Burns Lake

Well!

It's been a great week up here in the North! Not too cold, either. Sounds like it was a pretty great week in Cache Valley too. The MoTab concert sounds like it was pretty great! Sounds like Jacey got to see a really good one for her first round with the choir! Sounds like you got to meet the Manwarings. Sister Manwaring was an awesome member missionary. I'm really glad that you were able to have them over. I'll bet that was great. It's not too far from Christmas, either! I don't know how it will work out for sure yet, since I don't know if I'm getting transferred or not, but I should hopefully be able to let you know next week how it is all going to work out. I probably won't need a calling card or anything, we'll probably just call from a member's home.

This whole week has felt pretty bittersweet! As (maybe...) my last week in Burns Lake, it has felt pretty weird. The Branch up here is just like big family, and so in a lot of ways, leaving this place will feel like leaving home again! The members up here are awesome and have spoiled us with all these Christmas gifts like Canada pajama pants and legit maple syrup and some "Burns Lake Branch" ties and things like that. Pretty awesome. Yesterday we spent quite a bit of time sharing messages with members and talking with them about people they can share the gospel with. As far as transfers go, transfer calls will come this evening, and then we'll know if anybody is leaving or not! In a couple hours we'll probably be on edge.

The work this week was really solid. We were able to teach a lot of lessons. Brooklyn really wants to be baptized, but her parents aren't being the most supportive, so it might have to be pushed into January, which is really too bad. She'll get in the water though. It has been awesome to teach her all of the lessons and help her get ready. One of our baptismal dates, Heather, was hung over and couldn't come to church Sunday morning (she committed to live the Word of Wisdom Saturday evening), and that's kind of heartbreaking, but we had a miracle to make up for it! At the display of nativities a couple weeks ago, we talked to a woman named Margaret who lives about an hour from the church. Us and a member invited her to church, and she didn't come that Sunday, and we kind of forgot about her. But lo and behold, this week she pulls up in the church parking lot with a bunch of cash that she had saved all week for the "collections plate". Margaret is this awesome widowed lady who has a broken heart and a contrite spirit and feels really lonely. The gospel will be so good for her. She's totally going to be baptized in a couple weeks. She's going to need some help quitting smoking, but the church will be there for her. We're still teaching the Filipino family, quite a few native families, and a handful of other Canadians. Canadians are usually about as hard hearted as Americans, but up in the North, they're so polite that they'll still invite you in. It will be quite a different story if I move to a city area this week!

I feel really blessed to be able to be serving the Lord at this time. Right now, in the Canada Vancouver mission, there are 118 missionaries. By July or August of next year, there will be about 250 missionaries. The Lord is really hastening His work, and we're seeing a lot of miracles as a result. Every day we have powerful spiritual experiences. The Lord's children up in Canada are certainly loved by Him. The church is true! Say woo woo!

Well, we have to go get our truck's bumper fixed because a first nations guy backed into our truck when we were teaching a lesson, so this email might be a bit short! I love you all and I'll talk to you in a week!

Elder Blotter

Re: December 17

Mother!

Happy Birthday yesterday! Your firstborn thought of you quite often on that day! I hope that it was the best one yet.

Elder Blotter

December 17

     Good Morning!  Well, I have to say Sis. Manwaring and I have bonded. What a sweet and lovely lady! I loved her accent and just loved her. It was so fun seeing pictures of Burns Lake and the surrounding BEAUTIFUL areas. Bro. Manwaring showed up pics of bears, foxes, sunsets, lakes, mountains, etc. She told me what Vanessa had told her when you first knocked on her door with your huge smile and how you seemed to glow and how thankful she was to you for never giving up on her. They told us how happy you are and when anyone asks how you are, you smile and say..."excellent!!!". They wondered if that is how you've always been.  :)  We told them that is just how you came. It made our year to have that visit on Friday night and to hear about how much you are loved by the members in Burns Lake. And she also said that Elder Epperson is a very special missionary. We are thankful that you've had the opportunity to serve with him. That was like an early birthday present for me!

     Wait a minute....is TODAY the day you find out if you are transferred this week? I was thinking it was next Monday, but it's got to be today! What an exciting and wonderful time for you! Merry, merry Christmas!!!!  If you and Elder Epperson will be separated this transfer will you tell him THANK YOU for being such a good companion and that we want to meet him after his mission. And can I secretly tell you what a blessing it has been to me to have Sis. Lambert as a friend. I think the church should adopt a program where a member in each area could be a "missionary mom friend".  :)  You wouldn't even have to know. But it has made the first 6 months of your mission much better for ME. Hee hee.

      So will we just hear from you next p-day, which is Christmas Eve, about how and when we will get to talk to you? And do we call you or you call us? Will you need a calling card?  Maybe you should call my cell phone. We are down to one home phone. Anyway, it will be so amazing to actually be able to talk to you! Do you want us to invite Amelia to stop by so you can talk to her for a minute? We can or don't have to. That reminds me...did you get Grandma Blotter's package in the mail? She is worried you didn't get it or she thinks you won't know it's from her. It cost her more than it does to send Jacob a package and she's afraid you didn't get it. If you did, will you let her know.  :)  

     That was so interesting hearing about the family from the Phillipines. Can you imagine serving where everyone was so kind and receptive to the gospel? How is it going with them? Are they letting you teach them? And the cute little 9 year old that will be baptized this month? The kids got your letters and loved them. Jed came and gave me a big hug as instructed and Jacey wants to start to reading her scriptures every day like that girl. And Jenessa has a letter to send back but we are waiting for transfer day to make sure we sent it to the right place. We enjoyed the Mormon Tab's Christmas concert, but we missed Josh. Jacey felt like she was big stuff though. It was one of the best concerts in a long time. It's been a hard week for the US of A with the heartbreaking events in Connecticut. It was less than an hour from the Elwoods. A sweet little beautiful girl that died had moved from Utah not long ago. And I heard another student had just barely moved from Canada. It's hard to imagine such a thing. I know that the children are OK and with Heavenly Father but such heartache for those left behind. If only they all knew about the Plan of Salvation and had that comfort.

    Well, good luck with this week! Possibly big changes are in store. But you never know, I guess. We love you and our thoughts will be with you this week.  Love you to pieces.  Mom

Jacey made it to the Mormon Tabs concert this year!

Buuuuuuurns Lake

Well!

Just like that it's been another week! It's good to hear that there's finally a little bit of white sticking around Logan. Up here there's plenty of snow still, but the temperature has been really bipolar. One day it will be around 0, then the next day it will be -15, then the next day it will be 0, and so on. Winter seems a lot less scary than it did at first, too. We're getting used to it! -10 is just sweater weather now. It sounds like a lot of calls were given! Roger Mann will make an awesome bishop. That seems like a calling perfect for him. And I can just picture Amielyn Evans speaking Spanish in a southern accent. Exciting times!

Christmas season is in full swing up here. In the "mall" (which has like a bank and a dollar store connected to a grocery store) in Burns Lake, the branch puts on a "display of nativities" every year, and we spent quite a bit of time talking to people there this week. It was set up in this little room, and they had 171 different nativities on display. We counted them. We would go and stand in the hall and do our best to usher people inside and then give them Books of Mormon and pass along cards and things. On Friday, they had the primary kids act out a live nativity presentation, and they had a little musical program to go along with it. One of the members that was supposed to come and sing two solos was sick and couldn't come, and the missionaries are kind of the "go to" people in those situations, and so me and Elder Epperson both had to sing a solo that we had never rehearsed before in front of an actually respectable sized group of people. It wasn't too bad though, because they also had the community choir perform a couple of songs, and they went before us and attempted to sing "And He Shall Purify" from the Messiah, so the bar was set pretty low as it was.

Well, the work in Burns Lake is still moving forward. It's crazy how many investigators we are still finding even though every door has been knocked on a couple times. I guess miracles happen when you're trying to work hard. We found some really awesome people that we are excited about. We got a taste of what serving in the Philippines would be like. We tracted into this Filipino family, and without finding out who we were, the guy just tells us to come inside and runs into the house. We sit on the porch for another couple seconds, and he sticks his head back around, and asks us why we haven't come in yet. He sits us down, and then asks who we are. Filipino people are the best. They moved to Canada a couple weeks ago, and we're excited to be teaching them. We randomly have a Book of Mormon in Tagalog, so everything worked out nicely. We also found an older couple that live a ways East of town that we're teaching. The guy, Cliff, is a Freemason, which is pretty interesting. There's another less active guy who's about 30 who hasn't come to church since he was a deacon, and he's had a change of heart and we're going to be teaching him the lessons again. We're still seeing a lot of pretty awesome miracles.

There is so much potential in this area, because over the past few months we've hit the pavement (or... snow) really hard. We've filled up our area book with a lot of investigator records. We're teaching a lot of lessons. But for the life of us, we can't get these people to church. It's the worst. We had like 6 people committed to come to church, and from sick kids to health issues to just going AWOL, none of them made it. Again. Gah. We reminded them the day before, where possible, called them/knocked on their door in the morning, had members set up to give each of them rides, and pretty much everything else that's physically possible for missionaries to do without using weapons or kidnapping their children as a ransom to come to church. So... that's pretty lame. In short, we must just need to do some more studying from chapter 11 in Preach My Gospel or something, because the people that we're teaching are really struggling to keep commitments. I guess we just have to accept that these things happen in the Lord's time.

The members here are really awesome though. With their faith alone I remember when I first got here, they were really sluggish and disheartened about missionary work, but now they're all working with somebody, and they help us out a ton. It's awesome. They're really involved and they all make sure to try and console us when nobody comes to church. We haven't had to buy milk or eggs or meat or anything like that because the members always give us plenty from their hobby farms and things. And after 6 months, little old Burns Lake starts to feel like home. It will be really weird to leave this place, and transfer calls are in like a week! That's really weird.

Well, Merry Christmas!The timer on the computer says I'm about out of time! Hope that everybody has a really awesome week!

Elder Blotter

Send the warm spell up here please...

Well!

There isn't too much warm air up here! If you could find some way to package it up and send it up here, I wouldn't complain about a little global warming, ha ha. It's pretty consistently -12ish Celsius now, and it feels a lot worse because of the wind. We're just kind of figuring out that surviving up here in the winter is all about wearing lots of layers and breaking up tracting as much as possible with teaching appointments. Snow kind of comes and goes, but there is about a foot or more of snow on the ground still. I think that the ski resort in Smithers is already open, but I'm not totally sure. It is the worst how short the days are up here! The culture is that 8:00 feels the same as about 10:00, and so when we are knocking doors at 8:30, everybody seems put off by how late it is. Oh well! We'll be blessed by being obedient to the schedule. A truth-seeker won't care what time we knock.

And transfers are... on December 20th, I think. So I'll probably be leaving right before Christmas. It's pretty weird to think about actually, because this has been my whole mission experience so far. I can't imagine not being here! The branch up here is just really awesome and so Burns Lake has kind of become a home away from home. I can't imagine serving in a ward. Or having more than 4 or 5 people in Elder's Quorum. Or being in an area where you can street contact. It will be weird to see what happens on transfers! And on Christmas, I'll go to a members home or something like that to call. I'll probably have somewhere around an hour to talk, and I'll probably be able to tell you about what time the call will come in email the week before or something. I'm not exactly sure exactly how it will work out, since I probably won't even be in Burns Lake on Christmas, but it should be great!

Is it Governor Herbert that Ethan has to be nominated by? Just have Ethan bring that picture in to the interview. He'll get the nomination by relation to me, I'm pretty sure. That would be awesome possum if Ethan got called to Vancouver. But I predict South Africa. Ha ha. As far as the election goes, members are talking about how there are a few more people that have moved up here to join their family in BC after President Obama got re-elected, and renounced their American citizenship. Making a stand is great and everything, but if high taxes and socialized medicine isn't your cup of tea, Canada is not the place to go.

Well, we had a lot of miracles and a lot of setbacks in Burns Lake this week. You really love the people that you are working with, and so when they are progressing, you're doing awesome, and when they don't keep commitments, you're devastated. A lot of highs and lows. We're really coming to realize the miracle that Vanessa was. She is going to be instrumental in getting more people in Burns Lake to come unto Christ. We met with a former investigator, Heather Tom, who knows Vanessa, and had a very powerful first lesson and set a baptismal date for December 29th with her. Earlier that day she had committed to herself that she was going to quit drinking, and she was looking for something to help her do that, so she had a really soft heart. How the lesson worked out was a miracle. We set a return appointment and we were super excited about it. We had a member coming into town all the way from Southside to come with us, when Heather cancelled last minute. We still had the member, Dallin (who is 17 and leaving on a mission probably when Ethan is) coming, and so we frantically tried to figure out what we could do. We said a prayer, and I just started calling tons of potential investigators to figure something out. We called this other native lady, Lillian, who has been a potential investigator for months, but we haven't had a member for an appointment, and it's really hard to schedule appointments with members on the reserve because sometimes the people can be a bit flaky. But we called her, and she said she would love it if we dropped by in half an hour (probably because we had shoveled her walk a couple times before Ammon-like service is super important with missionary work). As soon as we called her, I felt really calm, like everything was going to be okay. And then Vanessa called, and asked randomly if there was anything she could do to help us, so we invited her to the lesson as well. Turns out that Lillian was pretty good friends with Vanessa, and Vanessa just bore her testimony really strong about what the church has done for her, and we had a really powerful lesson. Now Lillian wants to get baptized too. Whew. it was really hectic, but it was all orchestrated by Heavenly Father. It was awesome. Nights like that happen all the time. But... then the next day, even though we had 6 people committed to come to church, none of them came. Lillian had health reasons, and the others, we're just not sure about, but... gah. It is so stressful sitting by the doors to the church the 15 minutes before church starts. Seriously. Ups and downs. Ray didn't come, but Brooklyn is still progressing a lot. It is so fun to teach a 9 year old. Her date is for December 29th.

In other news, I have officially tracted everywhere in the area at least once, surrounding areas included! Hutter Road in Decker Lake was the very last one. Except for Topley, a little not-even-one-horse-town that might be in our area but might be in Smithers' area. Still. Awesome. We're putting in a lot of time knocking on doors! We're going to find somebody else to baptize this week, and we're excited about it. Tracting has become second nature now. A day doesn't feel complete if we haven't done it for a couple hours. And it's still productive! That still blows me away. We found like 4 new investigators this week. At this rate all of Burns Lake will be a potential or former investigator at some point!

Well, I hope that everybody has a great week! Keep Burns Lake in your prayers! I got the Christmas package the other day. Thanks a bunch!

Elder Blotter

Happy December 3rd.

Hi there, Elder Blotter!

     Are you still having a bit of a warm spell in Burns Lake? I hope you are staying warm! Am I right in guessing transfers will be in 2 weeks? Does that make you sad that you could leave Burns Lake just a week before Christmas and be in a new place where you don't know anyone? I imagine the members in Burns Lake are going to have a hard time if you are transferred! You have been there SO long and I know how much they have come to love you. Maybe someday you could take us on a tour of British Columbia and we can meet some of these friends from Burns Lake. I just think if they are opening 7 new areas there is a good chance you might be transferred. Or could you get a greenie and stay there?  I guess you never know.  :)

    How is Ray Johnson coming along? Did he make it to church yesterday? It sounds like you've got some things going and I am never ceased to be amazed at the miracles that happen every week in the life of a missionary. Make the very most of your last remaining time there. Oh, Nate Day received his mission call to Dallas Texas Mission. Joe's mom will have two sons out for almost a year. Did you get your Christmas package yet? You better save it until Christmas so you have something to open that day. And I'm sorry....when I went to mail it, it weighed 4 ounces too much so I took the candy out and it was just right. So no candy in that one. I think Grandma said she send one with lots of candy so save some of that for Christmas Day.  :) DO I REALLY GET TO TALK TO YOU ON CHRISTMAS?!!!! I can't believe that. That will be all I want for Christmas. How does that work? Do you give us a number to call you on?

    Dad and Jenessa had a great birthday this week. Grandma made their favorite White Mountain frosting cake and they went to ifly. They brought a video back and it looked SO fun. I think I must try it. So little Jenessa is 18 years old. It's very weird for me. Ethan is now trying to get in to the Air Force Academy and has to be nominated by .......oh, what's his name that you have a picture with where you are doing the Japenese tourist face? Him. He has an interview with him this week. As you will see in a photo I'll send, Supe needs a haircut terribly. And I was able to download this personalized video from Santa to Jed. It is so funny and he is going to love it. I don't know how much longer Jacey and Jed will believe in Santa so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

   We had to start Grandpa Jorgy on hospice this week. They are coming to help him quite a bit. He fell and broke a rib last week and is having dementia. Someone comes 3 times a week to bathe him and shave him. He is at the end of his journey here, I know. Bless his heart. He has been such a good dad for me. I just love him.

    Well, can't wait to hear all about your week! It is surely the highlight for our family. You know I've been the YW President for 3 and 1/2 years. Bp. Holt met with me yesterday and asked if I have another year in me.  :) I do.  Love you so much. Good Luck with your last remaining weeks in beautiful Burns Lake.   Love, Mom

Happy Birthday!

 

Burns Lake Report

Family,

It actually hasn't felt quite as cold in Burns Lake, either. A lot of people seem to be complaining about global warming. We're not complaining, though, because now that we've kind of adjusted to the temperatures up here -6 degrees actually feels kind of warm. There's still quite a bit of snow, but that just makes it feel like a legit winter. We're thinking about making an "I'm a Mormon" snowman on our front lawn, but we're not sure how our landlord would feel about that.

The second round of Thanksgiving was awesome! We had two dinner appointments with less actives right in a row. Whew. It was some really delicious food, though. I'm not sure why America hasn't found out about perogies yet. They are actually pretty good. Except that the "healthy" families don't fry them, and so I'm pretty sure that if we were Canadians, and so knowing Mom, we would only boil them and not fry them. One of the families we ate with had their neighbor Walt over. Walt is kind of like the Bensens. It's frustrating that they don't just find eternal happiness through accepting saving ordinances and being baptized! Walt has the Doctrine and Covenants pretty much memorized and he just goes off about comparing the stuff in there with the prophecies of Ezekiel. Investigators that know it's true but don't get baptized. Whaddya gonna do?

Sounds like there is some pretty interesting stuff happening back home. A lot of mission calls! It's really exciting to hear where people are going. 7 new areas are going to be opened this upcoming transfer alone in our mission. I'll bet that Jed and Jacey are great skiiers at this point! Tell Jed and Jacey thank you for the pictures in with the package. I always love them a lot. I especially appreciate it when Jed makes sure that I know that he did the monster drawing all by himself. (Ha ha) I think I read the book version of that zombie movie.  Another week of birthdays are coming up, too! Happy birthday on the 29th, Jenessa and Dad! That is weird to think that Jenessa will be a legal adult in a couple days. I'll have to send some more Canadian candy sometime. iFly is pretty cool. I remember doing that. I think it would be cool if you got an iFly the size of a gym and then you could play Quidditch in it. Oh well. Back to missionary work!

At this point, the work in Burns Lake is centered on getting Ray Johnson baptized, so that their family can become an eternal family. It's hard to work with him because even though we feel like he knows that it's true, he's addicted to smoking and scared to death of his Catholic mother, but we're really working with him. He came to church this Sunday, and so we're hoping that he keeps progressing. Brooklyn will be baptized at the end of December (what parent could say no to a 9 year old girl who just wants to be baptized for Christmas?)  The Corliss family, who we've been working with for a couple weeks now, is becoming more active again, which we are excited about. We can already feel a difference in their home. If we can get them to get over the initial embarrassment that comes from starting to come back to church and get them to chuck the coffee machine that the slightly bipolar wife uses, they'll be golden. One member, Sister Scheel, is pretty much fully active again, despite her nonmember husband, which has awesome to see happen. We've been working with a lot of less actives and we've been promised that baptisms will come as a result of activating people. So hopefully we'll see some miracles soon!

Vanessa is pretty much living proof that Helaman 15 is correct: when Lamanites get converted, they get converted. She has such a solid testimony. It's awesome. She says that her therapist broke down and started crying during one of her counseling sessions because of how much she's changed and how there just seems to be a light around her now. She's pretty awesome. Now we just have to find somebody else. We have been tracting SO MUCH.  At least four or five hours a day. Often more. We just want to find somebody that we can help into the waters of baptism!

Oh, and mother, you'd be so proud. While the primary is using the chapel for primary presentation practice, Priesthood meeting is held in the primary room, where they don't have recorded music for the hymns. So they have me play the piano for them. Right hand only. But still.

Well, hope everybody has a great week!

Elder Blotter

One year older and wiser too...

Well hello!

Turning 20 in Northern BC was great! In Smithers, we had a dinner appointment with a less active couple on my birthday that was this 3 course gourmet Indian food feast. Seriously, if you let that guy move into a gas station in Cache Valley he'd probably have quite a successful restaurant going in not too long. Heavenly Father looks out for his missionaries. Ha ha, mother, you WOULD get members up here to make a peaches and cream cake. When she called us to find out if either of us was transferred, we asked her if there was anybody in town that she knew might be open to hear our message, and she told us to go contact somebody. (The guy that she wanted us to talk to told us that it would be better that millstones were hung around our necks and we were dropped in the sea... but that's okay. A referral is a referral.) And Amelia will be a fantastic missionary! What an awesome call. I'm super excited for her. The mission field is already changing a bunch. We had 5 sisters and 5 elders come into the mission this transfer, and over the past months we'd get maybe 2 sisters every other transfer or so.
This week hasn't been so cold, which is nice. We even had like... 6 degree weather at one point, and the rest of the time it was only a little below zero. Burns Lake is still frozen over, though, and there's still snow on the ground. When Francois Lake freezes over, the ferry's hull has been designed to break a really wide channel in the ice. People strip down snowmobiles and try to jump it, apparently. You can drive over it, though. There are pictures in members homes of them driving out on top of it and taking pictures.

   
Yep, this week we have a thanksgiving dinner scheduled with this kind of psychotic less active member who lives in the middle of nowhere on Southside. He (tries) to make a living my breeding dogs, and so he has hundreds of dogs on chains in his front yard, and they all go insane and try to eat you when you knock on his door. Thanksgiving in Canada is at the beginning of October, but most of the members at some point came up from the States, and so they just have two thanksgivings every year. It's pretty awesome. But without Thanksgiving, people don't know when to have Christmas season start... so somebody told us Merry Christmas like a week ago.

Well, it was another awesome week as far as missionary work goes. We started teaching this guy that me and Elder Neher found months ago named Dennis. He's a hermit sheep farmer, and the first time we went to knock on his door he came out brandishing a shotgun, but he actually turned out to be a nice guy. He met with missionaries when he lived in the lower mainland in the '70s and read the whole Book of Mormon then, and now we're reteaching him. Man. There are weird people up here. It's awesome. Vanessa is still doing well as a Primary teacher, and is still keeping strong. One less active member, Moneca Scheel, has pretty much become fully active again, and we're working with the Corliss family to try and get them reactivated. They're praying and reading scriptures as a family. It seems to be hard to get people to take the step of coming back to church once they haven't for a while, but we're doing everything we can to get them there.

Elder Blotter

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY, ELDER BLOTTER!

 

Dear Elder Blotter,

       WE LOVE YOU and hope you had a wonderful birthday this past Wednesday. We thought about you all day and wondered what you were doing in Smithers. Are you really 20 years old?? Did you get a little Peaches and Cream Cake for your big day? Am I in big trouble for communicating with a Burns Lake member? I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF. When it was that Wednesday that I thought you might be getting transferred, it was driving me crazy that I didn't know where in the world you were. I remembered that lady had sent me a pic of your baptism. I very innocently texted her to see if she knew if Elder Blotter had been transferred that day. Then she texted back and we became friends. I told her it was your birthday and she said it was her 5 year old sons birthday also, so we concocted a little plan. And THEN to make matters worse I sent her the video of Amelia opening her call. I asked her what she thought about letting you watch it. (I kept going back and forth about whether it would be OK or not)   She worried it might make you homesick, so we decided she wouldn't show it to you and I would just tell you today. Then later that night she texted that her husband showed it to you! Knowing you, I didn't think it would be anything but exciting and fun for you to get to see it. I know you'll be thrilled for her and excited about her call to Brazil. Can you believe it?? And that she will leave April 3. (Her Dad said he wished she was leaving either a month before or a month after that) And just a little bit more exciting news....................Stephanie Pack received her call on your birthday also and Dad says she has the dream call. She is going to Chile. (Northern) Can't remember the city. Lots and lots of baptisms and perfect weather. Alison Lundberg will get her call this Wednesday. All those 19 year old girls are getting their calls. Oh, Brooke Porter got her call to the Philippines. 

      So I have a question about the ferry? When the water freezes how to you cross? Do you just drive over it? Scary. The Durstelers haven't ever taken a real family vacation and they realize Ethan will leave for a mission in probably June. They are in Hawaii for Thanksgiving! Then they have a trip to Disney World scheduled for January! Grandma and Grandpa Blotter are going back to Armenia for 10 days in January. And our Ohio friends, the Dubanowiches are coming to stay for a week starting on Jeds birthday. What can I do with them for a week??

       I sent you a package this week with warm gloves and liner, a fancy pants $50 scarf from the Sportsman and some thermal garment bottoms. Could you also use a thermal garment top? I am going to send your Christmas package this week so you for sure get it before Christmas and/or a transfer. Make sure you don't open it. You need something to open on Christmas day.  :)   I so loved your letter last week and have thought about you tracting that city 5 times and knowing Reed and Sheila live here, Bob lives here and works for so and so. I know Burns Lake has had its challenges, but you will always have a special place in your heart for that beautiful, cold place with all those characters. 

     Is there anything else you need that I could put in your package and send? Do you need more contacts? Please let me know if you need something. And know that your mom loves you. I am just so very proud of you and thankful to be your mom.   

PS I sent that pic to Grandma on your birthday. She blew it up and its hanging on her fridge. One year ago. Years go by fast!

      

Still in Beautiful Burns Lake

Well!

I am in Burns Lake with Elder Epperson for another transfer! Ha ha, I love it. When I got in Burns Lake in July I had no idea that I would be around to see the lake freeze over, but there it is, frozen over! There's another elder on Haida Gwaii that flew up with me when I first entered into the field, and he says that his area is beginning to feel like Lost. "He can't get off the island". It's starting to get colder and colder up here! They say that in December it will usually get down around -20 or -30 Celsius, so I'm going to have to adjust to the cold! It's just a matter of loving the Lord more than disliking being a little chilly. Last night it was only around -2 or 3, and it felt really warm, so we're getting used to it slowly. We got some winter tires, and so now we're slipping and sliding around on the roads a little less, which is good. Driving to and from the church we'll usually see a car or two sitting in the ditch to the side of the road. The snow has been pretty useful as far as missionary work goes, though! Sometimes in the mornings, we'll go up and down the avenues in town and if anybody is out shoveling their walk, we'll help them finish while talking about the gospel.

Well, I'll be turning 20 in Smithers. We're going on exchanges this week, and we're going to be catching a greyhound in a couple hours. A year ago, I had no idea that I would be up here for my next birthday. It is weird to be 20. Very weird. My age doesn't start with a "1" anymore. I'm not sure how I feel about that, ha ha. You kind of realize that you don't have forever to figure out what you want to do with your life! I've got the next year and a half mapped out pretty solidly, and that's all that I need to think about for now.

Well, the work in Burns Lake is still carrying on! It was one of those weeks when nobody showe I've knocked on every door in town about once a month, and so I've tracted it out about 5 times now. I'll probably do it at least once more again before I'm done here. Working in Burns Lake is really interesting. You have to develop relationships with people. Teach a little bit more or testify a little bit differently each time you talk to them. You have to remember names and religious backgrounds and things like that. Yesterday we started over on the roads east of town, and we were talking about Pinecrest Rd, and I could walk through each house on the road. "Pete and Sheila live in the first house. I wasn't there the last time they were taught but they didn't like that we claim to be the only true church. Then it's Joe Wheeler. He owns a contracting business. Then it's the Blackwells. He used to work for Wes Boehmer. We gave him a Restoration DVD but he didn't watch it, we're pretty sure. etc etc" Burns Lake really feels like home at this point. Every time we tract out the town, we always find something new, though! This week, we found a former investigator who wants to read the Book of Mormon again and a less active member who moved in recently. She converted because she did door to door sales with RMs in Arizona, and even though she moved into the middle of nowhere, the Lord didn't forget about her and we managed to knock on her door one of the few times she was home. We're seeing a lot of miracles like that. Brooklyn Johnson is going to be baptized on the 5th of January. It is very interesting to teach a 9 year old. (Jacey!) She knows a lot of really random stories. In our last lesson she told us in detail about how Moses killed all of the Israelites who worshipped the calf when he was getting the 10 commandments on the mountain. We're praying and fasting for help finding somebody else to help prepare for baptism. We're working with a lot of solid people. We'll have to see what happens!

It sounds like life at home is going pretty swell. It's weird to see that the grass is still green by the snowmen! At this point I'm used to everything being white. With daylight savings, the sun sets at 4:00 now. It's still light until 5 or so, but the sun sets at 4:00. Whew. When we're knocking doors at 6:00, people will ask "why we're out so late!" I hope that everybody has a really great week! Talk to you next week!

Elder Blotter

Re: Coats?....Boots?

But I think as far as coats go, I should be okay, because I can wear coats on top of coats. It would be awesome to get a pair of nice gloves, and maybe another scarf or something. Also, some thermal garments would be awesome. In the apartment I found a pair of ankle length ones that are pretty great, we're trying to figure out how to keep our legs warm. Also, this is random, but remember the blue striped tie that I wore when I left? It was a Stacy Adams tie. You can trade one of those ties for like 5 ties up in the mission. If possible for Christmas or something, you should send some of those because I traded both of mine away, unfortunately. And they are awesome. Love you mother! Thanks for all of you help!

Elder Blotter

Burns Lake

Well!

It's been another great week up in the North! It's like 3 degrees outside right now, and after the past couple weeks it's feeling really warm! As far as winter clothes go, I actually found a pair of boots up here, left up in the house up here from previous missionaries. They aren't too warm, but they are doing the job, so no complaints! If I stay up in the North, I might need to get my hands on some winter gloves, but that's about it. In January, the members say that when you walk outside, you have to break yourself into the air. If you just take a big breath outside at -40 it feels like you got stabbed in the lungs. Oh the things to be excited for! :)

Transfer calls are today! Everybody is assuming that I am leaving... we'll have to see. I might be, I might not be! It would be a good note to end on if I was leaving, but Burns Lake is a great place to be, and so I certainly wouldn't mind staying. Elder Epperson predicts that I am going to go somewhere in the lower mainland. I think I would be going to Nanaimo on the island. Wherever you are, in this mission in the winter, you have to pick between always freezing or always getting soaked! It will also be really exciting to see where Amelia is going! I figure that with all of the friends that I have putting in papers, somebody is going to be sent to BC! There are already 3 people from Sky View up here, but the more the merrier!

Sounds like life at home is pretty good! Hopefully grandpa got some screamin' deals on some bulls and that everything at the ranch is doing well. We have a former investigator family that we are going to drop by to hear the results of the election. They are kind of biased against Romney and just tell us dumb things that he has done, but it's a good excuse to go and teach them. It will be quite interesting to hear the results of the election. Americans driving through town always tell us that one of "your people" is running for President in "our country" and want to know if we have heard of Romney before.  As a missionary I know that Romney's running has already created a tremendous amount of interest in the church, and so as far as his purpose, he may have already fulfilled it. I guess we'll find out later this week.

The work is still carrying on in Burns Lake! Even though this town is small, I am still learning more about it. For example, yesterday, I found out that there is a 10th Avenue. It's pretty much a dirt driveway with no houses on it, behind the youth center on the Reserve, but after almost 4 and a half months of thinking that Burns Lake only had 9 avenues, it was kind of a shock. The next baptism for Burns Lake will probably happen at the end of November, if we can work out some family situations. Brooklyn Johnson is a very smart 9 year old who really wants to be baptized. Her dad, Ray, is a less active Catholic with a really, really, really angsty mom.  Ray says that he is more scared of his mom than the Lord. He knows the church is true, but he is too scared to rock the boat by letting his kids or himself be baptized. One time I tracted into his mom with Elder Neher. She's pretty beastly, but I think that eternal salvation would be worth it. We're going to do what we can, but it is an interesting challenge.

This week we had a lot of miracles working with less active members. We finally managed to drop by one less-active family when the wife, who is pretty cold towards missionaries, wasn't home. We were talking with the dad and he was saying that his testimony is stronger now than it was when he was active because "he's felt the difference" between having peace versus contention in his home, and how hard it is for him to pay his bills since he has stopped paying tithing. He gave us the numbers of his 17 and 20 year old kids living in Prince George, and we referred them to the sister missionaries there, and they are now becoming active, which is a miracle. We are going to be working closely with that family. On the reserve, there is one less active woman who has completely apostatized since she hasn't been to church since she was 12, and we felt prompted to visit her. She was really unreceptive to the spirit, and not too interested in meeting with us, but as we were leaving the subject switched to winter tires, and she told us she had a set that she didn't need anymore. One of the families in the branch that is a little less well off had been looking for tires that exact size, and we were able to get the tires for them. It was cool to be able to answer the prayers of a family in the branch. Finally, there is an excommunicated member who has a really solid testimony, but, in short, is currently living in sin and lets Satan make excuses for him. Elder Epperson had some experiences in the past with his dad that really related to him, and as he was talking, this 58 year old "tough guy" just started crying. It was pretty awesome.

I feel really blessed to be up here serving the Lord. I hope all is well at home. Have a great week!

Elder Blotter

Burns Lake

Family!

There was definitely an earthquake up here, but at the time, we were on the ferry, so we didn't feel anything. We only heard about it when the assistants to the president called us to ask us if we were okay. Apparently it shook quite a bit for about a minute, particularly members who live in trailer parks and things like that. Burns Lake was pretty unaffected as far as damage goes, but Haida Gwaii had an evacuation order because they were pretty worried about a tsunami. Winter does seem to be in full swing, though! It's snowing right now and there's somewhere between eighteen inches and 2 feet already. (I'm not sure exactly because everybody tells us the height in centimeters) It's supposed to get warmer in a couple days, and so it might melt, but... whew. It's not even Halloween yet! Since we have a house in Burns Lake, we bought a bunch of packets of skittles and taped them to pass-along cards. We aren't allowed to leave the house past 6:00 on Halloween, so we are just going to do our weekly planning and let people tract into us, for once. :)

Elder Epperson thought he had a bad sinus infection because he felt congested and was getting pretty bad headaches, and so we went to a walk-in clinic because he wanted antibiotics. The doctor walked through his symptoms and told him that he didn't have an infection, they were probably just tension headaches. Elder Epperson was not happy about that. He really just wanted some antibiotics. He went to a pharmacy and got some Neilmed sinus rinse stuff and he uses it 4 times a day now. I imagine that when patients think they have sinus infections, it's kind of a pain to convince them that they don't. It's probably a pretty busy time in medicine. It's good to hear that the trip was awesome and that you got back in one piece! Some of those pictures looked very cool. I got a postcard in the mail today that came when you were at the Vatican, I think!

The mission is really revving up to get ready for all of the new missionaries! It is a super exciting time to be in the field. I might sent part of President Tilleman's email that talks about all of it. It sounds like they are going to be shortening the amount of time missionaries are spending in the MTC, and putting missionaries all over the place up here. Next transfer we are already putting another set of missionaries one area away in Vanderhoof, and they are opening an area called "100 Mile House", and that's only in the Prince George Zone, and this is before the wave of missionaries from the announcement has started to pour in.

The work in Burns Lake is doing awesome! I feel like I might be leaving next week, which honestly is a little heart wrenching. This branch is filled with a bunch of characters, and I love them all. When I first got here the members really weren't very excited about missionary work, and now they give us almost too much time in PEC and branch council to talk about the work, and President Lambert now always talks about missionary work when he bears his testimony every fast Sunday (because in a branch this size... almost everybody bears their testimony every time) and always thank us. When the members find out things that we need, like that we don't have winter tires on, they always figure it out for us. about I think some summer I am going to have to come back and "portage," which is like backpacking, but you carry a canoe on your shoulders and canoe whenever you hit a lake or river. They all complain about doing it, but since I've been here, they've gone on 3 portage excursions, so it can't be all that bad!

Vanessa is doing well! This Sunday she was called as a Primary teacher. That will be really good for her! When on exchanges, me and the new missionary in Smithers, Elder Marshall, tracted into a new investigator, which is a miracle because Smithers rolled their truck, and so without a vehicle, they have had to knock nothing but the streets in walking distance many many times over the past couple weeks. The guy said that the last time the missionaries came to his door he cussed them out and kicked them off his porch. He got in a crazy car accident a couple days earlier, however, and that in combination with us coming to his door, he took to be a sign as God reaching out to him. It is amazing how people's hearts change. Tracting is never a waste of time. Many miracles happen up here in the North! It is such a blessing to be here serving the Lord.

Elder Blotter


PS - A 17 year old member from the branch, Jace, left with some program to go teach English in China about a month ago, and I heard that he ended up in the same group that Justine Larsen is in! Justine passed some inside joke through him to a member in the branch to me, but I have no idea what she was talking about. How crazy is that?

Things are getting a little chilly in Burns Lake.

 

Well hello!

It's been another great week up here in Burns Lake, and down South (well, still up North for you people) in the lower mainland during the middle of the week! I had numerous experiences that I won't forget. It's definitely starting to get colder! We went tracting in a few inches of snow, but fortunately most of it melted when we were out of the area. It was -7 degrees outside (In Celsius, so not too bad) when we drove to church yesterday. If I don't get transferred out of here next time calls roll around, I might have to have some warmer clothes! Either way, it's going to be an adventure. We have to get creative sometimes doing missionary work in the North. Up here when it gets colder, we have to take golf balls when knocking doors, so that you can hear the knock even though we are wearing gloves.

It was a monumental week for the Burns Lake elders! Vanessa Jack's baptism was amazing. We were a little worried at first, because the font was so underused that the only water that came out of the spigot was a murky greenish brown. After a while of leaving the water on, it turned into... a less murky (but still distinct) greenish brown. But Vanessa was so excited that she wasn't put off by it at all! She was just really excited. During the service, she bore her testimony about the Holy Ghost and it was incredibly powerful. It has been such a blessing to see the gospel of Jesus Christ really change her life. Before her baptismal interview, she confessed that she ate half a granola bar before she realized that it had mocha in it, and she was so stressed that it would push back her baptismal date, and she kept on asking me if I had invited all of our investigators to come see her baptism. She's that kind of a person. The Spirit was present the entire time during the service. You can feel the Spirit SO strongly when you are in the font, and it was such a sacred experience to be able to baptize her.

I absolutely adore Vanessa's 2 year old daughter, Gemma Rose. (She can't really say anything except "uh oh" whenever she sees a ripped page of a book or something like that, but she totally said my name while Elder Aldred was interviewing Vanessa. Brother Moore heard it. He can vouch for me.) It is so amazing to see how the gospel has affected how Vanessa views being a parent. Alcoholism and immorality, which is really prevalent in the culture of a lot of the single mothers in this area, won't even be a concern for Gemma. I am SO happy about that. SO happy. You have no idea.

Well, I had a lot of eye opening experiences down South, as well! We stayed the night with the elders that are currently working in Surrey, an urban area not too far from Vancouver. Wow. Burns Lake has 9 avenues. 2nd Ave has... I think 2 houses on it. Their area covers the first hundreds of streets with ritzy apartment complexes and trailer parks and everything in between. We went street contacting and there were people everywhere! It made me glad that I was trained in the North, where everybody is a stereotypically laid back, polite Canadian! The first person I walked up to, with a big ol' smile on my face, cussed me out and told me I was being "way too pushy". Ha ha, it's a bit of a different pace in different areas. That is something to get used to. Burns Lake really hasn't been too wet. I think it's rained maybe 6 or 7 times since I got there, and never enough for it to really get in the way of the work. Down there it was POURING. We left our raincoats in the truck in Terrace, so we went out in regular suit jackets and we got soaked straight through. It was awesome.

I also had the opportunity to hear quite a bit from one of the Seventies, Elder Haleck. He shared many powerful and sacred experiences from his time as a mission president, and it was awesome. President Tilleman is totally going to become a general authority after his time as a mission president. He's nearly doubling the number of baptisms as compared to before his time here, and the mission he presides over is exactly obedient. He's very inspired. Anyways, Elder Haleck talked a lot about how to work with wards and branch councils, how we have the obligation to remain active after we return from our missions, and he bore a special witness about how the prophet is receiving revelation to "hasten the work". The Lord is hastening His work of gathering His sheep, and it is such a privilege to be a missionary at this time. Miracles are happening, and angels are preparing the hearts of people to hear us. It is a blessing to be here. Today I got many letters from girls all talking about how they are planning on serving now. (With return addresses like "Future Sister Pack" and "The Happiest Girl in the World") President Tilleman says that he is requesting to double the number of missionaries he gets each transfer. It's an exciting time! The Lord is expecting a lot from His missionaries, and He deserves it.

Hope all is well at home! Have a great week.

Elder Blotter

PS- I forgot to mention it last time, but the Library changed its hours so it is now open on Monday, so I'll probably always be using computers on Monday from now on. *cough cough*. :)

Report from Burns Lake

Hello, family!

It was great to see all of the pictures of the Holy Land! I have no idea if there is any turmoil in that region or not right now, but this one crazy Canadian guy living on Southside starting ranting about "the prophecies of Ezekiel being fulfilled in the chaos and fighting around Israel", and so I hope that everything is well. Your trip has made me think of the part in Elder Holland's general conference talk that talked about what his apostles were going through after he was crucified. It must have been really neat to see everything up close!

Well, it has been another amazing week up in Burns Lake! I was a little skeptical when I first arrived in Canada and saw all of the signs that call British Columbia the "Most Beautiful Place on Earth," and I've mentioned a bit about how beautiful it is up here, but a while ago, we were tracting around 7:00, (the sun sets at like 6:30 already) and we saw the Northern Lights. Whew. Northern BC is a great place to be. My new companion, Elder Epperson, and I were able to have another great week of teaching and finding, which made last week not seem like a fluke. The bar is being raised in Burns Lake! The missionary work here has a very different feel than when I first arrived. This area really is being blessed by the Lord, and we can see His hand in what we do every day.

This upcoming week is really exciting! Once a year in the mission, somebody from the quorum of the Seventy comes and gives a big training to everyone in the mission, and so we're going to be flying down to Vancouver and spending Thursday and Friday in Richmond to meet with Elder Haleck. That should be a spiritual feast. On Saturday, we're going to wake up early, fly for two hours, drive for 4.5 hours, and hurry to our church to begin filling the font for Vanessa's baptism! Vanessa was so prepared for the gospel, and the branch has been very good in fellowshipping her and making her feel welcome. I have learned so much about the  what President Hinckley called the"better" way to do missionary work from the experience. The Spirit does the converting, the members provide the friendship, and the missionaries just get a front row seat! The branch is really excited for it, because they haven't had a baptism in ages, and it is the first time they have had a First Nations person convert to the gospel. I am also really excited because it will be the first time that I have had the sacred privilege to perform the ordinance of baptism on my mission. Tell Jacey that I am thankful that I had the opportunity to baptize her and so I won't be nervous now. :)

Speaking of Vanessa, we had another miracle with her this week! Vanessa ran into one of her friends, Vieonna, one morning before one of our lessons with her, and invited her to come. She had just gotten out of treatment and was looking for something more in her life, and through a really long chain of events, things in her schedule miraculously worked out and she was able to come to the lesson. When she got there, we decided to just teach the Restoration to her instead of what we were going to teach Vanessa. She wasn't expecting it to be anything particular, but that definitely changed. When we were giving Joseph Smith's recollection of the first vision, she just starting laughing and buried her head in a pillow. We were a bit thrown off by that, but it soon became apparent that she was just really overcome by the spirit. Vanessa was right there to bear her testimony about the Holy Ghost, and the spirit was very strong, and now Vieonna is going to be baptized on November 11th. Elder Epperson and I aren't quite Amulek and Alma, but with the incredible blessings and guidance from the Lord, we are indeed beginning to have success among the Lamanites in Burns Lake!

We've also began meeting with a part member family on Southside, the Johnsons. Ray Johnson was born and raised Catholic, and Wendy Johnson is less active. When they were married, they had to compromise, and their compromise ended up to do neither religion. They have an 8 year old daughter, Brooklyn, who wants to be baptized, but Sister Johnson doesn't feel like she can insist on it since they weren't baptized as babies into the Catholic church. We are meeting with Ray to try and soften his heart so that he will (if nothing else) allow Brooklyn to be baptized! When we visited, Brooklyn showed us her "Book of Mormon Stories" book with all the pictures that she reads form every day, and walked up and handed me a little drawing of the second half of the Plan of Salvation that she remembered learning at church one time. She is such a little gem, and we are praying for miracles.

That's about it! It is still such a miracle to be finding as many new investigators and teach as many lessons in a town that only has about as many people as Sky View does. It has really built my testimony that this is His church and that He will move the work forward in these last days! It is such a blessing to be a missionary, and life is great up in the North.

Have a great week! Hope the trip in the Holy Land goes well!

Elder Blotter

Burns Lake Report

Well hello!

Well, it sounds like so far the trip to the holy land has gone well! I think it would be fascinating to see the Vatican and to explore all of it. The more you look at the Catholic church, the more bizarre it seems that so many people think it is the same church that Jesus established on the earth. It has none of the same ordinances or organization. They call their leader "the Pope", which comes from Papa, or Father, when Jesus specifically taught to call no man your Father save it be your Father in Heaven. Everything just seems a little off with that religion. It is a blessing to have the gift of the Spirit telling us what truth is, so that we can know when something is what God would want us to do! I wrote Jed a letter finally, and the post office was closed last time I tried to send something for her birthday, but I sent Jacey a package for her birthday. Hopefully they do not think that I have forgotten about them!

General Conference was amazing. You get a lot more out of it the more spiritually in tune you are. They say up here that General Conference is the missionaries' Super Bowl, but it's even better than that! Everybody up here loved President Monson's shout out to the Canada Vancouver mission. President Tilleman says that President Monson really loves "his Canadian missions". And I'm guessing that tens of thousands of life plans changed with the announcement that missionaries can leave on their missions at younger ages. It's certainly inspired. It will be awesome to have the increase in missionaries. More and more areas can open up inside of British Columbia, and so that will be a blessing in this mission. Now I will have an excuse when after 6 months the flow of letters starts to stop. "All the girls that would be writing me are on their own missions!" Ha ha. I figured that Amelia would immediately call her bishop after the announcement. It will be exciting to see where that takes her.

Well, the work in Burns Lake is going fantastic! We taught more lessons than Elder Epperson has on his entire mission, and he's been in areas like Victoria with hundreds of thousands of people in his area. The Lord has really blessed us. Vanessa is still going strong. She has been living the Word of Wisdom like a champion and is going to be baptized on October 20th! I hope that the white clothes that I brought will fit me! I should probably double check before the day of.

There were a couple experiences this week that really touched me. At the end of one of the really long, destitute roads on Southside, there is a clump of houses that we call the Morris reserve because all the people there have the last name of Morris. We taught one of the investigators there, and then we felt like we should visit one of the houses on the other side of the Reserve, even though me and Elder Neher had taught him and he hadn't been interested. We knock on the door, and the man yells for us to come inside. He's sitting on the couch with a Book of Mormon, and tells us that it is the "biggest joke he has ever read." Apparently, in the morning, his car wouldn't start and so he couldn't go anywhere, and so he just started reading the Book of Mormon we left with him weeks ago. He had read all day at his slow pace, and was in Word of Mormon when we knocked on the door. He thought that Joseph Smith had written the book as a story or something, and was about to burn it. We were able to explain to him what the Book of Mormon actually was, teach him about Priesthood authority, and he calmed down and is now investigating the gospel. He just needed a bit of guidance and direction right at the time we were able to be at his door, and it was miraculous that we were able to talk to him before he hardened his heart. If we were an hour or so later, he wouldn't have talked to us.

The other was an experience with a man named Jonathan Alec. We were knocking on doors looking for the apartment where an investigator moved to, and one man said that he had never heard of the person we were looking for. He asked us why on earth we were walking around in nice clothes in "the middle of the night" (it was like... 8:30) and we told him we were missionaries. He let us inside, and as we taught him part of the message of the Restoration. He said he would like to meet with us, but he was going into treatment to get him off of illegal drugs on the 7th of November. The Spirit told me to promise him he could quit using and be baptized on November 3rd, and he felt the Spirit witnessing it was true and agreed to be baptized. It was amazing. The Spirit literally put words in my mouth. We're meeting with him again today and we are very excited.

Well, life is going well here! That is about all I have time to write, but many miracles are happening here. I've got to try and upload pictures now, so hopefully that works out. I love and miss you all and hope everything is great at home and in... Egypt now?

Elder Blotter

PS- I found a charger for the camera!

It's Definetly October in Burns Lake

Hello Family!

Well, it's been another great week in Burns Lake! A lot of miracles have been happening, and it has been pretty crazy because of transfers. It is a beautiful drive from Terrace to Burns Lake with all of the fall colors. It made me think back to when I drove to Burns Lake from there over 3 months ago at the end of Spring when everything was SO green! It has been great to be here long enough to see the seasons change. It is certainly beautiful up here. It is starting to get chillier though! You need a sweater/suit jacket whenever you are tracting outside now. Elder Epperson is always freezing, since he's been on the Island for the past 4.5 months. I think that I have just gotten used to the temperatures up here. I think I might be a little hot when I have to come back to Utah in the middle of June in 2 years! And I am pretty sure that just a few days ago I was doing missionary work right outside of the same building that Dad would have gone curling inside of.

You'll have to let me know how helping with the zone conference goes! I went to the Terrace zone conference after the district conference there, and I went to the Prince George zone conference after I went to the Prince George stake conference there. What was the conference like? Up here President and Sister Tilleman usually provide a lot of inspiration and we all bear our testimonies. It's pretty great! Before President Tilleman, the mission used to baptize in the low 200s each year, but this year the mission goal is to baptize at least 325, and we are probably going to baptize even more! He is a great mission president. It sounds like all is well back at home, though! It will be interesting to see who the new Stake Presidency will be. Your trip sounds very exciting! I hope that some day I can see some of those sights. I will certainly have to pray for your safety, ha ha. And I am also excited to get your postcards. I bet they will arrive faster than when you are sending them from Utah. Elder Aldred is from England and he gets packages sent from home in under a week! I heard that Utah State beat the U in football. Is that true? That would be pretty crazy. And has Dad heard of a patient named Victor Manwaring? He might be visiting soon and he just moved from Burns Lake.

My new companion, Elder Epperson, is fantastic! He is a very good teacher and testifier and I think I will be able to learn a lot from him over the next couple weeks. I am also learning a lot because I am the only one in the companionship who knows any of the members, investigators, or where anything is, so I have to really know what I'm talking about. It definitely has been a great learning experience. Elder Epperson and I have many similar interests in our previous lives. He is from Murray, and did cross country and track in high school. He also wants to have a lot of success in the area and wants to work hard, and so I am excited for the next transfer! It makes me reflect on my time with Elder Neher. I really had to learn charity for him because we had different personalities and work ethics. Sometimes it was very stressful for me because I really don't like contentious situations. The Lord really blessed me with patience, and I grew to love him over the time that we served together, and I am glad that it ended that way. (Elder Epperson is quite worried that we are going to be mauled by a bear on Southside, becaues a less active member we were visiting talked to us about recent bear attacks on people who were fishing around here, we saw a bear when we were driving on Southside, and I showed him the picture of the bear in the house on the Reserve. It's pretty funny.)

Well, I am beginning to feel like a legitimate missionary now! I have knocked on every door in Burns Lake, and now I am beginning to knock on them all for the second or in some cases even the third or fourth time. It is amazing to see how many new investigators we are able to find now, in of despite that. It is truly miraculous! I remember in my first couple weeks in Burns Lake we might have found 2 or 3 investigators. Now we are finding and teaching almost a new investigator every day. As a result, we are setting more baptismal dates and getting more progressing investigators and naturally we will see more baptisms down the road! Vanessa Jack will be baptized in about a week and a half, and I am very excited for that because she is such a golden investigator and it was such a blessing to be able to teach her. When investigators who have never been taught about the Holy Ghost begin to describe how they feel in lessons, it is such a powerful witness that we truly are representatives of Jesus Christ! I feel blessed to be here, and I am happy to serve.

It was great to hear from you! I hope that you all have a very great week!

Elder Blotter

Family!

Well hello!

I don't have too much time to write because I spent too much time of the hour we spend on the computer trying to get my camera to upload pictures to the computers in the Family History Center in the church in Burns Lake. Again, they are running Windows 98 so unfortunately I was not able to succeed. Maybe some other time! Sorry that my email time fell on another Monday!

The past week has been a very hectic one for the Burns Lake elders because we had the Smithers and Terrace elders visit us for companion exchanges, and we finished the week in Prince George for stake conference. Very busy! Burns Lake is in the Prince George Stake, but is in the Terrace zone, so we go to the Terrace and Prince George stake/district conferences. We have been blessed to work with elders in two zones, and to work in a number of different areas. I spent some time tracting in Prince George, and it is quite a different experience than in Burns Lake! It is also weird to be in a town with more than ten streets to tract on. President Tilleman had time to interview everyone at the Prince George zone conference, and so I had the opportunity to spend some time talking to him, which was certainly a blessing. He was also very forthcoming about transfers, and he let me know, even though the call hasn't come yet today, that I am staying in Burns Lake for another transfer, with a new companion named Elder Epperson. I am very excited to stay in Burns Lake, because the work is really starting to show some fruit, and I am excited to meet my new companion sometime over the next few days!

Northern BC is many different colors right now. It is very beautiful. It also has been very strangely warm over the past little while. Even though it's very dark in the mornings, I don't even need a jacket when we go running outside, which I am certainly not complaining about!

I had many memorable experiences this week. On exchanges, me and Elder Garner were working on the Reserve, and we were invited into a house, and just lying on their kitchen floor was this huge gutted black bear. This native lady was scraping the fat out of it, cutting it into little chunks, and frying it. They call it "Indian popcorn". It did have a texture that admittedly was strangely like popcorn. We were able to do a lot of finding and teaching on the Reserve. In just one day we found 4 new investigators. After knocking on every single door in Burns Lake, some multiple times, the Lord still provides us with many people to teach. To me it seems no less miraculous than turning water into wine! We were able to teach many different people, as well. We have been steadily increasing the number of lessons that we have been teaching weekly, and so that has been satisfying to see.

I had two interesting conversations that I would like to mention here while I have time! One of them was with a former patriarch who is now serving as a counselor in the mission presidency, President Whidden. We were talking about patriarchal blessings while he was giving us a ride from Prince George to Vanderhoof, and we asked about different tribes and what they mean. The scriptures don't tell us too much about many tribes, but he says that if you read the scriptures you can kind of learn about the traits of many of them. I asked what being in the tribe of Benjamin meant and he said that people in that tribe tend to be very loyal, and dedicated to things once they commit to them, as well as being very sensitive and caring. I thought that that described Mom very well and so I found that very interesting! Maybe Mom doesn't need to wonder if she's "really" in the tribe of Benjamin. :)

Secondly, on the Canadian $20 bill, there is a side with some lady's face on it, and a side with some native art on it. On the native art side, underneath the 20, there is a little depiction of a bird-like thing standing on what looks like a rock with some pretty creepy people crawling out of it. It is a depiction of the Haida creation story. The Haidas are the Natives who live on Haida Gwaii. They look exactly like natives as far as their features go, except they are pale skinned. They are as white as we are. Their creation story is that a big clam washed up on the shore, and people crawled out of it. (Apparently it was a raven that witnessed it, which explains the bird on the clam) We speculate that one of the many Jaredite barges washed up on Haida Gwaii and they have been there ever since. Pretty interesting. :)

Well! Life is good! Missionary work is very rewarding. I feel very blessed to be serving the Lord.

Elder Blotter

Hello from Burns Lake

Family!

It is great to hear that all is well at home! The trip to Israel sounds like it is very exciting. I've just finished Jesus the Christ and I think it would be awesome to see that very historic area first hand. I am envious, even though Alma 5 says that I should be stripped of envy. I will have to re-read the chapter in Preach My Gospel on Christlike attributes. Are you planning on doing Lotoja next year, Dad? Or is it still coaching soccer and things like that? And it is certainly true that a mail strike for 6 months is worse than missing an email for a week!

Well, Burns Lake is beginning to change colors! About a week and a half ago a bunch of yellow appeared in all the trees overnight, and it just seems to be getting closer and closer to a full blown fall It has been surprisingly warm though for the past 2 weeks. Apparently it hasn't been normal. Usually it drops below freezing at night and in the mornings, but the afternoons are still pretty warm. Aside from that though, there are a lot of trees here, and so it is very beautiful with the changing colors.

When I left Utah, I passed a lot of fires in the mountains on the way to the airport. It is Northern BC's turn to be on fire now! Apparently there is very large fire in Tweedsmuir National Park, which is fairly close to Burns Lake. Yesterday we spent the evening tracting houses in Decker Lake, a small area that is a few minutes from Burns Lake. Slowly, a massive smoke cloud rose over the mountains and eclipsed the Sun. It looked scarlet red. It was pretty awesome at first, but then it got really hazy. We're told that the fires are quite a ways away and there is no real danger, but we figure that if there was an evacuation, and we don't have radio or TV, people might forget to let the missionaries know. :)

The past week has just been a week of miracles. We have found four new investigators. One of them we are going to be baptizing at the end of this month! Her name is Vanessa, and me and Elder Garner, the district leader, found her about 2 months ago when tracting out a little apartment complex. We had been trying to schedule an appointment with her ever since, but usually she cancel the appointments for some reason. When we finally got a lesson in with her, she accepted the gospel so readily. I can't count the number of times I tried to schedule something with her. I had her number memorized weeks ago. You have to come to church at least 3 times before baptism, and she came this week, she is going to be coming to Stake Conference in Prince George this Sunday, and so she can be baptized after church on September 30th. I feel like I learned so much from the experience. Elder Neher and I really did not expect to find success with her, but we didn't give up on her and we continued to try and share our message with her. She told one of the members last Sunday that she was so touched that I kept trying to work with her, after realizing exactly what blessings the Gospel is going to bring to her life. Being enthusiastic matters! She said it was one of the reasons that she said yes. I also learned how little missionaries do in the conversion process! We didn't convince her at all. She just heard the first lesson, and accepted it as truth very readily. The Spirit was so strong in the lesson and did... everything! Vanessa is a single mom with a 2 year old daughter, and we can just see the positive influence the church is going to have on her life. What a miracle this week has been! What a blessing it is to do missionary work and to see miracles happen first hand!

Just before emailing we had a lesson in a park with Dr. George Magee. His daughter is LDS, and a member in Burns Lake (who passed away years ago) gave him a Book of Mormon many years ago and wrote her testimony in it. When we first came in contact with him, we knocked on their door, and his wife answered and said they weren't interested and began to close the door, but he briefly mentioned he might like to meet and gave us his number. We called him, and though he wouldn't meet with us in his home, he would meet with us in a park. So... that's what he did. He takes a very scientific approach to spirituality, and he mentioned a lot of books and concepts that I was very familiar with. In particular, he discussed the idea of memes and how all religions could just be memes. I had written a 10 page long paper on memes last transfer at USU in my English class, and I was able to completely address that concern. There's another reason I'm in Burns Lake! He invited us to speak at a Rotary club that he is a member of. We'll have to see if I'll be in Burns Lake to be able to do that!

I also learned that you should... not be racist. Basically. We were out tracting little 2 or 3 house reserves on Southside, and we dropped of a Restoration pamphlet at a trailer to a young man that we would assume had never stepped foot inside a public school. The trailer smelled like smoke and beer. He seemed very quiet and listened to us, but didn't really give us any indication that he understood what we were saying. We dropped by a week later, and he invited us inside. We sort of talked to him like he had very little understanding what we were there for, and then he just cut in and told us exactly what the Restoration pamphlet said and that he wanted a Book of Mormon. He could understand the complicated language of the scriptures and could tell us exactly what things like Moroni 10:3-5 meant. Wow. That is far and away more than what other investigators who even have been to college can do. He has probably never been in a school, and probably taught himself how to read. If he was in my place, he would probably have cured cancer or something like that. We are excited to work with him.

I don't want to leave Burns Lake! I could be leaving here by September... 25th or something like that. I really hope that doesn't happen.

Elder Blotter

*He totally might come see" Dr. Blotter" as a patient. He is moving back down to Idaho and has a sinus problem or something.

PS- I was in Unit 3 for AP Government. I'm guessing it was supposed to be that and not AP History? Is Ethan doing AP Gov? I think him and Rigby would really click.

PPS- Elder Neher wonders if you have a really easy gravy recipe. He tried to make moose gravy today and it was literally miraculous how flavorless it was.

On the ferry at sunset....

A Day Early!

Family,

We had a "mini-Zone conference" in Terrace on Sunday, and we only had time to drive back to Smithers yesterday, so we are having our P-day in Smithers this week! It has been nice because there are lower prices on food and things here, but it also means that we are able to email today! So, this email is a little early.

It is weird how fast time has flown this transfer. It's already halfway over! In just over 2 weeks we will find out if we're being moved or not. I hope I'm in Burns Lake for one more round, but we'll have to see how it goes. There are a lot of people that have one foot in the font and the other on the banana peel, and they just need one more nudge for them to either be baptized or commit to be baptized, and I really feel like there is more for me to do in beautiful Burns Lake. I guess we'll just have to see what happens! They have a new training program for new missionaries called the "12 Week Program" where for the first 12 weeks in the field you spend an extra hour a day studying things in Preach My Gospel. I'm 3 weeks away from being finished with that, and I will no longer technically be a "greenie" when it's over. That's pretty weird!

This week has been an interesting one, because we spent a lot of it in other areas, but it has also been a week of miracles. Every week is week of miracles, of course, but still. :) We left on Friday to spend a day having another district meeting and companion exchange in Smithers, and then drove to Terrace and spent some time up there. When we got to Terrace, there was another companion exchange. It was pretty hectic, but I think everybody learned a lot. When we were in Terrace, I was with a group of missionaries and we went to tract out a trailer park. I was paired with an elder who is leaving after this transfer, and we agreed that whichever group found a new investigator first had to buy the other group milkshakes. At the second trailer that we visited, we saw somebody standing by a window and we got their attention to come to the door. When we looked at the door, there was a piece of paper taped to it that rather impolitely told people who were proselyting to leave the trailer alone. But... the person opened the door, we got in, and we managed to get a lesson and two new investigators from the trailer. One of the investigators committed to be baptized as we were leaving. It was certainly a testimony that even in unexpected places, the Lord is preparing people to hear the message of the Restoration.

Another experience we had when tracting Burns Lake is we ran into a man, named Ridge, who we had street contacted into and tracted into previously, and in both situations he had said no. We were out on a random street, and we knocked on the door of a house, and suddenly Ridge walks up to the door. He was just there to pick up his brother because he was intoxicated, but we had a conversation with him, and he told us he wanted to be a better father for his kids, and we basically taught him the Restoration on the doorstep of that random house. We gave him our number and set up another appointment, and left. We were like 5 minutes away and he called and told us to visit somebody down the street for him, and as soon as we hung up the phone, a car pulled up and rolled down the window to talk to us, and it turns out, it was the guy that Ridge told us to visit. He initially said he wasn't interested, but when we told him Ridge wanted us to see him, he agreed to give us his number and meet with us.

We're working in Burns Lake in a lot of different ways. We're starting to get some of the elderly natives to just come to church. We're not allowed to visit single women without a responsible male adult 17 years or older present, and there are a lot of old women on the reserve, and since there just aren't enough Priesthood holders in Burns Lake to get in the number of appointments we would like to, one way we've been getting people to come unto Christ is by setting up rides for them to come to church and teaching them there on Sundays. We'll have to see if any fruits come that way in the future. We know that we need to be working harder for Burns Lake to blossom, and so we're doing what we can.

The town itself of Burns Lake is small and only has about 1500 people in it. There are other areas in BC with massive wards in them and no missionaries. But there is work to do in Burns Lake, and the experiences and miracles that happen like that every day are just another witness that the Lord has missionaries where they need to be. It is so surprising to see the people that the Lord has prepared, but he has certainly prepared them.

Well, it has been a great week! I love serving the Lord. It is very fulfilling work. I am blessed to serve in a beautiful and uniquely challenging area. I hope all is well at home! All is well in Burns Lake. Oh. I also found out that the name of Queen Charlotte's island is spelled "Haida Gwaii". Just for clarification. :)

Hope to hear from you next week! Have a great one. I've got to write President Tilleman.

Elder Blotter