Oct 12, 2015

Caleb I know that serving a mission is the best thing that one can do. When you give 2 years of your life in serving the Lord, He will bless you as you bless and teach the people you serve.

I am thankful for the Plan of Salvation and the happiness that it brings into my life and the lives of those that I teach it to. Knowing that life does not end after death and that God does have a plan for us after we die makes me happy.

Central to Gods plan is Christ’s Atonement. Caleb God gave His son that we may be free from sin as long as we repent, and we will live again and be resurrected just as He was.

The Book of Mormon is true. It is a word of God and it is another testament of Jesus Christ. I’m thankful to be able to go to church every Sunday and renew my baptismal convents. And I’m thankful that I can pray to a loving Heavenly Father who listens and answers my prayers. It makes me sad when people do not pray. It is not a punishment, it is a privilege! Pray always Caleb, be nice to your brothers and sister. Listen to Mom and Dad

Oct. 12, 2015

This week was good. We taught lots of lessons to investigators and less actives. 

We taught Ben in the middle of the week and that was really good. He has some real intent. He is a chef and is going to culinary school to be a chef. Next week for FHE he said that he is going to bring some treats! 

 We went on exchanges with the APs on Saturday. We had a really busy day! We taught Ben again. He is really progressing rapidly. He has not attended church yet but he will have to before he is baptized. 

Yesterday we had a turkey dinner with a less active. He likes the missionaries. In the past the missionaries would go over to his house and visit him. He, like Ben, is a cook and he would feed the missionaries.

The knee is doing lots better. It was just weird that it happened.

Our other investigator Rodel, who we met with on Thursday, has to stop smoking before he is baptized. His date was on the 7^th, but he has continued to smoke. He says that he has smoked less, and he has to smoke outside because they have newborn twins. Before we went over, we were wondering what to teach him. We looked at his progress record and noticed that he has not been taught lesson 2, The Plan of Salvation, so we taught him that with a focus on the temple, Eternal Life, and the Celestial Kingdom as the end goal instead of baptism. Rodel and his wife are Filipino. His wife is a member. I really liked what his wife said during the lesson, which I think was an eye opener. She said, after the lesson, that it will not be a plan of happiness for her if Rodel is not there in the Celestial Kingdom, and if they are not sealed in the temple. I think that was really good for him to hear. 

    We helped out with this move on this acreage in the middle of nowhere! This guy had a junkyard! We filled a 5 ton, 3 ton, and 53' semi trailers! This guy had tons of junk! 

Oct. 5, 2015

 This was a good week! I forget to mention last week that we cover a YSA ward and a family ward! The YSA ward is lots of fun already. We go to FHE every Monday night! It is really really small though. So Sundays are really busy days for us! 7 hours of church is not a bad thing, but fast Sundays are not fast. They are really quite slow! Last FHE activity we cleaned the church,and today we are playing Ultimate Frisbee! 

       Tuesday after district meetings we went to the mission office to take the Spanish elders so they can exchange companions, fill out the accident report, and pick up a new car. 

My right knee has been bugging me. It was swollen, red, and warm. One of the office missionaries who is a nurse looked at it and said that I should probably get it checked out. It could be Cellulitis- infection of the skin. So it could be from a bug bite or something else like that. 
 

      On Wednesday we had one of those meetings for all of the Zone Leaders and STLs in the mission. We have that once a month. This last one was all the way in Lethbridge. Your talking about a 2 - 2.5 hour drive! But it was good and we talked about lots of stuff. 

       Thursday I went to the doctors office, for my knee. The doctor looked at it and said that it could be cellulitis, or he gave another name. I do not remember it, but it is known as Preachers Knee. It’s caused by kneeling too much or praying too much. So I guess I have been praying too much because my knee is like this... hahaha :) So he gave me some antibiotics. :/ If they do not help then they will have to x-ray my knee and see what’s up. 

       We had a lesson with a less active. We read the Book of Mormon with him. He has some health problems. He kind of uses that as an excuse not to come to church, we think. 

       We had a really cool miracle happen on Sunday during conference! We have a YSA investigator who has been taught for awhile. She wants to be baptized but she wants her family to support her in her decision. Her family does not like the Church. We think her mom is JW and her dad is Catholic. We really wanted her to come and watch Conference with us at the Church, but she lives in Strathmore which is a 35 minute drive to the stake center. After some texts to her and to the missionaries out there, she said that she can go! So then we needed to find a ride for her, which was hard but we were able to find a ride from a member for her which seems like it popped out of nowhere! They gave her a ride to the stake center and they picked her up and drove her home. She told us that she can come to FHE as well! 

       We got a new investigator! His name is Benjamin and he’s YSA aged. He is a referral from the sister missionaries. We had a lesson with him yesterday at the church. That lesson went so well! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation. He was really into it and listened well. He has Sundays and Mondays off of work so that makes things a whole lot easier! :) That first lesson went so well and the spirit was there. We invited him to be baptized on the 24th, he said yes! 

He is also coming to FHE tonight!  

       Well Conference is over.:( It came and now its gone. There were lots of great talks and testimonies. There are some that I want to print off and read.

Sept. 28 2015

Well now I'm in my new area! I'm serving in da East. East Calgary. It is also known as "The Dirty East" My new comp is Elder Colton Christensen! He went to Mountain Crest with me and we graduated at the same time.  We also came out to the mission field at the same time. 

The East is cool. It’s way different than Canyon Creek. The people here are more humble so that’s good. 

We have some investigators. We taught one of them on Friday. She has been on date or has accepted the invitation many times before. So we will have to see how it goes. She was assigned to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon but she did not read it so we read it with her. We had a good discussion after that and left her to read another chapter before the next time we meet. It was a very good lesson and the spirit was there.
  

We live in the best location in the whole mission because there are two other sets of missionaries that live in the same area.  Its just a walk to the other building to get to their apartment. Elder Hopoi is in this district. He is training! So  the line goes on! 

Last night was one of the craziest nights! We got a call from the Spanish Elders in the zone at about 8 9:20 PM. They said that they got in a car accident!  We rushed over to them. They had an ambulance, fire truck, and cop car. It was a bad accident. Sadly it was the missionary’s fault. The miracle was that no one was injured! Everyone was watched over! The missionaries’ car is totaled and the 3 month-old car they hit is most likely gone. :( We got home really late because we had to wait for the report to be filled out. Another miracle was the first and second group of people there were members! I have pictures of the cars I will send a few. I was going to send the pictures and say that this happened to me, and just leave it at that, but it is probably a good idea not too, because I pulled that card before.

Remember that truck that was damaged? Well that's the same truck that we are driving. It is all fixed and it looks good as new! :) 

That’s about it. There was a lot of packing and saying good bye to people.