Week 48, 8/30/16

Hey again.  Dang.... This week was packed with eventful things and chaos!  It's probably gonna be a long email haha I apologize in advance.  

Yu-Gi-Oh??!!

Well Wednesday afternoon I got "decimated" (that's the word he used) by a less active guy we teach in Yu-Gi-Oh.  That anime stuff is pretty big here... at least with lots of the people we visit.  But yeah, I got wrecked and I had no idea what was going on the whole time and it wasn't a whole lot of fun at all - haha.  Thursday was district meeting as usual.  I've planned district meeting three times now and Its still by far my least favorite thing about being a district leader.  We had a good district meeting though, my training was on developing Christ-like attributes.   

Friday morning we were finally able to meet with Ron and his family! They are an investigator family who were super close with the last missionaries and were showing a lot of promise, but then transfers came and they all got sick and we weren't able to meet with them for a while.  Friday morning though we went over and met Ron and his two kids Joshua and Jordan.  His wife Lisa was working.  They are super awesome though:). Ron got into some anti-mormon material a while ago and now because of the things he read he has a few deep concerns about things that I honestly have no idea how to respond to.  He says he wishes he could just "un-know" what he knows and accept everything and be happy but he needs his concerns answered.  We are trying to set up a lesson in a members home who used to be a general authority so he can answer his concerns and explain things.  Prayers for him and his family would be good;)  

The District in mourning for E. Hlavaty.  May he rest in peace  :(

Friday afternoon during weekly planning we got a random super sad, depressing text from an older, very short, French lady who we recently picked up as our investigator.  She recently lost her husband who she loved very much and is having a rough time dealing with it. We texted back a few times and tried to encourage her and I called her and talked on the phone with her for like 10 minutes, and she was to the point where she was telling me specifically how she was maybe going to commit suicide that night.  I told her we would be over there to talk as soon as possible, so we called our ward mission leader and luckily he wasn't doing anything so we went over there and tried to help her feel of Gods love and explain why bad things happen for 2 hours in her 85 degree, musty apartment. We weren't really getting anywhere with her for a while, and she continued to tell us a couple different ways she could end her life and the pros and cons of doing that.... Gosh we did not know what to do.  She felt so alone and forgotten.  I reminded her how the Savior of all people (she has a heavy duty Christian background) even felt alone at one point on the cross when He was being crucified, when He cried out: "My God why hast thou forsaken me" and that kind of helped a little bit, and then our WML Bro Drew pulled out Matthew 11:28-30 and the spirit was SO STRONG. We all felt it, and just sat there for like 3 minutes without saying anything, and she was smiling for the first time.  She agreed to come to church with us on Sunday :).  

Moving back to River Valley with E. Shipley in a trio.  De-ju-va!

Saturday was a roller coaster.  The morning was just kind of a grumpy one for me for some reason haha.  We helped out at a BBQ a member was putting on for her whole apartment complex around 1.  We helped set up and then she had us be the grill masters so we grilled hot dogs for everyone, it was fun!  There weren't all that many people who came but it was still a good chance to meet some new people and help them be more comfortable around missionaries:) Plus we got to eat some super good hot dogs.  In the afternoon we met with Andy again and he brought 5 friends with him this time.  Luckily we brought our other WML (we have two since we cover two wards) and he was just on fire the whole time with awesome answers mixed with powerful testimony and everything he was saying was just dynamite.  He kind of dominated most of the lesson/bible study but I honestly was loving it.  At the end he explained our role as missionaries and basically told them we weren't going to be meeting with them anymore but maybe they could have bible study every so often with members.  They just aren't quite ready to accept the gospel right now, hopefully we planted seeds.   

Sunday was the usual 9 hours of church, and I gave a talk in Rutherford sacrament meeting on repentance.  I was kind of nervous before I gave it because there were SO many people there.  It was a missionary farewell for one of the most popular Mormon girls in Edmonton, so it was basically like stake conference haha, and the whole stake presidency was there.  But I got up and the nerves were instantly calmed and I feel like I did ok!  Oh, and Anne Marie came to church and liked it:). She just has issues with how much we talk about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith... hopefully she can get over that.  

Adios for now E. Hlavaty.  One of my fav people I've met on the
mish.  His leg is bent cuz torn meniscus, can't staighten it :(

Monday morning.... Chaos struck again.  Elder Hlavaty tore his meniscus while adjusting a fan at the foot of his bed in the middle of the night/ Monday morning, so he had to go home this morning to get surgery on it :( !!  It's a super big bummer in every way obviously.  And now, we are in a tripan with his companion, Elder Shipley, the other zone leader.  We  now get to cover three wards probably for 2 and a half weeks till the end of the transfer.... Haha this should be interesting.  Anywho, if you could all keep Elder Hlavaty in your prayers too that would be great.  

Well that about sums up this week.  The Lord is definitely making sure things stay interesting for us and keeping us on our toes!  This week is going to be a fun challenge:) Love you all!   

Elder B

Weekly scripture:  of course Matthew 11:28-30: 28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  

Another Lamborghini - another tender mercy

Week 47, 8/23/16

Hey fam:)   

This week was another super busy one as usual!  This was probably one of the fastest weeks of my mission, I seriously feel like last p-day was 2 days ago.  We taught a lot this week but honestly not too many noteworthy things happened, we also had tons of appointments fall through. Anywho, on to the highlights:   

Thursday we taught a whole bunch.  After district meeting we had an appointment with these less active twins right around my age named Robbie and Mando.  We have already been over there once, but we kind of just hung out with them for a bit and talked a bunch like we were homies and watched them play video games and then had a lesson.  We were going to teach about the importance and blessings of reading scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, and we started talking about him and asked a few questions and Mando was like, "yeah I've never actually read the whole Book of Mormon.... I think I'm gonna try."  I love when the Spirit does all the work like that haha.   

Look at how hard I'm work, sweating like a dog!

We taught Mxxxxx a couple times this week all about the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ and answered a lot of his questions, but teaching him is so frustrating because the language barrier is brutal.  Yesterday we seriously spent 5 minutes trying to invite him to be baptized in a way that he could actually understand what we were trying to ask him, and then he declined.  He just has problems believing that Jesus is the Son of God, and lots of things related to that.  He keeps coming to church and is happy to meet with us and always has good, sincere questions so we will keep meeting with him!  Next time we will hopefully have someone there to translate for him:)   

We met with Axxx again and only one of his friends (who was totally stoned) this time.  We were able to meet at the church this time though which was great, and we brought our Elder's Quorum President with us.  SOOOO glad we did that because Andy had some questions related to timelines of ancient Israelite temple worship and original sin and stuff dealing with the last days and the gathering of Israel and other stuff about the 12 tribes that stumped me this time, thank goodness for Brother Turner's Bible knowledge though, he was definitely the savior of our bacon.  Once again we stressed the importance of the Book of Mormon, and I straight up asked them, "What motivates you to meet with us?  Do you actually want to know if what we teach is God's truth?" And Andy said yes but he just needs to make sure that what we say matches the Word... So I guess we will keep meeting.  But after that lesson we were both really frustrated and down, and then the rest of the day was full of a lot of hardcore rejection, so Saturday was a bit tough haha. Oh Andy also talked about Pokemon go for a bit and told us how it basically stems from evil roots, interesting.   

Slacklining with E. Hlavaty.  I tried.

Sunday we were in church meetings for 9.5 consecutive hours and it was great and I learned tons and felt the spirit lots but we were so exhausted and HUNGRY after because we had no time to eat lunch!  Still no word from Zekes family :( Well that's it from this week.  

 I have been pondering a lot lately and wondering about a few different things about my relationship with God and Jesus Christ and I have prayed a lot and asked questions, and I have definitely felt those prayers and questions being answered.  It's slow and kind of a process, but I know that Heavenly Father will always answer our prayers.  Sometimes all we need for an answer is to feel His love.  He knows us better than we know ourselves and will bless us with the comfort and peace we need to get us through whatever challenges we have in our lives! I know this is totally true because my life is evidence of it:)   

Love Elder B

Weekly Scripture: James 1:12 12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.  No pictures this week, sorry fam  Love you all tons:) have a dope week eh   Elder Weston Bonny🇨🇦

Week 46, 8/16/16

Zone Conference

Greetings my fellow kindred.  Jk - I'm not doing King James lingo again like I did a few months ago - haha, maybe next week.   

This week was another super busy one, as every week for the next 3 months probably will be, and I'm definitely not complaining.  We had an awesome zone conference on Wednesday!  Our mission is starting to track every approach we make to talk to someone, and also every meaningful invitation, so we can really focus on finding.  I'm not usually a fan of the numbers part of the mission and making every person a statistic but it definitely does help and motivate us to not miss a chance to talk to someone and invite them to learn about the gospel.  Anyways, President Pattison kind of introduced that at zone conference, and we learned a bunch of other great things too.  The main thing I feel like I was taught from the Holy Ghost was that I need to have a greater love, and be better at showing that love, for the people we talk to and teach.  

Just being ourselves  :)

 On Saturday we had another lesson with Andy and his Bible bash crew, he brought three friends this time.  They weren't as bashy this time though, and they all actually read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and the testimonies like we committed them to do.  It's just the sincerity and faith they are lacking.  They brought up a lot more concerns they have about what we believe, again a lot about the trinity... They are all obsessed with the trinity (ugh) I have really grown to hate that false doctrine more that any other😂 we kind of just ended up agreeing to disagree on that one, but again the lesson ended on a spiritual high, praising each other for being good Christians and whatnot. They committed to read more, and we really focused on sincere prayer.   

Monday we had a couple other good lessons, one with a guy named Matthew in Greenfield who doesn't have a super strong desire to know the truth or have a relationship with God, but it was still a dece lesson.  Also we were able to meet another Rutherford investigator named Breno from Brazil.  We taught him the restoration and answered some of his questions about various things.  He is kind of in the same boat as Matthew; not religious or super spiritual, but very interested to learn more.  At the end we were able to get him to pray and testified that God is real and loves us and will let us know He is there if we will just pray and ask with real intent.  Hopefully it goes somewhere with those homies.   

In a few months this will make a great hockey rink

Other than that not a whole lot of interesting news from this week.  A bunch of appointments fell through this week so we actually had some time to do a good amount of finding, which was nice because I have been wanting to get Elder Sites broken in and up to speed on every phase of missionary work.  He is doing awesome!  He's pretty shy and doesn't know exactly what to say lots of times but he's willing to try and talk to people anyways, which is all that matters really.  We have also been trying to meet with all the members to share a message inviting them to pray, look, speak, and invite when prompted by the Holy Ghost, and then we practice the speak part with them, and try to help them realize for themselves that it's not that hard to be friendly and just talk to people they don't know.  Haha lots of members aren't too happy when we ask if they want to do a role play, but we try to make it fun.   

We haven't been able to meet with Zeke in a while, his baptism is totally up in the air.  They have been staying and working at their family farm.  Sister Pilling is basically trying to run a farm and keep all the animals alive by herself.  We don't really know when they will be back.   

Well that's it for this week.  We have a lot of appointments scheduled for this next week so hopefully I have a lot of good news to report next week!  It's amazing how much the Lord blesses us every day.  I really love doing His work:) 

Love you all a bunch, Have an awesome week!   

Weekly scripture: D&C 104:82 82 And inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory.

Week 44, 7/28/16 (out of order)

Yup, that's Canada

Dang.  This week has been interesting.  So I'll just start by reminding you all about Lyle from my last area who lives clear up in Wabasca and giving you a Slave Lake update.  He's the one who elder Hunsaker and I started teaching and was super sick all the time who we visited in the hospital a few times. Remember him?  Well he got married two weeks ago, and got baptized on Saturday!! So sweet!  His conversion story is so cool.  Ask me about it sometime.  From what I hear, Len should be getting baptized really soon, and Blake and Bev and the fam actually have a marriage date, and are still on track.  Slave lake is still the promised land:)  

Anyways, now for the news here in Greenfield/River Valley.  That's right we are covering two wards right now, but I'll get to that later. Wednesday I had a super fun exchange with Elder Pouliot here in Greenfield.  In the evening we went and taught that Muslim guy who came to the wrong ward last week, Mustafa.  We had a quick little lesson with him, answered some of his questions and stressed the importance of the Book of Mormon, it went well.  After that we went and balled with a bunch of 14-16 year old black dudes at this park that was close by, it was tons of fun and they asked us the usual questions all about missionary work.  

Friday we met with Mustafa again.  It was kind of funny, instantly he just had a bunch of question about the restoration, the plan of salvation, the gospel and the commandments.  So basically the first 4 lessons.  We ended up teaching him the second half of the restoration and the second half of the plan of salvation, and we had to use google translate a bit on our iPads and it helped out a bunch!  Having access to that kind of technology is seriously such a blessing.  His wife joined in at the end and we invited them both to church.  

Saturday Elder Jenson and I tried "cookie contacting."  We made a bunch of cookies to deliver to the people in our apartment complex and some less actives just so we could get more familiar with our neighbors and hopefully get in with some less actives.  Nobody was really home except one guy who was surprised and super happy haha.  We know Gerry (the eternigator) loves food though so we called him and asked if he wanted some and later that night he came and got some and we invited him to church and he actually came haha! Mustafa also came to church, so church was pretty awesome with all the members seeing that we had two investigators sitting with us at church.   For Slave Lake that would've just been kind of below average but here it is definitely something to be excited about!  

Taking a trip with my tripan

Now here's where things get interesting.  On Friday night, President called us and told us that starting on Sunday at least till the end of the transfer, we would be in a TRIPAN (threesome) with Elder Hlavaty (yes I spelled that right), one of our zone leaders, and we would be covering two areas.  He didn't tell us why so we were super confused, but we were super excited to have a car again.  The next day we found out it was because his companion was going to be next assistant to the president, so he was going to be getting trained  on how to do that all week.  So Sunday afternoon we packed everything up and met everyone at the church and moved into the River Valley apartment, and it was all a big mess of chaos.  Now we are covering two wards and it's been pretty interesting and I actually love the unexpected change!  Plus Elder Hlavaty is super cool.  Anyways, it's not over.... Monday morning we got another call from President, and Elder Jenson is getting transferred a week early (because another Elder up there is going home a week early) to High Level, a town 9.5 hours north of here!!! It's the second most northern town in the mission, aside from of course Yellowknife.  Yes Elder Jenson is getting transferred and I have been here longer than him... It's super weird and we are all confused and wondering what is going to happen with the rest of transfers, because I totally thought I would be leaving this area.  There is a lot of speculation going on because there has been some other crazy stuff going on with transfers already in my district.  I would love to stay with E. Hlavaty but he is a zone leader. I guess we will see what happens and just try to focus on inviting others to come unto Christ :)  

Weekly Scripture: D&C 19 29-30: 29 And thou shalt declare glad tidings, yea, publish it upon the mountains, and upon every high place, and among every people that thou shalt be permitted to see.  30 And thou shalt do it with all humility, trusting in me, reviling not against revilers.

Week 45, 8/3/16 (out of order)

Hey homies. This week has felt like the slowest week since the beginning of my mission just because Elder Hlavaty and I have been waiting and wondering so much about what would happen with us with transfers. The much anticipated and speculated news came yesterday morning and.... Holy freak.  

Our little Army of Helaman

I guess I'll get to some highlights before I spill the news.  This week was busy!! Running two areas is full of a lot of appointments and driving between areas, it's kind of nice to have a fully booked schedule again.  Wednesday after Elder Jenson left for High Level, we met with Mustafa again, and it was kind of frustrating/depressing. Frustrating because of the language barrier and because he forgot like everything we taught him last time, depressing because we were able to see that he isn't really interested in finding out if what we teach is true, he is just a nice friendly committed Muslim guy wanting to compare our doctrine with other Christian doctrine. Oh well, we will keep stopping by.  We weren't able to meet with Zeke at all this week, there was a huge rain and thunderstorm on Wednesday that knocked the power out and caused our appointment to be cancelled, and they haven't been coming to church for the past few weeks so his baptism probably won't be on August 13.  

Recent convert Brandon with the model plane we have been helping him build

Saturday was crazy. We had a shift scheduled to help collect donations for Edmonton's food bank at the Heritage Days Festival. They do Heritage Days every year here. It's basically a big culture festival where you can go to all these different tents that represent different countries and buy some authentic food from that country, get a feel for the culture, there are some performances, and it's just a fun time. You really get a feel for how culturally diverse Edmonton is. Anyways, we were at our shift for maybe 20 minutes when it started to sprinkle rain, and then sprinkle harder, then there was lightning in the distance, then it started POURING and they evacuated the park. We missionaries didn't really have any way to get a ride, so we just walked all the way back to the institute building where we initially met up with all the other missionaries to go to the park. It wasn't that bad, it was pretty much a 25 minute cold shower with proselyting clothes on, and with the constant fear of getting struck by lightning. Unfortunately I didnt get any pictures:(  

This next paragraph isn't super important if you're running short on time, it's just a funny story:  Saturday and Sunday we were in another tripan, this time with an elder who just got his visa, so he could now go to his assigned mission, and he was just staying with us till his plane left. His name was Elder Payne (shout out to the real Elder Francis Payne). Elder Hlavaty and I played a pretty funny prank on him haha.... We told him about how I sleep walk all the time and I have uncontrollable rage when if anyone wakes me up. That night Hlavaty and I were up talking till like 11:30 anyways, and he was sleeping on the floor outside the bedroom, and we heard him snoring so got up and totally fake sleep walked out to where he was and turned on the sink and opened the fridge and just stared blankly into it for like 5 minutes not even kidding. Then I closed it and messed around in the pantry and opened the oven and made some jibberish sleep talk at him and went back to bed hahaha he woke up and was super confused and scared. I'm so surprised I kept a straight face the whole time. It's probably one of those "you had to be there" moments, but Elder Hlavaty and I have been laughing about it a bunch.  

Ok so transfer news. Drum roll please.... Where is elder Bonny going??? NOWHERE. I am staying in Greenfield. There's quiet a few catches though.  1. I am going to be training, I'm pretty excited about that:) 2. I am going to be the district leader 3. We get a car and we will covering the Rutherford Ward as well  So I'm basically whitewash training and a new district leader. The next three months is going to be pretty challenging. I have to be honest I was really hoping to come and be with Elder Hlavaty in River Valley.  He and I have a ton in common and have really enjoyed being comps for a few weeks.  There were tons of hints pointing towards that happening but we guessed wrong. That would've been awesome but I guess the Lord has more challenging things in mind for me, and that's something to be excited about.  

Well that's it for this week. Get ready for some crazy stuff in next weeks update. Love you all:)  

Weekly Scripture: 1 Nephi 3:7 7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.
    Elder Weston Bonny🇨🇦