Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Transcription: 31 October 2011


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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