:) / :( / :^D / :^P / :'( / :')

Family,

Well, here we are. I can't even believe it.

Currently, I am sitting at a little computer in a public library in Richmond. We spent probably the last hour or so trying to get to it, because we weren't bold enough turning into the parking lot, which forced us through a tunnel underneath the Fraser river and into Delta somewhere, where we just wandered and wandered until I found a road map in the backseat that got us back over.

Many gospel applications could no doubt be taken from the experience.

So, there we go!

The past couple days have been so. hard. Leaving Haida Gwaii was incredibly difficult. Saying goodbye to so many people that just become your family up there! I am very glad it was my last area and so I can reconnect with all the people up there when I get home. As it worked out, the ferry that we needed to take to get to the airport left right in the middle of Sacrament meeting in Charlotte. We just had time to stand up and each of us bore our testimonies, and then we had to leave. One of the things about being in a little branch like on Haida Gwaii is that there are... formalities that are sometimes overlooked, so in the middle of the testimony meeting, everybody stood up and was crying and we crowded around and said goodbye. Gah. It was hard. Very hard to say goodbye. But, I'm going to come back! I drank water from "St. Mary's Spring", which if you drink from, you're supposed to return to the islands again. It was brown water with a bunch of bugs circling around it, but I haven't died.

And then, we flew down South! We spent all day yesterday just working in Richmond. We felt prompted to tract instead of street contact, which in general is just less effective in the lower mainland because most everybody that comes to the door is Asian and pretends to not speak English, but we went to it and in literally the last door we knocked we found this awesome Peruvian family that is totally going to get baptized. So that was our miracle for yesterday. We stayed with the Assistants, and learned how they manage to stay fueled for the grueling hours of work that they do for President Tilleman (M&M milkshakes for breakfast).

At 3:45 it's my exit interview with President Tilleman, after that we've got the testimony meeting and dinner, then the following day we'll go to the temple and visit some different people in Vancouver and Burnaby. And then you guys know more about Wednesday than I do.

Serving a mission has been the best decision of my life. I've lived and loved and learned so much over the past 2 years. I can't even wrap my head around all the experiences that I've had. I've learned so much about God's love. When you're teaching someone who wants to be baptized, you just love them. When they make a mistake or fall short or break a commandment that they know that they shouldn't have, you're not infuriated, you're just devastated and love them and would do anything to help them fix what's broken. And if I, being a lowly human being in whom the natural man is alive and well, feel that way, then how much love must our Father in Heaven have for us? I can testify in a way that only serving a mission could teach me that God lives and loves us. He wants to bless us and will sometimes literally look for excuses to give you tender mercies. He will put people in your path that will change you forever.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour. His atonement lets us change. When we accept Him into our lives and become disciples by being obedient and living his doctrine, we change. Our hearts change. Things that were once weaknesses that humbled us become strengths. Things that were broken become stronger than they were in the first place. Relationships that are tense and angry become full of love. Addictions become weaker and weaker until they're forgotten. Things that are scarlet become not just white, but as white as snow. As far as understanding the logistics of how on the Earth the atonement was possible, I don't think I'm any closer than when I left. I have no idea how Jesus Christ did what He did. But this I do know: that it's real. The atonement of Jesus Christ is real and it can change people and families. It's a process. It's not a verbal declaration and then a flood of warm fuzzies and it's not electric guitars in church and it's not anything less than yielding your heart to God and becoming a disciple, but it's real. When we develop faith in Christ, repent and change, make and keep covenants, we change and we feel peace. It's simple and it's pure. 

And on that topic, I love the Book of Mormon! Today I was reminded again about how the Book of Mormon in 2 verses teaches you how to become perfect and live with God. Moroni 8:25-26. How powerful is that? I know that an intentionally sinful person trying to write a book and found a false church could not in a million years be able to mimick the emotions that are captured in 2 Nephi 4. Thinking of all the random nouns and places and geographies and how easily you can find the doctrine of Christ, there's no way that it isn't inspired of God. There's no way. There's no way that somebody could fake how clearly the Saviour teaches in 3rd Nephi. Joseph Smith was a prophet! And that means that what he taught is true! Our families really will be together forever. God really did send His Authority to the Earth so that we can give blessings and heal and save. He really does speak to us today. We're not blobs of organic matter on a floating rock in outer space. We're God's children.

And you know, the next couple weeks are going to be pretty chaotic. I really have no idea what's going to happen. But I think of one my favorite, if not my favorite, chapters in the New Testament, Romans 8. In it, among lots of other beautiful teachings, there's a promise that everything will work for good for those who love God. One of the biggest things I learned on my mission is that good things keep on coming, and that even though it's incredibly hard to close a chapter of your life sometimes, good things keep on coming.

Well, this computer is about to time out, so I've got to cut short. But love you all, and see all y'all on Wednesday! I'll do my best to smuggle some Timbits through customs. No promises that I won't eat them if the line is too long... It's too bad that Jenessa is in Spain, but I'm sure she wouldn't want any anyway because she's too full of fish and stuff!

Love you all lots!

Elder Blotter

Historic letter

Elder Blotter, of Haida Gwaii,

This letter is historic, because it is the final letter I will send to Elder Blotter of the Vancouver Canada Mission.  The sun is setting on your time there very quickly.  As of your next P-day after reading this letter, you will be traveling to the mission home, for the final chapter.   You will arrive at SLC international airport at 1:11 on June 11.  At 8:30 p.m. that same day President S Mario Durrant of the Hyde Park Stake will meet with you, interview you, and have you remove your name badge.  Then you become Josh once more, awkward and a little lost for a spell. 

The blessings will be eternal, even though the road has certainly been a challenge at times.  You have said many times in your letters that miracles do happen and I agree.  They can seem subtle, but the sum total of them is staggering.  I benefit from them all of the time in my work.   Thursday afternoon I was performing exploratory surgery for a tumour in a patients neck that was causing her great harm.  I could not find it, and she proved to have an anatomic abnormality found in less than 1% of the population.  Well, 4.5 hours into a 1.5 hour surgery, I thought, "Why not say a little prayer?"  So I did, and when I finally remembered that option I knew, and I mean I knew, that I would find it.  About 1 minute later I  reached my index finger down onto the top of her lung and felt a little round thing.  With great care I worked it out, and as fate would have it, she was then cured at that point.  The Lord turned me from a neck surgeon to a lung surgeon for just long enough to solve the problem. 

Last night a 7 year old came in with a bleeding tonsil.  At the beginning of anesthesia he vomited a gallon of blood mixed with stomach acid which was headed right for his lungs and can be fatal.  We scrambled.  I prayed.  Oxygen levels tanked and things looked very very bad for a spell and then suddenly they were okay.  Bleeding was quickly stopped, post op chest X ray showed no blood in the lungs and he is home eating popsicles right now instead of at the morgue.  I am not a spiritual giant.  I have flaws.  But when I petition the Lord, I petition with faith, and I receive miracles in my realm.  A deep part of my inner soul relates this to missionary work, and especially blessings that stem from faithful missionary service.  Even 26 years later.

Many are excited for your return.  We love you and are looking forward to having you back.  Go out there this week and 'leave it all on the field' so to speak, and take a few moments to soak in the final moments of the spiritual blessings of being a full time missionary.

Dad

Last week on Haida Gwaii!

Family,

It just can't have already been another week. It just can't have been. District conference is already over? What in the world! Time is going by so insanely quickly. I just can't even believe it at all.

On Sunday, I will be flying down to Vancouver, and then on Monday and Tuesday I'll have the chance to have my final interview with President Tilleman, go to the temple, have a testimony meeting with the other missionaries returning home, hunt down some converts in the Vancouver and Burnaby area (and should write home on Monday of some sorts), and do all that sort of thing until Tuesday. So, this isn't the last email! I have tons of time left! That's what!

Anyways, the past week has had so many spiritual highlights, that I am not even sure where to begin. District conference was just amazing. I love the Terrace zone. It was just a tender mercy for me to be able to be there for my third district conference. When I entered into the field, there were just 3 branches in the district. And it's grown! Now there are five. The last district conference that I was there for was when the Kitimat branch was organized, and we were there for the first sacrament meetings of the Kitimat branch. That was a year ago, and I was sent up there to train Elder Atwood and advised to find a family to baptize up there so that the branch wouldn't fizzle. The district conference before that, I was in Burns Lake, and they had just sent missionaries to Haida Gwaii, and I had no idea that I would someday be serving there. My heart was just so overwhelmed seeing all of the members and converts and people there. It was all I could do to hold myself together, but all of the hymns that we sang were missionary hymns in the 250ish range of the hymnbook, and during those I couldn't even sing I was so choked up. Northern BC will always be hallowed ground to me.

Daniel and Chelsea Boyson, who were baptized when I was in Kitimat, were there, and they are both doing great. Daniel Boyson is even preparing for a mission, and I had the opportunity to ordain Daniel an elder and confer the Melchizedek Priesthood. It was just so powerful and I was so grateful for the opportunity. I just rejoice to think of the blessing that a mission will be in his life and the experiences that he will have there. I'm so happy for him!

I also had the chance to see Brian, someone who joined the church in Terrace but I had the chance to find, and then teach along the way. He was as excited to see me as I was to see him! He originally allowed us to just carry some garbage outside of his house to a dumpster nearby because he's older and has some health complications, and in between loads he would tell us about how his friends think that we are a cult, etc. Finally, he decided that if we could tell him what Romans 10:9-10 say, then that would mean that we aren't a cult. As fate would have it, I did in fact have Romans 10:9-10 memorized. And so we were able to sit down with him and teach him the pure and simple gospel of Jesus Christ, without any of the dogma or confusing teachings he'd learned in other places and online. Later that day as we were planning and talking, we were worried about him finding "unfavorable materials" when he called to tell us that he was a "Gathering of Israel pundit" and that he believed the Book of Mormon because "this Nephi character is making prophecies that were fulfilled that nobody thought would happen until it did" and stuff like that. It was awesome. Sometimes he would still find concerns and call about them, but he told me on Sunday that "every time he calls to confound the missionaries he gets confounded" and he's doing great. On Saturday morning he called to dispute the identity of Michael the Archangel but by the time that the meeting on Saturday was held he shared with me his opinion that Joseph Smith could be the white horseman in the book of Revelation, so we figure he'd changed his mind! He got his patriarchal blessing this past weekend, and is still just doing great. It was awesome to get the chance to see him again.

We had the chance to see many of the members in Kitimat and some from Burns Lake, too! The Syphuses, the Van Hornes, the Kaberrys, they are all just great.

All said and done, the rest of the trip was just a whirlwind! On Thurday, our ferry left at about 10 pm  in the evening, and we arrived at around 7 in the morning the following day in Prince Rupert. The first night we were up late and up early because sleeping in proselyting clothes on industrial carpet isn't incredibly comfortable, but that was okay because we ended up just spending more time on the deck watching the most beautiful place on earth sail by. Fortunately we're getting to that time of the year where there are just a few hours of darkness at night, and it was light most of the time. And goodness, was it beautiful! They say Prince Rupert is a rainy place, (for perspective it apparently gets about double the centimeters of rainfall that Vancouver has) but every time I've been there it's been sunny. We were at the same ferry dock that the family members that go to Ketchikan use to catch the ferry out there, if that's how they get there! Anyways, that put us in Prince Rupert on Friday morning, and so we spent all Friday on the streets of Prince Rupert finding, and then we rode down with the missionaries there to Terrace for the conference.

The district conference was amazing, too! For the first time in the Terrace district's history, we had a member of the 70, the area authority for our area Elder Paul Christensen, spoke, and shared many cool experiences. He, independent of any organization or charity or anything like that, just packs up and flies somewhere in the middle of Africa, and just follows the spirit to find children that need help, assesses what they need, and then flies back to Canada to pull together supplies. Then he returns and helps. He's done it many times. As he searches, he has a lot of opportunities to teach people the gospel, and see miracles. People will approach him and tell him that they had dreams that he was supposed to come and help them, just like right out of the scriptures.

It was a hybrid conference too, where half of it was in person and the other half was broadcast to all of Canada from Salt Lake City. President Eyring and Elder Holland spoke, and it was powerful. Alma-Rose was able to be there for the conference, and it was just a great experience for her. She claims she had bad allergies in the building in Terrace... but we think that she was tearing up because of the Spirit. :)

When we went back, Wendy managed to score Elder Rose and I a cabin with beds in it, which was very much appreciated because the first night on the ferry was probably more tiring than restful, and the other two nights we were on the floor of the vinyl flooring of a modified 2 car garage that the Terrace missionaries use for an apartment. Elder Rose and everyone else said that it was a stormy and rocky sailing, but I was just out for it.

Well, yesterday we had the chance to be with Pete, Val, and Wendy, and we just love them and the members that are here. It's so hard to even think about leaving these people (the remedy is to just not think about it). So to answer the question,  "how does it feel to be where I am?", the answer would have to be just... hard. I can't imagine not being here with these people. And yet, I just as desperately would just love to be able to be with everyone at home and share all the miracles. So, we just won't think about it! ...Although I guess I have to figure out how to get all the stuff that I've acquired here back home! Canadian customs is going to rip a chunk out of me. You're allowed to take home $800 worth of things without paying anything, but based on what you see if the stores here, that hand-carved and soon to be hand-painted paddle probably will be worth around that alone. It's 6 feet long and probably going to be beastly to get through the airport. But! We'll figure something out! Anyways, love you all! And, until next week, have a great one! As always, thanks for the support and for the emails!

Elder Blotter