Week 77, 3/20/17

Hey cuties:)  You guessed it right, chaos has indeed struck again.  The explanation of this chaos that I'm talking about should also explain why I'm taking my p-day on a Friday. 

Sadly my Ellerslie days are over😪😪.  As my last comp Elder Anderson would say, "The spirit of the Lord has called me another way," and I have been transferred out of that blessed area and now I essentially have no area, its pretty quack, but also super awesome.  I am with Elder Mejia, and our responsibility is to travel the mission and stay in each area a couple days and go exchanges with the missionaries and help them and the work to progress in whatever way we can.

 

We have only been at it a week so far and it has been quite the adventure.  We take all the clothes we need, our food, bedding, and pretty much our whole lives around with us in our beautiful red RAV4.  I'm really excited to get to know all the elders and have some awesome experiences with them, and also for how much this will help me to learn and grow.  It will be a fun challenge :) 

Let me give a quick and very summarized run-down of how these last 10 days have been:  Last Thursday and Friday we had a couple epic MLC meetings.  On Thursday we received some awesome training from Brother Donaldson and Brother Nelson of the missionary department. It will help this mission out a ton.  They taught us about working with members using social media, seeing everything through the lens of the Doctrine of Christ, teaching simply, teaching out of Book of Mormon, and a bunch of other things. I would say I learned more in those 7 hours than any other 7 hours on my mission hands down. 

Thursday night us and a couple other missionaries met with president for a few hours and discussed how we can implement this into the mission. Friday we talked more about that same stuff as an MLC, and by the end of that meeting I was completely pooped out of meetings. Friday after that is when I officially left Ellerslie to go travel 💔 

Elder B - Dunk edit...

Saturday- Sunday night we worked with a couple different sets of Elders in Edmonton and helped them establish a "vision" for their area and set some goals.  Saturday night I took a young Elder contacting on the LRT (the 🚂 ) and we found a new investigator for them yippee:) I went to the Ellerslie Ward for church and got to say bye to Heather and her three kids McKenna, Bobby, and Jack (who are all on date for April 15th😄😄) and some awesome members.  Sadly Dorine wasn't there because of her crazy work schedule, but she is on date for April 15th as well so hopefully I will be town for those baptisms (by hopefully, I mean I am doing whatever it takes to make it happen). 

 

Monday morning we headed down to Red Deer, a pretty big town about an hour and a half south of Edmonton to give a training at zone conference and then start working with  some elders.  We went out to Stettler, 40 minutes east of Red Deer, and worked with those Elders for a couple days (shout out to Elder Potter). We were big jerks and made them move their p-day to Thursday so we could get the most out of our time there.  Tuesday I was with Elder Potter and we taught one of their investigators about the plan of salvation and set a baptismal date with him for April 15th.  Good stuff eh? We also found another new investigator that night and a bunch of potentials after feeling inspired to go to a certain place in town.  I guess it must be the Lord's work or something like that.  After working with Stettler we headed down to Innisfail, 20 minutes south of Red Deer on Wednesday and worked with those elders until this morning.  We had some good experiences and it was a grand old time. 😊

  

Well that about sums it up.  I hope you all know that I love this work, I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I know it is true, as we make it our way of life we can become the best version of ourselves possible. Its a lot easier said than done that's for sure, but if we are really trying, He will help us one step at a time :)

Love you all! toodles.  

Weekly Scripture: D and C 19:31-32 31 And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism, and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost. 32 Behold, this is a great and the last commandment which I shall give unto you concerning this matter; for this shall suffice for thy daily walk, even unto the end of thy life. 

Week 76, transfer update

It's quite an interesting situation... I won't have a proselyting area!  I'm actually going to be an assistant to the president.... yikes lol.  Pray for me😂 seriously though.  There are going to be two assistants in the city who will do a lot of the office work, Elder Payne and Elder Hunsaker, and then Elder Mejia and I will be traveling around the whole mission going on 2-3 day exchanges and working with a bunch of elders.  So I won't really have a home, I won't have my own area, I won't really have a solid companion I work with all the time... it will be weird but awesome 😊 I'm am super bummed to leave Ellerslie though.  Things are going so well😢.  I'm pretty sure I will still get to go to all their baptisms though, Mcxxxxx asked me to baptize her so I will definitely be going to her and Hexxxxxs. Hexxxxx is so unbelievably awesome... but yeah.  The name for what I will be is a traveling assistant.

E. Bonny



Dear Brother and Sister Bonny,
 
Your son has recently been called to serve as an Assistant to the President in the Canada Edmonton Mission. To give you some context of this assignment, exemplary missionaries who have demonstrated a high level of obedience and skill development in teaching are selected to work closely with the mission president. Although there may be others who are qualified to serve, only about 4-6 are called to this assignment every year. Your son is an exemplary missionary and has been selected by prayerful consideration. This is an assignment of distinction, and demonstrates just how significantly your son has lost his life in the service of others. For your information, here is a copy of the call letter he will receive:

 
Dear Elder Bonny, 

You have been called to serve as an Assistant to the President in the Canada Edmonton Mission. This assignment places you in a significant position of trust. Other missionaries will look to you for leadership and an example of what the Lord expects a missionary to be and do. I will look to you to honor that trust at all times and in all places. The Missionary Handbook (pp.55-66) teaches what is expected from mission leaders. Please study it carefully, review it often, and live by it fully and completely as you fulfill your assignment. In your assignment as an Assistant to the President you are to:
 
1. Plan, prepare, and present training for missionaries.
2. Train zone leaders, including conducting companion exchanges with zone leaders either in your own area or the zone leader's area.
3. Conduct companion exchanges with other missionaries as directed by the mission president.  

All training and proselyting in the mission is based on the scriptures, Preach My Gospel, and the Missionary Handbook. In this sacred trust you will learn of private matters which must be kept confidential. To talk of these matters, except with the mission president, could result in spiritual injury to God's children. The Lord loves you and inspired your call to serve as an Assistant to the President. I love you and look forward to working with you. This call places you in the view of every missionary in the Canada Edmonton Mission. Your example sets the standard for the mission. Therefore, lead a Christ-centered life and fulfill your purpose to invite all to come unto Christ.
 
Sincerely,
George C. Pattison,
President, Canada Edmonton Mission  

Week 76, 3/14/17

What's good fam? How's life?  Life is good up here.  We had another awesome and very crazy week!   

Hxxxxxx is doing amazing.  She is the most golden investigator I have ever taught.  Usually the super receptive ones are a little bit quack in other ways but that's not the case with Hxxxxxx, she is totally socially adept and will probably be a relief society president in a couple years.  We taught her a couple times this week, she brought her three kids to church, and her and her daughter Mcxxxxx who is also on date came to a convert baptism on Saturday.  Usually when we teach them, Hxxxxxx and Mcxxxxx are the only ones who we actually teach, the boys just stay upstairs and goof around.  Last night though by some miracle, we were able to teach all of them together!  We taught about prophets and the word of wisdom, and we had a game type of thing prepared to go along with teaching the word of wisdom, and they seemed to have fun and enjoy learning.  We knew that Hxxxxxx might have some issues with living the Word of Wisdom, and yes she wasn't overly excited about it, but she committed to live it no problem.  She is so rock solid!!  In our next lesson we will probably get Jack and Bobby on date for baptism :):)   

Area Book Planner squad

We were also finally able to teach Awxx yesterday after not really being able to contact her all week.  We were a bit worried, but all is well!  We prayed for a miracle that she would answer the door and she did! She is still doing great.  Her and her 16 year old daughter Allie both read the from the Book of Mormon, and are excited to be baptized. We found out that Awxx has two other kids who are old enough to be baptized, and Awxx wants them to be baptized.  They are all coming to a ward activity this Friday, and they will be at church as well.  We plan to start meeting with the whole family all at once and getting the other kids on date as well.   

Sadly we weren't able to meet with Doxxxx this week because of her crazy work schedule :( she is still doing great though.  In addition to finally being able to contact Awxx, we were able to finally contact her friend Atxxx as well.  She is a lost sheep who was baptized a couple years ago in southern Alberta, and wants to come back to church.  She also has a couple kids who are old enough to be baptized and she really wants that to happen.  We are meeting with her again tonight and we have high hopes :)   So all in all, there is a pretty high probability that 11 people will be getting baptized into the Ellerslie Ward within the next few months!  We are being so blessed right now I don't even know how to act :)   

HeeHee

A couple other cool things happened this week.  On Friday Elder Mejia, Elder Hunsaker, Elder Klunker, Sister Hollon and I (two of them are past beloved companions) got together at the mission office and had a pretty long phone call with the creator of the area book planner app (the record keeping and daily planning app that the church created for us to use) to basically tell him and someone else on his support team about all the trillions of problems we are having with it throughout the mission. We just shifted over to it last fall and it has been a pretty painful transition.   

Saturday Elder Payne, Elder Hunsaker and I went to a funeral for an awesome guy we knew pretty well in Slave Lake.  He will be missed for sure. It was fun to see a lot of my beloved Slave Lake peeps though!  Last night we went out with Brother Nelson from the missionary department.  He took us to a super fancy restaurant and talked with us about the mission and a bunch of other stuff, and then came to Hexxxxx lesson with us.  It was a great experience and I feel like I learned a ton from him, and I probably will learn a lot more from him (and Lee Donaldson, the mission president in The District 2, who is here as well) on Thursday in MLC.  Exciting stuff!   

Well my basketball time is being shortened to the point that I might start crying so that's it for this week folks.  I am loving life so much right now.  The gospel is real!  

E. Bonny

 Weekly Scripture: 2 Nephi 2:15: And my father dwelt in a tent :)   

                                                        Watch at your own risk