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

Good Gow!

Family,

 

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

Good Gow!

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Love you all lots!

 

Elder Blotter

What a week!

Family,

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Elder Blotter

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

 

 

Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Blotter

Haida Gwaii

Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Blotter

Haida Gwaii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family,

Well, transfer calls have come and gone, and so now it's confirmed that my last area is going to be the beautiful islands of Haida Gwaii. I'm super excited about that, because there's just so much going on and the people here are just like family at this point, I love serving in small places, because it's so easy to get very close with the people here. And I have spent a lot of time in the tiny places in the far Northern reaches of the mission! The Terrace district conference is going to be at the end of May, and I realized that of the 4 possible district conferences for me to be in attendance of in Terrace, I will have gone to 3 of them! I missed one district conference because I was in Vernon, but other than that, I've been at every district conference in Terrace. You just gotta love the North.

So. Anyways. Miracles. I talked about Alma Rose a little bit last week. She's great. She lives inside of what looks like is a motel (because it was a motel, but some guy bought it and turned it into an apartment complex) that we felt like we should try to talk to everybody inside of anyways. It's on the busiest stretch of the biggest town in the islands, so kind of right under the missionaries' noses. Anyways. We were teaching her, and she had said joking that what drives her life is "coffee", and she told us she drinks 2-3 12 cup pots of coffee a day. So we were pretty concerned about teaching her the Word of Wisdom. In the lesson, we were kind of cautious and were prepared to make a plan to help her quit over a period of time, but she just dwarfed our faith and committed to live it on the spot. We left that lesson with bags of coffee and tea containers. Lessons like that are the best. In any case, we moved her baptismal date forward to May 10th. People like her are just solid. We just taught her tithing, and even though she's in a tight financial situation, she had no problem committing to live it. Some people just have the strongest faith!

In any case, we're really excited about Alma-Rose. She's also really into genealogy and held a genealogy workshop yesterday, and so she's all about that. We were allowed to go to it, and when we went she was showing some of the online genealogy sites. When she went to familysearch.org, it was just awesome. I was feeling some church pride. That has negative connotations... maybe church patriotism is a better way to put it. :) What an awesome resource that is! Our church is really cool. It does really cool stuff. Also, Mother/Grandma/whomever else has done a lot of work on it, thanks for doing so much work on genealogy! I brought the fan chart that I have that goes back to the 128 great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents that I have, and people were really impressed by it. And then the "Spirit of Elijah" just started stirring in people's hearts and they wanted to do their genealogies, too. A lot of people then started asking questions about the church, too, at first apologetically because it was supposed to be a workshop about genealogy, but we had the chance to talk to a lot of people about what our church is about. It was awesome.

Anyways, the work is going well! We're finding lots of people to talk to. At this point we're finding in a lot of the same places that we've already found in, but every time we revisit a place, we find new people to teach. We plan to revisit areas at different times to talk to different groups of people, and between that and people's hearts softening, we manage to teach lots of new people each week. We spend a lot of time pounding the pavement (or rather, mud, moss, and muddy moss, etc) but we're certainly blessed for the time that we do. :)

The people here are so awesome, too. Sid, the chief, gave us these super nice carved wooden paddles, and Val is going to help us paint them at some point. No idea how I'm going to get that bad boy home. Val has given us some of her super awesome art, and some jewelry. And a super cool poster. People are just very generous. And people are very willing to feed us. It's a good thing that we have a treadmill now... ha ha. Last night we were just lamenting the fact that this recipe we were trying (halibut cooked in the oven at 3:50 covered in coconut milk and this asiago artichoke dip stuff. All of which was given to us by a recent convert named Ruth) wasn't finished cooking in time before we had to leave for our consecrated finding time. (We just turned the oven down to 250 and left it in there. Surprisingly, when we got back it was cooked perfectly. Miracle.) So we're out and finding, and Sid and Cindy tell us they want us to come over. And then as we're talking, they give us all this scallop fettucine. It was fantastic. And just over the course of me writing this, we got a text from Ruth telling us she has food for us. I repeat, it's a good thing we have a treadmill now.

Well! We're out here working hard. It's a beautiful place. On the occasional sunny day, the scenery is just striking. It's just a message of "God loves you". And even the liquid sunshine isn't all that bad, either. It keeps everything green. They have a saying up here, "no rain, no rainbows"! I hope that you all have an amazing week and that everything is going well! Congratulations to Jacey for scoring a goal the other day in soccer, and to Jed for doing cool stuff on the motorcycle. You'll have to show me some cool stuff. And Ness, hope stats is just going greaaaat.

Elder Blotter

Hello!

Family,

Well, it's been a great week up here on Haida Gwaii. If I look to my left, I see a clear sky with the sun shining on calm ocean, with a bunch of ducks swimming closer to the beach, and some pine tree covered hills on an island across the channel. It's just gorgeous. We've started to have some really nice days up here! It usually will still rain off and on throughout the day, and it's still not all too warm up here, but for Northern BC, we'll take it! 

Easter was great! We were indeed invited to a dinner. For the past year or so in the mission, we've emphasized consecrated finding time- we're out finding when people are home, finding from 5 to 7 pm. We also only have dinner appointments when there's a less active member, recent convert, or a nonmember there. So dinner appointments are usually few and far between kind of intentionally. But, we're fed all the time on the islands here because there are lots of people that aren't members that want to feed us, and lots and lots are recent converts. We probably have like 50,000 calories of leftovers in our fridge. And hopefully those last, because the missionary funds card still has yet to be sent here, and Elder Rose is out, and so we can't get groceries until that arrives! Oh! But miracle! In the fight against the the paradoxical forces of gaining weight in an area where food is the most expensive and you have half the funds you usually do, we have obtained a treadmill that one of the members here, Wendy, isn't using! We've had it since Monday, and it's been prime. Awesome tender mercy.

The members here in general are just awesome. Wendy and Val are sisters, and they've been longtime members, but Wendy has only been active since the church has been back (kind of hard to be active when there's no church to be active in) and Val doesn't really remember being baptized and "isn't really into the whole church thing" (...yet). But they're both funny. Val is an artist, and so we help her sometimes work on different projects. They have aprons and pillows, etc. that have skulls and crossbones, and things like that because they were skaters and hippies and whatever else back in the day, but for when we come over they've made a bunch of fabric that has phrases like "Praise Jesus" on it and they safety pin the fabric over whatever it is that would otherwise be "offensive". They're funny. I can't remember if I've already told you about them or not. They invited a bunch of their friends over for Easter dinner, and we had the chance to meet them, so we were well taken care of.

The work has just been great! We were in a lesson with one of our new investigators, Alma Rose, and I was reflecting on the counsel the prophet in Preach My Gospel to invite people to be baptized on a specific day by the 2nd lesson, and it was our second lesson, and even though it wasn't clear how it was going to go, the prompting came really powerfully that we needed to invite her to be baptized. And you know, the lesson just kind of moved in that direction all on its own, and when she was invited to be baptized, she just said "yes" and has been working towards being baptized since! It was an awesome experience. Alma is awesome because 1) she has the name of a Book of Mormon prophet 2) she's facing a lot of opposition from some of her family on the other side of Canada and she just doesn't mind it at all. Very faithful.

Things have been going just great though. We've continued our quest of knocking every single door on the islands here, even those that aren't clustered in the little villages, and that has taken us through the boonies of Graham island, There's a town of a few hundred people, mostly loggers and the socially disinclined, called Port Clements halfway in between Skidegate and Masset. And around there, there are a bunch of roads that take you into the wilderness, but they have power lines that lead you to obscure little clusters of houses. We've found a lot of people to talk to, because as one couple told us, "you two are the first other people that we've seen at our house in.... (they look at each other...) months!" And they are very willing to talk to us because of that. So that's great! We'll keep on looking under ever rock. And then the rocks that are easy to get to, we'll look under a few times. And then a few times more. :)

Well, we're certainly blessed here on Haida Gwaii. And we love it. Transfer calls for my last transfer are this Monday, but since our p-day is on Tuesday, I'll know what's going on. We're both expecting to stay put.

It's good to hear that you all had a good Easter! We celebrate and reflect on the resurrection every week when we partake of the Sacrament, and hopefully more frequently than that, but it's awesome to have a holiday to celebrate it. He lives!

Love you all. And hope you have a great week!

Elder Blotter

Hello from Haida Gwaii

Family,

 

Well, what an amazing week it's been! We've seen lots of miracles and had lots of unique experiences in the past few days. But first off, here is a monumental thank you to all of those involved in making the fall schedule happen! It sounds like it was a headache and a half. It sounds like my dreams of spending the first day waking up early and then going on a run quite out of sight and sound of a companion and then sleeping will be replaced by chemistry. Great. It looks like it all fits just great! If ever I get slightly trunky, I'll just have to remember that there is physics, calculus, organic chemistry, and others all waiting to ambush at the same time, and then tracting in the rain will seem just perfect. But thanks to Dad, Ness, and Mom (who stayed up til' 1...)!

 

So! In the past weeks, we've been working with Eric. Awesome kid, we love him to death. He's all over going running and playing basketball, and was very keen on getting baptized, and very excited to meet President Tilleman, who was a stellar basketball player. But, in the past weeks, people have just been working away on him and telling him he wouldn't be able to live the standards, and he kind of lost faith in himself and has been slipping. It's always hard to see. So, we've been praying about how to help him, and we had also been praying a lot about who it was that we're here to baptize. There are a lot of people in the teaching pool, but a lot of them are slow movers, who like to think about everything they do, or people who have a lot of changes that they still need to make. And we are all about planting seeds, don't get me wrong, but we're here to harvest! The field is already white! We're here to baptize! We've found a lot of cool people this week, however, and so we're excited to see what happens. 

 

 Some of our prayers as to who we're supposed to be working with were answered in the past week, when a legal miracle happened. One of the awesome recent converts on the island here has been involved in a custody battle with her 2 children, both of them are about 10 years old. The other party that was seeking for custody was mostly fueled by the kids' grandparents, who are prominent members of another faith that didn't want them involved with us. For legal reasons, we've had to steer clear of the kids. In the past week, even though the legal proceedings were supposed to be delayed for a lot longer and a lot more complicated, Leslie got full custody of her children, including giving the kids the freedom to choose whatever religion they would like to! So, now they have the chance to be taught, (and possibly could be able to be baptized). Miracle! 

 

The rest of the work has been great, too! Being on the islands is just great. BC is kind of famous in Canada as being the province famous for laid back people who like lots of vacation time and just aren't too rushed about anything. Haida Gwaii sort of amplifies that culture, and then on top of that, when you add Mormon standard timing into the mix, church that is supposed to start at 11... doesn't start at 11. So, in the time while we're waiting for people to show up, we'll walk along the beach that the building we use for church is built on. I found a sand dollar before church this week. Up in Masset, the building that is supposed to have been renovated (the renovations still haven't started yet, other than the heat being shut off) is pretty cold, and so we held church inside of the small kitchen inside of the building and turned the ovens on for heat. Nice and cozy.

 

Some of the flavorful people we talked to this week...

-Clint the Born Again from Oklahoma- He said God moved him to come up the Haida Gwaii and start a youth group on the islands. Currently, 12 kids have been born again! He had the Bible belt accent and everything.

-Natania the wood mason- We talked to a lady who has spent the last 25 years pioneering wood masonry, where you take chunks of wood and glass bottles and things like that and make houses and walls and sheds and things like that with mortar. Yep. Still hasn't really caught on.

-We talked to this one guy in Tow Hill that didn't want to hear about the gospel, but wanted to compel us to fight him and his son with homemade swords. It was weird.

 

In general though, we've absolutely been blessed, and the work has been moving forward. Yesterday we were let inside by this man who didn't really look twice at us before inviting us inside to talk with him and his family. We were almost on edge just because it's never "that easy", but we ended up having a great discussion about Easter and the role of Jesus Christ, and explaining the role of Him as our Savior. It was a really powerful discussion, and even though it wasn't some massive display of a miracle, it was just one of those simple experiences that make up a mission. They invited us back, and so we'll see them later this week.

 

In closing, as it's getting closer to the season that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I would love to bear my testimony of the same. Jesus Christ lives! He was resurrected, and because of that, each one of us will live again as well if we come unto Him through living His doctrine. What a beautiful message to be sharing!

 

I hope that you all have a great week!

 

Elder Blotter

April Report from Haida Gwaii

Family,

Well, unfortunately the Masons are gone, and so we're still back to emailing at the library where we don't have a lot of time to write, especially since I had to think about school and stuff like that. So... sorry if this week is short as well!

The past week has been a blessed one! Conference was of course just amazing! We still haven't seen the some of the Saturday stuff, because we had the opportunity to help Sid work on a cabin of his on that Saturday. We ended up taking out a bunch of flooring in a more remote cabin of his, and then put in some new flooring. When we were finished, we watched the Priesthood session with him and his wife at their home because there's no church to watch at here. It was an awesome opportunity to just talk with him as we were working, though!

Life has been great, though! Yesterday we were finding in some of the most beautiful places on the island. I have no idea how they afford to keep going, but there are some cattle ranchers in the middle of the big island that we're usually on, and we were finding people to teach in that area. Not exactly the same feel as Grandpa's ranch, but... there were still cows. We were exposed to some sort of supplementary 3rd ordinance of the gospel: baptism by immersion by the falling of rain. Just like the rest of the Canada Vancouver Mission, it "never rains", but there has been plenty of liquid sunshine.

Unfortunately, our baptism for later in the week is being postponed. We're fighting a case of the "well, I'm young now, so why don't I keep doing what I'm doing, and repent when I settle down?" But, Eric still wants to meet with us, and he really is a great kid, and so we're going to keep on keeping on.

And, well, I'm already out of time to email, but I want to take a second to bear testimony that what we heard at conference was true! They were the words of living prophets. And I hope that you all have an amazing week! Love you lots!

Elder Blotter

2 Nephi 21:11 -Gathering the remnants from the "isles of the sea"

Famjam,

Well, just like that it's been another week! And yes, despite eating raw claw, I am still alive. We were told after eating them that on the Northern part of the island eating shellfish is temporarily off-limits because of "red tide", a bacteria that comes and goes, but when it comes, and you eat shellfish, you get paralyzed and sick. So far I can still move all my toes, so we're good! Honestly, the raw clams themselves weren't too bad, it was the greenish goop inside the stomach of the clam that made it a little less than desirable. The clam already ate it once... it doesn't need to be eaten a second time. :)

But yes! We had the chance to go clam digging with the chief, Sid! It was great. He has a massive 3500 diesel truck and we just drove for a while along places that you wouldn't think that vehicles could go along the beach and in between boulders and through forest and through rivers and found a pretty prime clam digging spot. After we had a good amount of clams, we went around delivering them to people. We were taught how to shuck clams, but we still made a deal with one of the recent converts here that we'd give her half of the ones left over if she would shuck them all. We're going to experiment making some clam chowder later. But the people on the islands here are just great. We have great discussions with Sid and Cindy. And whenever we go over for a lesson or even just to drop something off, we can't leave without them feeding us something. They're very generous.

Oh yeah! I also got my Haida name this week. I don't have my planner on me, and that's where I wrote it, and so I don't remember how it's actually spelled, but it's pronounced "eethahlingeye K'awjee Culth-gull", which means Fierce-eyed Gorgeous one. Actually it means "Yellow Haired Boy". But... you know. And in this culture, it's very offensive to pronounce a Haida name incorrectly. If you pronounce somebody's name wrong, you just give them $20. At a recent feast, apparently somebody from a different clan pronounced a chief of a different clans name incorrectly, and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. So the matriarchs of the clan went around collecting money, and they gave the chief whose name was mispronounced $3000. So... you just don't try to say people's Haida names.

The work is going well, though! Haida Gwaii isn't a big place, and so we've talked to a some people a few times by now, but there are still a few rocks unturned and a few trees we haven't looked behind. The people on the reserves here are very willing to speak with us, and we do find a lot of new people to teach every week, and there are some very faithful investigators that just make the world go around. In smaller places you come to better appreciate how much the Lord does soften people's hearts, you can see people who weren't into talking the first time change their minds.

We've seen a lot of miracles as well! Eric is still doing well and excited about his baptism on April 6th (...or around there! Whenever President Tilleman can make it up.) There are a lot of miracle people on the island.

When we pulled into Masset and got cell service on Sunday, we got a voicemail from a recent convert in whose home we were planning on holding church letting us know that she would not be able to have church at her place because she needed to be at a feast that her clan was holding to celebrate one of the families adopting some children. So... that left us without any building to hold church in. We kind of were stuck! We literally started calling less actives and investigators to see if we could hold church in their homes. (They don't need a ride to church... church needs a ride to them...) We decided to swing by the community hall that we usually hold church in that has been closed for 3 weeks for renovations, and they hadn't started anything yet, and so we were able to just hold it there, so that much was good. We held church there with the misssionaries, one recent convert, one investigator, one member. Quality not quantity.

Well, it sounds like everything at home is going well! Thanks for all of the emails and the support! Love you all.

Jed:

Congrats for building a speedy school bus. It looks like a good vehicle. Hopefully you didn't learn TOO much at the MMA thing that you went to. And look at your hair! Is that how you do it now?

Elder Blotter

Family

Well, it's been another crazy week on Haida Gwaii, and I just have no time to write about all of the awesome things that I would like to! But... here we go!

First off... Haida Gwaii is filled with great people. We've seen so many miracles on the islands here. We've been blessed with a lot of great people to teach. And the work here is just... different than anywhere else. The community hall that we meet in up in Masset is under renovations, and so this week we met inside of a recent convert's home. It was a very powerful experience to be able to have a sacrament meeting all squished around a dinner table. One of our investigators, Sarah, is so faithful that she came to church and seemed to enjoy it even if where we were meeting or the number of people there didn't seem impressive (...or if in the background you could hear a TV blaring from one of her roommates in another room). It was a very cool experience.

We were also able this week just to meet with a lot of part-member families that we've wanted to meet with the entire time that we've been here and just haven't had the chance to meet with. Sometimes the miracles come in just having people there at just the right time for you to be able to meet with them. One day last week, we received a referral from one of the members and were instructed to go to the "blue house with the trampoline". We went to a house that fit the description, and the person didn't live there, but we did find somebody who was very interested and usually isn't home, but was there at just the right time. We later found out that 2 houses fit the description, but we were in the right place at the right time. That's just one little example, but just hundreds of things like that add up that all testify that we're not the ones in control, and it's not our work. It's awesome.

The members in small branches like up here are just awesome, too. The senior couple up here, the Masons, are just great. We'll ride with them up to Masset, and have district meetings with them. They help us out a ton in coming to lessons. They remind me of my grandparents that have also gone on missions! I don't know what we'd do without the Masons, and I can only imagine that the missionaries from the family are just as necessary in the Lord's work.

We had a few culinary adventures on the Gwaii this week, as well. The communities in general aren't very wealthy, and so the people eat a lot of seafood because it's very easy to get on Haida Gwaii. We've been fed some interesting things so far. This week was Val Malesku's birthday, and for her birthday we were cleaning the window's in she and Pete's

house. After we cleaned their house, they told us they were going to feed us. And for dinner, they taught us how to roll our own sushi. (They say that it's their goal to teach us things to make us as attractive as possible to the opposite gender by the time that we leave. I don't know if girls in Utah really are into sushi, but there haven't been missionaries on Haida Gwaii for that long, and Mook already has a collection of wedding announcements, so maybe they're on to something.) So this preparation day we got our own sushi rolling bamboo mat and we're going to make some sushi. The people here eat sea urchin eggs, I forget what it's called, but it's really... not good looking. We were fed a bunch of raw scallops. From the picture that Elder Mason said that he emailed to you guys, you can probably see that we're not starving, however. There's a little cafe up in Masset that makes burgers that have 2 grilled cheese sandwiches for the bun. Yeah... probably not the healthiest thing to eat.

Well, the church is true, even on the islands up here. We're in a secluded place, but we're blessed with people to find and teach. The church is true! We're very blessed.

Well, sure love you all. Thanks so much for the emails and the support! Hope that you have a great week!

Elder Blotter

Another good report from Haida Gwaii

Family,

Well, what a great week it's been! Definitely a highlight week of the mission so far. We just carried on the work in Haida Gwaii, then flew down on Friday for the conference with Elder Christofferson, and then less than 24 hours later we were back and going on the islands. President Tilleman says that after the conference with Elder Christofferson, he asked him how he would describe his experience with the mission, and he said "I feel, just too sacred for me to put into words". And it was! It was such a powerful experience.

The last week went great! We found a lot of people to talk to, taught lessons, and got people to church. All the missionary meat n' potatoes. There are a lot of less active members here that have been less actives more or less all their lives because they moved here when young and there's no church here, or because they joined the church when they were a part of the placement program. There are some world famous Haida artists that I heard about/saw murals they'd painted in Vancouver that are on our ward list up here. Probably the world's most active inactive member (We visit with her, her husband, and her sister, Wendy, all the time. They're great) Val Malesku, is a member. I don't know if you can learn too much about her or her art online, but she's a pretty big deal. To serve them sometimes we help her work on projects or jewelry or whatever else that she's working on, and she'll ask us questions while we're working on stuff. We spent our dinnertime yesterday eating rice crispies and I became a master at burnishing earrings. Life skills you learn on your mission. Jewelry burnishing. Whenever we ask her to come to church or anything along those lines, she gives us a business card with her name and contact information on it, and it just says "Not Gonna Happen, Don't Even Go There". They're funny.

The weather in Haida Gwaii is pretty bipolar, and even though Queen Charlotte is about 10 minutes from Skidegate, it was blizzarding in Skidegate and there were clear skies in Charlotte, and it always seems that in our planning sessions we somehow manage to make plans that put us in the middle of the blizzard. So we'll coat up, grab a scarf and everything, drive out and work, then when we come back for lunch it's sunny. But it's so beautiful here! The snow covering the trees looks majestic, and so it's hard to complain about it.

But anyways, the experience with Elder Christofferson was amazing. We had a meeting at 5:00 in the mission office on Friday to take a mission picture and have some time to be trained by President Tilleman, but our flight didn't land until 5:15. (We walked in just as everybody was walking away from the stage where they took the mission picture, literally just seconds too late to be involved. They're going to photoshop us in. I told the guy I wouldn't complain about not being in the picture, as long as they photoshopped me slightly more muscular and taller.) As a mission we fasted that day, just to prepare to meet with an apostle the next day, and it was such a powerful experience.

That night we stayed with the Surrey 3rd elders, who just so happen to be Elder Atwood and Elder Holtby. Yep, they're companions. And they're pretty much doing how you'd expect them to be doing. :)

The next morning, we were asked to be in our seats by 8, and the meeting was supposed to start at 9, but we woke up at 5 to get there as early as possible, and we probably got there at an average time. We were so excited. Even before the meeting started, the spirit was so strong. I think I half expected some crazy new missionary techniques or some out of the box ideas to be revealed to the mission, but the things that were emphasized were just principles from the doctrine of Christ and principles from Preach my Gospel. Some things are probably too sacred to share, but he left some very cool blessings on the mission, and he bore a very powerful testimony of Jesus Christ "as somebody who knows that He lives". Among other things, he testified that Jesus Christ actively guides and directs the Church. "He doesn't just check in every once in a while." It was very powerful.

He also said some really cool things about our mission. He says it's an example of a mission where the work has hastened, and he had some very cool things to say about President Tilleman. He told us that "they don't have a better mission president" than President Tilleman, and he exhorted us to learn as much from watching him as we could with the time that he has left on his mission. We're blessed in the Canada Vancouver mission, that's for sure.

Well, in closing, I'd like to bear a brief testimony, from someone who recently heard it from the mouth of a special witness, that Jesus Christ lives. He's our Savior! As it's stylized here in Canada, He is our Saviour. What a blessing it is to know that and to have His influence in our lives. I hope that you all have a great week this week.

Elder Blotter

Report from Haida Gwaii

Hello, family!

Whew! Sounds like it's been a pretty crazy week for everybody back home! The skiing in Eastern BC looks like it was fantastic. I would always be envious of the people in Vernon that came to the door with windburned faces and thermals after a day of skiing. There's a member in Vernon that I think is an orthopedic surgeon and at his practice he schedules all his patients in the afternoon so he can go skiing every morning. Probably not a bad way to go!

Well, the work in Haida Gwaii has just been great. The people here are great. It's a very small place, and everybody has had the missionaries at their door a lot over the past 2 years, and so a lot of people aren't very receptive to your typical missionary approach on the doorstep. People are very friendly and talkative, and a lot are very willing to accept help with yardwork or splitting wood or whatever else they need to have done, and so you have to find different ways to start talking with people and sharing the gospel with them. As a missionary you're kind of watched like a hawk. We were heading back from washing our truck at one of the member's homes, and somebody walking past looked at us confused and asked us why we weren't "in uniform". Then half a second later he just said "Oh yeah, it's Tuesday, your day off!" And then kept going. People know that our rules are that we can't visit people of the opposite gender without someone of our own gender with us, and they'll use that to their advantage. "You can't share your message with me! I'm here all by myself and you can't come in!" It kind of creates a hubbub whenever there is a switch in the missionaries here, and so the fact that 2 new ones moved in created a bit of a stir. It's a pretty interesting culture!

We're still working with a lot of miracle people here in Haida Gwaii. I might have mentioned before, many years ago churches on Haida Gwaii had programs that would forcibly take children from their families and put them in "Residential Schools", where all sorts of abuse would take place. The LDS church had a "Lamanite Placement Program" which would place children from Haida Gwaii with families spread throughout Canada or at church schools like BYU, but it required the parent's permission, and to keep their kids away from other programs that were abusive, families would beg the church to take their children. So in general, people are relatively friendly towards the church, but there are a lot of the people here that don't really distinguish between churches. So it's really cool that we're able to meet with Sid, who is a chief, and his wife Cindy. They're really great people. Sid is always joking around with other people at his house that we think he would make a great "Mormon bishop" (he would). People are a lot friendlier towards us, because they know that at least Sid likes us! They take really good care of us, too. Sid sent us home the other day with a big bucket of crabs. I've never eaten legit crab before, but it's good! He said that in Vancouver one crab would cost $30, and he gave us like ten.

The culture on Haida Gwaii is great, too. In first nations stories, ravens play very prominent positive roles, and so even though they just tear into garbage and make messes, everybody loves them a lot. You never throw away food that goes bad, you just set it out so the ravens eat it. We had a bunch of food that was given to us that started to go bad, so we left it outside, and there was a swarm of probably 40 ravens outside our apartment. Not going to lie, we were scared to leave. But the Lord looked out for us, and we made it out. :)

Other than that, we're just looking on all obscure corners of the islands for people to teach! Riding ferries around, looking in all the different towns, and talking with a lot of unique people. We're teaching a few people that are hippies that came to escape the rest of the world, an Inuit artist who carves whalebone for a living, some loggers, and lots of awesome first nation people. We're hoping that the snow up here melts soon. When it doesn't look so cold outside, people will hopefully be more willing to jump in our baptismal font (the ocean).

And we have a really exciting week coming up! We're going to be flying down to Vancouver (and flying back up in less than 24 hours) for a mission conference with Elder Christofferson! We're super excited for it. The whole mission is fasting the day before, and then we're just going to have a spiritual feast the next day. It'll probably be the only time for months and months that we'll be off the island.

Well, hope that you all have a great week! Thanks for the emails and support!

Donga dii K'uuga ga!

Elder Blotter

Haawa

Family,

Well, just like that it's been another week. It just always feels like there's not enough time in the day to get everything done that you'd like to, and so it just feels like a blur. Things have been going very well here on the Gwaii. It's so beautiful here! The weather has just been crazy, though. We've had gale-force winds and snow and rain (sometimes it's raining and snowing at the same time) and sometimes warmth and sunshine. Driving from Skidegate to Masset on Sunday along the coast there were waves so big that they wash over the road. They have to have a snowplow push driftwood off the road. The weather will literally change in just minutes. I'll try to send pictures soon (possibly later today?) because it's just beautiful up here.

The work on Haida Gwaii has been great! It's definitely a lot different than anywhere else in the mission. You can knock on every door on the island in 2 or 3 weeks. It usually takes longer because you're teaching or doing service, but there aren't exactly oodles of people up here. In church, the members will speak in sacrament meeting almost monthly, and everybody has to have multiple callings. And the people here are so faithful! Some of the recent converts here, that are coming to church even though none of their friends or family go, even though the church service here is so small and simple because we don't even have a building, are very inspiring. Because it's so remote, Haida Gwaii is it's own district, and so district meetings just have us and the Masons (who Mom is apparently already in contact with) inside of them. So, as a district leader, I'll have to find ways to make the meetings lively because there are so few of us!

The people here on Haida Gwaii are just great, thA lot of people would warm up to us if they joined the churchough. They're very laid back and very willing to talk with us. We probably find 2 new investigators every day. A lot of the first nations people here have a lot of reservations talking to religious people because of how poorly the people here were treated. A lot of natives were forced from their families as children and stuck in Catholic "residential schools", and faced a lot of abuse. It definitely takes a lot of time for people to warm up to us, and so we try to do a lot of service so they can see that we're here because we really want to help.

We're working with some very awesome people, though. We're teaching a native named Eddie who is trying to quit smoking and drinking that was raised in an LDS home but was never baptized. Sid, the chief in Skidegate, and his wife Cindy, are just awesome. They feed us all the time and we'll just be talking. We just love them. They've had a big impact on the community that they live in already as far as perception of the church in Skidegate. We've definitely been blessed by the Lord here.

The language here is very cool, as well. The Haidas have their own language that is apparently very unique. I'm trying to learn all the pleasantries. Haawa means thank you. Dongaa dii K'uuga ga means I love you. And... that's about all that I remember so far. The culture here is very cool. Haida art is very famous, and it all originates here. They take a lot of pride in their culture and history. Anciently, the Haida people were very aggressive. They had these big war canoes, and they would canoe on the open ocean to places as far as Hawaii and someone said they even went to New Zealand. Pretty crazy.

Sounds like it was a pretty great week back home! Dad, enjoy Revelstoke! You'll have to give a report on how the skiing there is! When you're driving in between Salmon Arm and Vernon, there's a place with a "Goat Walk" where you stop and you can put some food in a bucket thing, and a goat will walk over this bridge and spin a wheel or something with it's head to pull up the bucket and eat the food. The skiing is great and all, but it's a must-see. Well, love you all! Hope you have a great week!

Elder Blotter

Hi-duh g-why!

Family!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Blotter