Re: Thick of Summer...

Oh man. I will just be so glad to know that what I write will be reposted as "Canadian Bacon". :) And yeah! Ty Duersch is the Northern Canada equivalent of being next door neighbors. He's serving over in Terrace, which is just 30-40 minutes away. But he really did spend his first year as an office elder in Surrey. Which was probably just oodles of fun. But yeah! Good old Elder Duersch.

Elder Blotter

Kitimat

Well hello,

It's been another really great week up in Northern BC! It's kind of weird, but in another transfer or two I will have spent a year up in the Terrace Zone. I just count myself lucky to be considered a "North missionary". It's awesome up here. Elder Atwood and I survived transfers and will be going on round 3. President Tilleman told us that he knew we had some "unfinished business" with some of our investigators here and so he left us together. Which, we did certainly!

Well, the work in Kitimat is moving forward. Daniel Boyson finally talked to his mom about how he wants to be baptized, and she's going to be supportive if it's what he wants. So... although it's been delayed for a while, we've set a baptismal date for this Saturday. We've been meeting with them almost daily for a long time to help them get to this point. But... it's worth it to be able to see them accept saving ordinances! There have definitely been miracles helping out the Boyson family. It's definitely been good; because we're over there quite frequently, Brother Boyson trusts us enough to open up about his concerns about his family in the church. He's been less active for a while because of some issues with family back in Alberta, and he's been starting to change as well and forgive and move on. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real, and it really does help people heal. It's a blessing to be able to see it.

God certainly does have a hand in missionary work, though. One recent convert from another small BC town (Merrit) recently moved to Kitimat, and it turns out that she is related to Samantha and knows her. Having friends or family that can help support somebody to make the sometimes difficult changes that are required to join the church is crucial, and so it's very cool to see the Lord provide that kind of support. Another one of our investigators, Sean (who is Irish) has a member friend from Scotland that is going to be in Kitimat for a month, and so we can meet with them together as well. Small world.

Other than that, the week has pretty much consisted of just pounding the pavement to find new investigators, rain or shine. (You get a lot of both, in Kitimat) The people in Kitimat talk up how well designed the city is (we still think it's ridiculously goofy compared to a grid system, but... hey. Canadians) because it was a "planned city" created by Clarence Stein, who also apparently designed 7 other twin cities in the United States. The layout might be nice for Joe Shmo, but the way it's designed makes it so it's harder to find people to teach. There isn't a busy street to try street contacting, because all of the stores are clumped together in a mall-type thing, and there aren't any parks or open places to talk to people at, because Kitimat has a ton of parks just kind of scattered around in green areas behind the houses and so because there are so many, it feels like there aren't any people at any of them. So, to keep finding people, you kind of have to keep thinking creatively. One weekday morning we knocked on half of an entire street without a single person coming to the door. We thought to ourselves "Man... We could be painting our toenails as far as how effective our time is being spent right now." And so we ended up mowing the lawns of a Sikh lady, a grandma, and one of our former investigators. Planting seeds!

But at the end of the day, it's a small town, but we're still finding new faces to teach. The other day, we talked to a young woman, Heather, who wasn't raised religious, but wants to experiment with faith, and was curious about what we believed. Today, we'll probably find somebody else! God keeps on preparing people, and we keep bumping into them somehow. The church is true!

Well, I hope everybody has a great week! I keep you all in my prayers and I hope that you keep Kitimat in your prayers as well. Looks like you're having a good summer and I hope it stays that way!

Love,

Elder Blotter

July

Jacey at the Cache Valley Cup

Dad and Quintin on their annual 4th of July ride.

 

Elder Blotter, seasoned Elder of the Vancouver BC Mission

Well, I hope that you are surviving the dog days of summer up in the great white north.  It sounds like things are happening.  I suspect that Kitimat is a tough area for some reason.  Each mission has those tough areas and at times it takes a lot of faith to shake them up a little bit.  Fortunately, there are some good member families and those families are very helpful and awesome.  Truth is, when we lived in Ohio we were one of those missionary families.  We had missionaries at our house all the time for dinner, haircuts, rides, and whatever.  Elder Lusk could eat a whole casserole.  I went on splits to Spanish speakers, and we invited our friends like the Dubonovich's and the Rough's to hear the discussions and we taught them in our home.  We had a lot of good memories.  Probably need to be a little more proactive here in Cache Valley.

Well, the heat is on in Cache Valley.  Having one of those global warming type summers unfortunately.  Jacey had a soccer tournament last week and that took up a lot of our time and it was pretty fun.  It was the Cache Cup and they were playing in the Gold Division, which brings some pretty stiff competition from the Wasatch Front. They made it to the championship game and lost.  The game was such a barnburner that Grandma Blotter had to leave because she was too stressed :)  I thrive on stress so it was fun for me.  Anyway, it is a fun little soccer team and they are very very good.  No one in Cache Valley can even compete with them.  I talked a coach of a good team of girls a year older into a scrimmage, and we creamed them.  I felt bad.  Anyway that is Jacey's soccer. 

Other than that I am training for Lotoja as much as I can.  But not enough.  I'm getting this feeling that it is going to be a long day September 7th and I am going to be sick.  O well.  In a moment of weakness, your mother signed Jed up for..............little league football.  I was not too keen on the idea.  Jed has a little friend in Hyde Park that wanted him to sign up so Jed started begging.  This is how things go with the little ones and your mother:  Mom I want to play football with Will, Can I Can I?  No Jed, not this year, maybe later.  Mom, Can I play football with Will?  No Jed.  But Mom, I really want to play football.  Okay Jed, you can play.  So football is here.  I guess it is his destiny. 

Not too much else exciting.  The HP 6th ward is changing every day.  It is different than when you left for sure.  The upper subdivision is really taking off and I only know the names of about half of the ward.  We are suddenly old timers.

Bishop Holt is still at the helm, and Eric Holt is off to Spain.   Tanner Hunt will be home soon.  I look forward to seeing how he is doing.  Tyson Strong is getting married in August.  Kaden Strong his little brother is doing quite well, and I'm pretty sure that I am going to get Zach Balls on a mission.  So that is the news of the HP 6th.

Well, I hope that it is a great and productive week

Love Dad

• 
  

It's July in Kitimat

Well, hello, Family!

It has been a good week in Kitimat. It's been hot, though! High 20's might not sound hot to Utahns. But it is! Other than that, life's been good! Since Kitimat is close to the ocean, a lot of people give us fish and prawns and stuff like that, and so I'm learning how to prepare and cook seafood. Haven't died yet... Transfer calls are today, but we have a hunch that neither of us are leaving, because President Tilleman called us this morning to talk about getting an interview for Samantha and didn't mention anything about a potential transfer... so we think we're safe. But only time will tell.

We've seen a lot of miracles this week, however! We've been working with the Boyson family for a few months now, and they've certainly come a long way. They'd never been to church, and now they're weekly attendees, Sister Boyson got annoyed at us the first time for not calling ahead when we came by for the weekly lesson the last missionaries would have on Friday, and slowly they've adjusted so that we teach them several times a week and usually have daily contact. But, they've been dragging their feet about baptism, and it seemed like they might become one of those part member families with like 6 sheets of teaching records in the area book. But lo and behold, this week, Daniel Boyson asked to meet with President Kaberry and ourselves after church, where he confided that he had received an answer to his prayers. He said that he had done what we had been telling him to do every day for weeks and he prayed and asked if he should be baptized. He said that that night he saw a dream where he was baptized, and he saw sins that he had committed in the past being washed away, and a tree that he said is kind of like the tree of life in Lehi's vision. He says he's seen that tree in dreams in the past when his mom has wanted him to be baptized into other churches, but in the dream the tree always dies by the end of the dream. In any case, it was a very cool experience, and since Chelsea (11 yrs old) has been more or less just waiting for Daniel (17), they will be baptized in the next two weeks. Miracles happen. It's definitely an example that if an investigator is attending church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying, they will eventually get an answer that it is true, even if it takes a while.

We had another lessons with Jim Johnson this week. I'm not sure if I mentioned him before, but he's an older gentleman that has kind of been everything from atheist in a biker gang to Satanist (he's described some... pretty weird things that they do. Probably 'nuff said in this situation) to Jehovah's Witness to Pentecostal. He's a scriptorian. It's been about a month since we stopped meeting with him. He received a lot of unfavorable material from his pastor, and we resolved most of it, but he has a few things that he decided to hold on to. But, he was talking about how he loves the way that as missionaries we teach people, compared to how other faiths proselyte. He had a hard time describing it, but he meant that we "have the Spirit".  In short, he's still reading the Book of Mormon and is about halfway through it, and we just have a feeling that he's going to realize it's true as he reads it. You really come to appreciate the Book of Mormon on your mission. Not only does it really contain a witness of Christ and a solid foundation of true doctrine, but it really helps people receive revelation and ultimately come unto Christ. It really is a blessing. God is good.

The work in Kitimat is doing well, though. It's a small town, and we've already knocked every street a few times, but we're still finding people to talk to. It's good to be in small areas, because when half of Vancouver is your area, you can almost get lazy in finding because if somebody says they're not interested, it's kind of silly to force a conversation with them when an ocean of other people are walking past, but in Kitimat, you have to seize every finding opportunity as a chance to teach and testify and invite the Spirit. It's easier to erase the imaginary line between "finding" and "teaching" and you are just always teaching people on their doorsteps and inviting them to hear more. The worst thing is when you know somebody is feeling the Spirit, but they still choose to reject the message you're sharing. Gah! People's agency, sometimes. Still, enough people are interested to have a lot of interesting conversations in Kitimat. There are Jamaicans, Irish, Canadians, probably an American or two, and some First Nations people in the teaching pool. You can tell from the area book that this area has kind of been a "refiner's fire" area, but to me an Elder Atwood, it really hasn't been too rough here. It's bigger than Burns Lake! We have certainly been blessed.

In short, if I am transferred, I'd be sad! The North is the place to be. The members in the branches up here are just awesome. We'll just drop by a member family just to ask a quick question, and they'll end up feeding us dinner. (We'll have to start coming up with more valid sounding questions...) But, the church is true. Miracles are happening in Kitimat! And I hope that you all have a good week, and enjoy your summer. Talk to you next week!

Elder Blotter

Kitimat is Bear Country...

Re: Thick of Summer...

Yes! I will just copy and paste your e-mails to the blog.  We love Amelia's and Eric Holts. Amelia's is called the Brazilian Nut. Micail's is the Tahiti Sweetie. Jacey came up with the name for yours. The Canadian Bacon.  Ha ha! So find that camera and that charger and take some pics! It will make the blog funner to look at. You have such a fun way of writing and a sense of humor that makes reading your e-mails so fun.

    So today I called a guy to check out our air conditioner, which doesn't seem to be working on the main level of our house. After he fixed it and was ready to leave he happen to mention he had a son on a mission in Vancouver, Canada. :o   I said, "SO DO I". His son is Ty Duersch. I told him that you and Ty were MTC companions! Its a small world. He said Ty spent his first YEAR in Surrey. He is now up North, he said. But couldn't remember where.   :)

Re: Thick of Summer...

How do they blog? Do they just email stuff and somebody else throws it on the blog for them? I would send more pictures, but... I don't know where my camera is, currently. I don't think that it's permanently lost. I could find it. But I do think that I've lost the charger, and the battery is dead. I will look better for that too, though! And... I will try to send pictures next week! Heh. Well! The book sounds like a good idea! That would be a ton of work though! If you do that, thank you!

Love you, Mother Dearest,

Elder Blotter

Over halfway through, I'm starting a BLOG..... July 2nd, 2013

  I have many friends who have started a blog when their son or daughter have left on missions. People can check in when they have time to read and when the missionary comes home, you can easily make their letters into a book! Sounds great, huh?  So as I have time I will enter earlier letters. Now that Josh has been gone 1 year, 3 weeks and a day... I can say that it is WONDERFUL. It is a highlight for us to get his weekly e-mails and hear all about his mission. He is an amazing Elder and is working so hard and bringing others unto Christ. We love him.   :)

Family,

Well, sorry we couldn't email yesterday! Since it was Canada Day, all the libraries and things like that were closed. Since I was just finishing my time at the MTC during last year's Canada Day, this was the one and only "real" Canada Day that I'll have on my mission. Pretty much, Canada Day is like the 4th of July, except without the color blue and with the fireworks display too late for kids to stay up because the average Canadian bedtime for kids up here is seriously like 7:30 pm (you have it good, Jed and Jacey) and it doesn't start getting dark nowadays until after 11:00. But it was a fun day! They had a little parade and everything.

But, life is good in Kitimat! We're working with a lot of awesome people. Kitimat is a very diverse town because of the wide range of skill sets needed for the different companies that work here, and so they'll bring people who have those skills in from all over the world. Our branch president is an Australian, for example, and kind of a character. The other day we were let inside a home of "Wolf and Rani". Wolf is a German with a heavy accent, and Rani is an East Indian with a heavy accent. They both wear the clothes from their native countries, and seem to be worlds different, but they've been married for like 40 years or something like that. There are lots of Europeans and Asians. We've befriend the Asian guy, "Bill" who owns the Subway here, and he usually gives me a free cookie.  Kitimat is a great place. It's weird that we've been here for almost 3 months.

We've seen a lot of miracles in the past week as well. We're always looking for new people to teach, and we're promised that angels are preparing people and "declaring it to many". The other day, we were leaving a corner store, and the girl behind the register called to us and said that she had recently been in an accident and rolled and destroyed the van she was in, but she walked away perfectly fine. We had talked to her mom recently, and given her a pamphlet and apparently talked about how Jesus Christ can save us. Her mom is now convinced that the reason that she was okay was because of Jesus Christ and because of that pamphlet in the car. You know, we can't really see all the ways that Heavenly Father is preparing people to be taught, but He certainly is, and this is certainly His work.

We're still working closely with a lot of awesome people. The Boysons are still coming along, and Samantha is doing great. You know, we even take for granted that we know what's right and what's wrong. Samantha is 23 and has never really had a very strong religious background, and so she is just full of questions about what's okay and what isn't okay, because she wants to know what God wants her to do. We really are blessed to be in a position to know what commandments God wants us to follow, and to know how we can return and live with Him in our families. We really are a blessed people. We usually just take that for granted! We're so blessed to have a prophet to help us know what we need to do to be happy. The church is true!

And mother, Elder Atwood is awesome. You're right, I usually don't say too much about my companions. He is a world different from Elder Holtby! He is a hard worker and becoming a great missionary. We joke around a lot and have a great time in Kitimat. We had quite different interests/jobs back home (he made airbags in Brigham City and did mixed martial arts, wants to join the army and eventually become a federal marshal) but we aren't too different. Random thing that we do... we have some dry erase markers in the bathroom, and each time we use it, we draw something else on the mirror before we leave, so after a while we have quite the masterpiece. Good times.

Well, I hope that everybody has another good week! Trek and the trip looked like it was a lot of fun. Congratulations on your ace medical terminology work, Jenessa. That's quite the accomplishment. Hope that everybody has a great week!

Elder Blotter