-40

January 28, 2019

So, this week was kinda all over the place, and I honestly can't remember a whole lot of what happened each day so this could be kinda all over the place. 

Monday was spent for the most part doing service for the prior center takin apart their kitchen in the back so that they can put a new stainless steel one in. 

If they'd have left it up to the two Nelson boys we woulda been in and outta there in 2 maybe 3 hrs, but rather it took us from 10-3 before we actually got kinda done. 

The old guys we were working with were very cautious and carful to not do anything to fast. Guess the Nelson dads did too good a job at making us work fast and efficient when it comes to that kinda stuff. But it was fun, was nice to do some physical work even if it took up most our pday. 

Tuesday, we had DC (district council) and that went okay. Kinda quiet now that elder Tarwater is gone. Was basically a district council with just me and E. Araujo cause we did all the talking pretty much, but it was good anyway.

After DC we went and helped out rbo Judge sand his floor upstairs in his place for just about the rest of the day after we did comp and a lesson with bro Isfled. 

Got a little dusty sandin that floor, couldn't move hardly without dust coming good off us somewhere and making a mess. About had a wreck with E. K Nelson when we put him on the big floor sander haha about took him for a spin into the wall, lucky he's smart and let go of the throttle! It was pretty fun.

Wednesday was a mess with the wind we were having, we couldn't even see across the road hardly with all the snow going around. 

We did have the soup kitchen in the morning so that was nice cause it kept us outta the weather for a good bit. Was kinda a mess this week there though. We made 50 plates but that wasn't enough for some reason, in the end we had made 70 plates and we ran out of soup... Not much of a soup kitchen if you don't got soup now is it! We made it alright though.

Thursday, we got up and drove into Winnipeg for exchanges with the zls for the day. 

Started the exchanges with the DL leadership call seeing how all the districts were doing. After that me and elder Sera went and did some street contacting at polo park mall. Just about froze to death doing that! - 38 with the wind... Needless to say people didn't want to talk with us to much in that kinda cold. Had one old guy in a bus stop tell us this wasn't a church, and we should come back Sunday! We thought that was kinda weird, we weren't even talking to him. 

Had a crazy dinner appointment with some members and us, the zls, and Y.S.A. elders and sisters. So that would be me, Keston, Kaysen (e shaw), Fowler, Sera, Tumalock, sis Irwin, and Burrell. It was a gong show especially since it was a build your own soup kinda deal with these weird pots full of broth set all along the table and we were to just put what we wanted and then eat it once it was cooked. It was kinda crazy.

After dinner me and elder Sera went out and did some tracting in a little Mb housing area which was pretty successful. One yard we went up to had some signs of a big dog but we saw no dog, so we went in and knocked on the door a couple times but didn't get an answer, so we walked back to the gate. As soon as we got to the gate this little girl opened the door so we went back to see if we could talk to her parents. That's when we heard their dog in the back barking and lucky for us this dog ran out the door past the girl and right for us! Sera he about lost his mind as the dog came for his hand and bit his glove a few times, me I just stood there and watched him get eaten haha the dog was just jumping at us and barking more than anything. Sera he eventually got himself over the fence into the next yard and me I was still standing there waiting for the lady to come to the door. Finally, she came and called her dog off that was still trying to kill sera even after he jumped the fence! I talked to her and all that, and if I remember right she said to come back!

Sera after we got done with that door started to worship me pretty much cause I stood there "like a boss" as he put it, and didn't take anything from the dog.

But that was basically our exchange in Winnipeg! It was pretty fun I thought.

Friday, we got up and did our morning stuff in Winnipeg and by 10 we were on the road back to portage to do weekly planning!! Only got 3 of those left thank goodness!

Did some comp study, some stop bys and dinner with the Borczuchs, and that was our day pretty well. 

Saturday that was alright, we drove up to St Laurent which is an hr and a bit away from portage to see a few la members out that way. Sadly, when we got there we found out that the town was mostly a summer spot so 90% of the town was gone for the winter, so that means our guys we went to see weren't out there.

By the time we got done with that drive it was about 5 so we went to Eric's for dinner. He had a date that night at 7 but when he went to start his car it didn't turn over... So, we being the best missionaries in the world we ran to Canadian Tire with his card and went to get some jumper cables to boost him, but as we got close to Canadian tire we realized it's 7pm its not going to be open! So, we ran to bro judges to see if he had any. About the time we knocked on his door a second time Eric calls and said hey I got it started! So, we basically Nicky 9 doored bro judge cause we saw him come to the door shortly after we drove off...

Finished the night with some - 40 so we didn't do much.

Sunday was a mess with the weather we had. Got a little bit of a storm blowing in during church, so after church we spent most the day with bro and sis judge at their place doing family history with a lady from Winnipeg that was training them on how to do their new calling. Gotta love - 40 days!

Well that was basically our week!

Love ya all talk to ya next week! 

 

Last Zone Conference

January 21, 2019

Well this week was kinda a gong show with ZC popping up in the middle of it, and people tryin to throw down with some of the elders in our zone at McDonalds after.

Tuesday was a bit on the cold and windy side of life, but wasn't terrible at some points. For the most last we managed to stay sheltered.

In the morning I did my first week of my plan (the program that they have dying missionaries do their last 6 weeks) so that was interesting. All it had me do was recognize the blessings God has given to me in my life, so I went through and wrote those down, super simple section. We'll see how the rest of the plan goes when we get to the dating and marriage section.

Drove out to a little town about 45min away from us to contact a referral that we got from one of the sisters in Winnipeg. She warned us in the referral note that the lady we were going to meet didn't speak a lot of English, but when we got out there the lady we talked to didn't speak hardly any... She knew "no English, only French" and "no English, sorry." guess that's what happens when you live in a small French community, you don't learn much English. So that was a fun road trip just to find that we couldn't talk with her, but we made the best of the situation and stopped by some members around the area as we drove home. 

By the time we got home it was past time for dinner so we did dinner, and then we went out and did a couple stop bys around town till about 8. 8.00 we did companion study while we waited for the Brandon elders to show up so they could stay the night with us.

Wednesday was ZC day, and my last one.

So, we all got up and got ready to go into Winnipeg and be seated at the church by 10. 

ZC was good, we learned a lot about key indicators and how we can bring those up and baptize every week in our mission and zones. 

Also learned about our new mission plan which used to me call the inspired plan, but pres. Hitchcock likes change so he did a similar thing like the inspired plan we usually get but slightly different. The inspired plan/ mission plan is basically a list of attributes and actions we will take and live as CANada WINnipeg missionaries.

Talked a lot about goals and the new way we are going to set baptismal goals as a mission. It's no longer a yearly goal, it'll be a monthly goal, so rather than a goal of 180 or 204 for the yr. it's going to be what we feel should be the month goal as a mission, which I think is a better way to do this.

Also talked about developing Christlike attributes, and how we can improve the use of safeguards with our technology. 

After ZC all 22 of us decided to go to McDonalds for dinner, so we all drove to the closest one and caused problems there for a bit. Before we even got there this McDonalds was already kinda busy, and then we walked in so everyone was squished in there kinda close while tryin to order food. By the time some of us had ordered there was some walking room again through the place so we spread out to try and not block up everything. I was over by the pickup counter with a couple other elders and sisters when we heard some yelling over by the other missionaries so we looked and there was this little guy getting up in elder Morganson's face sayin that he tried to trip him as he walked by, and how Christ wouldn't do that to someone! Even told Morganson's to come on outside and they could settle this haha Morganson is 6' 300lbs give or take, and this guy was mine and Keston's size! In the end they didn't fight but I'm sure if Morganson wasn't a missionary he woulda took him in on it just for fun. 

I guess another black guy was trying get some other elders to fight him to for some reason, so it was a wild McDonalds for the missionaries that night. Luckily nothing came of it.

Thursday was service at the prior center organizing the back room again. About froze to death back there cause it's so cold! Woulda been better off outside tracting from 10-2 then being in that place, but It was fun despite the cold.

After service there we went out and braved the cold for the rest of the day doing some stop bys and tracting.

The weekend was probably the coldest time we've had all yr. so far... From Friday to Sunday it was no warmer then - 25. 6.30 Sunday morning was - 45, had to kick the door open to get out of our place because the door was froze.

Most of Friday and Saturday we spent the day trying to keep busy with things inside but we did end up outside for a bit here and there. We found a guy named JoJo on Friday night so that was a miracle for us! Said he's Aries (our investigator) childhood friend, so that was a nice connection for us to make with him.

When we met with Aries on Sunday night we told him we met JoJo, Aries told us JoJo is a trouble maker ha-ha always causing trouble in school.

So, turns out elder Nelson and Nelson serving together is a gong show, a good gong show but a gong show non the less.

We wondered across the lake here out to an island where there some houses just to see what they looked like, but ended up in the middle of a golf course. We ended up turning around after we found a sign that said warning hole 9.... Whatever the rest of it said so that was fun, especially cause the snow was knee deep most the time.

Also found out we both have weak stomachs when it comes to 4 week old food that's been left in the fridge. I'm the better of the two of us cause K couldn't even be near the container without almost puking haha it was pretty funny. I may or may not have waved the container lid over the food towards him after he picked up the chin up bar and tried to keep me away from him. But in the end, we both about lost it while cleaning that container out. It was a blast!

We've been asked a few times by people if it's confusing having two elder Nelson's but I just tell them no we can usually remember who's who, after which K Nelson and I usually starts laughing cause we are so dumb it's funny. 

Well that was it really for our crazy cold week! 

Love ya all talk to ya next week! 

You Know It's Cold Out Here Today?

January 14,2019

This week has been good, a little cold but good. 

Monday was pretty decent did the usual stuff, and then in the evening we did some tracting in the snow. 

Me and Black started out on a walk downtown during pday to look at random places but we only made it a half block before we saw a Chinese buffet and decided to take a step in there for some lunch/dinner, and that concluded our walk about downtown. 

Tuesday, we had a long district council with Flin Flon and the Saskatoon zls. We got to the church at 10 and didn't start DC till 11.20 and then we didn't finish till 1 so that was kinda crazy. 

Had a meeting for Elder Black at 3 for the new district leaders in the mission which took us a while, but it was good to listen in on. 

Tonight tracting we had a fun experience with the people on the block we were knocking, a lot of people when we knocked in their door would open it a little or not even open it, and after we were done our little introduction would say " you know it's cold out here today, aren't you guys cold??" or "you know this is a dangerous place (meaning all of portage) to be tracting at night, you guys are pretty brave..." even had one guy warn us of a big black dog that had been wandering that area of town that isn't too friendly. There was one door that I knocked on and with my back to the window I couldn't see but black was saying a lady kept peeking through the window at us every time I knocked, so me being me I decided rather than just the usual 2× I knock I'd do three to see if she'd come and actually talk to us, and it usually works that way when we do that. Sure, enough after the 3rd knock she called out "who is it, what do you want?" I said we were missionaries, and that's when she flung the door open and cracked the screen door a bit and said " you know it's dark out here and it's very creepy! You don't knock on someone’s door a bunch when you see them in the window, you just go away! It's rude and it's very creepy when you keep banging on the door!" I had to try so hard not to laugh and give her a sarcastic remark. I mean I see where she's coming from but at the same time it's like for real. 

Wednesday, we had another district council, mine this time and it went alright. Did some training on preparing people for baptism, and then we did a little scripture chase.

Funny story though, elder black for some reason he didn’t wear his coat over to the church and when we got there the door was froze shut. So, there we are standing outside the church for about 10min playing with the lock trying to get it to open while black is freezing to death. We did get in, it just took some lock lubricant de-icer, and a little bending of the key...not the first time that doors froze on us.

Spent most of the day tracting and stopping by people which was alright, got a little cold but we survived. 

Had a different experience tracting that night. First door we knocked on for the night we got a guy that answered, and it was blacks turn so he tells him who we are and all that, explains the book of Mormon to him a bit and so the guy he reaches his hand out for black to hand it to him. The guy looks at the front, then the back, then we swing it into his yard! Tells us to never come back again (in a kind voice) and closes his door... So, I went out and got the book and put it on his door step, and we proceeded on lol. Gotta love portage!

Thursday was a crazy nothing went as planned day. Transfer train was supposed to be here by 1 but when we called them at 1 to see where they were they told us they had broken down just outta Brandon, so that meant they were at least another 2hrs away before getting here. 

Did some tracting and stop bys while we waited around, but by 5 we got a call from them saying they were just gonna drive on threw portage and do the switch tomorrow, so basically, we could have planned our day out normal and we coulda done it just fine since transfers didn't happen how they said they would.

Black wasn't too happy with them for pushing it all back.

Friday we finally got switched around! By the time we got k Nelson all settled in, did weekly planning, and comp study it was time for us to head over to Eric's to help him out before we all went out to the Plamer's for dinner and games. 

Elder and sister Jensen came out to the Plamer’s to and we all had a pretty good time together. Did some nerf wars with the kids and bro Palmer, Eric and the Nelson's were too powerful of a team cause no one could beat us, even if they had 4 more than us.

Everyone's decided by the end of a game similar to werewolf that the Nelson boys are trouble, cause we were both bad guys and conspired together without them knowing it was us, so we won. It was pretty fun.

Saturday bro Stewart called us up and asked if we wanted to come with him to support stake pres. Gruninger JV team out in McGregor so we said sure why not.

They were kinda sad games when you compare them to the JV teams from back home but hey it was alright, they ended up winning the tournament 53-35. The wall of girls in front of us wasn't too happy about that cause their team lost to ours.

In between games we did comp and came home and tore apart k Nelson desk so that bro Borczuch could bring him a new one on Monday. That was an experience and a half takin that big metal desk apart with limited tools we had but we gotter.

Sunday was pretty good, Eric got sick so he couldn't speak today, and the other speaker didn't show so that was messy. Lucky for us today was a day or miracles and brother oh man I can't remember his name right now, he's from Neepawa so I knew him back in the day, super good guy but anyway he was there for the stake and he helped us out and talked. Elder Jensen he filled up the rest of the time so that was nice, and they were both good talks.

After church us and the Jensen’s had lunch over at the judges, and that was good as usual, little on the long side though for us missionaries but good non the less.

Came home did my little thing with elder Jensen, did comp study, then it was time to go back to the church for the Y.S.A. devotional. By the time that was done we didn’t have much time left before 9 so we cleared out area book, and I mean cleared out area book... All our potential people and some investigators had no information about them, no address, phone numbers, nothing so it was just a name and that was it. Well that's no good to us so we deleted all of them. We now have 5 potentials... Gonna be a fun transfer rebuilding our area book up!

kinda a crazy week with transfers and everything going but it was still good!

Well love ya all talk to ya next week! 

Riley's last companion of his mission is Keston Nelson. How awesome to be companions with your cousin. I'll bet their great grands are looking down and smiling to see them serving the Lord together. 

Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart

December 31, 2018

Last Christmas I gave you my heart, the very next day your body rejected it and you died.

~ the Palmer kids.

This week was kinda all over the place, but it was a good one none the less!

Glad to say that Christmas is over and life can go back to normalish for everyone, and we kinda finally catch people home when we knock doors.

Monday was an adventure out at the Palmers. The Palmers are a younger family in the branch here and they have 2 twin boys that are 4, Ben and Sam, then they have a boy that's 11 named Alex and a girl that's 12 named something French that sounds like memory code... I don't know what her name actually is, I should probably figure that one out though. Also had the grandparents of both come so it was a party. At one point the little dog that bro Palmers parents were dog sitting for their cousins ran away and was gone for a good hr or so... That kinda broke the party up for a bit as we tried to find this thing, but to no surprise shortly after Ben (one of the 4yr old’s) said a prayer Nuala the dog turned up at their door freezing to death from being outside for so long. So that was our Christmas miracle!

Watched Fred clause that night with the family and had some good laughs so that was a fun time.

Tuesday, we got to sleep in! I lasted till 7:30, last yr. I made it to 8. Trickler he made it to 8:30 about.

We opened up gifts which I mean you can't go to wrong there so that was good. 

Got some good things from everyone (thanks by the way) 12:00 we made some calls home to the family, so it was 11 at home when we called. Looked way warmer there then it was here...! No snow and +1 against a foot a snow and -14 without wind-chill. 

Went over to the judges for dinner, gifts, and a movie. Bro judge he got us both smart watches, a normal watch, some chocolates, and Bluetooth gloves so now we can answer our phone with our gloves rather than the phone! 

With bro judge we watched some discovery channel type stuff in 3D so that was pretty sweet. Watched some fish swim around, and a guy do a river trip down the Grand Canyon talking about all its history as he went along. Trickler he got spooked when a sea snake came at him during the fish one ha-ha that was pretty funny, he tried to get away as it swam at us. 

Got home from the judges place about 8.40 so that was nice, gave us room to get to bed at a decent time. Bed times my favourite time of the day since the mission.

Wednesday was a pretty good day. Went and helped out at the soup kitchen like usual in the morning till about 1. Was a pretty slow day there due to it being pay day and the day after Christmas but that was fine with me, only had 8 people show out of the 15 we planned for so the last guys out left pretty happy cause they got all the leftovers from everyone not coming. 

After the soup kitchen what the heck did we do...? From what I remember we did language study then some stop bys / clearing driveways till about 4, then we went and tried to fix our area books at the church till 5 (we didn't get it fixed)

After dinner we did some more stop bys, mostly by La's and Rc's. We did catch a few of them home that we usually don't see so I’d say it was a successful night!

Thursday was a pretty good day! Got to do some service for a couple hrs which was nice cause it was not the nicest day out. Got lots a wind making the snow blow around and putting the temperature down to -26. We were don't service over at the prior center putting up new shelves for the kitchen storage room. Before they had cinder blocks and 1'' plywood as shelving, now they got some nice metal shelves that we put up. Took us from 10-2ish to get it all done, with a half hr lunch in there, they fed us so that was a nice bonus.

After service we did studies and a few stop bys till 5.30, and then we had dinner with the Borczuchs and a surprise bro Stewart at A&W. First thing sis Borczuch said to me when she gets out of their car was "I just hate it out here!" meanwhile the wind was blowing snow everywhere and making it hard to see across the parking lot. I don't know I just thought that was kinda funny cause she’s the sweetest old lady and even when she says she hates something she's smiling about it and then laughs afterwards, and just to see her out there in the snow and wind like that and saying what she did it was just funny. 

After dinner with them we went out and did a little tracting for a hr and only got 1 person "home". I don’t know if I’d a opened my door on a night like tonight if someone randomly came knocking on it, could maybe lose my door from the wind. On the way home however, we did come across a guy stuck in the back alley beside our place so we walked over to his little car and tapped on his window to see if he'd like some help, he told us he didn't figure he'd be able to move from where he is so he was gonna call a tow truck. We coulda moved'em had he lets us try, he was in a little Honda civic and the snow wasn’t as deep as he thought it was, but oh well I guess.

Friday was a decent day other then it was - 33, there wasn’t any wind though and the sky was clear so that was nice. 

Did our usual Friday stuff, weekly planning, and studies till 3...then we went out and did some stop bys to see who needed some snow shoveled, sadly our area seemed to be the only area that was drifted in really bad from the wind the night before so we didn't have much chance to shovel snow. 

Had dinner and poker with Eric which was a good time as usual. 

Did a little movie night over at the church at 7 watching the testament, sadly not a lot of people showed up but hey it was still good. 

Finished off the night with messaging a few people seeing if they could meet later in the week or what we could help them with around their place. 

Saturday, we started off the morning with a leadership call just to see how all the areas were doing and how we could help them out pretty much so that was alright. 

Did some work with potentials in the morning trying to get some new people being taught, and technically we did find someone but technically not at the same time! He was taught by Trickler and Tarwater a bit ago but they didn't set a return appointment with him so they couldn't count him as a new person, but today we set a "return appointment" and he has been reading, so depending on how you look at it he's a new person. 

Did our usual studies after lunch, and to our surprise we got a text from Aries saying he was around today that he could meet at 7 so that moved some stuff around for us which was nice.

After studies we went out to long plain reserve to stop by a few people out there seeing as we are at the end of the month and haven't used all our k's yet. Sadly we only caught one person home, and she didn't want anything to do with us. It was a nice drive anyway, got to take some back roads with a few good views.

*Just a little side note. Trickler he's trying to sing the song coyotes by don Edwards as I'm writing this out, and it's quite distracting listening to his off key coyote howls, but it's also kinda funny. Gotta love those companions that aren't shy to scratch the chalkboard for a little fun. 

Anyway back to our day. On the way back from long plain at about 4.40 the judges texted asking for some help painting their room so of course we said yes! We ran home first and changed into some service clothes then went over there to help out, which by the time we got there we painted for maybe an hr before bro judge called it good and was ordering us all our own pizza!

Once we got done at the judges we had our appointment with Aries. The lesson/reading with him went well, he seemed to like us reading along with him and explaining as we went. I think he's finally making some connections with the Bible and the book of Mormon, and how they talk of each other. 

After our lesson as usual Aries fed us... Tonight was super bad for us cause we had just ate a full medium pizza each at the judges only a hr before, and then he comes out with way more food then he already usually cooks us! It was bad. Really good food but bad for us cause as missionarys we can't say no to food. So we put down as much as we could to make him feel like we weren't being rude by not eating any, then we went home and died. Trickler he seemed to have it the worst, before we even started eating at Aries he was lookin at me like I'm gonna die if I have to eat this. It was kinda funny.

Sunday was a interesting day but good.

Our 5th Sunday lesson went well on the joy of unselfish service, even got most the branch crying during it...I'm not sure how we did that by talking about service and showing a video called enduring love but we did. Must have been something we needed to share with the branch I guess. The spirit was there that's for sure. 

After church we had a "quick" branch huddle that turned into a 30min huddle. Got pretty warm in there due to some of the conversation on who was doing what and why someone was doing other things. Bro Stewart got told about what he did to bro judge when he told everyone to stop cleaning cause it was bro judges job, so big walls of defence came up in front of bro Stewart as sis Jensen kindly explained that we need to fix that problem rather then just let bro judge leave our small branch. I won't go into much detail but that's what most of our branch huddle was dealing with and it ended good, but boy was it warm at times in there.

Once we got done the huddle us and the Jensens went over to the judges for lunch which was a nice time. The Jensens got the judge experiance with the strawberry drink bro judge makes for all the missionarys that serve there, and the tour of the man cave and little clip of a movie he shows you so you can get the feel of it all. They thought it was amazing, and to tell the truth they very well could be the only senior couple to go down to the judges man cave and watch a part of something with him. We told the Jensens now they can tell all the missionarys back in the city that they got to see the judges man cave and everyone'll be jealous because of it haha I dont know why but getting the chance to have "the judge experience" as its know in the mission is like winning the lottery for missionarys. 

After we got done with the judges and Jensen's we came home and did some studies till dinner, then we went out and tracted in what was said to be -14 but when you really look at the weather it says it feels like -26 with the wind. We think it was colder then that out there, our faces in the first 10min were frozen but by the time 30min rolled around we couldn't feel anything so it wasn't to bad. Found a couple potentials that said to come back tomorrow afternoon, so we didn't freeze for nothin!

Drove out to a little place called Oakdale about 15-20 away from portage to stop by a guy out there, but sadly he wasnt home. By the time we got back to town from out there it was 8 so we went back to the apartment for language study to finish off the night. 

And that was our week!

Love ya all talk to ya next week! 

Aries

December 24, 2018

I don’t know where the time has gone this month, it seems like it just started not too long ago and now it’s Christmas tomorrow, and then New Year’s...! Maybe this New Year's we won't start off with getting frost bite lol

This week was good, started off with a pretty normal pday, had exchanges down in Winkler with Elder Tarwater and Araujo on Tuesday. Had a pretty good district council in their apartment since they don't have a church building there. 

Did some tracting during the day and trying to find them some service opportunities around the town. Didn't find them anyone new but it was a good short exchange anyway. 

Had to head home to Portage by 6 to make it back for a lesson with Aries our Filipino investigator at 8, so that's why the exchange was short. Taught Aries the plan of salvation and had a good discussion about it all. He asked an interesting question right at the end and it was "do you have to talk to someone if you commit a serious sin in your church?" we told him yes, and then we told him what was classified as a serous sin in our church. Seems to me like he's got a few things he’s wanting to clear up in his life, cause he asks a lot about sin and how to overcome it and things like that, which I'm glad for cause that means he wants to change. 

As usual he made us a lot of food! 9:30 dinner was a little late especially for what he had for us but we survived. He made us a bunch of panset along with some chicken with lemon and parsley on it, then took it off he had a bunch of fries from McCain's where he works.

Wednesday was the usual at the soup kitchen helping out there. Got a butt ton of sausages from them this week cause the hoods drought them a bunch of soup in and then decided to drop a bunch of meet off to. The ladies there were like well boys were a soup kitchen not a bed and breakfast, do you want some of this stuff?

You better believe we took some of it!

Once we got done at the soup kitchen we went over to bro Judges sister in laws place to help him and bro Borczuch replace her pipes and toilet there. 

Thursday, we went over to the Herman prior center to help them out for a bit in the morning. Started out with setting up chairs and tables for a funeral that was going on Saturday for a guy. After that Chris she sent us to Louis office and to do some filing while he was out... 3hrs later we finished...! After 30min of it I decided I wasn't going to work an office job, and by the end of the 3hrs I knew why most people hate their jobs. Lol

Honestly, I don't remember much of what happens during the day after we do service and stuff. Probably missionary work and studies, but what we did exactly I don't remember.

Friday was spent doing studies and weekly planning for the most part.

I know we did some other stuff, but what it was I can't tell ya right now, I'm getting old guys.

Saturday was a gong show since the AP's don't tell anyone anything. We got a call Friday night saying hey did you guys know your interview date changed and that it's tomorrow? It was set for this coming Saturday but for some reason they changed it. So, I got a good of Winkler and we tossed together an exchange for the next day and yeah. 

Interviews went good! Talked a lot about how and how my plan is now on my mission portal (the program they have you do the last 6 weeks before you go home) and talked a lot about marriage. He's like elder Nelson I know this is more of a next transfer talk but I just wanna bring it up a bit right now for a moment, and then he went on for 10min about marriage. It was all good.

The exchange went well, me and Arajuo found quite a few potentials on the streets we tracted so that was nice! It snowed basically all day Saturday so we now have close to a foot and a half of snow. The roads are super great to, they look like they have little skating strips going down the roads from all the ice under the snow. It was 5° earlier in the week for a couple days, and then it rained Wednesday and we got - 10 and stuff so it was just awesome. 

Sunday, we had the special church service thing and that was pretty good! The Palmer family here did it and it went well.

Bro Borczuch even came to church (he's the non-member that's married to a member) so that was nice!

After church we did some studies till about 3.30, then we tracted till 5. Didn't find anyone new yet, but we did get a couple potentials!

Had dinner over at the judges at 5 - 6.40 ish. The judges caught on to our little spiritual through we left them where we read Mosiah 24 I think it was, were the people of Alma aren’t allowed to pray or worship God so they pray in their hearts, and eventually God makes them free.

We related that to overcoming trials and keeping our testimony’s strong no matter what comes at us. Sis judge she pointed a figure at bro judge ha-ha so they knew it was kinda directed towards his little show this week with the cleaning deal. It went good though and I think it made them think a little about it all. 

After dinner there we headed out and did some stop bys and a little drift busting along the way which was fun! Went and shoveled some walks around town, we got caught by one older guy named Raymond who we have managed to get his walk almost every time without him catching us. Super nice guy, but he loves to talk and he's had a stroke so he doesn't remember anything we teach him when he lets us talk so that makes it hard. 

He comes out while we are shoveling and says "well the shoe maker finally caught the elves!!" ha-ha he says we're just like that story were the shoe maker has elves sneaking in and come make shoes in the night. So we went in and we visited from 7.30 - 9 about God and about his trips around the world in the music industry with Randy Travis and merle haggard and everyone else. He's got a lot of cool story's from Nashville and how he used to play with all those guys and all that. Maybe he could hook me up with some connections and I could get a shot at that world. 

Since Raymond had his stroke he can't play guitar or remember much anymore so once he heard I played he had us come right in and play some stuff for him. He played a little bit for us and sang some but like I said its hard for him to remember and use his fingers like he used to. Sounds like he was pretty good at one time though from what he did for us, kinda that old merle haggard, Willie Nelson sound to his music.

All in all I'd say it was a pretty good week out here In portage winkler district. Found some potentials so thatll be nice once we can get with all them after the new year!

Well love ya all talk to ya next week!

Not Preaching for Money

December 17, 2018

Monday was a pretty normal day for us here in portage, nothing to crazy. We did go have a little meet with our RC Eric and did some stuff with him Monday night, so that was good!

Tuesday was busy. Got my first district council back as DL done, and it went well I'd say. We talked about member missionary work, and how we can better help the members have that drive to share the gospel with others. 

Bro judge gave us a call right as we finished DC wanting our help with changing a light that was in a high spot in his house, so we went over there and helped him with that at about 12.30. Once we got that done and a few other things for him we visited with him about the branch for a bit, then that's when bro Stewart gave us a call with a referral for us! About 1.30, 2.00 we met up with bro Stewart to go see this lady that he had for us, and she was pretty nice! We'll see though if anything comes of it, it would be super nice but she didn't seem too crazy about having us over. Bro Stewart was getting his haircut by her and they got talking about religion, and that's how we came up and he basically said hey I got these guys that would love to help you out with whatever, and answer any questions you have about God. She's when we went over with him didn't seem to have all that much interest far as I could tell, but hey I could be wrong. 

On the way back to town with bro Stewart we saw a lady walking back Portage way so he stopped and asked if she wanted a ride, she of course gladly excepted the offer and got right in with me in the back. 

She was a native lady that was on her way back from a job interview out there in Southport, and her ride that she payed 20$ to take her there and back hadn’t shown up yet so after 30min of waiting she decided she’d best start walking back, and that's when we pulled up! So, she was pretty grateful for us stopping.

Spent the rest of that day pretty well, driving around with bro Stewart stopping by potentials and other people he thought we should get to know around town. Didn't get any new people out of it yet but we thought it was a good thing for bro Stewart to feel like he could take us around like that to see his friends.

Wednesday was spent mostly at the soup kitchen again, helping out there with that. I’ve got a few homeless buddies now so that's always fun! After the kitchen was closed me and John (one of my new buddies) were mopping the floors and he stops me and is like "you'd almost think from how fast and well your doing this you like doing these woman jobs!" ha-ha I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one but I said "yeah you'd almost think!" and then it didn't help the fact when Shelly, an older lady that works with us there comes out and basically says the same thing to me... Guess that's what happens when your surrounded by girls all your life and no boys. 

Thursday, we didn't get to do a whole lot due to us getting ready for exchanges in Winnipeg that night, but we did get some studies done, and we did get to go help bro judge give a blessing to one of the less active ladies in the branch who was in the hospital. 

I’ve decided that Winnipeg is one of the most brutal cities to get around in especially during rush hr... Just imagine two county kids that have known idea where anything is in this big city, and then put in the middle of a thousand cars at rush hr with a map lady on their phone that tells them when to turn after they’ve passed it ha-ha that was us as we tried to find the mission office, and the zls apartment. 

When we switched for exchanges I was more than happy to hand the keys to my car over to elder Sera, and then me not be driving when I was elder Blomfield. 

The exchange with them went well far as we figured. We were there from Thursday night to Friday night.

Me and elder Blomfield went to the mission office first thing on the morning to go get a few things there, and as we were waking in pres. Hitchcock honked at us and waved, but didn't let down his window like he usually does when he honks at us so we thought that kinda awed. A bit after being in the office talking with sister Rudd she let slip that pres. Hitchcock’s dad had passed away the night before last and he just sent sis Hitchcock off to Utah this morning for the funeral... We are assuming that we weren't supposed to know about that, cause when we saw him in the mission office after we found out and he hugged us he didn't put out any signs of him wanting to let us know anything. 

The exchange went pretty smooth, did some tracting, and service so that was nice! Didn't really get to teach anyone, cause our lessons fell through that we did have set up. We did get to kind of teach a super ADHD guy though that’s 34 and loves hockey. Mike when he answered the door was like "oh nope, I got no money for you guys sorry I spent all my money on crap this yr.!" I stopped him and was like hey we aren't selling anything, we're just out with our church talking with people. Oh, okay so are you guys like wanting some money or something? No, we don't want money, we just go around and talk to people about God and who he is. Okay that's good cause I just spent all my money on that dumpy car that's not working and I'm broke, well I'm not broke but I basically am! You guys wanna come in? Don't mind me I just have a serious case of ADHD which makes me seem kinda crazy sometimes, probably kinda like right now! So, I'd total understand if you guys were like weirded out and didn't want to come in. 

Once we got in his place he started taking about hockey and if we think it's rigged, and if we think he'd be a good hockey player. He's like yeah, most people think I'm not a good hockey player and that I can't even play, but I CAN! I'm really good, I just haven't played in a while. The other day. Did you see that window on this side if the house when you came up? Well that window I was out in the street where you guys came up from and I was with this stick practicing my shot and I hit this puck right into the window...! But I'm really good! The while time he was telling us this story about him shooting his puck through the window he was demonstrating it right there in the door way, and I thought he was gonna slap shot that puck right there in the house at us. He didn't, so that was lucky!

Eventually we got to sit down in his place and we tried to get him talking about god and the stuff that we came to talk to him about but it was pretty hopeless... He told us about the pills that he takes that for some reason he says make him calm ha-ha he asked hey do you know the guy off Charly brown, the one that has the blanket all the time? Well you know how that’s his like comforter, that makes him comfortable when he goes place? I have one of those that I take to work and wherever I go. He then points to this big Santa cookie jar looking thing on his table and he's like yeah that’s it! I also have a dog one right there, and he points behind us. He told us how sometimes he will be sitting there at watching them and he swears that they talk to him, but then he'll take his pills and they for some reason don't do it anymore. 

It was pretty good. We didn't get to talk much at all but we did our best to try and get something in. Even when we showed him a light the world video he was all over the place as he watched, talkin about the movie by Mel Gibson and if we'd seen it (passion of the Christ) and how crazy it is! By the time we got out of there we just looked at each other and were like what the heck just happened... And we kept on knocking. Made for a good story though.

Saturday nothing special happened, just did studies and catching up on weekly planning since we didn't get to do it Friday with exchanges.

4.00 we went to the co-op and did the salvation army Christmas money jar thing that you see when you go inside all the stores around this time of yr. That was alright, super boring but it was kinda fun to people watch the whole time and watch the air cadets’ kids try and sell jets tickets to everyone. Didn't finish up there till about 6, then we went and did dinner and some stop bys to finish the night off.

Sunday we both gave talks in church, only for 5-10 min along with bro Stoneman from Winnipeg who took up the rest of the time we didn't fill.

Had a potluck after church which was good, even got stuff set up for Christmas and Christmas eve so that was a plus! Now we won't be just sitting around doing nothing for 2 days.

Had dinner with the judges at 3. That was a pretty heated house when we got there and was still pretty hot till about 20min before we left... Bro judge is the cleaning coordinator in the branch and no one will clean the church because so and so won't clean it so why would I clean it kinda thing. So, bro judge, us, and the Borczuchs are the cleaners of the church cause someone's gotta do it. But the reason bro judge was upset was cause bro Stewart the 1st councillor in the branch was telling everyone who was cleaning up after the potluck to stop cause that was bro judges’ job not theirs, no one did stop so that was good but it still got on judges’ nerves. To put this whole story short bro judge had one foot out the door of the church when we showed up for dinner, he was done with all the stuff that goes on in the branch.

The rest of our night after we got done at the judges was spent doing some stop bys. Got a couple lessons at up for next week out of it so that was nice! Ended up teaching a surprise lesson while over at the Borczuchs when bro Borczuchs friend Walter showed up unexpectedly. We taught Walter the middle part of the restoration cause he wanted to know why so many churches, and we answered some other questions he had. Sadly, before we could answer all of them his wife showed up looking for him (she really against the church) so that cut our lesson short. Looks like if we can get Walter to accept Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon he would be gold, but he not too sure about that stuff quite yet.

Hopefully we get to teach him again here soon.

Well that was pretty well our week! Kinda an interesting one but it was good.

Love ya all talk to you next week! 

Christmas Parade

December 10, 2018

This week has been good! Didn't get to do a whole lot it seemed, due to Christmas ZC and other Christmas stuff.

Monday, we had the usual pday, and then at night we did some stop bys and cleaned our car. We forgot we had to clean it during pday time so we had to take a few minutes and get that done before Tuesday, cause of ZC. 

Had an interesting experience finding ways to clean my suit of the nasty smoke smell from Thompson. I came across away that said to use vodka, so I did it and it actually worked! Pretty crazy.

Tuesday was Christmas ZC so we drove into Winnipeg in the morning and got stuff going there by 11. ZC was super good, learned lots of good things from pres. and sister Hitchcock, along with everyone else that did portions. Pres Hitchcock did his on Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon, it was probably my favorite. 

We ended up playing district jeopardy with everyone, and our district for some reason was the smallest team. We had 4 while most everyone else had at least 6 in it, plus we decided that we are ether forgotten district ha-ha because they forgot to even out our district up on the board to play! It was alright though, we lost big time, but it was still fun.

For the movie we watched polar express. At the part where they have the hot chocolate singing and dancing sis Hitchcock came out with a tray of hot chocolate dancing and handing it out, so that was pretty funny. 

By the time the movie was done and everything was put away it was 8.40 so me and Trickler decided we would try and make it home so we could sleep there rather than at the Y.S.A. elders place with 2 other sets of elders, so we did that and we made it before 9.30 so we were gold.

Wednesday, we helped out at the soup kitchen serving the people there which was alright. I think that's the second time I’ve helped out at one of those since I got out on the mission.

Once we got done there we had a pretty normal day far as missionary work goes, studies, knocking doors, and stopping by people till 9.

Oh and we had dinner with our RC (recent convert) Eric which took up a good part of our night cause he likes for us to play poker with him every time we go over I guess... Trickler got destroyed, and near the end after about a hr and a half of playin I was starting to get short on chips, and it was getting late so I "gave into" his bluff and went all in just so we could finish the game and get going. 

Once we finally got out we were walking out to our car and as I walked around the back end of it to the driver side I got rushed by this guy that I guess had been sitting there waiting for us to come out to our car (we got some people that really don't like us out here) my first reaction was to try and get out of his way and run, but with the ice on the roads that didn't work out for me. He grabbed my right arm and reached for the other but he missed, I swung and hit him square in the face which of course made him let go of my arm. By this time Trickler had realized something was going on my side of the car so he ran over to give me a hand but by the time he got over there this guy had run off into an alley. What this guy was planning to do with us we don't know but it was pretty exciting I'll tell ya that much!

Now if that was to have actually happened that would have made for a way better story then what actually happened! I came around the other side of our car and realized that someone decided to egg us... It was only one egg and it was placed is great spot right over the opening of the back door, so it leaked into the car a little bit so that was beautiful! We couldn't take care of it that night cause it was too late so we had to clean it the next day, and by the time we got around to that we had about 3 members be like hey have you seen your car? It's been egged! So that was fun! 

Thursday was again a pretty normal day with missionary work, not a lot exciting went on that day. We did have dinner with the Borczuchs though and that was super nice! Gave bro Borczuch a hard time about his Ford cause it broke down the other day on him when he was out. Even tried to fix it up for him by putting a Chevy sign over true Ford sign, but I don't think it worked. 

Friday, we did some service over at a little senior center/ hangout place for everyone in town setting up chairs for a wedding that was going to be going on Saturday sometime. Doing that got us in with one of our LAs that works there and he opened up to us quite a bit seeing us there helping out, so that was good! He even invited us over for dinner that night if we didn't have anything going on. 

Had a super good lesson fir day night with our investigator Aries, he's a Filipino, he's married, has 2 boys about our age, works and McCain's, and he doesn't look like he's much older than 26 so that kinda tosses you through a loop when you find out he's got kids our age. Super nice guy! We taught him kind of L3 (gospel of Jesus Christ) as we taught he had some questions about the people in the afterlife and about repentance, so we answered those for him. It was probably one of the best lessons I’ve been in in a while, the spirit was there that's for sure as we taught him about how he can repent and follow Christ even closer. It's pretty cool to see the spirit working through you as you teach people, cause things just come to your mind like that and you know what would best help them. He asked for ways to know how he can know he's been forgiven even after he's repented of that same thing countless times before that, and if he is forgiven when that happens. I took him into the talk 70×7 and read a bit from there and I think that helped him out a bit, it was super good!

After the lesson he fed us so that was a bonus! 

Once we got out of Aries place we headed down to the Christmas parade to see the stuff going on there and to see if we could find someone good there that we could maybe teach. The parade was much bigger then everyone made it seem, and there were quite a few people out there watching it so that was kinda fun to go see all that. 

Saturday, we spent the day cooking the turkey for the Christmas party that night. Somehow, we got put in charge of that but it's whatever it was fun. Got lucky that we had things to do to keep us around the apartment most the day while it was cooking. Did our weekly planning since we didn't finish it Friday, did our studies, went out to newton for a couple hrs to stop by a potential that said to come back that day. We showed up at his place and came to find out he was a preacher...so that was just awesome! He was super nice though, him and his wife. They talked with us for at least an hr and a half about God and Jesus, the blood covenant, and whether or not God's love is a feeling or fact. It was a good visit cause he wasn't really bashing with us he was just preaching all his beliefs to us and not letting us talk too much, which I'd rather that than bashing.

5.00 was our Christmas party so we headed over there for that. Didn't have a super bug turnout but that was fine, meant more food for us! The turkey and everything turned out really good to their surprise, so let's hope that next yr. the elders that are here are as good a cooks as we are, or the branch might be disappointed. 

Sunday was pretty good! Aries showed up!! I gave a 5 min on the spot talk so that was fun. I talked about the light of your testimony with the story of the old rancher and the preacher with the coal, if you remember that story. They all seemed to like it cause everyone during church kept bring it up as we went along in classes.

After church elder and sister Jensen's, the senior couple in our branch came over to our place to do some things while we waited for 3.30 to roll around so that we could all drive out to the Adams place in Holland together for dinner at 4.30.

When we got to the Adams place we ended up playing games for a hr and a bit while they finished/ started making dinner, it was a good time. 

After dinner was all done the boys ended up playing games again while the girls cleaned up the last bit of stuff (they told us to play games) by the time we got out of there it was 8.00, so it was a strait shot home and to bed for us. 

It was a good day I'd say, got to spend some time with the best senior couple in the mission, got dinner, and an investigator to church! What more could you want as a missionary! 

Well that was our week far as I can remember. Hope you all had a good week, and have a good week this week!

Love ya all talk to you next week!