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