Hello All!

Once again so much has happened in this week that I don't even know where to begin!  Before my mission I had no idea that there was even enough time in the week for so much to happen!

We witnessed a couple of bigger miracles this week, and far too many small miracles to count. The first big miracle happened to Elder G and myself while we were on exchanges earlier this week. We were on exchanges Tuesday, and despite our best efforts seemed to be having very little success, early on in the day we did a considerable amount of Personal Finding and only met a few people who were polite enough to talk to us for even the shortest amount of time, the vast majority were severely disinterested. We tried dropping by several potential/former investigators, all of whom were not home. However we were able to have a wonderful dinner appointment with a member family, we shared a message and committed them to invite their neighbor (who we had met earlier, and given a box of doughnuts to. Different story.) to come watch a session of Conference with them. After dinner we tried contacting some referrals that we had received from members of the Ward, but were unable to get in contact with them. It was getting fairly late in the evening and I was pretty disappointed. Elder G is such a good missionary (he's from Japan and is serving an English speaking mission in BC. Also he served for a transfer with Elder M [who was in my MTC district] in California), and we had worked very hard all day and had seen little or no positive reception of our message from nonmembers, and no one had even said that we could come back. So having a few minutes before we needed to return to the apartment we decided to do some work on the other end of one of the same streets that we had been working on earlier in the day. It was pretty late (8:30ish) and many of the houses were completely dark so we decided to knock only on those houses with lights on (nobody is happy to be woken up just after they have gone to bed, no matter how good the news is). We knocked on a handful of houses and only 2 or 3 people even bothered to come to the door. Finally we decided it was time to be heading back to the apartment, but we noticed that the house that we had parked in front of had its lights on as well, so we decided to try it. We knocked and a man answered. His name is D, and we talked for almost 40 minutes at his door. We talked about Prophets and the Priesthood, we talked about the Atonement and the Book of Mormon, and we talked about Temples and the Restoration. D has lots of questions about the Church and we tried to answer as many as we could, in a short amount of time, but we told him that to answer all of his questions would take a long time, so we asked if we could leave him with a prayer and come back a different time to share more about what we know. He said we could. We are going back this Wednesday. We didn't get back to our apartment until after 9:30, but that single event turned a rather disheartening day into a good experience, and I dare say - a Miracle.

Our second big miracle happened only yesterday(Sunday), during planning Elder W had remembered a man named D that he had spoken to at the door over a month ago. D had seemed really excited to talk to the Missionaries and said that they could come back. However, they had not been able to get in contact with him since, due mainly to his work schedule. But Elder W felt like it would be a good idea for us to try back again. We went by in the late afternoon and when we knocked on the door we were immediately invited inside, we sat down and began to talk with D and less than 5 minutes later his wife (A) and 2 children (twin 8 year old boys) arrived home, they invited us to move to the living room and began to ask questions, they asked questions about the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think I have ever met anyone on my mission that is a prepared to hear the gospel as they are. In answering their questions it led us perfectly into teaching about the Restoration. As we taught about the Restoration D and A began to answer their own questions. It was amazing- a miracle to be sure! We talked a lot about the nature of the Godhead, about our purpose in life, about the Gospel and Prophets, about the Priesthood and Ordinances. Before we could even offer them a copy of the Book of Mormon D was trying to buy one from us. We told them that it was a gift, if they would read it. They agreed. They invited us to stay for dinner. We agreed! ;) We got to know them and their background even better, A shared some experiences from her own life that have helped her to come to believe in Christ, and talked about how since they have been in Canada they have been looking for a church. D told us about an accident in which he had injured and damaged his ankle and it was having a hard time healing. He asked if we could give him a blessing. We did. The spirit was very strong. The words of that blessing were certainly not our own. I know they were guided by the Holy Ghost.  After D's blessing A asked for a blessing as well for her knee which has been bothering her. After A's blessing we said a prayer and left. We will be going back before next Sunday.

 Those are some HIGHLY abbreviated versions of what happened, but I hope they convey the sheer awesomeness of the experience.

 The pen drive you got me sounds awesome! You're the best!

Sofie is going on a Mission!?!? But where? I’m guessing she must be going to Washington or Alberta, (Aaron already has Alaska) and I'm guessing Alberta. But she dreamt our Missions were combined? I doubt it. Missions are going the other way Sista! Dividing, not combining, I could see a third mission coming out of the two... maybe. But not being combined into one. Can you give me a hint? Edmonton or Calgary?

What is "Prayer Tracting" you ask?  It is a pathetic cop-out excuse for poor planning. And even I, in all my awesomeness, am guilty of it sometimes. It’s when you are too lazy to pick the streets you are going to tract in daily planning the night before, so you just write "Prayer Tracting" on your planner and figure it out when you come to it. The actual process involves praying over a map or about a specific street to decide where to tract.

 Yes, we do in fact teach the Gospel Principals class. Ideally Ward or Branch Missionaries would help carry the load, and Sister R did a good job of the when we had instigators at church in Clearwater, here we haven't had investigators at church yet, but some of the members show up because they think it is more fun. Sadly we don't have time to really "prepare" a lesson since church is at 9 and we always have Ward Council or PEC before that so no studies on Sunday. But luckily all of the topics are things that we are, of necessity, fairly well versed on, plus with a room full of active members we usually get a pretty good discussion going.

Love,

Elder Thomson

An Update on the Work....

 I don't even know where to begin this week. It seems like so much has happened, and yet we have so little to show for it.

There has been a lot of stuff going on here in our area, Elder W had a dentist appointment, and that was super boring! We were there forever! :  (  It’s been raining a lot, which is alright when you are inside, but if you’re out in it for a long time it get pretty old, pretty fast. The highlight of my week was definitely some of the miracles I was able to witness while on exchanges with Elder M in a nearby area. Just to give you a REALLY brief summary of what happened: While I was there we taught a really cool guy who wants to learn about the gospel and make changes in his life for the better. It was Awesome.

 To give you a slightly more in-depth version of what happened:

The Sister Missionaries this area found a guy named J and taught him the first lesson. When Elder M and I went over there he really opened up to us about some of the stuff that’s been going on in his life, and said that he wants to learn about the message we share and wants to change his life around for the better. He sounds super solid and has a baptismal date (I forgot the exact date) here in the next month or so. It was an amazing experience and reminded me that those "golden" people are out there, we just have to keep looking.

Side note: There have been Sisters in that area for a long time now, and they just recently put Elders in there as well, so now there are Elders and Sisters in the same Ward. From what I've heard, with the increase in missionaries, especially Sisters, the plan for the ideal situation is to divide the area of the Ward into two areas and have a set of Elders and a set of Sisters is the same Ward, that way if the Sisters come across a single guy who wants to learn about the gospel they can just hand him off to the Elders and vise-versa (which is the more likely occurrence). We will be getting Sisters in the Willoughby Ward next transfer. We already found them an apartment and we keep hitting up the members for stuff for the Sisters apartment. I just know that as soon as there are Sisters in our Ward they are going to start stealing all of our dinner appointments and having fantastic success and the members are going to love them and completely forget that us Elders are even alive! Life isn’t fair.  :   )

As for our own area, we had plans this week to visit a lot of Less Active/ Part Member families, and we did see some, but not quite as many as we would have liked, and I feel like we wasted a bit of time trying to get in contact with some of them. More inspired planning is something we will really be working on this week. We have also been working with a list we made of Former and Potential Investigators that there is no record of missionary contact with in a while. We are learning that for most of them there is a good reason why the Missionaries haven’t been in contact, but there are a few who sound like their hearts may have been softened since they talked to the Elders last, and we may be able to start teaching them again sometime soon. :  )

Other than that we are just trying to develop any kind of teaching pool.  We will continue to work with members and nonmembers to try and find those who are truly seeking for the truth, and hopefully will be locating some of them here pretty soon.

Oh, another request for stuff to include in letters or packages: Cool object lesson/game ideas to play with families and especially children... Or even grown-ups! (One thing I’m learning on my Mission is that even "grown-ups" aren’t all that grown up. They still like games. How right the Lord is when he calls us (even his disciples) Children.

I've been racking my brains trying to make stuff up on my own, but I’m only human and I wish I had a pool of ideas to draw from. The other day we were invited to share a spiritual thought at a dinner/gathering of a bunch of "adults" there were a bunch of members there including (but not limited to), the High Priest Group Leader, the Young Men’s President, the Relief Society President, at least one member of the Bishopric, all of their spouses, a less active member who hasn’t been at church in 20 years, and somebodies nonmember mom.

Needless to say we had a lot of different needs to cater to, and we needed to come up with something pretty good. I don’t know if it was inspiration or sleep deprivation but I had the idea of doing an object lesson about the Book of Mormon. We gathered up a few books from round the members house (The Magician’s Nephew, Moby Dick, some Tom Clancy book, and The Hunger Games) we then told our "audience" that we were going to play a game that I had just made up. The game was called "judge that book by its cover".

I would hold up a book and ask everyone who had read that book to raise their hand. Everyone who raised their hand was then disqualified and could not answer any of the questions about that book, I then asked the people who had NOT read the book questions about the book i.e. the main characters name, the name of the villain, the weapon of choice, the love interest, that kind of stuff. The answers had to be specific or detailed (or else I would ridicule them and put them in timeout, ha-ha!), after a few questions the people who HAD read the book would get to tell everyone else just how wrong they were.

We did this for several books, and the last book was the Book of Mormon. This time no one was disqualified, I asked some of the same questions, and then we talked about how people can judge books by their cover and think that they know all that they need to know about that book. Then we shared D&C 88:118 and the last two paragraphs from the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. We bore our testimonies that The Book of Mormon is true and that everyone who reads and prays with a sincere heart can learn of its truthfulness for themselves. We closed in the name of Jesus Christ.

It went pretty well I thought and there was some good solid spirit filled silence while we were bearing our testimonies, which in contrast to the riotous game show atmosphere that I had created just previous, was pretty potent.

But yeah, I need some fresh ideas! :D  And that’s my week!  Got to run!  Until next week…

LOVE YA, BYE!

Elder Thomson

Hello Everybody!

 Yup, it’s me signing in from Canada and yes, I was transferred. My new area is actually right around the Temple, and my new Companion is called Elder W. Both are awesome. Yeah, I get to see the Temple! Our Ward meets in the Chapel right behind it. They share the parking lot! I love to see the Temple! I’m going there someday... in the next three months-ish... if I’m still around then.

You know, it’s funny the Langley Temple looks smaller when you see it in pictures but it’s actually still really big. It is smaller than some others, bit still, impressive. It also looks way different from the back, it’s sort of... Cardston-esk?

We are indeed living in a basement, and yes members do own the home, and members live there as well, but the members that own the home and the members that live there are not the same members. The members who own the place are actually serving a mission right now, I don’t remember where now; I guess it didn’t seem important at the time. The members who live upstairs are actually a younger family who apparently may be moving to Oregon soon! Cool.

 So much to remember so little brains to remember it all! :  (   I hope I will be able to remember everyone’s names!  I have met so many people so far and I’m already straining myself trying to keep track of them all.

The dynamic in the Ward seems to be a bit different than I have become used to in the Branches I have been serving in before now, but the members here seem to be really excited about missionary work, almost as excited as the Branches were, so I think we can expect great things to come.

From what I can tell our teaching pool is relatively small as of right now, but Elder W and I have already begun to work on changing that. We have several promising potentials and a lot of referrals, so we should see some new investigators coming up here pretty soon as well. That'll be nice.

What do I know about Elder W? He is the oldest missionary I have served with so far. Elder A was 19, Elder M turned 20 while I was with him, and Elder W is 22. He is the middle of three children and the only boy. He is from... guess where! Utah. He has served most of his mission in the lower mainland (the area immediately around Vancouver).

As for Elder M, he got transferred to Terrace (up by my old stompin' grounds!) and is a Zone Leader with Elder E (following in his father [Elder A']s footsteps!). My current District Leader is Elder M and who (according to an investigator named L) I sound a lot like on the phone.

We are in a car still. It’s some kind of Subaru instead of the Chevy’s I've had before. Oh, and it’s just us in the apartment. We have bikes as well and I have my feet just about everywhere I go so we can get around lots of different ways. The climate and weather here is the most like home of any of any of the places I have been, and the area is the most affluent.

One kinda interesting thing that has happened here so far is we went to go look for this guy that a member of our Ward referred us to but didn't know exactly where he lived just the street. So we were knocking doors and we talked to a few nice people, one couple in particular was really friendly, but alas uninterested. The husband was just heading out to walk the dog and so when we left he left too but walked to other way down the side walk. We finished tracting the street and were unable to locate the person that the member had suggested we see. As we were walking back toward the car and were passing the mailboxes we passed the same guy that we had talked to before. We spoke to him again this time about his family and his sons who play soccer. I asked him if his family set aside a special night of the week to spend together just as a family (Family Home Evening), he said that they had a family dinner every night around the dinner table and just talked about whatever. We had a pretty good discussion about families and how a knowledge of and faith in God really helps us come closer to each other and ultimately our Father in Heaven. Just as we were about to say goodbye Elder W asked the man’s name, turns out, it was the guy we were looking for. It was a miracle.

Sure, we didn't get a return appointment, yeah, he said he was uninterested, but that's the kinds of silly "But then's" that ruin almost every miracle, no matter how big or small.

"Moses parted the Red Sea, “but then” it went back together."

"Lazarus was raised from the dead, “but then” he died again a few years later."

"God guided us to exactly where we needed to be, “but then” we didn't get a baptism out of it."

"But then’s” are created by the adversary to bring us down, to blind our eyes to the goodness of God, and to bind us down to utter destruction.  They are the product of fear, doubt, and selfish self-pity, and if we were to let them they will completely destroy every last modicum of faith, hope, or charity that we possess. So whenever you catch yourself starting a "But then..." stop it! Cut it out! And a lot of the time you'll find yourself left with a miracle.

No pictures this week. I forgot my camera at the apartment and I don’t know if I can send pictures from this computer or not anyway.

Got to run! Love ya lots.

Love,

Elder Thomson

Picture Time Again!

It’s about that time again…That's right. It is transfers today. It seems like I just got here (even though I've almost tracted every house in town).

But that also means that I owe you guys some pictures. I’m sorry I've been pretty awful about being consistent in my writing and sending pictures. I'll try to do better. (As always.)

Here is a picture of what I did after I emailed you guys last week.

The waterfall we went to see are called Helmeken falls and they are in the Wells-Gray Provincial Park. It was a little bit of a drive, but well worth it.

Once we got up there we didn't have to walk far to get to the falls but I was still pretty thirsty. ;)

Elder M and I at the falls:

 Elder D and I under a tree while on exchanges. Elder M and Elder D were inspecting our car and Elder D and I were discovering cool places….under a tree.

 

Elder M's birthday cupcakes: We don't have a cake pan, only a dollar store cupcake pan, so we had cupcakes for Elder M's birthday. They were actually really good. :D

 

Planning with a soccer ball: I don't really even remember this, which must have been how well planning was going. :/  But hey! It’s a picture of me! Happy?

 
And this one time….I don't remember if I told you about this or not it’s not really that interesting  but Elder M tried to park our car in a ditch and we got stuck. Our Branch President came and pulled us out with his truck so everything was okay about an hour later. But it was still a fun adventure.

Mini-Missionaries: Here’s a picture of these guys. I didn't get a picture of them on my camera so I had to steal one off of Elder M's.

I really don't know why the power outlet is up so high on the wall. I never really worried about it before. But now I'm curious. Most of them are in the normal places. I think that one in our kitchen is the only one I’ve seen that way up on the wall. There’s another one in the back room that’s up there (we plugged Christmas lights into it) and I’ve seen a few on peoples ceilings. My guess is that they are for lights of some kind or another.

That’s all folks! That’s all I have time for again.

Love ya, bye! :D

Elder Thomson