You two must be angels !

And..... there goes another week here in mission land! And good news everyone... KARLY PALOOZA begins today!! For those of you who are not aware of "Karly Palooza" I will fill you in on the details... Basically it is a week long celebration up until my birthday on the 19th. So everyday I will try to do something fun to celebrate and I invite everyone else to do fun things for this week and you can go ahead and use the excuse that it is Karly Palooza! So go ahead... go crazy! :)

 Me, Elder Ikeda, Elder Healey and Sister Colvin before the Elders moved last Monday. The Elder in front is Elder So'o... he is my new district leader. I will have to get a better picture of him at some point. haha

This week we had a pretty cool service opportunity. We were walking to an appointment and were just planning on doing some finding up until the time of the appointment. As we were walking I looked across the street and I see this old couple and in front of them a HUGE pile of chopped wood that had just been dumped in their drive way... We kept walking for a bit but then I just felt that we REALLY needed to go help them. We went over and started talking to them and asked if we could help. They were a little hesitant but eventually let us.

They were the sweetest couple. Both of them are 90 years old and they were just planning on moving that big pile of wood!   I was not about to let that happen so we stayed and helped them for an hour. The cute lady after a few minutes said, "You two must be angels!" I just had to laugh... we are not exactly angels, but we are probably the closest thing to that at this point as missionaries. The woman also said that she has seen Elders from our church but they never offered to help with anything. I told her that is probably because she didn't have a huge pile of wood in the middle of her driveway. :) She insisted on feeding us lunch, but we had to leave so we will be going back soon to take her up on that. She said that they always enjoyed talking with the missionaries so hopefully we will have the opportunity to share the Gospel with them. It is amazing how many incredible people are out there and yet we miss their stories because we don't talk to them. I love being a missionary and being able to walk up to anyone and find out about them!

Elder Kopischke

This weekend was Stake Conference in the Kitchener Stake and they reorganized the Stake Presidency so we had a General Authority here which was sweet. Elder Kopischke of the Seventy came and led a discussion on Saturday night and then spoke Sunday. He is a really good speaker. Sunday he talked about "Remembering" in honor of Remembrance Day that was Monday. He basically said that if we are not remembering to live the Gospel or remembering our testimonies then we are forgetting so we always have to remember. Before the session on Sunday he was walking around shaking peoples hands and we just so happened to be sitting in a place to get a handshake and he said, "Missionaries!" So... I am practically famous? haha I have met SO many great people here in this mission life. That is now 2 General Authorities... that is 2 more than I ever met while living in Utah. haha

Well it snowed and actually stuck so that is lovely. It is also freezing. We are also getting a lot more dinner appointments lately... I seem to have that effect on people. :) That, or I am the biggest mooch in town. haha either way.. I love dinner appointments. :)

Well I think that is all for this week! Oh, well except for tomorrow it will be my 9 month mark... 9 whole months since I left home!!!!! This also marks the week that I got home from Ecuador and started my mission papers so... that is crazy. Time really is flying faster and faster everyday! Seems crazy to look back on where I was a year ago and where I am now and all of the amazing experiences that I have had in between. It will be fun to see what can happen in the next year!!!

Have a great week!

 I got to see Sister P at Zone Training and then at stake conference

 Our oven was broken so we told the landlord and they just came and took the old one out to the street and gave us a different one

Pretty Great Week

This week was pretty great if I do say so myself and also.... it's the the last day of April... uh what?? Where has the last month of my life gone?!?!

Yesterday we went to Burlington and had a conference where Elder Paul V. Johnson, of the Seventy, and his wife spoke to us. It was really, really great! He taught us a lot of things that we will all be able to use to make ourselves better missionaries! It was fun to get together with a bunch of other missionaries and see some of the Elders and Sisters that I haven't seen in awhile. Oh and funny story, Sister Tebbs got called up to the front during the conference to take part in kind of an object lesson. Elder Johnson was explaining how we learn different things in different ways and so he brought Sister Tebbs up and said, "OK, in 5 minutes I need you to teach me how to be a soccer player." Well Sister Tebbs responds to that with, "Well it would take a lot more than 5 minutes to get you in shape!" Everyone started laughing and the joke for the rest of the day was that she insulted a General Authority! Of course she didn't mean to and he thought it was funny but.... my companion got pretty famous yesterday! haha

On Saturday we were able to do a service project which was a lot of fun even though all we did was pick up trash at a park for four hours! I will have to get a picture of the group of us to send sometime. I can't believe how much trash we were able to pick up. It was pretty unreal. Oh and this park had a "petting zoo" even though you weren't allowed to actually pet the animals. But.... I felt like I was at home seeing the cute goats and they even had some mini donkeys! Granted, these mini donkeys weren't too happy like Otis back at home. I wish I could have freed them from their pens... anyway... I got a little bit sunburned this day as well. It was super hot! Once again I am not really sure how I will survive the summer.

That night we got together with our zone and did what is called a Blitz. Basically we got together with the other District, the Zone Leaders and the Assistants and all of us missionaries went to an area in Brampton and talked with EVERYONE. It was pretty cool! We flooded the streets pretty much and it was really effective in a few ways. 1. we got a lot of contacts and 2. It motivated Sister Tebbs and I to talk to some people! Up until this point we had still been pretty scared to open our mouths so this was something that added some competition and forced us to do it. And it worked because Sister Tebbs and I handed out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon in just over an hour. All of the Elders were pretty impressed and now Elder Prochnow is giving Sister Tebbs a hat for her achievement and Elder Amorim will be giving me a Canadian Flag. haha It took a little bribing, yes, but it was just the confidence boost we needed and now we aren't worried about talking with everyone!

So what else happened this week.... oh one morning I woke up and had a pretty severe rash on my neck and face and my eyes were SO swollen. It was pretty bad. haha I mean like really bad.... I may send a picture but I doubt it because..... woof.

This week was full of ups and downs but thankfully they were mostly ups! Sometimes I can't believe how much I have changed in the past 3 weeks. I look back to when Sister Tebbs and I first got to this area and I know I have had to grow a lot. The change is gradual for me, but I really do feel like I am a completely different person and it is totally in a good way!

Time is also flying by. I can't believe that I am in the 4th week of this transfer. Feeling like I can't get too comfortable either, because I will probably end up getting transferred again. Word on the street is that 20 new sisters will be coming in this next transfer which means that big changes will be happening again. I guess we will just have to see! :)

Sister Tebbs and I have a progressing investigator that we are pretty excited about! I hate even saying that for fear of it not happening, but she has a baptismal date, has come to church twice and is really, REALLY loving it. Her name is Shelmith and she came from Kenya about 6 weeks ago. She is really so awesome. So open to the Spirit and willing to learn. Sister Tebbs and I have been praying for her A LOT and we have a good feeling. :) OK so a funny story... we have an investigator who LOVES us. Her name is Nicole and she was a little leery about meeting with us because she thought we would be weird, but now she thinks we are great and wants to learn more and wants to take us to dinner sometime soon. haha Anyway last Monday her and her husband saw us at Walmart and last night she told us what her husband said to her when he saw us. He said, "Hey there are those girls you meet with. They are so pretty and they are covered up... but they're so pretty." So we could have taken this as being creepy but honestly I take it as the fact that modest really is hottest and that the "missionary glow" is a real thing. haha

Ok I think that should do it for today! :) Missionary life is pretty sweet and I am honestly loving it. Some days it hits me how fast time is going and I honestly get pretty sad. It isn't everyday you can go share the good word with complete strangers and it is sad to think that so soon I will have to take off this name tag and be done. I don't even like thinking about it. I'll just enjoy every moment.... keep inviting others to come unto Christ and baptizing the nation. :)