Another Great Week

Greetings from Canada! Did everyone hear that both the women's and men's Canadian Hockey teams won gold? Everyone around here was pretty stoked about it. The stereotype really is correct.. Canadians LOVE their hockey. We obviously didn't see any of the hockey games, but we heard all about it. So I feel some pride in the fact that Canada won! 

Haircut time

Another good week! Janet and Norm were confirmed yesterday, which was exciting. They were very touched by the whole experience and I think they are excited to be able to move forward in the church. Sacrament meeting was really good yesterday. One of the members just got back from his mission this past week (he was serving in the same place as Grant Clunas and knew who Grant was) He gave his homecoming talk and it was very powerful. He talked about the Light of Christ and also experiencing a change of heart. He shared different experiences of how people he taught on his mission experienced a change of heart, and then he talked about the most important change,  the change that he saw in himself. He had a very sincere and powerful testimony. I am sure everyone in that room felt that Spirit. Max, who was recently baptized, came up to me after and told me that he thought it was very powerful and there were multiple people in tears. It was cool. Church is always just the thing I need to keep me going for another week.

The Meyer Family - members in our ward

Last night we had a cool experience. Some of Brother Mitchell's coworkers have had questions about the church,  so he invited them to meet with us. We had dinner and then were able to talk with them after. All 3 of them are from Mennonite backgrounds and one of them could, "thump a pastor in a Bible Bash" as Brother Mitchell would say. haha  Anyway.. we visited with them and were able to teach them the Restoration and a bit more about our beliefs. If a year ago someone would have told me that I would be able to sit down and hold my own in a conversation with people who know the Bible like the back of their hand,  I would have told them they were crazy. But... here I am.. able to do that. It is pretty cool.. Amazing what some study and the Spirit can do for you.

That is just more proof of how much I have grown and changed in a year! It is pretty cool what can happen when we apply ourselves and take the time to let God shape us into the people that he needs us to be. 

We will be having another baptism this weekend, his name is Ethan. We really have been so blessed lately with success in our work. I will talk more about Ethan next week.

I just sure wish the weather would start to warm up around here. We have had a few days where it has felt like it might warm up, but it is always short lived. I am beginning to think all of this snow will never, ever melt. It does feel like Spring is coming.. the days are getting longer and that makes this Sister Happy!

I hope that everyone has a great week!

11 whole months !

Does anybody know what today is??? Nope? Well... I will tell you... today marks 11 months since my cute parents dropped me off at the MTC... 11 whole months!! It is a strange strange thing, and pretty exciting to look back on what has happened in the past 11 months.. I have met so many new people and have done things I never thought I could do and have learned so much! 

The day that the thermometer said -21 and it was apparently -40 with the wind chill... and also they said if your skin was exposed to it for more than 5 minutes you could get frost bite... and then... it rained Friday. Go figure!

 This week was good. The weather got crazy cold Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone said it was -40*C with the wind chill so... that is pretty darn cold. Thankfully we had quite a few appointments so we tried to stay in a house or in a car most of the day. On that Tuesday we got a funny phone call from Elder Prochnow and Elder Parker (the Zone Leaders)... It started out with a," Hey Sisters..... ummm..... do you think that you could come and jump our car??" Their battery was going bad and even in their underground parking the car was way too cold and was not starting. So... we went and helped them with that... This is now twice I have had to jump a car on my mission.. Heavenly Father really was preparing me for this when my car would die ALL THE TIME back at home. Glad that it wasn't all for nothing. :)

My outfit on a freezing cold P-day

So after we made it through the freezing weather things were good. We had a Zone Training Wednesday and then we did exchanges that night. Sister Tofa came here with me and it was a lot of fun.. She leaves at the end of this transfer and it will be sad to see her go. She will go back to Australia and I am going to have to convince her to move to the states at some point so that this isn't the last time that I see her ever. 

Ice cream cake that Elder So'o had made for
Sister Willouhby's birthday

All of the sisters with the cake

We had some good lessons this week. Janet and Norm are progressing SO well. Norm has really started getting in to the Book of Mormon and I cannot believe how fast he is reading through it. Norm even committed to baptism which is pretty amazing. Three months ago you would have never even seen him wanting to sit down to talk with missionaries. It really is a testimony to me of how much power is in the Book of Mormon. He really has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and you can see it working in his life. We are really excited for them! 

We had a really great week! We hit "standards" which I haven't done since the first transfer of my mission. So this means that we have 2 progressing investigators, 2 investigators with baptismal dates, 2 investigators at church, 4 lessons taught with members present and 2 new investigators. It was pretty great to see our work paying off and also seeing the tender mercies. We were quite blessed this week!

Transfers will be coming up soon and... I really have no feeling as to what will happen but... If I do leave I already know that I will be so sad about it. I really love this ward SO much. Since we have had a lot of dinner appointments lately I feel like I have gotten to know the members more and more and it makes me sad that I will have to leave! It is a great thing about missions that you get to meet so many new people but it is a sad thing that you have to leave and that some people you may never see again. Oh well... I guess it is all a part of it!

Brother Mitchell (the vet) brought this cute thing home from work the other day.. She had broken her jaw and the farmer didn't want to pay the money to fix it so Brother Mitchell said that she would take her and then he just did the surgery and now they have her so... if at any moment you want to buy a mini horse that would be GREAT. :) 

Oh and yesterday the new Stake Presidency came here for ward conference. They spoke and taught all of the classes and it was really cool. The Stakes theme is, "Feed the Spirit, Nourish the Soul" and they talked a lot about how important it is for all of us to be continually "feeding" our Spirits. So... if you haven't read your scriptures lately... try that. :) If you haven't said a prayer lately... go do that. :) There are so many things we can do to feed our Spirits and it really does help! 

Well... I hope this was a bit more of a "substantial" email then some of my others have been. I hope everyone has a great week! :)

Have a ever mentioned that there are squirrels EVERYWHERE here??

We play this game where we see how long it takes to see a squirrel when we leave the house and it usually only takes about 10 seconds... Case in point.. looked out the window... squirrel sitting on the emergency exit stairs outside our apartment