out geographically and just be able to figure all that out on some iPad app. Again, amazing tender mercies, and I'm sure that there are just so many ways that things like that can be helpful. And all those things will contribute to hasten the work. BUT. Guess what happens (at least in our little corner of the world) in meetings, when they ask mission presidents to raise their hands if they've had a baptism because of an iPad, in those missions where they have them? Well! iPads don't create baptisms.

 

So, what does hasten the work, then? Unfortunately, we can't just have some missionaries log into Facebook somewhere and expect President Monson to announce that there were 100,000 more convert baptisms in the last year. It means that we are all going to have to hasten right along with the work! For missionaries, it means that we're all going to need to be exactly obedient and work harder than we ever have in the past. To see things that we haven't seen before, we're going to have to do things we haven't done before! From my experiences in the Canada Vancouver Mission, I know that ultimately if we want to see the work hasten, if we want to avoid "letting the mouths of the prophets fail", then we're going to have to apply and be obedient to what we're being told many many times by the leaders of the church in General Conference, church magazines, and from our local leaders and each other in our church meetings on Sunday. When we email each other, we all (quite appropriately) tell other missionaries to be obedient! People back home (again, quite appropriately!) write and tell missionaries to be obedient. Well, we're all missionaries! We all need to be obedient to the things that we've been invited to do to help this work hasten. We're all in this boat together. And what a blessing it is, too! Sharing the gospel brings so much joy. :)

 

Earlier today we taught a lesson to a woman that we have always called by her first and last name with the middle name "No Pipelines" because that's how her (and lots of people here, for that matter!) name reads on her voicemail. We've been trying to set up a visit for a long time, but haven't been successful until today. She said that she had been trying to quit using drugs and alcohol before she met with us, and has been doing well enough to have the confidence to finally sit down with us. She has so much sincere intent and great questions and it was just a fantastic lesson. She loves the things that we taught. As we were just feeling the spirit in the lesson, I was reminded for a second of how much I'll miss being a missionary! There are so many amazing people in this province that I just haven't had the chance to talk to yet.

 

But, the work here is going well. We're still teaching the chief and his wife, Sid and Cindy. He's addicted to Mormon messages right now. Those are just awesome. In Masset, Sarah Hillis, our investigator, was the only one who came to church! She's just faithful. I don't even know what I'm going to do if ever again put in a church building with more than 20 people in it at a time! Although I guess that will be soon. We'll be off for the Terrace District conference in Terrace this next week! That means there are some 8 hour ferry rides to look forward too... fortunately we take the ferry at night so we just sleep on the floor underneath some benches or something because rooms are expensive. That will be exciting though! Alma-Rose is going, so that will just be an awesome experience for her to be able to see that there are more than just a handful of Mormons in the world! At least she'll know there's... 3 or 4 handfuls in the world!

 

Hope that everything is going well back in happy valley! Looks like the Yellowstone trip was a success. Good to hear that Jed was not gored by one of those Buffalo he was intimidating.

 

Love you all lots!

 

Elder Blotter

What a week!

Family,

 

Has it already been another week already? It is just crazy how quickly time is disappearing. We're emailing this week on Monday because of a few factors because of some preparation day changes because of the token 3 day weekend that BC makes sure happens at least every month.  People call it "May Long", but I think it's officially Victoria Day, and we're trying to fit our preparation day around different things, so here we are a day early! The past week has been just a blessed one, though, that is for sure.

 

I think one of the biggest lessons that we've learned this week is the importance of charity and service. The islands have a very small, tight-knit culture. And it's one that just really isn't friendly towards religion, because of negative experiences in the past with other faiths. And so as missionaries trying to spread a message centered on Jesus Christ, there's a really big barrier for people, because everyone has been told terrible things about religions, and if somebody shows interest, then friends and family know about it and start tearing away at the little seed of faith that was planted. Spiritually speaking, it's a challenging environment! The converts that are here really are awesome examples of faith and enduring to the end despite difficulties, because there really is no coasting into the font here (...or ocean). People like Alma-Rose and the other converts are just inspiring as their share their conversion experiences, and really, every single one is a miracle.

 

But, for the church to really take root on the islands, then people need to know what we are all about. What we've noticed is that whenever we serve someone, it always surprises us how many people say "oh, we heard you helped so-and-so", etc. And so we've just started helping people as much as possible, and wearing those bright yellow Mormon helping hands shirts as much as possible. It's been great. It's a slow process, but even if people at least just recognize that we help people. barriers will start to come down between more and more people. Ammon had that figured out pretty well. One of the things that it mentions in my patriarchal blessing is that on my mission I will learn to love the people where I would be serving. I remember reading that and having the thought cross my mind that that probably meant I would be serving in some foreign country with foreign people just because of the way that it's worded. I kind of forgot about that when I was called to Canada, but at times I reflect on that when I'm in little corners of the province like Haida Gwaii learning to love the people here, even though many of them mistake us for something we're not and act that way, too!

 

Otherwise, we're just continuing on the work in Haida Gwaii! We're searching under all the rocks and in all the crevices on these islands for people to teach! We've done quite a bit of finding and have found quite a bit of success in an area that a previous missionary discouraged us from visiting called Tow Hill. It's along the Northern coast of the island, and the houses are pretty isolated (I guess everywhere in this place) but the people have really soft hearts and we've had some solid conversations. (People build the weirdest houses, too. On one house all the siding and the windows and doors were put at a 45 degree angle as if to make it look like it was sliding into the ground, people build houses literally in trees, people build houses out of glass bottles and cement, the list goes on). The last missionaries that went though the area didn't find a lot of success, but the people that they talked with remembered them, and now we've been able to find a lot of people that have had softened hearts and are willing to hear us out. The Lord really does prepare people, and even those little conversations that don't seem to yield fruit can at least give people stuff to think about, so they'll be ready later.

 

You have a lot of crazy experiences on your mission, too. Earlier on, we were driving down a driveway in that area and there was this huge puddle in the middle of it. We had no idea how deep it was, but we figured that since it was in a driveway, it must be passble, right? Not right. We drove in the middle of it, and water was literally washing up onto our windshield. But, we were delivered! I literally have no idea how the truck kept running, but it did! Despite how deep the water was, with quick action and a prayer in our hearts we were able to get ourselves out of the puddle. Miracles have not ceased. Little tender mercies like that remind you that you're being watched over.

 

Alma-Rose was set apart as a primary teacher today! She was very excited about it. The way that the church runs is just inspired. It gives everybody a chance to contribute, and the callings that we have can really make us stretch and grow. I love watching how people react to receiving their first callings. They take them as seriously as we all should take them! Here, the Gospel Doctrines teacher was somebody who was baptized in October. But what better way to have her learn the doctrines of the church than to have her be the gospel doctrines teacher? The lessons are always very sincere and the Spirit is strong. The little church services here are great. I'm going to miss Sacrament meetings where it feels more like we're sitting in a circle than as a congregation, because the congregation isn't much bigger than the people sitting in front.

 

Our teaching pool is still very diverse, too. We're teaching this older French Ba'hai  gentleman, the young man on house arrest, hippies of all sorts, Sarah, who just has to be baptized, and others. And we're still working with the chief, Sid, and his wife Cindy. They'll feed us world class seafood, and we'll just feast, and then Sid will bring up the gospel on his own and ask us what the lesson is going to be on. He's so awesome. There are all those social barriers for them to be baptized, but the seed is planted with them, and it's growing.

 

Well, the church is true! And we're so blessed to be a part of it. I hope that you all have an amazing week!

 

Elder Blotter

We'd purchase the Kingdom Hall for sale here, but the baptismal font is just too small...

 

 

Family,

Well, I talked to you yesterday and will see you all in a month, but I guess that you probably still want an email, mom. So I guess I'll write an email.

The past week has just been a sacred, sacred week! One of the highlights of the mission, for sure. It's not very frequent that your mission president more or less becomes one of your companions for 24 hours and even less frequent that you get out in the ocean as a missionary, but when it happens, goodness, it's amazing. We learned so many lessons from the weekend, too.

As I mentioned in the phone call, the airport that President Tilleman flew into is on Moresby Island, but where most of the visits took place was on Graham Island. After we picked up President Tilleman (and had some quality gospel conversations just in the airport with him) we headed off to the ferry. Since they've recently reduced the ferry schedule for the ferry that runs between the islands, the ferries have gotten a lot more crowded, and with only one car in front of us in line, they cut off our vehicle so we'd have to wait for the next ferry. Since we knew that President Tilleman would only have a brief stay on the island, we just had the day packed with teaching appointments, and so missing that ferry would force us to cancel a lot of appointments, and Alma-Rose's interview was supposed to take place right after we got off the ferry. So just immediately acting on a prompting, we jumped out of the truck and just ran towards the ferry and asked if someone could walk on the ferry, even if they didn't have a vehicle. The ferry worker agreed, even though walk-on boarding is supposed to take place before people drive on. So, President Tilleman was able to run down and get on the ferry, where Sid, the hereditary chief that we've been teaching, happened to also be riding and offered to give President Tilleman a ride to the interview. That was awesome, because that gave President Tilleman and Sid the chance to have a one on one talk. God just orchestrated that one perfectly, and no appointments needed to be cancelled.

We a lot of other miracle visits, including setting a temple date with one of the less active members who's been on the fence about committing to go for a long time. We only had a very short period of time for the visit, and we couldn't meet in their home, and so in just a few minutes on the street outside the little public library in Masset,we just witnessed a miracle take place! It was awesome. We had a lot of other visits, but one of the most powerful ones as well was with Sarah, who we just think is just great. (She said the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting this week, by the way.) We just talked a lot about the Book of Mormon, and during the discussion we learned that she does think that the Book of Mormon is true! She's not at the "baptism" part of her journey, but she's doing great. We got out of that lesson rather late and we still needed to travel back to Queen Charlotte for the night, and so we got back late enough for President Tilleman to say that it was the latest that he had ever been out teaching with missionaries. The entire drive home he was just teaching us, and it was awesome. Because we were out later than the schedule usually permits, he taught us about obedience to our priesthood leaders, including respecting the keys that they hold (for example, President Tilleman holds the keys that would let us be out later than 9 or 9:30) Relatively close to the beginning of the drive, he pointed at the clock that read "11:11" and told us that that time should always remind us about obedience from now on. So, there you go. 11:11 means obedience.

The day following was the day of Alma-Rose's baptism, which was just an amazing service. When we arrived we ran along the beach to the water to feel what temperature we were dealing with, and it was just almost an out of body experience it was so beautiful. The faithful little branch came out to support her, along with some other onlookers. Alma-Rose has been very public about her decision to be baptized, and as a result, she's faced a lot of opposition it, and it hasn't phased her at all. In fact, the church (and religion in general) faces a lot of opposition on the islands here, partially because of the direction that the world is going, and partially because of abuses that other religions have done on the island that have left a bad taste in a lot of the native's mouths. She's just a great example of being a disciple in a world that seems to be lacking them.

It seems like from what the themes of general conference are and from how the world is, that we're all going to need to step it up and be disciples. When we're kind of cozy in Utah we kind of get shielded from the way that the world is, but we're all going to need to stand strong when opposition and persecution come! And we all need to work together to help make this world a place by sharing the gospel. Sometimes the islands here feel like a smaller version of the whole world, but here you can see the difference that even one person that develops and has integrity to their testimony can make.

Well, family! The church is true! Heavenly Father is there, and He loves us (The name for the creator in Haida is Salaana, which means "he who powers the lights" as in lights in the sky.) He sent His Son to save each one of us. Not to condemn us, but to save us and to give us every possible opportunity to return to live with God again. And we have a prophet on the earth! We can receive guidance directly from God.

And every time there's a baptism or anything like that, there's usually a big potluck, and the missionaries get sent home with all the leftovers. So it's a good thing that I now have a Lotoja registration to scare me into not eating too much!

Sure love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Blotter

Haida Gwaii

Family,

Well, just like that it's been another week! That's crazy. It's already May! Where did April go? Where did 2013 go, for that matter? It's been a great week, though. Lots of awesome experiences on the islands of Haida Gwaii.

The past... 3 days now have just been sunny and gorgeous! We're hoping that May just kind of stays that way, but people who have access to weather forecasts tell us that's not the case. But still. Faith and Hope are attributes we're supposed to be developing, so there you go. Yesterday we spent most of the day working in Tlell, a little community with a few ranches, lots of hippies, and then people that are called "wuhwoofers" after the "willing workers on organic farms" program, or in other words, people who just kind of threw the towel in on their old lives, and then migrated to Haida Gwaii to work for food on organic farms. In short, we had a lot of unique conversations about the gospel with types of people that you really can only find on Haida Gwaii. But it was just beautiful! The main road (There really is only one paved road on the island, other than roads that have houses on them, and there's only one streetlight by the ferry landing. But hey! They've got one!) overlooks the ocean and forest and rocky beach, and then the  driveways take you through scenic little pastures with ponds and forest and stuff. Beautiful. Unfortunately, the nice weather has also brought out these awesome little black flies that make horseflies seem desirable. They're not as painful, but there's just a ton of them, and they just make it their life's objective to get in your hair and just kind of gnaw on your head. We finally had to bum some bug spray from someone, which worked great for me, but Elder Rose had an allergic reaction to it that caused his lips to swell up... yeah. Well, enough about those little bundles of joy.

Alma Rose is just doing great! We are very much looking forward to her baptism on Saturday. Brother Rasmussen, the only male member of the church on the southern half of the island excluding the missionaries and kids, is going to be baptizing her, and then her confirmation will be the following day, and she asked me to confirm her, which will just be awesome. (I can just tell you all about it later that evening, seeing how it will be Mother's Day). Alma Rose is just solid. The friend group on the island for young single people is just not one that's very supportive of her joining the church, and is one that kind of makes fun of the church and religion in general. She's just taking it all in stride, though, and just doing great. She has a lot of faith and we're excited for the weekend. President Tilleman will be flying up on Thursday for her baptismal interview, and for the length of his stay we'll be in charge of making sure that all of his time is filled with lessons with investigators and interviews and things like that with members, and so that will be pretty intense. That in and of itself will be really exciting, but also... we really hope that everything goes well. :)

We had a lot of very cool teaching opportunities this week. Bro. Rasmussen is a member of the RCMP in Queen Charlotte, (so whenever he's riding with us to a lesson, if we pass by a group of people playing softball, we might saying "oh, that looks fun" while he's saying "oh, those guys are at it again. I'd better swing by and confiscate the alcohol before it comes out", and stuff like that) Anyways, over the course of his day to day work he's had a few conversations with a young man who is on house arrest because he got tied into drug trafficking a while ago. He's totally repentant about it and is just serving out his time patiently,  but he's had a few conversations with Bro. Rasmussen about the church, and we just met with him for the first time. It's interesting because we're about the same age, and we've gone down some pretty different paths, but at this point, (since he probably does have a lot of time to think) he realizes that his life definitely feels like it's missing something. He has a lot of real intent, and in our first lesson the spirit was definitely very strong.

It was a cool experience all on it's own, and it also made me reflect as we were leaving that some way or another, Heavenly Father will work out so that the people that are ready to be taught, we will be able to teach. The young man lives in a separate apartment behind his parent's house right now, and there's just no way that we'd know about it, or have any way of contacting him, if it wasn't for the way that things worked out. This is God's work, and it moves forward!

Well, the church is true! Hope that you all have just the best week, and I'll talk to you on Sunday!

Elder Blotter

:)

Mooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Hi. Does it work if we call at 7 our time (8 your time, I believe)? Thanks bunches!

I did get the camera charger, by the way! So that's good. Um. You're going to be quite frustrated with me. But... Somehow, and we've turned over the apartment, we can't find the CTR ring that you sent for me to give to Mook! And she gave me a really cool Haida CTR copper shield thing. Anyways. Any chance that you could send another one??

Tell Jacey that I feel bad for her being sick... that's no fun...

Love you lots,

Elder Blotter

May Flowers

Hi

I would imagine that on Haida Gwaii that April showers bring more May showers.  Here in Utah we had the typical 35 degrees with rain turning to snow last Saturday and this Saturday it hit 80 degrees and the lawn is turning brown.  Ahh, Utah.  You can't beat it. 

Sounds like things are cookin on the Haida.  (Literally, with everyone feeding you guys)  That is just great.  I'm sure there are challenges and rewards.  That is how the mission goes, and progress at times can be difficult to measure. 

Well, I'm sure you will hear about it from Ness but she pulled off the A in Stats and she pulled off the big 4.0 for the year.  You will be returning a marked man this fall!!  Finals are over and she is in limbo waiting to go to Spain.  Claudia and Ness leave June 5th for Gijon, Asturias Spain.  It is a little weird to have Daniel Lemon's brother over quite a bit of the time.  He is a nice enough fellow.  I don't know how that is going to work out. 

Jacey has two new kittens.  She is an animal lover more than any of you guys, and as fate would have it, she is horrifically allergic to cats.  She cannot sleep at night because her nose is clogged, despite my medication strategies so I am working on how to make that work out.  

Jed had a big soccer game.  He was rumbling down the field and I overheard some of the other team's parents mumble, and I quote, "that Hyde Park kid must be on steroids."  That about sums up that lovable husky fella.  I don't know where his ginormous size comes from but it comes as part of a fun package.  Jed is a blast.  He is funny, quirky, and intelligent.  The other day his teacher told us that he goes out of his way to be kind to a little girl with disabilties.  They had a reading assignment in partners and she was worried no one was going to pick this little girl.  Jed got to chose first, and chose her right away.  He's not perfect, in fact, he can be complicated, but he is a fun little boy for sure. 

Claudia's time is winding down, and we are going to miss that little Spaniard for sure.  Jed and Jacey love her so much.  She is great with those little turkeys.  She plays ultimate frisbee and has enjoyed that.  Samantha Yorgasen has really been a friend to her and helped plug her into a good Sky View crowd. 

Grandma and Grandpa are in Georgia (the easter bloc country near Russia) working on a water project.  You should drop them a 3 line email.  they are faithful people.  Whatever you accomplish in life, starting with successful missionary service, you do it standing on their shoulders. 

Well, I hope that the week is a gem.

Love

 Dad