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| After 14 months of walking, this shoe is done. |
Family,
Well,
just like that it's been another week already! Time is one of the most
irritating things. When you're tracting Wedeene Street for the 5th time
in Kitimat, there seems to be an unending supply of time, but when it
takes half an hour to an hour to get anywhere and you're spending
another hour of the day doing 12 Week, the extra hour of companion study
for greenies, you just do not have as much time as you would like to.
But the work in Burnaby is good! It kind of feels like a gigantic
playground. There's streets and Skytrain stations and parks to contact
in, there's endless doors to knock. P-days are the worst, because you
pretty much have sitting on a bus and waiting to be checked out in super
long lines at Metrotown to look forward to. Finding and teaching is
much better. The ward here has a lot of awesome members. This week as a
way to try and get people to come and check out the chapel, the ward had
a "Corn Roast" where they boiled a lot of corn and had a potluck. All
the missionaries took a few sacks of corn home and a few pounds of
butter. Can't complain at all. Life is good.
This week has been a good one. I had the chance to meet most
of the investigators in the teaching pool. Well. So far, a lot of time
in Burnaby has spent cleaning up. Physically, and missionary work-ily.
(The bathroom no longer smells. That's good.) But the teaching pool was
filled with people like... "Oh, I'm a Baptist missionary from Texas, who
is being sponsored to live here in Vancouver for a few years so that I
can learn how to live in multicultural areas. Then, I'll be sponsored to
live in Mexico for a year or two to learn Spanish, and then traveling
to do missionary work in South America, and until then, I just want to
squabble with Mormons in coffee shops". That type. Great people and all,
just not humble seekers of truth. (But then again, I probably shouldn't
criticize too fiercely, because it seems like he does have things
figured out a bit more cozily than certain missionaries in South America
that I know.) But in general, we pretty much just have 2 people that
we're working with, Mark, a 10 year old Filipino boy who we've set a
date for later this September, and Alan, who we're just working very
closely with to get him living the Word of Wisdom so that he can unite
with his family and be baptized by mid-October. So, that leaves a lot of
time to find people to teach!
...So that's pretty much what our days consist of. We wake up, do
the missionary schedule rigamarole, study, eat and then leave for the
day until we get back at 9 because we don't really have time to go home.
So you'd think that being on your feet all day would result in weight
loss, right? Wrong. Just as there were pride cycles in the Book of
Mormon, Elder Blotter's weight cycles based on if he is in the North or
in the Lower Mainland. In the North, I've always lived by a track and
could go running if my companions didn't want to, and food is scarce.
Here, there's just too much left over food from ward activities and
things. So, I had lost all of the MTC and deep-fried Mars bars weight in
Kitimat, but I predict that it will be back after a few weeks. Alas,
I'll run it off next summer or something.
We saw quite a few
miracles this week, however! A few things have happened this week that
have made me reflect on the evidences in my life that there is a loving
Heavenly Father. Usually, they are just a bunch of small things that are
orchestrated to make things work out just right. At one point, we were
up in the North part of Burnaby for an appointment with a a member (so,
it's already unusual that we were in the Sister's area, the only reason
we go there is for an appointment with a member, since there are
multiple companionships for the same wards here) and when we went to
catch a bus going back to our area, the buses weren't on schedule
(unusual. Well, not that unusual, but still) so the next bus wasn't for a
long time. So, we called the zone leaders for permission to just take
the Skytrain into the east part of Vancouver to transfer at
Commercial-Broadway onto the line that goes right through our area. And
so then we were off through Van East, which isn't even our area, which
was unusual. After a few minutes on the Skytrain, this woman walked up
to us and introduced herself as a member of the church, and told us that
just a few minutes before she had been praying and praying and asking
for a some sort of a sign to some question she had, and with tears in
her eyes, she said that we had gotten on the train just moments after
she had prayed. Very cool to see how God can put you right where you
need to be when you need to be there. Secondly, on Fast Sunday, we were
about to catch a bus in the evening so we could head home to eat. We
were waiting for our bus, we sat down on the bench to make some phone
calls while we were waiting. And... for whatever reason, the bus chose
to just drive past us, without picking us up. Which mean probably over
an hour of walking to make it home. Such a waste of time. Gah! I
remember just praying that someone would pull over and offer us a ride.
And sure enough, just a few minutes later, a car pulls over and a member
already giving the Korean-speaking elders a ride pulled over and gave
us a ride as well. What a miraculous answer that was. God is good, and
he does answer prayers!
And well, I hope
that you all have a really good week this week. Thanks for all of the
support. It's good to hear how everyone is doing back home. The church
is true!
Elder Blotter
