December 29, 2014

Well this week was probably one of the slowest weeks of my life. We were not able to do much because it was the Christmas season and it was Boxing Day after Christmas and there are not a lot of people home and they are not interested at the time.

I just want to say that I loved Christmas! It was amazing and I loved Facetiming you guys. It was so good you see all of you. It looked like, by the pictures, that you all you a good Christmas. Tanner you need to smile more! :)))))))))))

So this Sunday our investigator Amanda came to church. She is the one who lost her kids because Brendon was not allowed in the house or to be around the kids. So he is gone living in Cranbrook with his mom and brother. The missionaries there are teaching him. So there was A LOT of emotional problems. This experience has brought them closer to God and has strengthened them as a family, because of what happened and the experiences that she had.  Her kids notice it and Amanda and her kids want to be baptized. They are not afraid to stick up for what they believe in. I do not know for sure if I told you about the experience(s) that Amanda had, but I think I did. Let me know if I did tell you guys.  

DEC, 8th 2014

 

So this week was transfers and I am still in Trail. I will be here till the beginning of January (hopefully). Being in one area for 6 months is too long, and also it does not happen that much.

 So this week was a week of packing and saying good bye, and driving to Lethbridge, Alberta. It is crazy driving in Alberta. And then I got a new comp. His name is Colton Simpson. Lybe went to Calgary somewhere as a Zone Leader. And that is about all that happened this week. 

Elder Bednar says some good things about missionary work and how it blesses the lives of others, and that it is a priesthood responsibility. He says

 "All of us who have received the holy priesthood bear the sacred obligation to bless the nations and families of the earth by proclaiming the gospel and inviting all to receive by proper authority the ordinances of salvation. Many of us have served as full-time missionaries, some of us presently are serving as full-time missionaries, and all of us now are serving and will continue to serve as lifelong missionaries. We are missionaries every day in our families, in our schools, in our places of employment, and in our communities. Regardless of our age, experience, or station in life, we are all missionaries.
Proclaiming the gospel is not an activity in which we periodically and temporarily engage. And our labors as missionaries certainly are not confined to the short period of time devoted to full-time missionary service in our youth or in our mature years. Rather, the obligation to proclaim the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is inherent in the oath and covenant of the priesthood into which we enter. Missionary work essentially is a priesthood responsibility, and all of us who hold the priesthood are the Lord’s authorized servants on the earth and are missionaries at all times and in all places—and we always will be. Our very identity as holders of the priesthood and the seed of Abraham is in large measure defined by the responsibility to proclaim the gospel." 

 I know that this is true. We all can be missionaries even though we do not wear the tag. We should all be acting on missionary opportunities because they are everywhere; School, Work, Store, Vacations, EVERYWHERE. We are all brothers and sisters of our loving Heavenly Father. If that is the case then wouldn't we want them to have that same happiness, joy, and salvation that we have?     

Dec. 2 2014

Hey guys,

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas! My Thanksgiving went super good, just like I’m sure yours did too. I did not eat that much pie or potatoes at all. For American Thanksgiving we had dinner at our WMLs (Ward Mission Leader's) house. We had Ham, Potatoes, and Stuffing it was really good. After that, we drove to a members house and had some pie there. I had a piece of home made pecan pie! It was the best pecan pie I have ever had! So that was our thanksgiving. At first it was kinda hard not being home for that, because for 18 years it has been at grandmas house or grams house. It was different not doing that. But in the end it all went good. I got your packages that you sent me! Thank you so much Grandma and Fam. I can’t wait to open them for Christmas.

Today is transfer week, so that is why I’m emailing today on Tuesday our Pday and not Monday. So with transfers this week we found out that I am NOT being transferred. I’m staying in Trail, and Lybe is going. He’s being transferred somewhere south, so Calgary. So this week he will be packing up and we will be driving to Calgary. 

On Sunday we had another church open house, and we knocked, and knocked on doors handing out flyers inviting people to it. We probably knocked on 100 doors and we were hoping for a good turn out of at least one non-member. But that did not happen. We just got more members, which is good but non members would have been better.

We got a new investigator! He was also baptized this week too. So I got my first baptism this week! He is 9 years old, he invited us to his baptism at the church open house, and then we realized that he is 9 years old. That means we have to teach him before he can be baptized. His family is all members but they lived in a place with no church/ward/branch when they moved there was a LDS church (the one that they are going now) they wanted their son to go to church before he was baptized. But in that time he turned 9 so we had to teach him all 5 lessons first. One day we taught him lessons 2and3. That went great! We felt the spirit, and Weston (9 year old) did too. He was laughing and crying, two days later we taught him lessons 4-5 and he was interviewed by our DL the same day. They had family coming up for the baptism and for American Thanksgiving so they were not going to change the date. I will send that picture today.

We also did a lot of service this week which consisted of snow removal, people were really grateful for that, stacking wood for a member, and helping a member move in. They moved into a nice place. Nice house, 20 acres and it is 7 clicks to the US Border. 

So this week I will be getting a new comp, and we will be driving up to Calgary. And with the investigators that we have there has been a lot of things going on, a lot of things for the worse. Nina has decided to take a month long break from the BoM and read only the Bible, and see what fruit will grow just from that, meaning New World Translation Bible which happens to be the JW bible. We asked her if this was an idea from her friend Lina who is a JW, and she said yes. Nina said that she knows that there will be something missing, but she is doing it anyways. 

And then the Grieves. We met with them that other day and that went great, there are still a lot of things going on. They have to find a new place to live because the Landlord is going to sell the house.

So that is just great! So that is all the things that are and have been happening. Thank you so much for the Christmas Packages. That is just so awesome! It will be a great Christmas this year for me in Canada. 

Also the Church is doing this HUGE thing for Christmas. It is called the Christmas Initiative. The Church will be doing a YouTube Takeover like they did with Easter last year. So this month we will be giving He is The Gift pass-along cards along with DVDs. So if you get time watch that video, and if you get the Ensign there are He is The Gift pass-along cards, the some ones that we will be handing out. So if you get your hands on them then I challenge you hand them out to people. 

Thank you again for the Christmas Packages.

Thank you for the love and support .

Love you all and have a great week! 

Elder Lybe's birthday dinner at Parslow's

Nov. 17 2014

Hey Fam!

How are things going!? Things here in BC are getting really really cold lol, and the hard part is that it is getting dark at 4:00. It’s so crazy, and it’s hard to get use to. So imagine Tanner, Dallin, Caleb, and Callie, getting home from school and it is already getting dark! Wake up, go to school, come home, and go to bed! haha

My coat is keeping me warm. It’s a nice coat and it’s doing its job. Also dad, I had to use my home flow bank card, I bought a hat and some gloves, I spent $40 using that card. I’m sorry. I did not want to use it, but I did not have enough cash or money left on the BA card. So how it works: the church gives you a Bank of America Prepaid card. Every month they put on $200 and it gets you through the month; food, clothes, toiletries, and so on. I withdrew money from the BA card (church card) from the ATM because its only one fee, instead of a fee any time I use the BA card. 

Last week was Zone Conference.  That was really good. On zone pday we played a life-sized game of Sorry and that was so intense. My team won! Thanks to me, I drew the card that we needed to get our guy back home. I Tebowed when I drew the card. We won. Then after that game all missionaries got dressed into pross and President took all of the missionaries out to dinner who did not have a dinner planned with a member. He took us to Dennys. Then we had more training after dinner, then we went back to the Zeds apartment. They have a nice apartment. its two stories and three or four bedrooms. most of us slept on the floor on mattresses. In the morning we got ready for the day, got ready for car inspections, had some training meetings, and car safety training. After that, when it was all over our district left together. We stopped at Creston to chill, use the washroom, and to kill time until the next Ferry, but to make use of time we went street contacting in the freezing cold. Most of us thought that no one was going to be out because of the time (8:50ish PM) and because of how cold it was. I was one of them haha. We went on exchanges for that night. So Elder Lusk and I were walking down the road. we see nobody! But all of a sudden we see this guy that crosses  the street and walks right in front of us. I’m the one that stops him and I talks to him. When I'm about to offer the BoM,  in my mind I'm thinking that he’s not going to except this BoM, but I ask him anyways and I accepts it!!!:) That was really really cool! His name was Ross. Then we met up with and left with the Nelson elders from Creston. We drove to take the Ferry home. That was so nice and fun, We ended up spending the night in Nelson and left for Trail that next morning. 

On Friday the Nelson ward had a bean bag tournament. We were invited to that and that was so fun. There was lots of food, candy, and pizza.  The Nelson ward has like 180 members but only like 10 are active. Its kinda sad.  I made it to the semi-finals but I lost after that.  

So the church open house that we had 2 weeks ago went great! Our investigator family showed up and we had some members show up too. So what happens in a church open house is: You start off in the foyer, I was the ""tour guide"" I told them what we were going to be doing and what was going to be happening, I showed a Mormon Message video, then bore testimony. I took them through some of the church building  walking by rooms and telling them what this room was and what  goes on in this room and that room. Then I took them inside a room and a missionary gave a quick talk about prophets or the Savior’s earthly ministry, (one of the points in lesson 1) and he bore testimony. Then I took them to another room. They sat down in front of another missionary that talked about another point in Lesson 1 and he bore testimony. Then I took them into another room where we had our WM (ward mission leader) talk about the Atonement and he bore testimony, Then I took them to the room right behind the chapel. There were no chairs and our WML talks about the 12 apostles and what happened to them after Jesus dies on the cross. All of the names of the apostles were on Hymn books and as our WML talked about them and about when they died he knocked down a book. When he knocked down 6 books, a missionary turned off one set of lights, and then once the other 6 were knocked down all the lights go off, state of apostasy, state of darkness. He then went on in saying something like "Because the Lord loves us he has called another prophet here on this earth and *light* was restored." When he said “light” two missionaries whipped open the big sliding fire doors (the same ones that are in your ward) that lead into the Chapel with all the lights on and the Restoration video ready to go. A missionary talked about the restoration and we watched it and then he bore testimony about it after the movie was over. Then last we had some cookies in the gym and some BoMs and other things that people can take. 

We are having another Church open house next week on Sunday, with all of the members that went to the last one. They said that they loved it!  And it was so good!  So hopefully we will have a better turnout, because every member was invited to bring a friend, and they did not do that but I bet they will with this next one coming up because of  all of the good things they heard about it.. 

Two days ago we went door-to-door in the cold (of course) in Castlegar and told everyone about the church open house and handed out flyers. We ran into a lot of nice people.  One of them invited us in to warm up and we stood there and talked for like 10 minutes. 

This week we will be doing the same approach about the church open house. 

So now with the investigators: Nina was not baptized. She gets a lot of "stuff" from her good ole friend that's a JW. And with the Grieves, there is a lot of stuff going on with them, mostly the husband. That is all I will say about them. Sorry I did not email last week. It won’t happen again. 

***Also I don't think that we will be getting iPads any time soon, due to some missionaries that are somewhere in the states who are making stupid choices with their iPads. President says that he does not think that we will get iPads while he is still president, so that will be in July, That's when he leaves. And he inplied not to plan on getting them any time soon. So with that I was thinking that I should get another pair of dress shoes/snow dress shoes because the ones that I have now they are wearing out inside in the back. And if I keep wearing them the there will be no back (back of the heal) So I could use some Home Flow money and use the BA card that the church gave me. So what sayest thou? haha 

Also anytime even when I get transferred you can send anything to the mission home; letters or anything, that will be the best way to send things because I will be transferred soon. 

Also I am sorry to ask for things but there are some things that I need if possible can you send it to me, to that address that I gave you. I need:

My Black Winter Gloves  

Thermal Garments...........I can give you the size that I bought that fit. 

Warm Wool Socks  

Kenneth Cole Reaction white shirts........They are the ones that we got at Sams club, they are a thicker fabric then the other shirts that we ordered online they keep me warmer. Especially when I get transferred to Calgary in February, that's the months where it gets the coldest. Those Kenneth Cole white shirts can be the winter shirts and the others can be summer shirts. 

I heard that Harvey contributed to the package! haha that’s so funny! There’s a member in the ward that has two BIG greyhounds!  

Thank you     

Love all of you 

Nov. 10

Hey peeps! How are things going?! So I heard that Cade Baker is back now! Wow thats crazy! Good to hear that Halloween went good for all of you. Halloween was super good for me. The night before we drove to Creston to where our District Leader is and we traded comps and so his comp went with my comp and I stayed in Creston with our District Leader and went on exchanges with him on Halloween Day. The mission rule is that all missionaries have to be inside be 6:00. So after dinner we drove back to Trail, back to our pad and just partied and played games with the Nelson and Creston Elders. Also I have been approved to drive! So I’m driving the car now! Its pretty cool. Last week we got to watch an 87 year old man that is in our ward jump off the high dive and do flips and back flips and back flops, all of these crazy things! He is so energetic and out going. he’s a sweet guy. 

So our investigator Nina the one that I talked about before, she’s back on date again! This time its solid! This time we can see the difference in her eyes, she has stopped studying with the JWs once as she understood that Jehovah is Jesus and not God (Heavenly Father) which we told her and she also found out by herself. She said that this is no way that the JWs could be right, she also has a friend that is JW and she was kinda influenced her but Nina told her that she will never become a JW and her friend supports her. 

Also we were able to teach that one family that I talked about earlier. we had bishop come with us and that went just amazing! The spirit was there. The husband prayed before we left and that was so powerful, considering his past and the change(s) that he is making. Then after we left the wife texts us saying that he went back to his old self. Not doing anything that we challenged them to do like family prayer. He just went and slept on the couch she said. 

   As of yesterday the wife texted us when their whole family was in Cranbrook to see his family. he totally turned around. He was nice to everyone and he stood up to her when his brother was yelling and swearing at her. We are going to meet with them tonight. 

Last week we did some door to door and gave out one Book of Mormon. that was super cool. 

Well Ill let you know how the baptism goes this week, the next time I will be emailing I will be in Cranbrook for Zone Conference. President will be there. So maybe, just maybe that is when we will be getting ipads! haha

Love you all! hope you have a fantastic week. Good luck at school and work.    

  After not receiving a letter the next week, Todd sent a text to Sister Parslow to see if she knew what was up.  She said he had been out of town but she had just received a text from him and was expecting him for dinner in an hour.  A little while later, we received this text from Sister Parslow’s phone:

Hello this is Elder Condie.  Every thing is going very super good!:) We went to cranbrook on Sunday  driving up there was crazy! Because on the pass there was like three inches of snow and like ten feet of visibility.  It was so crazy! Pday was fun. we did life size game of Sorry and then President took us out to dinner. then we had some training . Tuesday we had some more training.  on the way home we stopped at Creston and during that time we did some street contacting  and I gave away a Book of Mormon  in the freezing cold.  Then we took the ferry. That was really  cold. we had a church open house. I will tell you more about that on Monday  and about the investigators.  thank you for sending me a Christmas package that is so nice of you guys. I look forward to Christmas. that's when I will open it!:) Sorry I did not email on Monday. Thanks for all you guys do love all of you!

Elder Condie

After learning of Glen’s death, Jaden wrote:

 “Wow! Is Tresa doing okay? Thats not good. If you do go to St. George tell her that I’m sorry to hear the news, and that I will be praying for her, and that I miss her and love her, and that I know that she will be able to see him again, and that everything happens for a reason. 

Isaiah 55:8-9, Proverbs 3:5-6  might help, I don’t know. Only share those scriptures if the spirit prompts you to.

Oct 27th 2014

This week has been good. There was someone living in the basement of a member that we helped move out. He got arrested, (not the member) and as they were moving him from cell to cell he threatened to shoot a cop. So when we got to the members house we put everything in his trailer. But the thing is that everything there was stolen. There were like 10 guitars, DJ system, speakers, 6 mountain bikes, tools, and a lot more. They also found some firearms and some ammo so the RCMP came to seize them, so that was a lot of fun. 

The ward had a Crokinole tournament they have had one every year for 14 years and the missionaries have been there every year. It is a huge thing and only the men are allowed to come. Their wives make something for them to bring. There were 3 tables full of food, So that was fun and good. Bishop is the one that is in charge of this activity because this is "his" thing. haha it was really fun.  

Our family that we are teaching came to church like two weeks ago. That was awesome, and they said that they loved it. They came the week of ward conference so that was probably a good/different experience for them because you move around more. But there was a linger-longer right after and they liked that. We taught them the same day. This time it was with the whole family as before it was just the parents. We taught them about the Restoration. We watched the Restoration video and taught them about FHE, how to run it and what to do. Because we were there for longer than we expected and we did not have a dinner that night they ordered pizza and we had pizza with them. When we showed them how FHE should be run they were all happy and laughing, but after that things went down hill with her. She was saying how bad her husband was and how she wants him to go and how she will never forgive him for what he has done in the past. Were were there for about 3 to 3.5 hours and at the end we were getting no where. It was just going around in a circle,  so we said we needed to go because it was getting late, and we left. The husband followed us to the door and said thanks for coming. I can see the change in him already. We had planned to go to Creston and meet the district at their pad to have pday the next morning but it was too late to drive because it is like a 1.5 hour drive to get over there. So we left that morning to Creston and had pday, spent the night there and had district meeting Tuesday morning. We visited some old contacts that were in the record book and we knocked on their door to see if they were still interested and gave away 2 Books of Mormon. 

We also taught Nina last week. She had a question and we answered it and we put her back on track for baptism. We do not have a date set yet, but hopefully soon. The next day she asked us if we could help her in her yard and she asked if we had a message to share with her, so we did. That just shows that she feels the Holy Ghost when we teach her. 

Mom that is so awesome that Ryans mom found you and got to meet you, and how she went to our church for that mothers meeting and saw my plaque. That is really cool 

So I’m like 95% sure that I will be here in Trail for Christmas, so in response to your email about the Christmas package some things that I need/would like:

Ties (not the fat ones)

Socks 

Grandmas Candy 

American Candy (mike&lkes ect)

Beef Jerky 

Ties 

Socks that match the ties

G-2 bold point pens 

They do accept US dollars here, US dollars are worth more here in Canada. 

So you will be able to send box to that same address as the GPS got sent too.

Thank you for you prayers and support. Love you all 

Oct. 15 2014

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING YESTERDAY!!!! It was so so weird to have Thanksgiving in October when Halloween is!  But it was a good thanksgiving. A member fed us; Canadian Turkey, Canadian Corn, Canadian Mashed Potatoes, Canadian Gravy, Canadian Stuffing, and Canadian Pumpkin Pie! It was so good, especially the Canadian part! They are also going to invite us over for American Thanksgiving!   

One of the members in the Bishopric in the ward is an ex-RCMP officer (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and had us over at his house and he let us wear his uniform! I have to be honest I look good in it! ahah;) I look like I could be a cop! I will send the picture to you and mom can you edit and enhance them to make them look better and then send them back? And please do not send those pictures to family or anyone yet. Thanks! That will be awesome! Can you send me Grams address because for Christmas I will be sending a little bit of something to you and Grandma, and Gram. It will be that picture. One of the members does this every year for missionaries. She asks for a picture and makes it all nice on a slab of tile and makes that all nice and she crosses the line (border) and sends it off to the addresses that I give her. So if you can give me that address that will be great. Or unless Grandma and Gram are coming over for Christmas then I will have it sent to home. So if you can let me know about that then that will be great! :) Thanks 

So this week is transfers! Thats why Im emailing today. Guess where I got transferred?!!?......................................................................................................................................................................................................I got transferred NOWHERE! I am staying in Trail! And so is Lybe. That means that I will be here in Trail for more than 6 months. That is 25% of my mission which is so CRAZY! 

I will not be seeing Meet the Mormons! :( because it only comes out in the states and not Canada! If it comes out of DVD I bet that somehow we will be able to get our hands on it. 

Last week I taught the 1st lesson to that family that I talked about last week and it went so good! The spirit was there! The wife was born JW. She does not agree with them. And the husband has no religion. There are some relationship problems going on. If he was to make that change and other changes and want to be baptized then President will have to come interview him because of past transgressions. It was so crazy because the wife completely opened up and told us everything that he has done and all of the problems that are going on. She trusted us right then and there. 

Yesterday for Pday we went on a hike to Gimili Peak as a district. That was so fun! I will send some pictures. We had no service, so when we got out of the canyon our phone went CRAZY!! We have 20 text messages. most of them were from that family, the wife saying that she has given up on her husband. She want to divorce he wont leave. She lives upstairs and never goes down and he swears at the kids and is going crazy. So yeah... This is how my first family investigators are like haha. 95% of the time its not like that.. I know that the gospel will change their lives but it will take time. And satan is already doing what he does with that family.  We are not going to give up. she said that she still wants the gospel for her and her kids. We are going to meet with them today.

Also dad thank you for sending that GPS. I have it right now and it works great! We used it yesterday to find the hike. 

Thank you for all that you do and for all of your support.

 Love you all

Oct 5 2014

I do not have my GPS yet. Elder Lybe got a package from his family too and there was another missionary that is going to be getting a package that his mom sent. She told Sis Parslow so some time this week… some time this week.

General Conference was really good! I really liked it. But the only thing is that it went by SO SO SO SO FAST!! Maybe it was because no one paused and waited for everyone to be quiet! haha

We watched all of the sessions and priesthood at the church, and we ate food that a member brought for us at the church. We did not get Nina (our investigator) to come but she said she watched it online and that she liked it. But that one lady that I think that I talked about, Jenifer, the one that one Sunday, she just came to church and wanted to see the bishop. So we have been helping her and working with her. It turns out that she is a member. She was sealed in the temple, but her husband died. Her boyfriend right now is bugging her and she does not want to be with him. But we have been helping her and working with her. She has a lot on her plate right now.

We met with Nina this week, we did not teach her anything but we just talked with her and asked her questions. We invited her to stake conference and she said that she could come and she even had relatives to stay with. But her ride called her mom and asked if she was ready and her mom said that she was in a meeting, and that she couldn't go. When we met with her she did say that she was at a Jehovah witness assembly (we already knew that she was doing something with the JW). She said that they are nice to her and she has friends there, and she said that a woman there gave her a blessing one time and she did not feel anything. And we talked with her, we were more bold with her, we told her about a talk that was given in Stake Conference about this kid who can play a song on the piano with one hand and another song with the other hand, and it sounded awful! That is the same way with her (in a way) we told her. We said that you can’t be studying with the JW and at the same time study from us. She needed to choose one or the other. We told her to read the BoM again and pray about it. I gave her a promise, and that same promise is in the Introduction in the BoM, and bore my testimony about it and the spirit was there and I could tell that she could feel it. When it was time for us to leave it almost seemed like she did not want us to leave, so that is good.

After the Saturday morning conference session we went street contacting at Gyro Park (its really, really nice, I will send a picture of it). I did all of the talking, I started the conversation cause Lybe wanted me too. We ran in to a lady probably in her lower 30s. She sounded really interested. we gave her a PoS pamphlet with our number on it and the church address and she said that she will try to make it to church. 

And there is a foreign exchange student staying at a member’s house (she speaks English and French). We are kind of teaching her but we have not started yet, she said that she does not know if she believes in God, we gave her a English BoM the last time we went over, but that was hard for her to read. We ordered some French copies of the BoM from the mission home. Yesterday before we headed to Crambrook for Zone Pday and Zone Training, we stopped by to drop it off. (The plan was to give her the French BoM and talk about it and then go street contacting. But we were there at the members house for an hour and a half. Just talking, playing with their kids and they fed us dinner and they were not on the dinner calendar. They asked us if we wanted dinner and we said sure. They are a really nice family. The husband is American/Canadian (maybe just Canadian) and the wife is Polynesian I believe, and they made a REALLY, REALLY good Polynesian dinner! It was SO good. Super good beef and rice and some sort of beef soup. It was GOOD! (By the way I don't know if you want to hear this hah but I gained 5 pounds) haha It has been weird I gain pounds and then I loose pounds. So I hope but the time I go home I do not gain more than 20 pounds. haha So the foreign  exchange student told us that she sent the English BoM to her mom because she wanted to know more about the Mormons. And she said that she would read the French copy that we gave her.

Also we have a new family that moved from Vancouver. Bishop called us because the missionaries there called him and he let us know. So we helped them move in and they said that they will all be going to church and they want to take the discussions. They want that in their lives they said. And before we left from helping them we left by saying a prayer. They wanted that. They have like 6 super young kids that are super loud! haha The oldest is 14 and her boyfriend is living with them, but they do not sleep in the same room, which is good. The boyfriend comes from a disfunctional family so I guess they kind of adopted him ha ha. So I’m excited to start teaching someone now. 

That's about all that happened this week. Love you all

Elder Condie     

Sept. 29 2014

Okay so just a little run down with what happened this week. We helped a member who knows a lot about the Bible, and Book Of Mormon, and other doctrine. But he does not come to church. He called us and asked us for some help to cut down his tree so he can have some firewood for the winter. He is an older man. So this tree, it was huge! And there were power lines on one side and other things on the other so we had to cut it perfect and make sure it falls just perfect. We cut the tree like 20 feet from the ground because other wise it would hit the power lines. And we tied a cable around the top (about 20 feet high) so it would fall where we wanted it. So we had the chain saw and the ladder and we cut the tree and it made cracking noises and we cut all the way through but it did not fall because the branches of that tree and another were weaved so the tree was holding it up and the wind picked up and we started to loosen the rope. And TIMBER! The tree fell perfectly where we wanted it to. It did not hit any power lines or the big nice dog. I think that was a miracle because it could have fallen the wrong way. Also we saw two bears in his yard up in a tree. A mom bear and a cub. It looked like a mom bear. Not for sure. But the mom ran off and climbed another tree and the cub was in the other tree. We got kinda close to the cub and got some pictures. I will send them later. But we were definitely being watched over if that was a mom bear. 

Yesterday in church we were in priesthood and someone signaled us to come here. And it so happens that a lady walked in church. she said that she’s a member (someone that knows her says she’s not) but she was sad and she said that she has not been to church for 17 years. Someone said she saw her walk in and asked her “can I help you?” she replied, “where is the bishop’s office?” Anyway she was wanting a blessing. she knew a member in the ward so we got him and the three of us gave her a blessing. I anointed the oil and the person that she knew gave the blessing. Anyway we are going to see her and help her pack boxes out of her apartment because she said that she had a lot of stuff and we offered to help. She told us that she once got a blessing from the JW woman and she did not feel anything. She did not feel different. So we will be meeting with her.

The other day we went street contacting and walked up to this guy sitting on a bench. He is a Catholic but he is a cool, older guy. He’s way nice. He told us the general area where he lives so we will go door to door in that area and see if we can run into him. He said that he was looking for religion and he went to different churches even the LDS church. this was like in 1987 but he went with the Catholics instead. Its sad. I have never heard of that before but I know if we try hard and pray we can run into his house. 

I want to let all of you know; Tanner, Dallin, Caleb, Tallie Wallie, and Harvey the Dog that I know that this is the one and only true Church. it is Jesus's church once again restored on this earth. In Ephesians 4:4-6 it says one Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism. There is no other way or religion to be able to return to live with your Father in Heaven again. The Bible testifies of Christ and so does the Book of Mormon because in Ezekiel 37:15-17 it talks about the stick of Judah which is the Bible and it also talks about the stick of Joseph that is the Book of Mormon. In verse 17 it says "They shall become one in thine hand. And in 2 Nephi 3:12 it talks about the Bible being the stick of Judah. The Book of Mormon and the Bible go hand in hand with each other. Both books testify of this. I know it to be true. This is the one and only true church. We are led by living prophets today that receive direct revelation from Jesus Christ. How lucky are we to be blessed by our Heavenly Father that sent his son to pay for all of the sins of the world so that we can be forgiven of all of the sin that we make, so that we can be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father again!  One thing that I learned is that earthly time and heavenly time are WAY different. 1000 days on Earth is only 1 day in heaven! So that is why it is important to live righteous lives and to obey all of the commandment and to keep all of the covenants that we make because when we die we have only been away from home for a couple of hours. All of us on earth made the decision to come and receive a body and all of us know somewhat of the gospel. That is why missionary work is so important because we are finding God’s lost children. We are helping them to be able to return to live with God and to receive the Holy Ghost which is the most valuable gift ever given. I know that all of you will make great missionaries. Serving a mission will be the best decision you will ever make. I am so happy that I was called to Canada, because that is where the Lord wants me to be and I am called here for a purpose! I know that Joseph Smith, by the power of God was able to translate what is called now The Book of Mormon. It is the most true and correct book here on this earth. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live and they are waiting for us to return home. I miss all of you and I love all of you. I’m grateful to be placed in families, especially the family that I have now, and that we will be able to live together forever as a family for eternity. I am so grateful to have wonderful parents that raised me and all of you in the gospel and in the true church, and parents that were married and sealed in the temple that made it possible for us to live as an eternal family.

I say that in the name of Jesus Christ amen.    

There is a wonderful talk that I heard and that I have. I will try and send it to you.

Love you all! Thank you for all you support, fasts, and prayers.