All We Can Do Is Pray

The weather has felt like spring, it’s been in the 3-8 degree range all week, sunny for the most part, and we have almost no snow!!! 

This week we did quite a bit of finding and stopping by people trying to get in to teach them, been kind of tough though with the amount of Km's we have per day.  We have 29 k's a day... and we have gone over the last couple days by 10 I think.  So we have done a lot of walking to try and save our butts. 
So I’ll give a quick summary of the cop story Sister Dalsing mentioned last week. 
So me and Black were tracting in the place we call little India cause of all the East Indians there, we had been there for a few hrs. Knocking and not really found anyone and it was pretty darn cold but we kept going. We got to this one door with a bunch of stuff outside of it kind of like they might be moving, so we knock and we didn’t get an answer but as we start to walk away a girl opens up the top window and asks what we want- we tell her and she told us to come back at 5.  We tract for a bit till then and go back.  We go in and its 3 kids all about our age sitting in the dark.  We start talking with them and getting to know them, they are super nice kids, with some bad family problems.  We start teaching them and about 5 maybe 6 minutes in the girl stands up and starts to hyperventilate saying cops or someone is here! Cops came to the door and called for her, so they talked to her and the boys stayed inside with us. The lady cop kept saying either you or all of you are going to jail I don’t care! Meanwhile the boys are telling us how they had been praying for help and someone to come to them and that day we showed up. They saw that God had answered their prayers and they were so happy they were crying.  It was a really cool experience.  They asked why all of this was happening when they were trying to live well and do good things.  They said they couldn’t even stay at the house during the night for fear of someone coming in and doing something to them.  So every night they waited till dark and then locked the doors and went out the back door to go some place else to sleep for the night. We feel so bad for them, but we don't have the power to change what was happening or to really even help them other than to tell them God loves them and knows what is happening and in the end they will be okay. We called the kids a few days later to see if they were okay and found a place to go.  They were okay but hadn’t found a place to go yet. All we can do for them really is pray they will be okay, so that’s what we've been doing.
Not too much has been going on this week other then we move a lot of people, do lots of finding, but its good!

 

Well I’ll talk to you all next week! Love ya

 

Hope the story makes sense.

 

Regina, Sask

Hello Elder Nelsons family and friends! This is Sister Dalsing Typing. Elder Nelson didn't want to email you, but I told him that he has to email yall so now I’m writing it for him.

This week has been good! Elder Nelson is in Sunrise ward. The members are nice. The work is going good! Elder Black, his companion is awesome. They almost got arrested by a lady cop.

The winter is getting colder and it's weird being in a big city. I miss going fishing and hunting and riding my horse.

Elder Nelson loves you all! Have a great week!!!

So yeah that pretty much my week!  If I had some more time I’d tell you more about the cops and all that good stuff, but we are heading off here soon to go bowling.

Elder black is pretty great.  He’s from Logan Utah, and yes he’s the same elder black that trained Elder K. Nelson.  He reminds me a lot of my Uncle David ha-ha he says a lot of the same things David does.

The weather here is way colder than MB!! It’s so cold at night, but it’s been good.  The big city isn’t too bad so far.

The area is good I like it so far. I’m going to get so lost in here though, I don’t even know where we are going half the time on the roads.

Love you all!

 

 

 

Elder Smith

First snow in Manitoba.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Neepawa

Well goodbye Neepawa.  Kind of sad to leave it but not really.  I’m going to the Sunrise area in Regina with Elder Black and I’m the DL still... not too sure how I feel about that but.

I had a few things I was going to say this week but now I don’t know what it was, so this is going to be another short email.

Got lots of snow this week.  Got down to -20 one day!  

Almost have a baptism date with Marilyn!! Still have a few things to get over with her but she’s coming along!  

Umm yeah that’s really all that went down this week...

Love ya all sorry it’s kind of short again this week

 

 

I may have given Riley a butt kicken over email about the lack of info in his letters.

His response:

I know I’m slacking on letters but idk what else to put really!!? It’s all the same every week, it’s cold, we tracted, got lunched by an investigator, talked to Ed and Marilyn, and had church" that’s our week almost every time. If I had more to write I would. 

Today was kind of  flipped my day around... it’s kind of killing me inside to leave these guys and to go be DL for people I don't even know. Lots going on right now.  Lots a big change. Don’t worry I can do it, just give me a bit of time to get things figured out.

Love ya mom.  I’ll try to do better in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

He Almost Killed Us!

Well you can all stop worrying now! I am not dead, the internet was down this morning in the library here in Neepawa and you know what that means when I’m emailing in Neepawa, only an hr. to talk.  So again if I don’t get to you I’ll try to this next week.

So not too much exciting this week.  We did some tracting and had exchanges with dauphin down here in Neepawa on Wednesday.  We also had ZC on Thursday that was long but good!  Oh Elder Doolen just about killed me and him Wednesday on the way to Gladstone to stop by some members.  It had been snowing all day and it was kind of warm out so the snow was melting as it hit the ground, but later in the day it turned to ice...  and later in the day was when we went to GS.  So we were driving down the road talking about going to his home place AZ after the mission and he’s like well all we got to do is go like this! He grabs the steering wheel and yanks it towards him!! We go fishtailing all over the road with the roads all iced up! Somehow I managed to keep us on the road and got the car back under control.  I gave him a little bit a crap for that one needless to say ha-ha it’s like he’s never drove on bad roads before!  (Cause he hasn’t)

Went to a Ukrainian Catholic church on Sunday, that way different!  We were out driving around late Saturday night looking for people we could help move snow for and we saw this guy clearing his church walk way, so we stopped and helped him and after we got done he invited us to church! So we went! I’m so glad our church doesn’t burn candles during it or get up and down every 2 min!

And that our week!   Well a quick rundown of it.  I’ll tell you more when I get home ha-ha

Love ya all! Talk to you next week!

Battle of the Pounds

Well this week was a cold one, finally got snow up in here... not to much though so that was alright.Was enough though to turn Neepawa into a frozen waist land.  it’s pretty funny to see all the Filipinos walking around with just their eyes showing ha-ha guess they think it’s a little colder than I do. 

Had exchanges with dauphin this week so we were up there for the start of the week doing stuff with them.  Met a guy they are teaching named Zack.  He’s a Satanist atheist, kind of different I know.  Super nice guy that loves to talk and ask question.  Told us that there is a certain beauty behind some of the Satanist beliefs, like the skull for instance.  It’s a symbol of death and how we need to live every moment of our lives to the fullest, cause death is always around the corner.  Pretty interesting huh
Found a new investigator Mark here in Neepawa a few days ago!  He’s working 2 jobs so he’s never home but we caught him home the other day so we got lucky.  He is trying to get his family here from the Philippines, and he likes to explore religions!  So we might get him to church!!
Something the AwaHin district started this week was the AwaHin Battle of the Pounds for one week.  its where me and elder woodruff are trying to lose the most weight in one week VS Elder Doolen trying to gain the most weight in one week.  Elder Smith didn’t want in on it so he’s kind of the judge.  And at the end of the week we all get together with or weights and see which one won ha-ha stupid I know, but we got nothing else to do but that and mission work.  Me and elder woodruff have lost 10-11lbs since Tuesday night and elder Doolen so far has gained 11.  So that’s been our excitement out here in the middle of nowhere for the past week.

And that’s the week for ya really. 

Love ya all, and talk to you next week!          

 

 

Finished the Book of Mormon Again!

Not a whole lot went down this week.  Did lots of service for everyone as usual, which I was just fine with. 

Me and Elder Doolen got yelled at by a guy last night for knocking to late at night, it was only 8:15! We weren't even at his door when he came out yelling at us so it was kind of funny.  He’s like "hey you guys know what time it is!?  Its 8:30!  Who’s going to open the door for you guys at this time of night? (His wife answered the door at his place) its pitch dark out here!!"  He even said he was going to call the cops on us but we kept knocking anyway. 

So that's our week really... wish I had some more to tell.  Maybe next week!

Love ya all!

Finished the Book of Mormon this morning!! 2nd time in the mission/ever!!

Oct 16,2017

 

Elder Smith and I 

Two Nineteen Year Old Boys

Well we are here in Neepawa this week so you know what that means, only an hr. of email time so if I don’t get to you this week ill for sure get to you next week!

Crazy to think I only have 4 more months and I’ve been out for a yr. already!  Hit the 8 month mark yesterday. 
Lots of good things happened here this week in Neepawa, well maybe not a lot but a fair amount.
We spent most all of Thursday at the Neepawa press and banner putting newspapers together for all the areas around us here.  Met lots of good people to know here in the town, even got to go out for dinner with the boss of the press and banner at Boston Pizza.  So that was a pretty good day for us!
Then yesterday we did some tracting for our PIs (potential Investigators) and we got let into a house and taught a guy named JC, he’s 33 and has a family of 3 as far as we could tell. To no surprise he’s Filipino!  We taught him the restoration and as we went through it he just kept on opening up to us more and more.  He has a lot going on in his life right now with his wife, work, and trying to take care of his son.  Sounds to us like he and his wife has some sort of miss understanding and she left to go back to the Philippines... So he’s not doing to well right now with that.  He was very excited to have two 19yr old boys teaching the gospel to him.  He doesn’t like very many churches anymore, because he says they are all out for their own personal gain and don’t care about the people.  But he liked us because I guess we aren’t out for money and aren’t tainted by society yet ha-ha
A few times during the lesson he about broke down and started to cry just from some of the things we said.  When we got to the first vision part of the lesson that was the strongest I’ve felt the spirit in a lesson since the MTC.  And that brought him and Smith to tears, it was a pretty neat experience for all of us I think.  We Committed JC to C.P.R. so church, to pray, and to read the B of M, and we even got him to commit to a baptismal date for the 18th of Nov! So this week was a pretty good week for us.  We are pretty sure that JC will be baptized.  It might not be with us, but we feel that somewhere down the line he will be baptized!  But we really hope it’s with us!

And that’s all the really exciting news from us for this week!

Love ya all, talk to you next week!    

 

 

District Leader

Well this is some shocking news here in the AwaHIn district!  Elder hart is leaving and so is elder Hirschi.  Elder Hirschi is going home though so we knew that was coming.  Elder Hart is being transferred.... SO me and Elder Doolen are training, and I’m the DL....!!! R.I.P. Can Win mission, I don’t know what is going to happen with me and Elder Doolen training.

This week was decent, found a new investigator!!! Her name is Suzie, she’s Filipino, and has 3 kids.  Super nice and promising family! 

General Conf was super great!! We drove up to dauphin for the priesthood and stayed for Sunday session since we have to be here for DM on Tuesday.  Sunday me and Hirschi made a maze for Doolen and Hart to go through, that was kinda fun. They couldn’t make it. Ha-ha

 Love ya all!! Talk to ya next week!

General Conference

 

Love getting texts like this, makes a mom feel good to know her missionary is being taken care of.

"Cleaning up after lunch between conference sessions. Enjoying having your son here." -sister ?

 

 

 

Patching Bob's Roof

Well this week has been kinda wet... its rained pretty well all week. I have a goal not to use my umbrella during my mission, and so far I'm doing good!  Its pretty funny seeing peoples reactions when we come to their doors.  One lady she saw us and she's like " your crazy!! its raining!  Go home!! "  " So your not interested in what we have to share!? " haha

Umm what else.... I think thats it really.  Not a whole lot to say this week.
 Hope all is good back home! love ya all!

Hey so I got a new member/ family the Michelson’s and his wife is from MT View!! Sister West.  She went to school with Matt Nelson's age group.Also I’m going out to Kelly’s tomorrow on exchanges with Elder Hirschi; should be fun!!
 

Working on Bob Barnaby’s roof.  He’s a funny old guy! Love that family! 

 

He told me to guess which side was his patching job and which was the other Elders...He's a Nelson not hard to know his work will look pretty even on an old roof. He has also spent many hours shingling a few roofs.

 

 

 

Seven Months Already

Well another week done here in Neepawa!  Hit my 7 month mark on Friday, kind of crazy to think it’s already been 7, sure doesn't feel like it!

Not too much happened this week.  Had ZC in Winnipeg with Elder Anderson from the 70 and his wife come down to talk to us about stuff, that was good! Don’t remember anything really other then it was good...
We started to re tract Neepawa on Saturday, the people are loving that.... it’s only been I think 5-6 months since they last started, so everyone remembers us.  Good thing they have been nice so far about us coming back so soon.
Ended up giving a surprise talk on Sunday!  Thank goodness for my stash of talks I’ve given in my desk. I gave my fair well talk on the Book of Mormon, it went pretty good.
We had exchanges with the Brandon Spanish elders here after ZC, so I and Elder black from Lethbridge went together for the day.  It’s kind of nice being with a fellow Canadian, don't have to put up with the Americans and their trash talk about Canada all day.  Elder Black did some language study with me and he pretty well just taught me the basics of Spanish.  So he’s got me practicing reading the B of M in Spanish so that I can transfer over to a Spanish elder someday ha-ha

Love ya all. Talk to ya next week! 

Expert on the Family!

Well first things first, we aren’t in Dauphin today with ZC happening later this week, so that means that I only have a hr. to write.  Which means I might not get to all of you today, so if I don’t get to you I’m sorry but I’ll get to you next week!

Not too much has been going on here lately, just the same old stuff as usual.  Got no crazy stories for ya either... But Elder Hart did teach his first law of chastity lesson this week; that was fun!! He did pretty good to, must be that trainer of his that makes him so good! jk jk

Met up this week with one of our LA (less active) members Bob, he’s awesome.  We helped him move a couch around and pick up parts for his VW collection he has.  He has a yard full of old VW's and he just works on them when he feels like it and restores them eventually. He gave me a Combucha plant while we were there! So now I got my own little plant to make Cumbucha with, we'll see how that goes though. 
Taught Sunday school again this week.  Lesson was on eternal families.  By the time I’m done here I’ll be and expert on the family!  This is the 3rd lesson I’ve taught on families.  Kind of feels weird teaching all these married people how to raise their kids and run their family, but it’s fun!
I think that’s about all that’s new for us this week.  Like I said not too much going on lately then the usual.

Love ya all, talk to ya next week!  

Yeah, I got my package you sent back with Millward's, don’t remember what was in it though... been kind of busy lately.

Can almost hear, finally!!!

 

Not Feeling Very Good

Well this week has been kind of sucky...I’ve been sick for most of it.  I got a wicked earache this Saturday night and was up till 1:30 fighting it off.  Still can’t hear outa my right ear very well but it don’t hurt much anymore.  Still feel like crap... thus no email for the week.

Love ya all. Don’t worry about me

Southern Alberta Boys Meet Up!

Well another week has come and gone out here in the Can Win mission! Was a decent week for the most part.  Got to see who my trainee is finally!!! His name is Elder Hart, from Grand G Colorado, loves water sports and thats all i know really haha  i suck at gettin to know people as you can tell.  Got to see Keston and Morgan/ Elder Nelson and Berry during transfers!! that was nice.  Sounds like me and elder Nelson were both wishing president Craig was going to put us together for training, but the first thing pres Craig said was " alright im going to get the suspense here out of the way, now Elder Nelson here has his cousin Elder Nelson in this mission and he's right there on the computer screen, but they wont be serving together, yet."  But I got to see him later that say so that was good.

SO the first day for Hart we went and set up a lesson with Ed and Marilyn on saturday.  I knocked on the door and then stepped aside like i usually do, so when Ed came to the door he couldnt see me, all he could see what Hart and he doesnt know Hart yet haha I heard the door handle move like the door was gonna open but then it stopped.  So i put my head around the corner to see what was up, and there was Ed looking like he was ready to through Hart off his property!!  Then Ed saw me and he opened the door laughing.  He said he was gonna tell us to go away untill he saw me there haha   Hart almost got rejected by our investigators! So I thought that was kinda funny. 

 
Taught sunday school again this week.  did it on eternal family's, and from what i could tell it went pretty good!
Drove up to Dauphin last night like we usually do.  had our sunday night AwaHin poker tournament again, and i won, again haha   Not sure if thats a good thing or not....

And thats about it for the week.  Nothin to exciting.

love ya all, talk to you next week!

  This is what I call dedication! And a awesome wife!

Nelson and Nelson...I Hope!

Well I don’t have much for you this week.  But I do have some news on T-mail, I’m training again! If luck plays out right it might be Elder Nelson and Elder Nelson.

Work kind of slowed down here this week, but it’s still been good. Had 37 people at church yesterday in our Apt.... it was pretty full.  We even started up the YW and YM’s program now in the unit!  So we are growing slowly!Other than that nothing else has really gone on for us here in the AwaHin district.  No climbing out of windows or jumping rivers with a shopping cart. 

Guess I'll talk to you all next week! Love ya!

The Worth Of Souls Is Great

Well not too much different went on this week.  Did the usual, lots a walking n tracting. Found 3 new I's this week! We have to have one of the members with us though when we teach 2 of them since they don’t speak English very well, they understand it decent though.  

So being in Neepawa we have to come to Dauphin for pdays since we have district meeting Tuesdays, then we go home Tuesday afternoon usually.  Well last pday we had quite the adventures...  started out with trying to pull a tree down in a park with the 100' rope we had, took us a while to pull it over but we got'er!  Now you’re probably wondering now why we had 100' rope in the first place, well we saw a shopping cart last week in the river that we wanted to get out but it’s in the middle and we can’t "swim", so Hirschi got a rope and a big hook that we were going to use to pull this cart out with.  We lasted out 10min before we decided to give up on the cart, it wasn’t going anywhere.   So we started back for the car and as usual we aren't on the trail, and we came across another cart in the river!! SO we drop down to the bottom of the river’s edge and we start working this cart out of the water.  We eventually got it out!  SO now we got this cart out and we don’t know what to do with it and us being boys we think of something dumb to do with it.... we threw it back out into the water and we are in the middle of the river on a little island.  We tossed everything that would help us get across to the other side, and the plan was we had to use the cart to get back across.  Dumb I know.  Doolen is the first to try the idea out, and his feet are all wet from stepping in the water to get to the cart so he’s sliding all over the place on this cart trying to find the best way to jump off it.  He gets ready to jump, and he failed!  He belly flopped into the river ha-ha now it was Hircschis turn, he get up there and he’s sliding around to but he finds a good edge and only got his feet a little wet.  Now for me... I got up there and I found a good edge too and made it across only getting my feet a little wet.  Then Thomasson has his shot ha-ha we were all pretty excited for this one, because he’s got no balance.  So we pull cameras out and start videoing this.  He was on that cart for a good 5min just fiddling around! Eventually he finally jumped, and to our disappointment he didn’t fall in....:/   but it was still pretty funny. But just wait that’s not all for pday... later that night we used that 100' rope to escape the Apt once it got dark.  We tied it to a bed and we tossed it out the window, then we all climbed down the rope to the ground ha-ha now this rope was the cheapest crap we could find since we are poor missionary's so it stretches a lot, and on top that the rope was wet from earlier!  Definitely not for climbing out windows in the dark.  We should have just jumped the 15' out the window, probably woulda had less rope burn.  For some reason we do all this stuff, we are thinking of videoing it and starting a YouTube channel ha-ha Last night we played Russian roulette with a mouse trap and a few other things under paper towel and we had to all come in one at a time and put our hand down on something till one of us got snapped!  Why are we so dumb, I don’t know?   But it makes for a good story.

Alright lets get a little spiritual now.  I was reading the scripture Matt 20: 1-16 and that’s about the laborers in the vineyard.  You’ll have to read it, because I don’t have time to type it all out for ya. But what I got out of it was that we all have one goal in common, and that is to make it back to our Heavenly Father.  But the one thing that makes it harder for one of us then the other is when we find the path to the lord or get "hired" in this sense.  There’s some that get hired early in life, and there’s others who spend their days looking for someone to hire them and give them that chance to make something of them self's.  I see the first hired people as the members born into the church, who have it all set for them and they don’t really need to worry about what’s going on, they have a job and all they need to do is show up and put the work in.  Then there’s the master of the vineyard who is the lord, and then the servants who go and find people obviously missionary's.  They go out and find those looking for a job wanting to do something good but don’t know where to find it, and bring them into the vineyard and they can now get what they were looking for. 
Now there’s some who will come and work for a bit and think it’s too hard to live this way or do the work and they might leave the vineyard!  It is our job as members and missionary's to go back out to the streets and find those who have left us and those who are searching and bring them back.
We need to have enough love for our brothers and sisters out there in the world to put ourselves aside and look outward instead of inward all the time.  I promise that if you start looking for ways to serve your brothers and sisters, you will see a difference in your life and the way you view those around you.
Even if you feel you are lost and there is no hope in coming back to church and trying to change your life, know this; your heavenly father loves you and he wants you to come back to him, not matter your condition.  You will always be welcome in his home and the members of his church will help you every step of the way.  Come home.
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;    And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!  And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!

Can you believe I’ve been out 6 months already?!


Love you all and I’ll talk to you next week!

 

Teaching Sunday School

Well not too much is going down here in Neepawa.  Sure do miss the stories I got up in the Flon, made things a bit more interesting for me to send out to you guys.
Had interviews here this week in our Apt since it’s the "church".  President said that I most likely won’t be in the Brandon zone my whole mission, or in the outlying areas forever.  Says I have to be in the city at some point.... Also told me that I might possibly be with Thomasson for another transfer.  Says he needs me to brake in this bronco a bit more ha-ha
Taught Sunday school yesterday, it went pretty good id have to say, must have been the 6hr prep I did for it.  I taught on the atonement.  I made my own lesson on the atonement, taking stuff from the talks the meaning of the atonement, and his grace is sufficient.  The spirit there in the lesson was pretty strong, strong enough that I almost cried while teaching... but it didn’t! Now you are probably wondering what was so good that I almost cried. I talked about how the atonement is like piano lessons.  Mom pays the lessons in full for us so we can learn.  We don’t pay mom back though through practice, nor do we pay the piano teacher through practice.  We pay through our appreciation of mom paying for our lessons, so that we can live our life on a higher level.  Just like Christ payed in full for our sins so that we could live our life on a higher level.  But we need to show our appreciation to him by using that gift he has given us.  Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t practice.  If we don’t practice then we won’t be using that gift given to us, and we won’t be showing our appreciation for that sacrifice Christ or Mom has made for us to be better. We need to see our self's through Moms eyes every once in a while.  We need to see what she see in us and what she knows we can become, only if we would put the time and effort in.  It won’t be easy, and you’re going to hit a few wrong notes as you practice, but mom doesn’t say "oh you’re not good enough to keep practicing” when we hit those wrong notes.  She says “keep trying, you'll get it".  As hard as it may be to keep hitting those notes over and over again it will be worth it when you look back and see those blessings that came from your persistence and not giving up! 
The lord loves you just as much if not more than your mom does, and he wants you to succeed in this life, and he has given us a way we can do that.  All he asks is for practice, and to love and appreciate his sacrifice has made for you. We read in the scriptures “no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God".  But what unclean thing will want to enter into Gods kingdom? If we are not being heavenly then heaven will not be heavenly. 
When judgement day comes we will not be begging God "please let me in!'  If we were not doing well in this life.  Rather we will be saying "Get Me Out Of Here!"  We will not feel worthy to be in Gods presents.  But God and Jesus Christ will be pleading for us saying “please, use my atonement! Come home." We need to make sure that we are doing the best we can in this life!  We need to be ready to stand in front of god at judgement day knowing we did all we could to stay clean and unspotted from this world we are living in, and say "I am ready to come home." 
God loves us.  All we have to do its take advantage of his gift to us, and stop looking for someone to blame for our problems, rather we should be looking for someone to help us overcome those problems. 
I know god loves each and every one of us, and he wants us ALL to return to live with him.  Just practice!

Love you all and I’ll talk to you next week!

 PS I’m not reading over the whole email again so hopefully it makes sense.

What he said when we told him about his horse:

I bet it does!  treat'er good now;)  I cried more leaving her then I did the fam ha-ha

Super Short Letter!!!

Well this week has been killer hot, super humid up here... feels more like Mexico then Canada. Did lots of tracting, taught quite a few lessons this week so that was nice! Not too much to tell this week, just another day in the mission.  Hmmm I can’t even think of anything to write about right now.  Everything is starting to be the same out here.

 Love you all.

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Andrea Nelson <nelson532@live.ca> wrote:
Riley, this is the shortest letter you've ever written!!! Are you missing all the craziness of Flin Flon?

 Yeah it was pretty short.... not a whole lot to write about this week.  My journal writing is getting shorter too, but it has all the good stuff in it so you’ll have to read it when I get home.  Emailing is just kind of a pain now, but I’ll keep writing, even if it’s something like this week.

 Me and Thomasson

 Elain’s garden in Gladstone, she’s 80 and does all that on her own!!!

 

He loves Dogs

Well this week has been pretty good.  Still doing lots of tracting up here.  I about killed Thomasson this week with tracting from 1-8:30 he wanted to go home at 8 and eat, but me being me I was like well were here so we better make the most of it! and I kept telling him okay this is the last block, then we'd get done that block and I’d be like ahh lets go one more ha-ha he wasn’t to impressed with me for a while but later that night he thanked me for pushing him even though he was going to kill me.

This week we had another run in with a dog.... Thomasson about got eaten by it ha-ha! We went up to this house and I was a little ahead of Thomasson.  I saw a dog chain but no dog so I went on up not thinking anything of it, when all the sudden I hear Thomasson behind me going "oh a dog!!"  He loves dogs.... so I turn around like, what? there’s no dog there.  lo and behold there’s a dog staring up at him from under this car.  Right when I saw it I knew he was going to kill Thomasson, it blew out from under that car right at him and started to try and take him down.  I just stood there like well I can’t do too much here so I’ll let him deal with it ha-ha and eventually he gets out of the dogs radius.  About that time I realize I’m still in the radius..... So I start booking it to get out of there, and this dog takes after me!! Luckily I was faster than it and got away.  But the lady inside the house saw me running and dust flying around, so she comes out wondering what’s up.  But yeah that was our dog experience this week!  Ha-ha the lady didn’t know what was up with her dog, she said she never has done that before.  I think it’s the white shirts and name tag personally ha-ha

One of the new missionary's here said he’s seen me before the mission.  His name is elder rich and he said he was looking up some stuff about the mission and came across my blog I guess and read some of it, so he thought that was pretty cool that he got to meet the guy he read about before his mission.  So I guess I’m famous.
We went to a street party this week here in Neepawa, it was pretty sweet! It was against racism to the Filipinos.  Someone on Canada day did welcome to the lad of the Asians on the welcome to Neepawa sign ha-ha so we went and did a walk down main street with them and then had a big pot luck and singing and  dancing after.  
For ZC this week we did the district 4... We all got together and made videos of us teaching and contacting people, it was pretty terrible but kind of fun.  Still got some work to do before we are as god as district 1 and 2.
Elder berry sent me a bday pack with a planner, black label Mtn. Dew, a tie, and of course para cord ha-ha! Love that guy!

Love you all!!!  Be home before you know it!  Going on 5 months, crazy huh?!

  Well that’s pretty well the week for us. 
If I don’t get back to all of you with the individual emails its cause I only have and hr. on this computer before it kicks me off.  I’ll do my best though.

Talk to you all next week! Love ya!  

 

 

God's Timing

So this week has been kinda crazy with transfers and all that good stuff.  Before I left Flin Flon I had one last lesson with Evan, and it was probably the best one we've had yet even if he did almost former us... We got in there and we talked for a bit, then he brought up all his doubts and how it’s not the right time for him right now and there’s too much going on really to get to into this.  So we tried to help him see that even though the timing for you might not be the best in your eyes, god must think this is the right time because he brought us to you.  I told him about how before my mission I was doing all this stuff with my friends and how I could have easily stayed behind and not come out here, but I didn’t.  Even though the time to me wasn’t right I knew that god knew this was the time I needed to come out, even if it was going to be hard to leave all this behind.  So I came to the call even though I had everything else going on in my life.  I went into more detail then but that’s the main idea of what I told him, and it seemed to have an impact on him because we are still meeting with him!

Thursday I believe it was I got put with my new comp Elder Thomasson from Washington State, he lives in the tri cities, 20yrs old and has a looottttttt of energy ha-ha and you who know me well know how good I am with high energy people... but he means well and we are getting along good, just got a few things to work out since I’m his step dad with training.  He still has all his old trainers ideas in his head and isn’t too good with adjusting to how I train, with time I hope we can work something out though.

First hr. in Neepawa I spent in a lesson with an older couple Ed and Marilyn, they are great!  You have to yell at Ed though so he can hear us ha-ha so it’s hard to make things spiritual.  We are so close to having them baptized, but Ed has been baptized already and doesn’t see why he should do it again.  But they came to church and they have us over every other day for a lesson, so in time they will get in the water.

the second day here I made Thomasson walk all over ha-ha and on the way home we had this younger guy Brain pull over on the side of the road asking if we wanted to talk! So we said yeah!  we got in and he took us out to eat, then we spent the next 2hrs in his car parked talking to him about the character of Christ and the afterlife, and also how the B of M contradicts the bible even though he’s never read the B of M.... but it was a very interesting 2hrs with him.  He was on his way to help with a bible camp called valley view bible camp, it’s up in Clearwater Lake.  So he knew the bible pretty well.  We didn’t get home till 10:00.....
Gave a talk in church here yesterday on the blessings of being a missionary.  it was a little over time by the time I finished it all believe it or not ha-ha 20min isn’t enough time to talk any more I guess.  We have church in our Apt, it’s the coolest thing!  After church we all get together and have a big dinner and visit for a while.  The Branch or Unit as they call themselves is great!! Bro Julius he brought a soup with testicles in it, he called it nut soup ha-ha so we had a bit of that.

So far things up here in Neepawa are great! People are nice, Apt is super nice, and the Unit is great!  I think I might like it here!

Well that’s really all for the week!

Love you all, talk to you next week!
 
Some of his letter to me:

It super nice here. Kinda feel like I’m in the Philippines ha-ha they are 90% of the pop up here, but they are the best!!!

BRO Angell told me he called you ha-ha that’s cool!  I really miss Flin Flon, never thought I’d say that but it’s really cleared a spot in my heart I guess.  Going to miss that branch and all the people back there I got to know. 
Can’t believe I’ve been out 5 months already!!!! Neither can Sister Judy Smith. (I love that we have couple missionaries out taking care of my boy that we know)