I was so excited to hear about Lorielle
going to Oklahoma. It'sss … oh man! … as soon as I heard she was
going to Oklahoma it seems so perfect. It's like honestly, I keep
saying this, it's like I knew she was going there. It's like I
already knew that and had just forgotten. When I found out she had
gotten her call there, I was like, “oh yea that's where she was
supposed to be going – I forgot.” But it's soo perfect, I'm soo
excited. It's going to be soo fun. I did the math and I'll be out
just over six months by the time she comes out and so we will most
likely be coming home within two weeks of each other (haha), which
will be soo cool. I'll be coming home a little earlier. It's going to
be so much fun. We are going to be able to email each other back and
forth while we are on our missions and stuff and share mission
stories. It's kind of different when I'm emailing home, there are
certain things that would take too long to explain, but if I were to
talk with Lorielle
about it, she would know what I'm talking about, and she would be like, “oh
yeah, I know how that goes.” She would know all the inside
missionary jokes and things like that. That will be so much fun, I'm
so excited for you Lorielle.
It's been so much fun out here. This
week has been pretty fun. This week has been my “senior week.” I
have been leading out basically in everything. I've been driving,
I've been planning every night, I've been doing everything just
about. It was so weird because before, I was so nervous and did not
think I could ever do that. But like two days before I was going to
start my “senior week,” I felt very confident and calm about doing
this. As I've been through the week, it wasn't a problem. Everything
just went by really smoothly. It was just like a normal week. I was
surprised, but not really. It's like that amount of time for training
was the perfect amount of time. It was almost as if, and I'm sure it
was, the Lord had made it so that that period of time training was
perfect for me. It has been, and the circumstances that we were in
and stuff like that; I'm excited to see what happens.
This coming week is the last week of
our transfer. So November 6th, a Sunday, is the last day
of the transfer. After that, Elder
Hartman will be leaving Whitehorse and either me or Elder
Johnson most likely will be leaving. We know there are two
missionaries leaving, but it's all just guess work really. But, I am
pretty sure we know two of us are leaving. Elder
Hartman will be leaving because his visa for Canada is running
out. Yeah, we'll see what happens and what the changes are. It will
be exciting to see what happens.
Yesterday they had a Primary
program and it was amaazing. They don't have very many kids, but the
Spirit was there so strong, and it was just after the Sacrament too.
So I had really felt the Spirit, and I was just bawling – not like
crying, crying, but my eyes were watering a lot. I was sniffing the
whole time (haha). Elder
Johnson looks over at me and he just laughs. It was funny because
he said that there was a point where he felt like his eyes were about
to water, just because of the emotion of the Spirit that was there.
He said that when that happened, he thought that “oh man, if I'm
feeling like this, Elder Record must be bawling.” So he looks over
at me and my eyes are watering and tearing up like crazy. He told me I do a pretty good job of not making it obvious that I'm doing that
(haha). Anyway, it was very good, the Spirit was there very strong.
The other elders had a couple of investigators there, and we had one
there. I think it was very beneficial. We also had some less active
members there. What a day for them to be there and to feel the Spirit
so strong! The other elders' investigator told them later that
everything they talked about in the Primary program and that they
testified of was just about exactly the things the missionaries had been
teaching him. So he was very impressed. It was a wonderful Sunday.
Last Monday was our P-day and we went
to the Canada
Game Centre and we played football (haha), and it was so much
fun. I found out that I'm actually pretty good at football. Elder Johnson used to be a quarterback for SUU (Southern Utah University),
so he's very good. He was saying how impressed he was with me, so I
felt pretty good. It was fun to play football and be good at it I
guess, because the other elders are really tall and they beat me in
basketball pretty good (haha). It was good exercise. I was sore after
that, but it was okay because it felt good.
We had our specialized training this
week. I was lucky enough, since I'm Elder Johnson's trainee, to listen
in on the district leader and trainer leadership training on Tuesday
morning. I also got to be in the normal specialized training which
was fun. They had me talk about family history a little bit on the
spot (haha), which was all right. I feel like with family history,
everything has been handed to me in my lap. I've had the desire to
search it out and the determination to keep at it, and it seems like
things have just been handed to me. I've become familiar with how
things work in family history research along the way. So it's been
beneficial. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm familiar with it.
Elder Johnson and I gave training in
the fifth Sunday meeting yesterday on family history. I made a slide
show for the FamilySearch
website. I basically based my portion of the lesson on President
Packer's talk titled, “Family
History: Getting Started” that was given in the Liahona
magazine in August of 2003. It's a very good talk, and I
definitely suggest reading it. It talks about getting started in
family history and explains mostly what I talked about.
We have been meeting with one of our investigators. Initially it seemed like it wasn't going
to go anywhere with her and her husband. But lately, we have just
been persistent in reading the Book
of Mormon and things like that, and she has been resolving her
own concerns and progressing at her own speed, but progressing none
the less. Brother McDonald has always had missionaries come to visit
them, hoping that the new set of missionaries will be the ones for
them. So they've had several missionaries teaching them over a long
period of time. He has been saying that he is so excited and that he
has been seeing the growth that they have made. He notices it, and he
says it's significant. We have definitely felt like she is
progressing, and hopefully she can help her husband out too. As they
read the Book
of Mormon, they will come to feel the Spirit of it and they will
come to know it's true and their concerns will be resolved.
Everything will just kind of fall into place as they study the Book
of Mormon.
They also had a Halloween party on
Friday. We helped out with this little haunted forest walk they had.
I didn't, because I'm not very good at scaring people. The other
elders hid behind a tree and would say “boo” at people and scare
them. Elder Johnson was pretty funny. He is pretty good at scaring
people (haha).
Today is Halloween. Things will be kind
of different. We will be starting the day off in the morning at
eight. P-day is going to end at four. We are supposed to be in our
apartments at seven and do our studying then, so the night will end
at seven instead of nine, because it's Halloween. Probably because
it's kind of futile to go tracting on Halloween because everybody is
trick-or-treating.
This week has been pretty cool and
fund. Lots of new stuff happening. I'm excited to see what happens in
the future. I was talking with President Beesley when I got
permission to watch Lorielle's
blog video,
and kind of see the news about her. He asked where she was going, and I
said, Oklahoma. He was very happy and excited for Lorielle
and said there is going to be a lot more missionaries there than
there are here. But, he said the work is going to be awesome out
there where Lorielle's
at – so he thought it was pretty cool (haha).
I hope everybody is doing good. In the
video Eric seems to be a lot taller than I remember him. I think
Chris looked about the same. Lorielle, she looks the same (haha). It
was very fun to watch that. I cried during the video, just because I
felt the Spirit strong. Missionary work is amazing. It's all about
other people. It's fun to not focus on yourself, to have that
opportunity to devote all your time to helping others and to help
others be happy. So as long as you can remember that, it makes things
so much fun. It's a wonderful experience. I can't wait for Eric and
Chris to go, and maybe Annie. It will be an amazing thing when that
happens. See you later, talk to you next week. Bye.
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