July 7, 2015

Sorry I did not get this sent sooner. I had it saved in my drafts. I was not completely done with it. The Canadian Library computers had some problems. I added a little bit today.

 This week we got a new Mission President! President Miles drove in to Calgary last week. We were able to meet him, and he introduced himself and his wife, he showed us a slideshow of his family and a video of their mission call. It was so cool it reminded me of when I opened my mission call.

President Miles and his wife are so nice. They are full of love and they care about everyone! I have already grown to love them. I look forward to the future and to work with them. Not a whole lot in the mission will change because he said that he likes the things that President Nicholas has done and he is not going to change that. He said that he believes in having fun, and being efficient and managing your time wisely, and that too much of one thing is bad, which is true. He also talks about how to be a successful missionary. One quote that I wrote down is: "If the only one person you save is your companion, then the Lord will say ‘well done my good and faithful servant’”.

He went on and said that the three things that we ourselves have control over are:

Knowledge

Obedience

Being Dedicated to the Work (Hard Work) 

He related this to a three-legged chair. Each of those three things that we control represents one leg on that three-legged chair. If you remove one of those legs then the chair falls!

It is a lot of work being Zone Leader. We have lots of meetings. One of those meetings is MLC. All of the Zone Leaders, STLs, Assistants, and the Mission President meet together and talk about mission goals and how to meet those goals and topics for the district leaders for their training. We also talk about mission business, like why all of the zone leaders are getting the bigger cars like the trucks, vans, and the Equinox. Reason: They are not to be used for service or moving, because it is a liability reason.

We also have meetings with the stake president.

July first was Canada Day! We had a Canada Day BBQ at the Stake Center. There were LOTS of people there…members and non members. They had special guests like a well-known veteran, and the governor or mayor was there.

There were bouncy houses. This was a big deal, lots of preparation!

I was one of the missionaries that grilled hot dogs, there were about 1500 hot dogs total, I grilled about 500. I will have to send some pictures of that along with about 40 others when I get to the FHC. Internet Explore crashes when you send pictures on these Canadian library computers. We left kinda early because we had planned to have a lesson with a part member family. The wife is a member and the husband is not. He's a really smart guy. He's a homebuilder. He built his house.  He is teaching us how to build a chair and we are going to teach him the gospel :) Fair trade.  

We had a lessonish with Bob and Pat, They were a referral for some neighboring members. That went so well. They have a strong religious background. So we just talked with them and got to know them a lot better. They like us. When we were talking with them they said that before, if Mormon missionaries knocked on their door, they would say, “No thanks I have my own religion and I’m happy where I am.” But then they said something that I liked. They said, “If we had a son on a mission then we would want people to listen to him.”

I’m sure that they have been prepared by the Lord. 

On Saturday we had some Zone Finding in High River. That went really well. The missionaries in the area choose to do zone finding. They print off like 8 maps of the area with members on it. We go to the members and ask for two referrals of someone that they know who needs help with service, or if they would like to learn more or anything like that. We as a zone received 7 or 8 referrals and one new solid potential investigator for their area. 

We had a lesson with a LA . That went really well. We watched the Mormon Message “Carrying our Burdens With Hope”.

She is going through a lot. Divorce, trying to find a hope for her son that has Augsburg’s and down-syndrome, he can be very, very physical. Her husband has Augsburg’s too. We made her day. He was happy after we left and could not stop smiling. Success.    

The Assistants are in our zone. They come to pday with us. One of them is 

American and the other one is not. So we met up at the DQ parking lot and all the Americans (3 of us) listened to some patriotic music for like 4 minutes then we went off to our apts.  The Assistants are so cool! They are way fun to be around and work with.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators, Rocio. She's from Mexico and we talked about the reading assignment that we gave her in Moroni chapter 2. That went really well. She has a really strong belief in God.