Week 27, 3/29/16

We found this old relic while tracting.  Apparently its called a phone booth, and you can't even text from it!

Well the dreaded day of TRANSFER CALLS came yesterday and..... I'm headed down to the heart of Edmonton to serve in the GREENFIELD area! I leave tomorrow morning, and I'll be companions with Elder Alvey. I've actually served around him before and I went on an exchange with him and he is awesome, I think we will do great work and have a good time while we are at it. He is a Pats fan too so that's a plus! 

Tagalog Elder Cayabyab is my hero!

Anyways this week was super eventful once again! Tuesday and Wednesday the Tagalog Elders came up because we got a couple appointments with Filipino investigators for them. They are super fun to be around so that was a blast. Wednesday we had a district meeting here in town and it was great! We got to play 4 on 4 basketball afterwards (we have connections at the local college) and it was SO FUN. First time I have played ball other than 1 on 1 since the MTC. We had a great time. 

The District (FINALLY got to play some something other than 1 on 1)

After that I went on an exchange to Athabasca with Elder Moline. Thursday morning in Athabasca I got to go do service at "Alfred's farm" and it was actually a really good time. We just hauled a bunch of hay and did some other little things but for some reason I kind of liked the farm feeling. And he showed me some of his hogs.... Oh my goodness. Those things are gargantuan. Honestly that might have been the highlight of my week just seeing how huge the pigs were!  

Zone Leader Alert!  Elders Sanchez and Rich

Saturday morning the zone leaders came up to exchanges. Elder Sanchez and I went tracting out in this pretty cool secluded vacation spot called Marten Beach. It wasn't super successful but the people were nice at least. Easter Sunday was great! There were so many little miracles that we saw at church. It would take forever to explain them all so I won't but those tender mercies are always nice:). After church we went up to Wabasca again to visit Lxxx in the hospital. He has been there all week and is having a lot of problems and nobody really knows if he is going to pull through, not even the doctors (Canadian doctors.... Smh). He is pretty miserable though. We and the Parks talked to him for a while and gave him a blessing. If he weren't having so many health problems right now he would totally be all on board for baptism. Apparently the Catholic priest came in several times to do last rights.... and Lxxx brought his Book of Mormon with him to the hospital, and that hoser stole it! He just said "you don't need this" and walked right out with it . After that Lxxx told him to not come back anymore!  He said he likes the feeling he gets when we give him blessings a lot better than the priest. Several times he told us he was happy with the church he has chosen. He just needs to pull through! If you all could say a quick prayer for him right now that would be much appreciated, thanks :). Not to mention his 18 month old daughter is the cutest thing to walk the face of the earth and the thought of her not having a dad is just awful. 

As for lessons this week, we had a couple good lessons with the fam again, they are still doing great. I'm pretty bummed I won't get to go to their baptism but oh well. We also had a great lesson with Len and the Parks too. He is SO close. Instead of saying "if you get baptized" now we are saying "when you get baptized" to him. I'm guessing he will get baptized next month. We also taught Nxxx (who came to church for the first time in Sunday!) last night and had a little hot dog roast with him and Desiree, it was super fun! We taught him about prophets and it went pretty well. 

...and really gonna miss Len.

Gonna miss Bear...

Well that's my last week in the promised land, Slave Lake. I'm pretty sad to be leaving everything here, but it has been an awesome 6 months and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I've had to serve here and be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I'm excited to have a new experience in Greenfield and I'll tell you all about it next week! I love you all I hope your Easter was 10/10 and I hope you all have at least an 8/10 week this week;) toodles. 🏼 

  Elder Weston Bonny

Good ole hot dog roast with Desiree, and 6 months tie burning ceremony!

Week 26, 3/23/16

Hey cuties:) Wow I can't believe I've been out 6 months already.... Time has gone by so fast!!! This week was awesome and very busy!! It was probably one of the most eventful weeks of my mission thus far, and a lot of great/funny things happened so buckle up, this email is probably going to be another long one - sorry! 

This week we taught the fam three times, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and they all came to the branch potluck on Friday and had a good time there too. All of our lessons with them were great, especially our lesson on Thursday. We brought a 21 year old recent convert named Desiree with us, and it was great to have her there to be able to relate to the daughters, answer their questions, and testify. The boys were being pretty rowdy and not paying attention super well the whole time, so elder Hunsaker told them if they could sit still and listen till we were done we would show them a really ugly picture of elder Bonny haha. It worked pretty well, and we ended up showing them ugly pics of each other after the lesson.... They were all laughing pretty hard so I don't think we creeped them out too bad! 

If the resolution was a little better, you could appreciate this amazing 'Blue Steel' look in front of the Edmonton temple

Our lesson on Tuesday was great too, we taught them about temples and eternal marriage. We showed them pictures of temples and they really liked them. We were passing the iPads around with pictures of temples, and Bxxxx and Bxx were both looking at a picture of the Ogden Temple sealing room together and talking quietly for about a minute.... Precursor to future events???  We'll see ;)    And I guess I need different socks because in the middle of the lesson little eight year old Tyrone raised his hand and said, "I just have one question..... WHATRE THOOOOSE??!!" and pointed at my socks hahahaha. Most of you people who haven't recently been in high school might not get that but it definitely made us laugh. None of this is even important or significant though compared to the news we heard after our lesson on Saturday.... The actual lesson was pretty dece, only the boys and what were there. We had to basically bribe the boys to be quiet again by telling them we do push-ups after if they could be good for the rest of the lesson haha.... But anyways, after the lesson and after the push-ups we were talking to Bev and we found out that THEY GOT ENGAGED ON THURSDAY NIGHT. THIS IS REAL LIFE THEY ARE ACTUALLY GETTING MARRIED!!!!!  We don't know know when yet, but they are planning on having it at our church and they are going to ask President Park to marry them, and it will probably just be a really small wedding and they will do something big later. But this is such a big deal!! This was the one thing in the way of Bxxxx getting baptized, and we didn't want to baptize anyone else in the family without at least one of the parents. I have basically been waiting for this news ever since I got to Slave Lake. Such a miracle! 

A Filipino investigator we taught with the Tagolog Elders

Well everything else from this week takes a back seat to that news, but a lot of other things happened so I'll just quickly list some other things that happened: Wednesday we went down to Edmonton for a zone training meeting, and it was great! Of course we got donair poutine too because a trip to Edmonton is incomplete without some sort of donair food. Thursday I got attacked by Dusty's three year old son Noah and his food-coloring-mixed-with-water spray bottles.  We were walking up to her door to invite her to the potluck and see how she was doing and Noah was outside spraying the snow.... So we got closer and then he tried spraying us and we had a little power struggle with him, trying to get him to not spray us so we could talk to his mom haha. After a little bit of that he decided to chase us.... So we ran away and came back a little while later, and he was still there so I decided I was sick of running away from a three year old so I tried to block the spray with my hand and just go knock on the door, but he absolutely destroyed me. I had blue food colored water all over me head to toe!  Elder Hunsaker thought that was pretty funny. Thankfully the stains all came out. 

Friday was the potluck and everyone had a great time, it was great for the fam to go and become better acquainted with the branch! Saturday we had a great lesson with Lxx, another one with Desiree, and another one with the fam, where we found out the great news:) Sunday Bxxxx and Bxx and the boys came to church along with Lxx as usual. After church we went up to Wabasca to do the sacrament again, and it was great! After the sacrament we were able to set apart the mother of that home in her new calling as the relief society second counselor, anoint and give blessings to two people, and dedicate the home. We were hoping to teach Txxxxxx (he actually came this time!) and Lxxx while we were there but we didn't have time. When we got back we taught Nick, Desiree's brother, and then played ping pong after as usual. 

Meet Oswold, super friendly stray cat the hangs out at the church

Well there's my week! I love being a missionary and I love being able to testify of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. He is our Heavenly Father's only begotten Son. He came to earth, performed miracles, taught the people His gospel and established His church, suffered and atoned for our sins and was crucified, and He rose from the grave on the third day. He lives today!! I hope you all have an awesome Easter and remember our Savior and what He did for us! Love you all!:)  

Elder Weston Bonny

Weekly scripture: D and C 76:22 22 And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!   

Week 25, 3/16/16

Hello everyone! It's me again.... Well I'm gonna just get right down to the highlights from this week. It was another great week! Tuesday night we met with the fam again and.... It was awful:( We brought a member with us and taught tithing. The member we brought with us is a super great guy but he just took over the lesson and taught some false doctrine... Yeah it wasn't super great but it could've been a lot worse and they are all still on date for April 9th!

We had another lesson with them on Thursday night where we just read the Book of Mormon with them. It was kind of nice to take a break from teaching them all the commandments and just read the scriptures with them. The two biggest obstacles there are still marriage and Word of Widsom. They didn't come to church on Sunday because Bxxxx and Bxx were in Gift Lake visiting Bxxx's parents.... We are hoping maybe they were talking marriage?  

We went up to Wabasca again on Friday and taught our other investigator who was on date for April 2nd (that will have to change cuz of conference), Txxxxxx. The lesson went well! He still has yet to come to church though haha. We also finally met with our other friend up there, Lxxx. He is living with his girlfriend's family, a family who we have been working with and they recently have become active again. We taught him the first lesson with the whole family there and it was awesome! He has had a really rough past and he has never believed in God or been religious at all. Because of his rough past he had some pretty serious health problems a while ago and still struggles with those a bit, he goes to the hospital weekly. When we first met him when we came up and did the baby blessings a while ago, he told us about this really amazing experience he had in the hospital when he almost died, and now he knows there is a God. Anyways, basically this guy has been super prepared to hear the message of the gospel. He has a sincere desire to change, and he accepted a baptismal invitation! It's not on any specific date yet, but he is a perfect example of how people are being prepared in many different ways all around us, we just need to do our part, try our best to be instruments in the hands of the Lord, and find them. 

How we spend our P-days - Church tables have never been so useful!

We had a great lesson with Lxx on Saturday! We taught word of wisdom and tithing at the church with some of his neighbors who are members and it went great! He accepted both those commandments and they both made perfect sense to him. Well that is all that is really worth talking about this week! We also did lots of finding, organized lots of info, and gave several blessings as well. 

The work is just going so great up here I really don't want to leave but will most likely be leaving at the end of March! I really have been so blessed. There are several moments everyday where I just kind of sit back in awe and think about how blessed I have been. There are still hard things everyday and I know we all go through many different trials but I also know if we really think about it, we have all been blessed by our Heavenly Father in countless ways. Even trials are blessings for us in the long run if we endure them well and learn things from them! Trials are there in our lives to make us stronger and help us learn valuable experience that is essential for our salvation. Well I love you all and I hope you all have a great week and remember to say your prayers and read your scriptures;) also if you haven't seen them yet, the new #hallelujah videos the church came out with for Easter are straight spiritual fire  watch them and share them! 

Elder Weston Bonny

Weekly scripture: 2 Nephi 10:23-24: 23 Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.  24 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.  

Week 24, 3/10/16

Hi again everyone! Well wouldn't ya know it was another great week up here in slave lake, Alberta. On to the the highlights: Wednesday night we finally got to play volleyball after three weeks of it falling through! A few of Bxx's daughters came and played and Bxxxx and the boys were there running around the gym too. There were a bunch of people from the community there playing too! We were on a team with Rita and her friend and a few other people and it was lots of fun! It was a great way to improve our relationship with them. My volleyball game was a little rusty at first but I held my own;) 

Thursday and Friday we were in Edmonton! We drove down Thursday for interviews, and we got the opportunity to do a temple session before our interviews:). I hadn't been to the temple in over 5 months so I was super excited! It was definitely the highlight of the week. The spirit in that building is so strong, it really is the house of the Lord! 

Interviews with President Manion were great too. We spent that night in the mission home with several other elders, it kind of felt like the MTC again. The next day we had a great zone conference! I learned so much about how we can improve the way we work with members and extend commitment invitations to people, and a lot of other great things too.

Saturday Bxxxx invited us over to celebrate Rxxx's birthday with the fam! It was a lot of fun, we got fed pizza, wings, cake, and got to spend some good time with them. I love the fam so much:) Later that night we had a lesson with them too. The lesson went great, at first we kind of recommitted them to live the word of wisdom. Still wasn't a super solid commitment but more solid than the last one for sure. That is probably going to be the main thing that gets in the way of at least the daughters getting baptized. We are going to find out tonight how they have been doing with that. 

After that we taught the 10 commandments and went over the law of chastity again. There were a lot of things that we were able to clear up with them and help them understand why they are commandments, for example taking God's name in vain, praying to things other than Heavenly Father, etc. After the actual teaching part of the lesson we talked more about baptism and we decided to push their baptismal date back to April 9th (you're a true homie if you know what else happens on that day;)). They all believe the Book of Mormon is true except for Bxx who is still trying, it's just the big commandments that are the biggest hurdle at his point. Your prayers for them would be much appreciated;) 

After that Bxx asked us if we could give one her daughters, Dxxxx, a blessing. She is the one who recently had a 1 year old son pass away and she has been going through rough times lately. She chose me to be voice and I did my best to follow the spirit in what I said. It was such a great way to conclude our visit, leaving on a spiritual high note like that, and I think it helped Dxxxx out a lot. It was such an awesome spiritual experience for everyone there! Afterwards Elder Hunsaker told me that when Bxx asked us to give her a blessing, four specific things came to his mind that she needed to hear, and in the blessing I said every one of those four things one after the other. This was such an awesome testimony builder for me, I know that priesthood authority of God has been restored to the earth today and I'm so so so grateful to be able to use that priesthood which I hold to simply be an instrument in God's hands bless the lives of others! Having access to the priesthood is such an amazing blessing we have in this church and we can't ever take that for granted! 

Other than that not much happened this week, Bxxxx was the only member of the fam who came to church on Sunday so that was kind of a bummer.... yesterday we shoveled tons of snow and had a Filipino feast at a Filipino member's home! I hope you all had a great week! Love you all, 

the church is true ️  

Weekly Scripture (new thing im gonna do): D and C 123: 16-17- 16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.  17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Week 23, 3/2/16

Wow it seems like every week goes by faster than the last one! Maybe that's just because we keep getting busier and busier? Probably. Well this week was great and we did a lot of good work. 

Wednesday was probably the least productive day of missionary work in a long time for us because we had a district meeting in Barrhead. That means we spent 5 hours of the day driving only to go to an hour long meeting and eat lunch with the other Elders in our district. District meetings are great and all....and I try to have a good attitude about them... But if ya ask me they are a BIG waste of time, gas, and our monthly kilometer allotment. The bright side of going to district meeting was the lunch we got:):):) getting donair poutine at a delicious greasy spoon food place in Barrhead actually might have made the trip worth our time. I'll attach a picture of the heavenly, heart attack provoking food concoction. We also got really good Oreo shakes, and I haven't had one of those since the last time I went to that restaurant which was in early December.... So yeah I think I can happily say the trip was worth it:) 

Wednesday night when we got back we had plans to go play drop in volleyball at the local rec centre with a few members of "the fam," but they couldn't come so that got cancelled. I was pretty bummed, I was looking forward to it all week but oh well, hopefully it works out this week. Thursday around noon we had a very interesting lesson with a less active... Okay interesting is putting it too lightly.  It was straight up the weirdest/creepiest thing that has happened on my mission thus far. We brought the Parks with us because we can't meet with single sisters alone. It started off good and she was talking about how the Book of Mormon helped her avoid contention, and then one thing led to another and somehow she started talking about how ever since she was a little kid she has had a "gift" of being some sort of psychic medium. She said she receives messages from spirits to give to people, and she explained that pretty in depth for about 20 minutes. Then she said she had 10 people she had messages for at the moment, and one of them was President Park. She then proceeded to give him his "message." Man it was weird.... The spirit was about as absent as it could be at that point. After she was done, the Parks and we all tried to help her realize that she was basically being deceived by the devil and she needs to be really careful with this "gift".  We talked a little about the priesthood and I can't really remember all of what we said, but hopefully it helped her realize that this is something she needs to overcome.... So yeah there's that fun story. 

On a more uplifting note, Thursday night we were able to meet with just Bxxxx and Bxx, with the Parks, in President Park's office. We didn't really have a set lesson plan, we just had a few questions we wanted to ask Bxx, and basically focus on her needs. It's hard to do that with one individual person when you are teaching 11 people at a time, that why we really wanted to meet with just Bxx and Bxxxx so we could key on helping Bxx with her conversion. It was such a great discussion we had with them! The spirit was directing everything that went on in that room, and I think it really helped her.   They still haven't set a marriage date, but we really hope that is coming soon. Bxx has come such a long way! 

                                                           The Slave Lake Crew

Friday we went on another fantastic Wabasca trip. We met with our investigator Txxxxx, and taught him the restoration again, and established some baptismal expectations for him that he accepted pretty well. He says he wants to get baptized but never keeps any commitments.  We are hoping to change that. We had a good lesson with him and he gave us cheesecake :)  After that we had an appointment with a potential who we talked with last time we were up there named Lxxx. When we pulled up to the house they were in the process of loading him into an ambulance because he was throwing up blood.... So it's safe to say that appointment fell through. He is doing okay now and he is back at home. 

Saturday was the busiest day of the week!   We had another appointment with Lxx, and we brought our stalwart recent convert Lawerance with us (who we had a lesson with the night before), and the lesson went great! It was great to have Lawerance there so he could relate with Lxx and help him with some of his concerns. Lxx basically told us he wants to be 100% committed before he is baptized and that he will tell us when he is ready... He is so ready right now gosh dang it we just need to keep trying to help him realize it. After that we helped Lawerance with some family history for a while. Later that night we had just another average lesson/ ping pong sesh with Nxxx. After that we had another lesson with Bxxxx and his four boys. Bxx wasn't there, apparently she went to visit her parents and do some soul searching. It was a good lesson with the boys though, we love teaching them! 

I'm sure the Elders worked very on hard on this choreography.  It's nice to see unity in a companionship!

Sunday was great! The Parks and Elder Hunsaker and I had a special fast for Bxx.  Elder Hunsaker and I also both gave talks in sacrament meeting about the importance of church attendance. Basically any free time we had towards the end of the week we spent writing our talks, and that definitely kept us busy.  Any of you who have seen me give a talk in church might find this hard to believe but my talk lasted 28 minutes according to my companion.... It felt like 12! Anyways aside from going too long I think I did alright, my comp killed it, and it was great. Lxx and Bxxxx and his boys all came to church as always:). Sorry for having such long emails lately!  There are just so many things to tell you guys about!!  I love being out here having the opportunity to serve and represent my Savior Jesus Christ and take part in His work. Thank you all for the support, I hope you guys have a great week and I love hearing from you all!    

Elder Weston Bonny🇨🇦