Innisfail Chapter 5

This week has been pretty long but fast at the same time. I can't believe it's already Monday again, but last Thursday seems soo long ago.

We had a lot of things happen this last week. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to do a day by day run down from now on.

Monday

I told you a little bit of our plans for last Monday, but things were really weird. So we went up to Red Deer to meet up with the Elder in Rocky, so that we could get bags and possibly Khaki pants. I mostly stayed pretty quiet when they were shopping. First off it was weird to be in a mall as a missionary. You know you stand out and you just keep going. They were looking at Khaki pants and were trying to find less expensive pants than $40. If anything I learned working at Tommy that you can't get Khaki dress pants that would be in good condition for less than $40. They were also looking at Shoulder bags since backpacks aren't allowed anymore. I was a little surprised at those price. They were $100 for the cheap ones. All I can say is that I'm glad I already had one. We then went to try to find somewhere for a haircut. That didn't happen. One place was a salon that was booked and the other was a walk in place with and Hour and a half wait. So we just went to the Bower Chapel and played basketball with some of the zone. We went to the Christenson's for dinner and Bro. Christenson's Daughter was in town visiting from ....guess where... Utah. She lives in Layton (which I know isn't close) and said when she drives back home she would be happy to take things back. I don't know if I have anything to send back, but I might so be ready.

Tuesday

We had a really cool lesson with Tom and Mary. Mary is considered a less-active member, but she doesn't even know she is a member. Tom is in rough condition. He has Parkinson's and now has an eye infection so he is barely able to see. On top of that is just came down with pneumonia. We just went over and shared a lesson with them trying to say 'Christ' as many times as possible. We are going to try and meet with them every tuesday. We then went to the Beckwiths (who we went with to the bird farm). We were able to show them the pictures of the blue birds that they missed, and we invited them to take the lessons. They declined. We are still going to keep in contact with them but it isn't really going to go anywhere. We then stopped by the Ellis' to tell them about it and keep them updated. We then had dinner with Bishop Mower. His wife was out of town so it was just him. We had dinner and he went and changed to go visit some LA's. It was pretty rushed, but it was good to see his excitement.

Wednesday

Service Day

Today was a day all about service. Sister Dyck called us last night and asked if we would teach gospel principles again, because they were going out of town...again. We told her we would if she would cut our hair. She used to work in a salon for years. So we finally went and got to have a haircut. It was hard to describe how to cut my hair, since we have just gone to Lori for all of these years. It looks pretty good and I'm not bothered by it anymore. We then went and helped out at the Library. When you think of a missionary doing service at the Library you never think of wiping off board books. We spent about an hour wiping off all of the board books that the little kids suck on. It wasn't bad just not something you think of as a missionary. We pretty much went back to our apartment and starting preparing a potential investigator list for ward correlation. We didn't have any addresses written down so we drove around getting them. It was funny with some houses that we didn't want to stop at so we did a quick drive by to find the house number. We then went and helped the Food Bank move to a new location. They were in a run down warehouse and apparently someone backed up in to the side of it so they had to move since the wall was now caving in a little. They moved behind the Co-op. It is a much better place for them in my opinion. We then had ward correlation and it was a very successful meeting. We got the assignment to prepare a 15 minute presentation to present to Ward Council at the end of the month. It will be a great way to get the work moving forward.

Thursday

Today we had a follow-up training meeting up in Edmonton. I didn't realize how long of a drive it is. It didn't seem like it the first day since everything was still so new. We got up there and I had a really great time talking to everyone from the MTC. It was so much fun being able to see almost everyone again. The only ones who weren't there were Elder Webb, Christensen, and Eyler, since they are in areas that are too far away from Edmonton. They had to phone in instead. I got a lot more out of the meeting being there, than I would have otherwise. It was backwards because instead of me standing around waiting for Elder Marsh to finish talking with everyone, it was him trying to tell me to go, because I was talking to everyone. It really was nice to see everyone again.

Friday

The only thing that really happened was that we got a new potential investigator. They live right next to the Joseph's. It is going to be hard to meet with them, because they are always on the go, and we really don't go to Springbrook that often. We really didn't have anything else too exciting happen today.

Saturday

"No Effort is Wasted"

Today went pretty rough. We were pretty much planning our day as we went. We had planned out things before hand, but we had to rearrange things constantly. We were going to go over to Hubert (the guy who lives across the street) and have lunch with him and his wife. Well He took longer to get home than we thought and his wife had to go to work. We ended up going to an appointment and coming back. We were able to talk with him for a while. He wanted to know what our future life plans were. We tried to talk to him about how our eternal goals were guiding our temporal and trying to tie in gospel principles during it. We asked him if he would take the lessons. Of course it was no. "I pretty much know what you believe". We were just trying to give him a basic understanding and he declined. We then went to go talk with Gail about maybe coming to church or taking a church tour. She wasn't home of course. We got in the car and Elder Marsh was super bummed out. It was another switch up. He even told me. You should be the one getting down and I should be trying to lift you up. We just talked about how we are doing everything that we can, but people still have their agency of whether they want to accept it or reject it. We tried to stop by a few more people and really didn't get far with anything. We then went to talk to the Ellis' about how the Relief Society activity went. (Carolyn Beckwith went with Sister Ellis) It went really well and we were able to talk about things. It was a really good visit. It kinda pumped us up. The Ellis' are so missionary minded that it can be really uplifting. When we got home, I was flipping through trying to find something in PMG and I came across the section "No Effort is Wasted". It was pretty uplifting and a great boost.

Sunday

Today was pretty great. I found out the magic of the 3rd Sunday of the month. It was Pot-luck lunch after church. Church was pretty great and then it was even better with Pot-luck. We then went back to the apartment to finish off 12-wk for the week and got ready to go. We went and visited with one LA and then went out to Drew Ellis' (the Ellis' son). It really reminded me of dinner at Peg's except there was actually room. Her sister was in town with her kids from South Jordan and her parents were there for dinner. It was buffet and find a place to sit. We shared a message with the adults and any of the kids that came in. We finished and left. It was strange because it was just "ok, thank you for dinner, bye" and walk out. No one took us to the door. It was just different from other dinner appointments. We then had another Sunday night curse. We have no success in talking with anyone on Sunday nights.

The recap of my days seem pretty long, but I actually have to try and tell only the important parts. I could go on and on about everything and wish I could just write all day. but then again it could get pretty boring.

Well that was my week. It had it's ups and downs, but I'm trying to stay positive through it all. I can tell you that next week will be a crazy one so hope your excited for that email. I'll start by saying that we get to go to the zoo today with Bro and Sis Burns.

I love being able to hear about everything that is going on.

I love and miss you,

Elder O'Neill

Fun on mission???

Innisfail chapter 4

This weeks email. This mission is making him actually write quite a bit, for a man of few words! hehe I love it. Sheila July 15, 2013

Wow what a week.

Thank you for all of your emails and support. I haven't gotten any packages yet, since the ZL's don't go to Edmonton very often. They went a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't think there was anything there yet. There might be something today, but that depends if they brought down the mail when they went on exchanges with the AP's. If not I might get it Thursday when we go up for follow-up training meeting. There are a lot of chances, but everything is subject to change. There have been a lot more trips to Edmonton than normal.

Oh and Grandma. Tell her to calm down. Help her understand that the only time I can tell you anything is on Monday's when I have P-Day. I just thought of something. Make sure she can't find out the mission's phone number.

Well now to tell you about my week. It was pretty packed with cool experiences. So I'm pretty much going to do a run down of each day.

Monday

It was P-Day and the zl's came down to Innisfail. We went to the church and played around in the gym until we had to go. Put 4 missionaires in a gym and see what they can come up with. We played hide-and-seek, basketball, chair soccer, and in between some dodgeball. It was super fun. We then went to Robertson's, out in the middle of nowhere, for dinner. Our area is Springbrook, Penhold, Innisfail and Bowden. They live, technically, in Bowden, but it is about 30 minutes from there. Very spread out countrysides.  We went out there and I learned that we become part of their family home evening. There family is big enough. Total they have like 14 kids, adopted and biological. Most of them are older and moved out, but they have some younger and pretty much always have grandkids staying there. Before dinner Bro. Robertson showed us what they floods did to the river. It totally diverted the course from where it used to be. It was amazing to hear what it was like before and during the floods. Well then we had dinner and FHE. Everything goes as normal, but of course we have the lesson. We then played fruit basket. It was super fun and I had a close call with a chair. We then headed back home.

Tuesday

We got to go to the Ellis Bird Farm with the Ellis' and their non-member friends the Beckwith's. IT was an amazing place to go. It was a bird farm so their were a lot of bird houses, but there was also a lot of flowers and it was a great place to go. I took so many pictures and some of them make me seem like I'm a real photographer. I got really good with my camera that day. We had a great time there. When we went to leave the manager told us she would take us to some blue birds that were on the way back. We went and there was a bird house with a nest of baby blue birds. They were so cute looking. They were only like 4 days old. Blue birds don't have a sense of smell so she grabbed one of the babies and let Elder Marsh hold it. He was in heaven. He said it was one of the coolest moments of his life. She then took us up the road and we got to see a male blue bird (as typical with birds the female is the dull color). I could get a pretty close shot with my camera, but I was able to zoom in on the review and get a really cool picture of it. It was a super fun time. We then headed back, changed went and met with Bro. Day and then went to dinner with who else but...The Ellis'. So we pretty much got to spend the whole day with the Ellis'. I didn't mind because they are such great people.

Wednesday

We had ZTM that morning. It was cool to meet as a zone and be able to learn with each other. The theme was Christmas in July, don't know where it came from, but it was cool. They strung Christmas lights in the relief society room. They had places for each area and at my chair they had a bunch of happy birthday napkins and bags. It was really nice of the zl's to do that. We then went on exchanges with Rocky right after. I got to drive. I went to Rocky with Elder Coombs and he is x'ed from driving. So I had to drive. Cruise control really does help out here. It was interesting, because they had to get their car fixed so they switched with the zl's since they were going to Edmonton. We switched keys, but not all of them. When we went to get in the apartment, we didn't have the keys. We called the zl's and found out they were locked out too. Luckily Elder Coombs left the screen door of the balcony (they are on the second floor) unlocked and the zl's left a window open. We just had to make a detour Thursday to get the right keys.

Thursday

So we got up and had a couple of appointments before we headed back. We went to the one guys house named Hered. He is deaf. How am I supposed to teach a deaf man, when I'm still figuring out how to teach a regular person?!!! Elder Coombs and Elder McFall have been teaching him and have begun to learn sign language. It was really cool to watch the lesson. If I had anything to say I just wrote it down and passed it to him. It was really cool to watch. We then drove to Red Deer and exchanged keys and drove down to Innisfail. Elder Coombs knew how to get from Rocky to RD or Rocky to Innifail, but not the in between. Luckily I did and I was driving. We ended up getting to Innisfail early and didn't know what to do. We were going to go tract out this street. When we pulled up it was raining. We waited hoping it would stop and it started pouring harder. big rain drops were hitting the car. then it slowed down and started to hail for a minute. Small hail, but hail. It started raining again and we gave up and drove to the church to wait for Elder Marsh and McFall. We then exchanged back and went to go pick up dinner from Sister Teskey. We were going to go over there for dinner, but some things came up so she just cooked us some food to take home to eat. It wasn't quite ready so we went and did mormon.org time and then went back. We went to our apartment and had sloppy joes and watermelon. I'll eat just about anything while I'm on my mission. We then had one of the coolest experiences ever. We stopped by the Ference's and couldn't meet with them so we were going to go and try and talk with the Tuckers. I ended up telling Elder Marsh the wrong street. So we decided to stop by this guy who is the grandson of an elderly women in out ward, to see if he would come with us sometime to meet with her. He has some issues and wouldn't want to go with us. But as we were talking to him the McPhail's drove past and texted us saying that we could come over. We went over there after. We really didn't get to teach a lesson to them but it was a good chat. We left and as we went to get into the car. Elder Marsh said hi to this women on a balcony. She then asked if we had any literature. We grabbed some pamphlets and gave them to her. She was talking to us about how she wants to change her life and has seen the mormons and how we live such good clean pure lives. We talked to her for a little bit and then set up an appointment to go teach her the next day. It was a once in a mission moment apparently. What a great experience to end my birthday.

Friday
We had weekly planning today and were able to accomplish a lot. We decided that some of our investigators weren't really progressing so we had to cut some of them. We are pretty much starting over. It was a really good planning session. We then went with the Ellis' (tried to go with the Blanchards) to talk to Gail. We showed up at her house and felt really good about the whole situation. We were excited and thought that she would be one of the most golden investigators in the whole world. We knocked. She wasn't home. We have gone back many times and she either isn't home or won't answer. We are still trying pretty much everyday. We then went and we had dinner with the Miller's. We stopped by one of her friends down the street that we have talked to before. They are an older couple and his health is declining really quickly. She was a baptized member that went inactive and doesn't remember she was baptized. A little weird. We got to talk to her and decided that we are going over every Tuesday so we can share a little spiritual message with them. It will be a cool experience. We had dinner with the Millers and then went to meet with Sister Woodruff, the Relief Society President, to talk about some help that we would like with some of our potentials.

Saturday

We pretty much just went around and asked the tough questions of why they aren't doing this or that to our investigators. I'm probably not going to tell about everything that happened. We met with Bro Young who is a LA. We had a great discussion with him and then asked why he doesn't come to church. We then went to the Kachor's and asked if they would like us to teach them the lessons. We then went and met with the Votary's and pretty much just stopped by there. We then had dinner with Sharon and Kerry Davis. She is the one who always bakes bread and treats for us on sundays. We had dinner with them. Their daughter joined the church a little while ago. She was very against it, until one lesson when her whole attitude changed. She told us she will probably never join the church, but she is very supportive of it. "It is because of the missionaries that I have a new view on the LDS religion and will be forever grateful." She is so amazing.

Sunday

Wow church was quite a rush. Bro. O'Connell called me up last week and asked me to talk about the early childhood of Joseph Smith, as in before the first vision. There aren't very many resources that missionaries can use to look up topics like that. The only thing I could find was a story about Joseph's leg surgery when he was seven. Our Heritage and Teachings of the Prophets were the only thing that talked about it. It was a pretty good talk. Then in Gospel Principles, Sister Dyck was out of town, so we had to teach the lesson. A talk and then a lesson. Oh what fun. Pretty much the only thing exciting that happened yesterday was church. We had dinner with the Woodruff's again and had a great time with them. We really didn't do much else other than trying formers and tracting. Not much progress.

Well that was my week. It was pretty crazy.

We are going up to Red Deer for P-day. There are new dress guidelines and so we (more Elder Marsh) needs to buy somethings. I'm so happy I brought my shoulder bag, because backpacks are out. We can also now where Khaki pants. We also have some other things that we need to do. I might be using the debit card if I don't use cash. Just a heads up there is a 1% out of country fee that will apply.

I love you,
Elder O'Neill

P.S. I will be sending a lot of pictures so it might be a couple of emails with pictures.

Innisfail Chapter 3

Hey there everyone,

This week was such a great week in so many ways. So much happened and I don't know if I can even remember it all, but I'll give it my best shot.

Well first off, I was going to tell you about last Tuesday what happened before we came to email. So the basic run down was that we got up did our studies and then went and helped on a farm. Pretty much we went to help because of Bro Day, the Ward mission leader. He is constantly volunteering our help to his staff at his dentist office and none of them have ever taken him up on the offer. Well finally John Mills (his wife works for Bro Day) took him up on the offer, so we got to help on a farm. We helped them weed the carrots and helped lay drip tape (like a soaker hose) next to some arugula and spinach so help keep them from flowering. It was a cool experience and I also got really dirty. Mud up my arms and my legs. the only part of me that wasn't muddy was my face which was covered in sweat. We were outside for a while doing that. He also let us pick some radishes, spinach, and arugula and gave us some garlic somethings. We were then going into the cooled down barn to help break apart some old boxes and palates. I was so cool in there compared to outside all of the sweat and moisture on my body just condensed and I had rivers running down my forehead. Oh but it felt nice in there. We put the veggies in the staff fridge while we were in there. We helped with that and then we had to get going. As we were driving off we realized we left the veggies in the fridge. Oh well. It was a great experience and we did exactly what Bro. Day wanted, to not preach. We just went and helped him on the farm. He did ask us some questions, but we did not push any doctrine. We just hope that something might come from it in the future and that the rest of his staff will let us come over and help.

I have also found out the help that exercise can be. In my mind I never liked exercise and would rather just run around with friends. Well this week exercise became important in my life. I was struggling to get up in the mornings and struggling to get ready on time. It was Thursday morning when this all happened. Most mornings I would get up and try to find some position that I was trying to be awake, but kept finding myself with my eyes closed dowsing off. I just wanted one day to be able to sleep in. By the time I finally got in the shower and got ready it was about 8:20 I tried to hurry and grab a bowl of cereal and sit down for personal study. It was more like 8:30 by the time I started. about 9:00 was companionship study. The first thing that Elder Marsh talked to me about was the morning schedule. He showed me the Missionary Health Guide. Why didn't I get that sooner. It has really helped ever since. I'm feeling more energetic and more awake in the mornings. Who knew exercise was important? :)

Thursday we also got to meet our new mission president. Did I mention that we were getting a new one? President Manion and Sister Manion are so amazing and will really be wonderful for the mission. Our zone went up to Red Deer for it. Before hand we grabbed lunch and we were all eating in the kitchen. I got to catch up with Elder Eyler (from the MTC) and hear about what's been going on in his area. We then went in and got to meet President and Sister Manion. They shared things about them and some of their experiences. They are from the Fort Worth (don't let Sean read that haha) area. Then all of the outlying areas had interviews with them. We were the last ones, so while we were waiting we got to talk with everyone else until it was just us and the zls. We then had our interviews ( I would rather say get to know each other times) and really got to know what great people they really are.

Well I also had a really cool experience Saturday morning. I was really feeling down and feeling like I wasn't really progressing and becoming a better missionary. I was really just feeling upset and discouraged. Before we left the appt. I sat down and read through my Patriarchal Blessing. It truly is a blessing. I read through it and was really suddenly just feeling happy and hopeful. I love the guidance and comfort that you can feel from it. It is like your own personal book of scripture that is only yours to read and directly applies to you. It was a much needed blessing at that time.

Yesterday at church was really cool as well. Sister Woodruff, who is a single sister, texted us the night before and asked for our favorite colors and the spelling of our names. We thought it was kinda weird, but didn't really think about it much. We got to church and she asked if we could come in her primary class for the last 10 minutes. We actually almost forgot, but went in and got to talk about how the Lord has blessed us as missionaries. Her class had written notes and taped them to different bags of treats. They were all put into this burlap bag that had a name tag and a colored tie on it. It was really sweet of her to do that for us. It was hard to not eat some of it, since it was fast sunday. I love the members so much. They are so kind to us missionaries.

Bishop Mower here also is really awesome. We have been trying to get the Ferences to come to church. The parents and the oldest child were baptized a few years ago, but went inactive. Elder George and Elder Marsh were teaching the younger kids. Well I really shouldn't call them kids. They are 15 and 13. They were teaching them and had a baptism date for them that is past and gone. They wouldn't come to church so that date came and went. We took Bishop Mower with us to their house last night, mostly so he could just meet them. Pretty much they still aren't going anywhere, but we are. Since watching the Work of Salvation Broadcast we have been trying to get more member support from the ward other than feeding us meals. I guess the Bishop is the first one. He told us he wants to go every Sunday sometime and visit LA's or PM's (Less Actives and Part Members) that he will choose. That is exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen. The missionaries should be going with the members, not bringing the members. It will be a really opportunity.

We also got to go over and do another dump run with Bro Ellis, one of the best people of Innisfail. He didn't know it was going to be that nasty. He had a pile of debris that the dry wallers that were building his house just through outside the door and left it there. That was before all of the rain came a couple of weeks ago. So as we were picking up the pile we found out it was mostly old rotting drywall and gross drywall paste in a puddle of mud that was fermenting for a while. It was a really gross clean up job, but it had to be done. He said if he would have known it was going to be this bad he wouldn't have called us to help. We didn't care because we got to help out.

So overall this past week has been really good. We really didn't see any progress from anyone we taught last week, but I could sure feel myself progressing immensely. I know that the Lord is always with us to help lift us up. "Where two or more of my servants gather, there I am, in the midst of them"

Love you all,

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 2

I'm trying to come up with subject titles, but this is the best I got.

Besides the 30*C weather and the 60% humidity it is wonderful. (question what is the stupid C to F conversion???) All I know that it is hot and humid up here. There are a lot of trees around, but they are kinda spread out, since around here is a lot of farmland.

Oh sorry, that I wasn't able to email yesterday like I normally would. The first Monday of each month or sometime in that first week is usually some Canadian holiday so we can email the next day. Yesterday was Canada Day (like July 4th) and I'll hopefully be able to talk more about it later.

Well I wanted to pretty much give a run down of my week. I'll probably forget some details because there is a lot that we do in just one day. I could probably spend a couple hours talking about just one visit, but I'll try to keep it semi short.

Tuesday

Studies this morning were interesting because we had to get some tire work done on our car so we had our studies inside Kal Tire. It was kinda interesting trying to practice teaching inside of a business with people constantly walking around. Well later we got to meet Tayden and his cousin Charles. Elder Marsh and Elder George ran into him on the street and he wanted to know more. They met us at the church and we gave them a church tour and tried to answer all of their questions. We hoped that they would come to church but that didn't happen. We then had correlation with Bro. Day the ward mission leader. He is such a great guy. I could really spend hours talking about him and what he has told us. He is such a funny guy. He is one of the 4 dentists in town. 3 of them are mormon. It's pretty funny really. We then went to dinner at the Teskey's. We had a hot dog roast outside. Ya campfire in a shirt and tie. Strange to me. After dinner we went and I finally got to meet Jeff. WOW. That's about all I can say is WOW. He has such an interesting story that he got to spend that night telling me. WOW

Wednesday

Oh so I don't think I mentioned it, but Elder Marsh LOVES birds. He went bird watching with one of the members before I got here. So that will be important later. Anyways, So we had our studies and then had mormon.org time. After that Elder Marsh had an impression to go see Bro. Ellis. I wish you guys could meet him. He is so awesome. I love spending time with them. I might have mentioned him. He is the one living out of his trailer, behind his house that he is building. So they were working on the molding in the basement and when we came he showed us around. We then went out and were sitting on the deck. One of his friends came by and poked his head around the back of the house. There aren't stairs off the deck yet so he had to come around and in. To keep it short, we are going to go to the Ellis Bird farm (no direct relation) some time with the Ellis' and their friends the Beckwoods. It is about 20 minutes east of Red Deer, so out of our area, but we got permission to go since we would be going with some non-members and being able to share the gospel with them. We then got to go talk with the Blanchards. I can't tell you how amazing the members are up here. Anyways we talked to them about some possible lessons in the future at their house.

Thursday

Today was fun, because we had district meeting today. Our district consists of 4 missionaries. Us and Rocky Mountain House (Elder McFall and Elder Coombs). We had a meeting at the church and then got Subway and went to our apartment. (FYI Dad the Subway card doesn't work. Something about US to Canada). It was really fun to get to hang out with them. We then helped Kerry move some of his stuff. He is moving to a house farther out of town. Can't remember why. We do a lot of service work out here. Anyways we went to the McLean's for dinner and it reminded me of Grandma's cooking. (Their Wheat salad=Her fruit cocktail salad).

Friday

Today was super fun because we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. Since Elder Marsh is the District leader we have exchanges with the zone leaders. We had weekly planning and had to break for lunch. We met Bro. Day and Garrett at Boston Pizza. Garrett is thinking about going on a mission and we met for lunch just to talk with him. Bro. Day is super nice and paid for all of us. He called it a business lunch. We then finished up planning and went on exchanges with the ZL's. I went up to Red Deer with Elder Vega. He was awesome and so much fun to get to know. There are a few wards in Red Deer so the ZL's meet up with dinner sometimes with other companionships. So we had breakfast for Dinner at the Tuckers with the Elders from Sylvan Lake. They were a great family and were very sarcastic.

Saturday

I slept over at there apartment because exchanges are 24 hours. So I was there for lunch with Elder Vega. He apparently doesn't read cooking directions very well. We were going to have a Calzone. He read 350 for 15 minutes. It was really 350 convection oven 400 for a conventional oven. So we were running a little late that day. He was supposed to have an interview with me at the end. They usually go to the church and do it in the chapel, but since we didn't have time, we had our interview in the car. I'm making some great memories. We met back up with our companions and took some great pictures. I'll probably save those for myself. We had to hurry and leave to go back and change so we could go to the Teskey's and do one of my favorite things in the whole world (saracasm). WEEDING. Ya we have actually been doing a lot of that lately. Well we also had dinner at the Woodruff's which was special. Saturday was Elder Marsh's birthday so they had cake and presents for him. I love how thoughtful this ward is.

Sunday

It was a pretty normal missionary Sunday but the cool thing was the tracting that we did that night. So after our dinner appointment, we went to drop by some less actives or formers. If they aren't home or are busy we do 3x3. Tract 3 doors on the right and 3 doors on the left. We kept getting shut out or they weren't home. Granted it was a holiday weekend so most people might have left...but someone HAD to be home. We decided to say a prayer about where we could go. I picked out 44th street in between 50 and 49 Ave. We started just flat out tracting the left side. The first house the guy was out smoking and abruptly sent us away. A few houses down there was a Lady from New Zealand. We tried to talk to her but she 'wasn't interested in the least'. We kept knocking on doors but nothing. the last house, we heard people in the back yard so we knew they were there. It was a Phillipean family that was setting up for a party. We talked to a 22 year-old guy that was very kind. He invited us in for some water. We were able to sit down and talk to him about his past and share some of our beliefs. He is strongly Catholic so I don't think it will really end up with much, but we gave him a mormon.org card. His aunt is LDS and we urged him to go to the website to find out more about our's and his aunt's beliefs. It was really a cool experience.

Monday

Well having a Canada Day Ward Party on P-day was great. It was supposed to be from 2-6 or 7 and well Mormon Standard time applies everywhere. We got there a little before 2 to help set up and no one was there. Probably around 2:30-3 some people started to show. We decided that since it was p-day we could not wear our pros (proselyting)(shirt and tie) clothes so we went and changed into shorts and had a great time.

Well I don't think I'll have much time to tell you much more about my week. But that will just mean I have more awesome stories to tell you about.

Well I've got to go. I love and miss you all.

Elder O'Neill