March 21

This week we went to Cardston. There we met the whole zone for the first time. I met my cousin for the first time! Elder Derek Purvis! He is a District Leader in Raymond, and he’s training a missionary. He was happy to find out that we are cousins. He’s a cool guy. I got some pictures of him, and lots more pictures of other things, but I have no way of sending them because I do not have an SD card reader, and I have no place to buy one because there is no Wal-Mart in our area. I think that it will be good, because when I get home I will have lots of pictures to show for family night! A whole slide show! And I will give you a tour of Calgary on Goolge Maps!

We walked to the Church on Tuesday evening to do something, and then walked back. In Clareshome, when the sun goes down the town goes to bed. Walking home, we saw this guy walking. We talked to him and it turns out that Elder Panter knows him. He lives in the same house with a member and some other people. He knows who we are and what we do. He stayed around and listened to the dinner message when we had dinner at the house. We ended up talking to him for about 15 minutes and we gave him a Book of Mormon and a reading assignment. We had a lesson with him that week. We taught the Restoration. That was a very good lesson. He did read the chapter that we gave him, and he did accept a baptismal invite. He said that he would come to church but did not come. We have another appointment with him this week. His name is Brent, and he’s our new investigator for the week!  

 This week is so busy. We have Zone Conference and car inspections. We are wanting to go to the temple, and interviews are on April 1st. That’s funny.

We cover two wards. President has told us to focus and put most of our attention on one ward: Claresholm Ward. We still make it out to Champion once a month. We make the hour drive on Saturday to meet with Bishop and we went through the ward list, and we met with some less actives. We were able to get in one less active home. It’s hard to plan out there cause it’s too far and people don’t keep appointments. We were also there on Sunday. We gave talks in Sacrament Meeting with a High Councilman, That was good. He picked us up and drove us home. That saved us a lot of Ks! 

  

We had dinner with one of our investigators that we were not able to meet with. We taught the Restoration. His wife was there listening. Usually she wants nothing to do with church, but she sat and listened the whole time. The Spirit was there, she made the comment. Wow did you guys bug our house or something? That there was the spirit. 

I’m now getting over a small cold. Getting over it! 

Love you all 

March 14

First full week in Claresholm! It was really good. Everything is so spread out! We taught a bunch of lessons and picked up two new investigators, one of them was from tracting. We knocked on a few doors before we did some service for a member, and knocked on this guy’s door, who’s name is Darcy. We talked to him on the door for about 10 minutes about the Book of Mormon, prophets, and the Bible, told him that we did not have much time, asked if we can come back next week and we can talk more. He said okay. So kinda flaky, but we will see how it goes. 

We have been teaching Grant, he has been taught for a while. He has been put on date, but talked himself out of it. There are some things that are going on in his life that are kinda hard. We asked him if he would want another Priesthood Blessing.  We gave him one at Bishop’s house. He and his wife whom we have not taught were there for supper. We already had a supper. After our super, we went to bishop’s house and Grant and his wife were already there. We talked for a long time about the Book of Mormon, priesthood, and answered questions and concerns about things that are going on in his life, and gave him a Priesthood Blessing. That was really neat. He and his wife had watery eyes. The Spirit was really strong there.  His wife is Catholic, but she says that she will support her husband whatever they decide to do. They want to be a family of one faith. They both came to church on Sunday for all three hours! 

We also had another investigator come to church. She has been taught just about everything. It was starting to get hard on what to teach because she has been taught everything and she had not come to church. We met with her and she said that she would come. 

We cover two wards, but President told us to focus on one ward because the other ward is too far away, so we go out there once every other week or so. We are going out there this week, and we are speaking in Church this Sunday so that is something to look forward to. We are going to meet with the bishop out there and go through the ward list and find all of the less active and part member families. We did that in this ward with Bishop. We only had time to go through part of the list. We got the "H"s and there are 59 Part Member and Less Active families. So we have our work cut out for us. 

So I have been reading the Book of Mormon with the whole mission. We started on Christmas. We will end on Easter. We are highlighting every time the Book of Mormon makes reference to Jesus Christ. I am really surprised how much the book testifies of Jesus Christ. Every page talks about him. Every page except for the war chapters. That’s something that you should do as a family is to get one of the books the we hand out as missionaries and read it as a family and mark each time it makes reference to God, Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost.  It’s really cool. 

I’m in 3 Nephi right now so you have some catching up to do. 

Message to Dad Mar. 7

Where were you serving at 20 months? What were some things that were going through your head? 

Dad’s answer:

I served my last area in Little Rock, the big city life. 

Things that where going through my head:

1) I put on some after-burners and wanted to make sure I worked super hard. I may say I probably worked harder then I ever did. 

2) A drive to keep the rules with exactness. 

3) Little nervous of what’s to come after the mission life, but at the same time excited for the normal life.  

4) Wondering if the Lord was pleased with me in my 2 year journey.

5) Tired and wanted nothing more then to end with a baptism, watch never happened. 

6) Wished I was not a zone leader and training someone. (Looks like you kinda have a greeny) 

7) Ready for the small town life style and not the big city life.

8) You start looking at things differently. Not sure if I can explain it. 

9) Wanted to gain a stronger testimony of my Savior.  

10) Just felt like aaaaaaaahhh!! 

What are some of the things going through your head?

Elder Condie’s response:

       You know, those are the exact same things that are going through my head as well. One thing that President has said during my interview was to "Renew" yourself. Pray to the Lord and say that you want to renew yourself and continue to work hard. 

Keeping all of the rules is very important as well. I have done pretty swell with that. 

I’m the same… nervous and excited for the normal life, school and college. 

One of the things that I want the Lord to say when I’m done with the mission is “Well done my good, and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Just like the parable of the talents. I think that would be cool. 

I’m not Zone Leader and I don’t think that I will be again. President is having lots of young missionaries become Zone Leaders. I would have liked to do one more transfer as a Zone Leader and spend the last two as a normal missionary, but I’m a District Leader right now, and I enjoy it. Not as many executive things to do, and drama and other things that happen in the zone.   

I liked it in the city. I was there for a while. I really like the small town life now. You see many of the same people everyday, if I can learn their name and remember it that would help. haha

I can kinda see where you’re coming from on 8 and also 9 and 10. 

Time flies! 

March 7

Well I got transferred. I have served 13 wonderful months in Calgary. I thought I was going to spend my whole mission in Calgary area and now I’m in the South. My new area is Claresholm, Alberta. It’s way different from the city. I have been living the city life for 13 months now I’m living in farmland and small town. We have one set of traffic lights in the whole area, but we have a huge area geographically. 

So far it has been great in Claresholm. Lots of nice people, most of them know who we are and what we do because the town is so small and there have been missionaries here for awhile. That is why member missionary work is so so important and very crucial here. Before I left from Calgary there was a missionary in our zone who was also getting transferred. He served in Claresholm before he came to Calgary. He showed me lots of pictures and told me of people to see, and the investigators he has been teaching. He loved Claresholm. 

When I saw that I was getting transferred, I was not surprised. I knew I was going. 6 months in one area is a long time, just like in British Columbia. And we got a call that there were going to be two missionaries to take my place. We do not know why, and he is not a visa waiter either. I was surprised to learn where I was going.

 I’m no longer Zone Leader. The night I was packing I got a call from President. He was thanking me for my wonderful service and leadership as a zone leader and he called me to be his district leader. I’m back to a district leader. haha  

Packing is the worst. It’s not fun. We went to Wal-Mart and I bought those vacuum zip-lock bags those are really really nice. They helped a lot. Tanner you will have to take them when I get home they are really nice. 

When I got here there were lessons already set up. We taught two lessons with a member present. Both of the lessons went really well. Both of those investigators are close to baptism, but it might take longer for them to get there. 

We are involved with a community choir at the United Church, there are some ward members that are there to. Bishop is one of them. 

I told them that I sing bass, and I kind of do. One of the guys in charge tried to find my range and he put me in bass. He told me that I’m not very good and that he does not want me to sing very loud but wants me to be comfortable, so bass it is.   

The ward here is way sick. They are really nice and they love missionaries and missionary work. The youth are really cool too. 

We have already had success. We taught a less active who shouldn't be less active you would think, but we were able to share a message which he did not want in the past from what I heard. 

My new comp is Elder Tadd Panter. He’s from Texas and he been out for around 3 or 4 months.  He’s really sick and we are having a lot of fun. 

Before I got transferred this is what happened… 

    

      We taught Bunni and her daughter on Tuesday. They are the ones with the two dogs. That lesson went really well. We scheduled another lesson with them for next week same time. We had two lessons with less active members in the ward. After that we went to the Church because they were going to send out transfer notices. 

Feb. 29, 2016

We had a busy week. Before it started, I was looking forward for it to be over because of all the things that were going to happen. 

We had three exchanges that we had planned and we went to Banff! It was my last time at Banff. We are only allowed to go once a year, and this is my last year here. I was glad that I could go. 

On Monday to Tuesday night we started our exchange. It was good. We visited some less actives. We taught a lesson to a member and asked for a referral. She gave us someone, her neighbor, and she took us right then to introduce us to her. She was not interested. The whole exchange went great, we got them done before transfers. This week is transfers. I think that I might be transferred. I have been in this area for 6 months now. 6 months is a long time for any area. You know that you have been here for a long time when members in another ward come up to you and say that you have been here for a long time. So we will have to see. 

Wednesday we went to Banff. I will send pictures. It may all look the same from last year when I went, but there is snow in these ones. 

We went on exchanges with the other district leader. That was really good. Our dinner appointment on Thursday night brought a friend who is not a member and is interested in the Church. We were able to teach her about the Book of Mormon and the restoration. The spirit was there. The members did a wonderful job teaching too and sharing personal experiences. She is going to be taught some more lessons. She lives in Airdrie so we will have to pass her off to the missionaries up there. 

On Friday we picked up 2 new investigators, 

We were going to contact a less active member. The house right next to her had two dogs in the fenced yard. When the dogs saw us they ran to the fence barking, they said come pet me, so we pet them. The owner sees us and comes out, and we start talking, and talking. We talked about the dogs. Dad you would have loved the dogs. One of them was a German shepherd and husky mix. The other one was wolf mixed with something. We also talked about the neighborhood and other things for about an hour and a half. We missed our appointment with a less active at 2:00 because we were talking for so long. She said before her dad died he had some elders come over. Her 7 or 8 year old daughter was running in and out of the yard and in the car that was parked in front of the house. Before we left she asked her daughter if they should start taking the lessons. “Should we give it a try?” she asked. Daughter says “I don’t know,” just being shy. But we set up an appointment with them for this week. That was really cool! 

On Saturday we were on exchanges with the APs. we were on exchanges for like 4 hours because they had stuff going on during the day. 

This area is picking up more. I will find out where I’m going tomorrow night.