Week
8 (Or 11)
Hey
Everyone!
This
week has been marvellous. The weather has been perfect, besides the onslaught
of rain we got on Sunday. I bet you can guess what the title of my email
is referring to.
We had
been absolutely psyched for last Wednesday to come, because we finally had our
lesson with Brandon. He's a very busy man, owns his own company, and is
constantly running. When we arrived at his house, he gave us a tour of his
house, which he designed himself, (and he took pride in it) and then we finally
sat down to talk about the Plan of Salvation and the Book of Mormon. He had
read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and 100% agreed with the Pamphlet. He
was a little bit confused because in the plan of salvation, it doesn't really
talk about a distinct heaven or hell situation, so we had to explain that. When
we talked about the 3 degrees of glory, he seemed to understand it all and said
it even seemed familiar. He used to be a marriage and financial counsellor, so
that was pretty cool. He uses the bible and stuff to help families and couples
in their troubles. We left his house completely confused why he's not baptized
yet, because he acts exactly like a member. He believes the same things we do,
so that was good. He's really excited to hear more about the Book of Mormon and
it's origin. But because he's such a busy man, he scheduled us for the 23rd
of November.... three more weeks.
An
older lady in our branch called and asked if we could give her a blessing, and
she said "come when you can." Elder Leigh wanted to go at 2:30,
but I said "nah let's go right now." (This was before our lesson with
Brandon, he was scheduled at 1:30.) Brandon's appointment went way longer
than we expected, so I'm glad we went to that sisters house before Brandon.
Just a little timing tender mercy:)
There's
this guy who is really really into religion. His name is Mike, and he loves to
have members of other faiths over to talk about religion or "fellowship
with" them. He does a lot of talking, jumping from subject to subject, and
while he was talking during our last visit, I felt an impression to open my
mouth, because if he keeps talking, he's never going to feel the spirit. He
more wanted to spot the differences between what we believe and what other
religions believe, and I simply wanted to teach. So I opened my mouth, as Elder
Holland says to do, and the words came. I started testifying of all the great
things I know to be true, and Elder Leigh kind of caught on. He testified with
me, and Mike stayed quiet. While we talked, the spirit became a lot more
evident in the room. Elder Leigh asked a couple questions, but he was tongue
tied. A lot of what I felt he was trying to do before was shake my faith. But
he couldn't think of any real way to answer the questions, and he would just
jump to another subject. Not saying that we should be stumping people, but when
our job is to teach rather than bible bash, teaching is what we will do.
This
is going to be a long email, and I apologize. Kind of. I shouldn't be
apologizing for Telling y'all spiritual stories haha
We had
a lesson planned with Peggy for the next day, and she told us to come to the
dog park and have our lesson because it was such a beautiful day. It was like
14 degrees Celsius. It was great. We talked about baptism and her slight
apprehension with being dunked fully in the water. We talked a lot about our
favourite temples for some reason, and we asked her to continue to pray about
when she ought to be baptized. We are hoping she gets the same feeling we do
about December 3rd or 10th. She told us she wants to be baptized
before Christmas, which surprised the dickens out of us. We have to help her kick
her smoking and coffee habits first. But, were super excited to help her take
those steps. We had another lesson with her later about the 10 commandments and
The word of wisdom, and she is devising a plan to kick the habit. It's so great
to see her taking these steps! Super duper excited! I think we also set the
mission record for best lesson in a dog park. Haha!
After
our lesson with Peggy, we tracked a nearby street. Every house on that side of
the street was either empty or not interested. We knocked on one door, and
nobody answered, so we left. But as we were almost to the end of the driveway,
he came out and saw us, talked to us for a second, ran back inside to get out
of his pajamas, and then came back out. Elder Leigh started asking him questions
and he seemed really inquisitive about our church. One of He questions he asked
was super deep doctrine and John just kind of sat there thinking for a minute.
We made his wheels turn, so that's a good sign! We ended up leaving a Book of
Mormon and a challenge to read it and pray about it. Hopefully he does!
That
night we had a dinner with a couple in our ward, the sister is from Sweden, and
they're vegans! I was really really not excited for a vegan meal, but it really
wasn't that bad. We were able to share a conference message from Elder Ballard
with them, and we felt the spirit a lot. Elder Leigh left me in charge of that
lesson, and I feel like I did a pretty good job.
As we
were walking down the street the other day, we got a call about someone named
Ryan trying to get a hold of us for a referral. So we called him back and
he informed us that his girlfriend, Radiance, lives in Vermilion, (she's from
Lethbridge and so is he, he's a member, she's not) and she wanted to meet with
us to understand a little bit more about what her boyfriend believes. So we
called her and set up the appointment.
When
we had our appointment with Radiance, we brought a young man (he's older than
me) who is working on mission papers with us, so we had a member there. We told
Her all about the church and the Book of Mormon which Ryan had given her, and
we answered all the questions she had... there were lots. Some of them were
like "why do Mormons have big families" and "how do you know
Joseph Smith isn't a false prophet". So we had lots of opportunities to
share our testimonies with her about it, and it went really well. We won't be
able to meet with her for a while because she's going back down to Lethbridge
for Remembrance Day.
We
decided to go visit Terry again, he had told us in our last visit that he
doesn't believe the Book of Mormon is factual, and we were very tempted not to
return. But he is a child of God just as much as everyone else, (no matter how
old) so we came back. We talked about the power of the priesthood, and
offered if he ever needed it, a priesthood blessing. He was worried he had
scared us off the last time, but he had time to think about what he said about
the Book of Mormon before. Then he told us his life story and all the times
when he received "directives" from God (revelation).
Try
to keep this short, I promise.
We
were walking home from Peggy's the other day, when an older gentleman with a
very messed up nose called us over to his lawn. He started cussing us out and
telling us we're good for nothing ___________s and all this other stuff that
wasn't true. Elder Leigh handled it all very well. Basically what happened, is
his wife runs the thrift store in town. Missionaries in the past have vacuumed
the store for her, but they felt they were treated more like slaves. So when
Elder Leigh got here, we stopped serving there because the environment was not
one in which we could feel the spirit. He continued to cuss us out, but We
wouldn't have it. It ended well and we shook his hand when we left, but it was
not a fun confrontation. He reeked of pride. It was super annoying. He wanted
to call a number and put in a complaint about us but the only way to do that is
to get on your knees... haha
We had
a Canada Wide broadcast from salt lake on Sunday that we got to
watch. Peggy came and really enjoyed the speakers including Elder Rasband,
Brother Soares, Brother Duran, and Sister Bingham. They talked a lot about
temples and teaching. It was really good.
It has
been a really great week, full of miracles, and very eventful. Thanks for all
the support, keep doing your best, and the Lord will bless you!
Love
y'all!
Elder
Trevor J. Wells
Canada
Edmonton Mission
2
Nephi 31:20
Pictures
1. My companion is a ninja.
2. The Karate Kid (just for you mom)
3. Elder Idaho, being less ninja
4. Up on the house top, AMERICA.
5. More America
6. So true it hurts
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