Week 42, 7/12/16

Hey yung bludz.  This week was different, memorable, and awesome.  Basically just like every week in the mission is, but this week especially.  First things first: There is a 90 percent chance a member is taking us to the most beautiful place in all of Alberta for the day on Friday! With that being said, pday is technically on Friday so I won't be able to respond to any emails till next week.  

Well on to the highlights.  Tuesday night was fantastic.  Every Tuesday night we have "Gospel Night" at a single member's home where we basically just talk about the gospel and his conversion.  Every first Tuesday of the month, our eternigator (who hasn't officially met with missionaries for a lesson in like 6 months because he is offended in 635 different ways) Gerry comes and joins.  We see him all over the place but he will never agree to meet with us for a lesson or tell us what his problem is.  A couple weeks ago he told us he was preparing a rant for the next gospel night, so he could lay his issues out on the table so we could help him.  Well, he did just that and it was totally great!  We were able to listen to him and help him a little and most importantly build his trust.  He agreed to meet with us to go through the lessons again soon.  Still haven't got anything officially set up but this is a huge step for him in the right direction!  

Wednesday afternoon we visited a former eternigator family who never ended up getting baptized because of some legal issues with the parents, and them taking offence to the way things were handled (wouldn't it be nice if people could just get over things?) but they still love the LDS church and have very strong love for the Savior. The fathers name is Graham.  We stop by every so often and talk to them a bit and nothing ever really comes of it, but they other day he asked us to come by and give him a blessing.  So of course we went over and talked with him for a while about challenges in his life and how he wants to come back to the church but there's a bunch of reasons why he feels he can't.  We gave him a blessing of comfort (and I have never been so distracted while giving a blessing because he was holding his little son on his lap and the kid pooped his pants during the blessing and it smelled AWFUL) and set up a time to come back and talk more about his concerns.  So hopefully we will start teaching them again this week!  That night we also found and taught a new investigator named Maxwell who seems pretty interested and sincere.  The only problem is he is SUPER busy and the only time he has free, he likes spending with his family.  

Friday I was on exchanges in Rutherford and Elder Wilde and I got ambushed by the most CRAZY HAIL STORM IN ALL ETERNITY.  It was totally nuts, I will attach pictures and videos below.  Other than that the exchange was pretty average, we taught a few quick doorstep restoration lessons to some people who seemed pretty interested, and listened to the most crazy insane guy I probably will ever meet in my whole lifetime.  That night when I got back from exchanges we went straight to our appointment with Zeke and his family.  We taught them the 10 commandments, and got Zeke on date for baptism on August 13th!  Super exciting:) I have really grown to love that family.  We had a couple appointments set up with Keir (the super awesome recent Muslim convert) and Connor (the 17 year old we taught at the mall) on Saturday but they both fell through:( still very hopeful for them though! 

Also on Saturday morning we had a "meet the mission president" meeting for our zone.  President and Sister Pattison both spoke to us and gave us some awesome motivation and counsel, the spirit was SO strong there.  I also got to see my homies Elder Payne, Elder Alvey, and the Parks:)  

Last thing.  We volunteered to help out at the Canada vs China women's basketball international games that were held here in Edmonton at the University of Alberta on Saturday and Monday night.  This is what I was talking about when I said this week was different haha.  It was super cool though!  These games were basically just preparation and practice for the olympics coming up in August.  We were ushers one night and helped out with security the other night.  We basically just made sure nobody sat in the reserved section who wasn't supposed to and made sure everyone who entered the door we stood by had "blue stamps."  Once the game started though, we had very little to do so we basically just got to watch the game:) There was also free food for us, we got free shirts, got to talk to a few people about the gospel too!  Canada won both games.  The Chinese women shoot the ball very weird and are very spastic when they play haha.... They could all wreck me though and they are fetching Olympians so I should probably stop saying mean things like that. 

Well folks, that's it for this week.  Every day is a different adventure of its own up here.  The work is coming along here in Greenfield though!  I love the people here (especially the people who don't reject us hardcore), I love being a missionary, I love you all, and I love the Savior:) Have a great week and pray for the weather to be good in beautiful Jasper on Friday, and pray for me to not get too trunky when I go there lol.  

Sorry my emails are always so long. Byeee.  

Weekly Scipture: 1 John 4: 7-9  7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

                                     EPIC HAIL STORM AND ITS AFTERMATH