Innisfail Chapter 10

Wow I have been here for a long time. I have been here for 10 weeks already. Where did the time go. Half of the time I still feel like I came out of the MTC yesterday.

Well this week was jam packed with a lot of crazy, exciting, inspirational, incredible experiences. I don't know if I can tell about it all.

Monday

Today was a pretty relaxing pday. We did the usual. We cleaned up the bedroom and then and met some of the young men at the church for some basketball. Oh joy basketball. Well I needed to catch up a ton in my journal so I pretty much just sat on the sidelines and wrote in my journal. I didn't mind. We then went back and got ready to go to the Ellingson's for dinner. We had a lot of fun over there. They kids are so much fun to be around and the Ellingson's are such great people. We then went and met with Charlie and Lee. We taught them the first part of Lesson 1 that we hadn't before. It was really great. They are really starting to understand. We invited them to take a church tour. They aren't interested in going to church, but wouldn't mind a church tour. They are incredible.

Tuesday

Today was kind of a disappointing day. We left and went to talk with James. We ended up having to drop him. He wasn't willing to act on the things that we invited him to do. He still wouldn't take a Book of Mormon. We then went and did mormon.org time. I still love that hour each week. We then went and tried by a lot of potentials and formers. We had dinner with the Ellis' in their house. They are official moved in now. They still have somethings to unpack from boxes, but they can live there now. I still love going over there. We then went on exchanges with Rocky. I was with Elder Talauega. He is from Samoa. We went and tried by some more formers and then just went back. It was the first time that I was ever really on my own to plan out the day. It was rough, but I was able to plan out a pretty good day.

Wednesday

Well I thought I had planned out a good day. We had our studies and then went to the Stonehockers. We then went back for lunch. We were supposed to meet with former after that, but she had to cancel. We went to see Bro Votary instead. We shared a Bible video with him. "I am the Bread of Life." It is really an incredible video to watch. All of them are. We spent the rest of the day trying formers and potentials. We had a lesson with the Blanchards. The point of the member lesson that we share is to get them into PMG to the point that they could teach us the lessons. They have really taken to it and are ready to teach us on the next appointment. We then had Dinner and then went and met with Darren. He is super cool and we were able to start teaching him. He had a lot of concerns from his church and what's to know what we believe. We were able to have a new investigator. We then drove up to Red Deer to switch back. We had to wait for a little while, but we switched back and then drove to the ZL's apartment to stay the night, since we were going to ride with them up to Edmonton tomorrow.

Thursday

I honestly don't know if I can accurately tell everything that went on today. Well today was mission tour. Elder W. Craig Zwick came to our mission to talk to us. The whole mission, except for the elders in Yellowknife, came. We were able to hear from him, his wife and President and Sister Manion. I took so many notes. When Elder Zwick first got there he wanted to shake everyone's hand and be able to meet each one of us individually. That was cool. He then talked to us for a little while. He talked about how we should "simplify and intensify" our teaching. He wanted some of us to come and teach the rest of the mission. That would be scary. The Assistants were to choose one companionship from each of the 8 zones to come and teach. The companionship would come up. One would announce what principle anywhere in PMG they were going to teach. The other would then share a recent experience that they had with it. The other would then share a scripture and testify. It was supposed to be about 3 minutes long. Well as soon as he told us what was going on, everyone started to panic a little bit. You didn't know if you were going to be called on or not. I had a feeling that we would. So the assistants picked one companionship from each zone. He started with some from the Edmonton zones. Then it started to go to the outlying. I was right. We were picked. Lucky us. I was truly pretty terrified. We went up and did really well. I was shaking, but tried to stay calm. After each companionship taught, he would ask what went well. He got up after us and asked the mission, "What could they have done better?". No one raised there hand. "Exactly. What did they do well". A lot of people had comments. It was incredible. It really made me realize that I know what I'm doing and am doing it well. The meeting kept going and we were really able to hear a lot of inspiring messages. We had lunch which was really fun. I got to see everyone from the MTC again. We are still super close. Each of our zones was also able to have a picture with Elder and Sister Zwick and President and Sister Manion. It was cool. We then went back and were able to hear from Sister Zwick and more from Elder Zwick. It seemed like revelation was just pouring out of his mouth. Originally the meeting was going to be finished at about 4:00. It lasted until almost 5:00. I just wanted to stay and hear more. It was so incredible. We then went and talked with some more people. We were almost some of the last to leave the building. We were lucky to still see people from our zone there. We rode with some of them and ran to subway to grab a quick sandwich before we had to be at the temple. Yes we got to go to the temple. It was incredible. The new temple video was amazing. I just loved being in there. We don't get to go very often as missionaries and I really loved the chance that we were able to go this trip. The temple workers had to tell us to leave so they could close. We got out at about 10:00. That is the latest we have ever stayed out. It's about and hour after curfew. We then struggled, but finally caught a ride to the Assistants' for the night. I was in spiritual overload that night.

Friday

Well today we had to drive back to Innisfail and return home from our Missionary Vacation. We got back to our apartment a little after 10:00 am. It was hard to try and refocus and get back to the work. The only thing that really happened that night was we went to see Jeff. We went and read the Book of Mormon to him. He is able to understand it a little better that way, but we just can't keep going as often.

Saturday

Well I can't really say that much happened today either. We were able to have a good visit with Mary w/ the Ellis'. They hadn't talked in a while and we were able to show them all some of the bible videos. We were able to have a pretty good discussion after each one. We went down to Bowden later that night. We went down and within 30 minutes we had blown through all of our ideas and still had an hour and half left. We did a lot of tracting that night.

Sunday

Today was amazing. Shauna came to church. She is solid. She told us she won't make a commitment if she doesn't think that she can follow through. She came and is willing to come again. We just have a hard time meeting her. We are really hopeful. We had lunch with her at the Ellis' after Church and were able to talk to her about somethings that she learned. She really enjoyed it. It was amazing. We were finally able to get someone to church!!!

Oh this last week was pretty crazy. A lot happened. I'm still trying to let everything sink back in. We had a pretty great week.

I hope all is going well. I love to hear about what's going on.

"If it isn't worth it, it won't be hard. Because it's hard, it is worth it."
Elder O'Neill

Innisfail chapter 9

Wow this past week was really amazing. The work is really starting to move forward.

Monday

Today was pretty uneventful. We were able to teach a couple Charlie and Lee. They are the couple from friday. They are really willing to learn and are willing to follow the commitments that we give them. It is truly amazing. We actually have progressing investigators!!

Tuesday

Today was a crazy day. We went over to the McLean's for Lunch and continued with YLM with them. We are continuing to learn more about how to best teach it to everyone. We are trying different ideas until one finally works. The whole lesson idea is still really helpful to people, it's just how to present it. We then went and stopped by Todd. We haven't seen him in a while. He hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon, but is still willing for us to teach him. We then went and helped the Ellis'. They are finally moving into their house. It has taken a year of construction and they are finally moving in. It's exciting. We then had dinner with the Hallman's. Their kids are so much fun. Bro. Hallman served in Provo. I don't know how long ago, but his last area was AF. It was cool. We then went and helped Josh with Bro Day's fence some more. We are pretty much done. It was just some more clean up.

Wednesday

Today was a lot of service. Todd was working on his gate and we went to help him. We spent about 2 and 1/2 hours helping him before we had to leave for lunch and then see the Blanchards. The Blanchards are a real help with YLM. They gave us a great idea that we are going to start trying. It simply is to go through each of the lessons in PMG and find 3-5 main points. We are making flashcards for some people to show them the points. We are going to give them a few of the principles and then have them finish the other principles on their own. We are really getting people into PMG. Elder Marsh had started digging a post hole for Todd and so after the Blanchards we went back to help Todd. We were there for another 2 and 1/2 hours until we had to go to dinner. We never got to read the BOM with him, but were able to talk about it. We then went to Sister LeBlanc's house for dinner. She is so great, but holy cow can she talk. We then went with Bishop to visit Mary and let him get to know her. It was a great visit. Then we had Ward Corelation.

Thursday

Today was great. We started off with going to the Stonehockers and continuing the member lesson with them. We didn't have the main points ready yet so we just continued on with helping them learn what the principles are. We then went and had a district meeting. It was really good and Elder Marsh was able to give some great ideas of how to help our areas. We then went and had mormon.org time. Mom after what you told me about Thomas I'm starting to wonder if I was finding the right people. I found some records about one of Thomas' daughters and found her, her husband and kids. Whatever Thomas that is, I'm able to find a lot about his family. Well I might step back and try another line. maybe start a little lower and reach out. It is hard to do when there isn't much information about some of the people. Anyways, We then went to Bro. Young's house and then had dinner with the Kirkpatricks. They are such great people. They are wanting to move but don't know where and no one has even come to look at their house now. It's a tough situation. We then went and saw Jeff. He is so fun to visit with.

Friday

We had weekly planning today. It took a long time, but we were able to really plan out our week and get a lot of things accomplished. We always end weekly planning with Comp I (companionship inventory). It is pretty much to address any problems with your companion. It was really good. We have been a little tense this last week and it really helped to relieve that and figure out how to make our companionship stronger. It took a while, but it really helped. We then went and met with Bro Crawford. We gave him the first of the flashcards. We then went and had dinner at the Woodruff's. We went to pull up and found a surprise. The Mcphails were coming for dinner. We haven't seen them in a while and had to quickly think about a different lesson plan. It still worked out really great.

Saturday

Today was a great day. We went over to help the Ellis' some more. We went and helped him mount his new TV on a wall mount. That was a lot of work. We also helped them move their treadmill. It is really similar to ours, so I pretty well knew how to move it. Bro Ellis didn't know where it was supposed to go so when everything was said and done, it was back where it was. Oh the joys of moving. Glad we never moved. We then went and visited Bro McLeod. Then we picked up Bro Ellis and took him with us to a lesson down in Bowden.  We first stopped by Sam. He is a LA that we stopped by a few weeks ago and Bro Ellis knew him really well. We went to see if there was anything that we could do for him and had an interesting run in. Apparently, Elder Marsh was too "pushy" for him. He ripped into him and pretty much told him to never come back. He said he had no problem with me. Well that was because I really didn't say much to him. As long as we are companions we aren't going back. We then went and had a lesson with Shauna. It went really well. Bro Ellis was great. They had a lot in common and were able to talk about work. As we were teaching her Bro Ellis invited her to church. It was great that he invited her. She accepted. As we continued on toward the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized. SHE ACCEPTED :D. It is our first investigator with a baptismal date. It took a little bit. We set a date for later in September. It is about a month away. Well it seems like a long time away for us, but Bro Ellis was shocked it was so soon. We had to come back and say that it was a goal that could be adjusted, but we would like to keep it there. It was incredible. After we left, Bro Ellis was amazed at how bold we were. It was no big deal for us. The 7 Habits of a Baptizing Missionary: 1 Invite investigators to be baptized on every visit, including the first lesson. We are used to it and were prepared. We then went back to our apartment and had dinner then we drove out to Springbrook. It was a last minute change, but We took it as a prompting and followed it. I'm glad we did. We went out to try by Jackie. She sells antique-ish furniture at the Red Deer market. It is the furniture that she paints with some color and then beats it to make it look older. Mom you will understand. We were able to talk to her, but wasn't able to set anything up. We then went to see the Kachor's. They were supposed to be coming home from their vacation and so we wanted to see them. We had a great conversation with them. They drove down to California and while they were in Salt Lake they went to the temple. She is a LA member and the rest of the family aren't. She had a great experience at the Visitor's Center and was holding back tears as she tried to tell us about it. We then set up an appointment to start teaching them. He is interested in learning but not much more. She wants the kids to understand what she believes. So we set a time to go back Sunday. Elder Marsh has been waiting the whole time he has been in Innisfail to start teaching them.

Sunday

Today was pretty incredible. We went to church. While we were there there was a sister there that had served in Innisfail a little while ago. Sister Atkinson. She went home in May and came back up with her family. They were touring around and today they were in Innisfail. Elder Marsh and her were in the same zone when he was in Beaumont. So they knew each other. It was the third Sunday so that meant Pot-luck. We were out talking to some people and so by the time that we went in most of the food was gone. We got enough, but couldn't stay long. We then headed off to teach the Kachors. We had a great lesson about the Godhead with them. It was super cool. We then went to see the Mendenhalls. We were going to go with Bishop, but he wasn't able to come. We were able to understand why they don't come to church. It might take some time, but I'm pretty sure they will come back. We then went and had dinner with the Mower's. Well guess who was staying with the Mower's that night. The Atkinsons. So we had dinner with the Mowers and Atkinsons. It was fun. They were all going to go over to the Ellis' for dessert. We went and dropped by some people and then went over. The funniest thing about the night came from Bro Atkinson. The ward keeps in contact with most of the missionaries that have served in the area. It has been sisters for a while and the Elders that have recently served are still serving. They said they had a bet going on who the first to be married would be of those who have gone home. A lot have said Sister Atkinson. Bro Atkinson was great. "I'd put my bet on Elder O'Neill." It was great. I've now been out for a little over 2 months. We were all dying over that. I'm still laughing at it. We had a cool discussion with them and then went to see some more people. Well we had like 15 minutes until we had to be in. We went and stopped by a potential Darren. We weren't able to set up a specific return appointment, but we got his number to try by him later on this week.

Well that was my week. It was pretty incredible. We have really been guided by the hand of the Lord in everything that we do. We are loving the work and loving the people even more. The work is continuing to move forward.

I love and miss you all. Don't worry I'll be back in only 22 months.

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 8

Hey there,

Wow this week has been really great. We were able to have a lot of success. 4 new investigators.

It pretty much all started from Tuesday on.

Tuesday

Well we went to the library to email since we couldn't the monday before. We then went and met with James. He is the glorified QGC. We were able to talk to him more. He has a lot of questions about what are beliefs are. He is really interested in learning more about Christianity and is interested in our viewpoints. He isn't really willing to follow through on the things we ask him. We think he might become and investigator soon. We then drove up to Red Deer to go on exchanges with the ZL's. I was going to be in Innisfail with Elder Knaphus. It was reallly cool because he used to serve in Innisfail not too long ago. There were sisters for a few years. Then Elder Knaphus and Elder George came in. When Elder Knaphus got transferred, Elder Marsh came in. Then when Elder George was transferred I came in. It was cool to be with Elder Knaphus in an area that he already knows. We first went to meet with Kyle. He had read the Book of Mormon before for a philosophy class. He had to read it with a very skeptical view comparing it with another religion. So we urged him to read it with an open mind and really pray about the truthfulness of it. We asked him if he would be baptized. He accepted. "If I do find that it's true I will". We had a date picked for him, but I didn't get the clue to set the date with him. I'm still learning. At least he accepted to be baptized. Well the good day continued on. We went to try by some formers and potentials before we went to our dinner appointment. Well it was about 15 minutes before and we got a couple of voicemails. One was from our dinner appointment saying that Sis. Kirkpatrick wasn't feeling well and that they would have to cancel. The next was a voicemail from the Nagy's (a PM fam) saying that if we wanted to come over for dinner we could. It would be the only night possible to come over. We went to their house later that night. Her husband is a truck driver and is gone a lot of the time. He isn't a member. We were going in to share with them the first lesson. We were sharing it with them and it was going pretty well. He was mostly just sitting there listening. When we shared the first vision, that is were it was cool. After sharing it, he sat up in his chair and was really intently listening. We could feel the Spirit really strongly and knew that he could too. It was an amazing visit. We also had a voicemail from Peter Mower. He had a referral for us. It was a guy he works with that is going through some hard family problems. It was sweet.

Wednesday

Well today was interesting. I had to plan out everything last night that we were going to do. It was going to be an interesting day. Well we had our studies and Elder Knaphus and I went tracting. We didn't really see much success. Barely got to talk to 5 people on the whole street. We then went and were going to have lunch with the Ellis'. We told them that Elder Knaphus was coming down and wanted to see him. We had lunch and got talking. They showed him the house. We went back to their trailer to get our bags and share a message with them when they said "It was really great seeing you." We didn't have too much time left anyways and so we left and went to exchange back. While we were waiting at a gas station in Penhold, we went in to try and find a better map of Penhold than we already had. We didn't find one, but Elder Knaphus found out that I hadn't ever had a Kinder-egg, so he bought us each one. They are a chocolate egg with a little toy inside. It was pretty cool. Not much else exciting happened until dinner. We had dinner with the other Day's in the ward. They are brothers and this was the younger. We went over and had a great time with them. We always have some words of wisdom to help us in life. The first time we went over there July 4, He gave us the tip of when you get back home and are going to school, study like it's a full time job. He said that is what helped him through dental school. This time they talked about how you should ask the hard questions before you get married. There was a book with different questions that they had. It talks about some questions you probably wouldn't even think of. They are always giving us cool tips for our life.

Thursday

Well today we had ZTM. It was really cool to see all of the new missionaries in the zone. Elder Eyler and I were liking that we aren't the greenest of the greenies. It was a really inspirational ZTM. The ZL's gave us some great trainings on how to best help our area. We later had dinner with the Huesby's. They are another PM family. We were hoping to do a similar lesson with them as we had with the Nagy's. Well Bro Huesby (non-member) was late getting home so he came home had dinner and when we went to the living room to share the message he went down the hall. It was a bummer. We still had a good visit. We then met with Jeff. He is really starting to progress. We started to read through the Book of Mormon with him. He says he has a hard time understanding it so we are going slow and clarifying each verse. We really only read about 5 verses before we were way out of time. He was really understanding what we were teaching.

Friday

Well today was weekly planning. We did that as quickly as we could so that we could have lunch and go help Bro Ellis with another dump run. They are moving into their house on Monday and had a dump run to do. It was much easier than last time. It was just cardboard and scraps of wood. Simple. He then took us to DQ to get a shake. We went back and were finally able to share our message with them. I'm loving this member lesson we have. Did I ever talk about it?? It's called "Your Life is a Mission" (YLM for short) We then drove down to Bowden. We tried by a few people before we had dinner with the Smith's. They are amazing. They were telling us all about the beginnings of the Innisfail ward. It was really cool. They were telling us about a lot of people that they used to talk to and were able to get a referral from them. They just didn't know where he lived, but told us that someone in the ward must know. It was awesome that we were able to actually get a member referral. We then went back and were able to visit with a couple that we had met last week. They both have a super strong faith in Christ, but don't think they need church. We stopped by and were talking with them. We were trying to figure out how to share a message with them when pretty much out of the blue they said "We don't know much about your Church. Enlighten us". It was a shock to both of us. We gave a brief overview of the first lesson. They became our 2nd and 3rd new investigators this week.

Saturday.

We were able to have a pretty great day today. We first went to go talk to James. He was eating and said to come back in 30 minutes. We walked over to Bro. Burns. (he just lives down the street). He is in such poor health. I feel bad for him. We then went back to James and had a really good 'lesson' with him. We were able to commit him to pray about the truthfulness of our message and set a return appointment. #4 !!! It was really amazing. We then went and visited with Bro Votary. He is in a full care facility. He has severe COPD. It is hard for him to do much because he can't breathe. We talked about what stops him from coming to church and it really was just his health and a way to get there. We talked about having someone pick him up and bring him. He said if they would he would try to come. We called Bishop Mower and told him about it. Sister Mower already brings Sister Votary, so she would try to bring him. We had dinner by ourselves. Saturday's aren't working for most people. We then went to contact the Smith's referral. We were able to get his address and see him. He was taught some of the lessons, but really wasn't too interested. We tried. We then went and met with Chris Hodges. We shared YLM with him. When we went to leave there was a man standing there. We went to talk to him and found out he was Peter Mower's referral. We were just about to go back to the car to go to his house and we were already there. It was cool. We were able to talk to him for a little while and are going back Tuesday to talk to him more.

Sunday

Wow today was cool. This past week the youth in the stake were at Legacy camp. It was a 4 day camp about Joseph Smith. They had re-enactments of different moments in his life. They played games and had a really great time. Sacrament meeting was really special. There are only like 20 youth in the ward so this was possible. They had Sister Herbert (Young Women's Pres) share her testimony about camp. Then they let any of the youth that wanted to share their testimonies. Bro O'Connell tried about 3 times to end the meeting and another youth stood up. There experiences were soo amazing. It sounded like a great camp to do. We went over to the Blanchards to share YLM with them. It was perfect for them and they are really excited for it. We then had dinner with the Christenson's. Well there was also the Herberts (Sister Christenson's Daughter). We had dinner and kept talking about the cool experience from Legacy that the youth had. We were there for a long time. By the time we were able to share our message the Joseph's also came over. (Sis C's other daughter). We totally had to wing a lesson. It was still really cool. We then drove back and tried by some LA's.

That was my week. It was very eventful. We are really starting to see the progress going back up in the area. We couldn't have done it without the Lord's help.

Hope everything is going well at home. Love hearing the stories of all of the adventures.

Love and miss you all,
Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 7

Hello

This week was so different. There was a lot of things that happened that I hope I will be able to tell you. I wasn't able to email yesterday because it was a Civic Holiday. I'm still trying to understand it, but the First Monday of each month is a holiday.

Well now to start.

Sunday

We were able to go to Ward Council and present a really cool lesson plan based on the Work of Salvation Broadcast. We are going to have each auxiliary go to specific Part-Member families and ask the member spouse if they can have permission to ask the non-member spouse to take the lessons. If no they leave it alone. If yes, they go to the non-member and ask if we (the missionaries) can teach the family the lessons. If no, leave it. If yes, They will contact us and we will set up the appointments. The thing is that a member from each auxiliary has to be present for each lesson. It is really going to help us get our member-present lessons.

Monday

Today was transfers and I told you already that we are staying here. We went up to Red Deer to play basketball and to talk with the leaving missionaries. Pretty much every companionship is going to the transfer meeting except us, Stettler, and Three Hills (3/4 training areas). A lot more of the other areas will be training. Red Deer 1 was training, but Elder Groskreutz (I know it's a weird name) is becoming a ZL. Can't wait to meet the rest of the missionaries coming down. Oh and Elder Shettel (I went to HS with him) is going to be in the zone.

Tuesday

Well we did a lot of walking today. We were going to help out again at the Food Bank at 1. Well by the time we are done with studies and lunch each day it is 12. So we decided instead of trying to visit someone, we would walk to the Food Bank. Well it is all the way across town. We were able to talk to a lot of people and have some more potentials that we could visit. We went and helped at the Food Bank and then had to walk back to get the car. Ugh. Oh also about the car. I'm the driver now. We switched and I get to drive around. I started a few weeks ago to try to remember where we were going, but now I really have to try to remember. I'm doing pretty good so far.

Wednesday

Well today was kind of a bust. We had a lot of hope for getting some new investigators, but those fell through. We met a guy yesterday walking how was really pretty interested so we went back and were hoping to teach him the first lesson. It ended up being a glorified Quality Gospel Conversation (QGC). We still have a lot of hope that he will become an investigator. We then went out to Springbrook and were hoping to finally have our first lesson with Jamela. It was going to be a first lesson for her and recent convert lessons for her brother and cousin, Nathan and Indya. We got there and found out that Jamela wasn't going to be able to come. So it just became a RC lesson. We did have our weekly meeting with Bro. Day and Bishop Mower. They were coming up with their own ideas on how to help the work progress. It was really cool to see their enthusiasm.

Thursday

Well today we were able to have mormon.org time again. I love being able to find Census records. Mom it's pretty easy. just look to the side of the personal info and press search records. I was looking at Thomas O'Neill (Hugh's Son) and was able to find his wife and some of his kids. It is a little messy since it wants to merge it with duplicates that have much less information. (Might need some help with him). Later we had a lot of open time. Well that is one thing that drives me crazy that Elder Marsh does, but I know deep down it is helping me, but oh man does it bother me. Whenever we have open time he asks me what to do. There are times I honestly have no clue what to do. To me I'm frustrated trying to come up with what to do and he is sitting there like he doesn't have a clue or a thought in his mind. I know he has ideas, but won't share them, because he wants me to figure it out. AHHH. It really just gets to me. I end up just picking a name of a list. We drive there and end up having a cool experience. Why does it take so much frustration. That is something I'm still learning is how the Spirit works through me.

Friday

Well we had weekly planning and then went to Bowden later that night. We don't really spend much time in Bowden because we really don't have any investigators down there. We didn't have much else to do so we went down to talk to formers and potentials. We had a great conversation with a LA. He wasn't really interested in talking to us at first, but Elder Marsh just kept talking to him. He was pretty big into motorcyles and told us to go to the side of the house and he would show us his bike. It was a remodeled '78 anniversary Harley Davidson. He had put some custom parts and fixed it up really well. We just kept talking to him and now he is going to call us sometime to help him pour some cement to make a back porch. It was really cool.

Saturday.

Well today was really cool about how everything fell into place. I love when that happens, but am still learning to not rely on it. The coolest part was the conversation we were able to have with Kyle. He is the Bro. Young's Grandson. We have talked to him before. He likes to learn about religion, but isn't a member of any particular one. We ended up setting up a time to come and teach him (later today). It was a bit of a rough day, because Elder Marsh wasn't feeling too good.

Sunday

Well today was the turning point. After going to church I was feeling so much more hopeful about our situation. We were able to have some great member lessons and really get things moving.

Monday

Today was fun, tiring, and eventful. Being P-day it should have been a little bit relaxing, but really didn't seem like it. We got up went to the store (much needed) and ran some errands. We had plenty of time since the Library was closed. We went back to the apt. and deep cleaned the Kitchen. It is a tiny little area of the apt, but man it was a lot of work. We spent about two hours working on it before we went to the zoo with Bro Burns. It was fun. They have a Bear show where they take you to some of the different bears they have. These bears of some of the Hollywood bears and have been trained to do some tricks. It was cool. For being Canada they do have a lot of different animals. It is all outside so really it's just some of the bigger animals. It was still cool to go with Bro Burns. We then came back and continued to clean the Kitchen 2 more hours later we were finally done. 4 hours of cleaning in a space (what to compare it to) smaller than the condo's kitchen.

Wow I can't believe I was able to tell everything in the time that I had.

I love being able to read what is going on at home.

Love you all,

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 6

Monday
So I mentioned that we were going to the zoo, but that didn't end up happening. We were going to go with a LA member, Bro Burns. He has some health conditions and can't really walk all that well. So we would have had to get a cart, but we didn't plan enough time to get it all squared away. We will probably go in a couple of weeks. So instead we went back to the apt and had a nice relaxing day. Dinner is a bit confusing to explain. We had dinner with the O'Connell's at the Darby's with Bro McLeod and Bro Nagel. It was a pretty fun time. The Mosquitoes attacked my ankles so I had like 9. I had 5 on my right side of my right ankle. That itched. We received a referral from Elder George up in Edmonton Sunday night that we went and tried to contact. He opened the door saw us and shut it. Yep that is typical.

Tuesday

It was an interesting day today. We went to drop off a part-member list to Bro Day and he told us about this guy who is building his fence, Josh. Josh is Bro Day's hygenists' husband. Bro Day had offered our help to him a while back but he declined. He heard about the work that we did at John Mills' Farm and told Bro Day that he could use some help on the fence. We ended up helping him out later that night. Bro Day had to go back to work and we went to help at the Food Bank. We were hoping we would be able to talk with more people than we did. We pretty much only really talked to the people working there. It was still a good service we did. We then came back changed and went out to see Bro Nagel, since we had dinner with the Darby's. Yep two nights at the Darby's. We talked to Bro Nagel about what it was like on his mission in Denmark. He would have been there about 60 years ago. Dinner with the Darby's was fun. We made Sushi. It was fun. Bro Darby didn't want to risk the raw fish so it was mostly vegetable rolls. There was some smoked salmon, but it came across a little stronger flavor. It was super cool. Now I can roll sushi. Still don't know how to make the rice, but it doesn't sound too hard. We then went back and helped Josh move some boards around Bro Day's yard that he was going to put up. FYI Bro Day's yard is pretty big. So we were hauling boards on our shoulders. I found out something about myself that night. I have really boney shoulders. Typically it is pretty easy to carry the boards over your shoulder, but I don't have a soft, flat spot. The are pretty boney. It hurt for a while and I found out when we got in for the night that I had bruised my left shoulder.

Wednesday

Today was a pretty cool day. So we had the usual morning schedule and then went to the Library for our Mormon.org time. We both spent a lot of time on FamilySearch. It was really cool. The Darby's are like the Moon's. They are Family History pros. They were telling us that the church has started telling people that if they are having a hard time going back in their own lines then they should go sideways and forward. So while I was on Family Search I tried that. It was pretty cool. I was looking up records for Emerson Edison O'Neill and found two different Census records for him. One was when he was still living at home and another was one with his wife and kids living in California. I was able to update some of the information on him and his wife, I added his kids in and then it made me realize that they might still be alive. They would be in their 80's, but we might have relatives in California. It what I was able to find off of a census. Mom you should go on and look at the sources for them. It is amazing the things you can find. It was a really cool experience. We then went and visited with Bro Votary and then went and talked with a LA lady named Betty. She was baptized many years ago, but doesn't agree with some of the doctrines. She came across confrontational, but she is just confused. We then had to run and meet up with the Rocky elders for exchanges. We were like half and hour late. I went with Elder McFall out to Rocky. We first went to the scheduled dinner appointment, but we showed up late and they were leaving to go see the air show that night. We then stopped by another family nearby, the Christensen's. Bro Christensen has been pretty sick lately. They believe in Chinese Medicine, pretty much all natural healing. He was staying somewhere else. The rest of the family has been sick as well and since we were there Sister Christensen asked if we could give the family a blessing. We gave a blessing to 2 of their sons and her. It was also really cool. We then went to drop something off at the Ward Mission Leader's house. They are a Philippine family and asked if we had had dinner. We told them no and they offered to feed us. It was interesting. She had cut up a fish and boiled it. Then served it over rice. I had to be careful of the bones and skin as I ate it. Very different, but it wasn't bad. We then tried by a lot of potentials and ended up tracting for a little while. Not much success so we went back to the apt.

(sorry this email is so long)

Thursday

We had morning studies and then headed back to Innisfail for multi district meeting. We went back and grabbed some subway then met everyone at the apt. 10 missionaries in our apt. It was a blast. The areas there were Innisfail, Rocky (obviously), Olds, Three hills, and Red Deer 2 (aka the ZL's) It was super fun. I was able to talk with Elder Eyler again. We then had the multi district meeting at the church. It was really good and the ZL's gave us some good ideas to involve the members. We are going to try and start presenting that soon. We then went and met with Bro Burns. I can't remember in between but then we went to the Joseph's for dinner. We were hoping that we could teach their oldest daughter, but apparently with some miscommunication and we weren't. We didn't even really get to share a message, since Bro Joseph had to take his son to soccer. We then went back and helped Josh with the fence some more.

Friday

What a day. We met Bro Day at the church so we could plan out our presentation to the Ward Council. We spent about two hours coming up with a plan of what we wanted them to do and how to present it. He then took us to BP for lunch. We went back and had weekly planning. We then when and helped Todd (He is a potential, might have mentioned him before) with his fence. (yes a lot of fence work). We helped him put up the frame boards and dig some post holes. It was a good time. He was asking some really good questions too. He invited us over for dinner tomorrow to pay us back for helping him. We asked if we could teach him a little about what we believe and he said yes. Finally a chance for a first lesson. We then went to the Tewson's for dinner. It was a pretty good time. It was a late dinner appointment because he had work. We got their and dinner wasn't even ready and his wife wasn't home yet. It ended up taking a long time there so we didn't do much the rest of the night.

Saturday

We had our usual morning and then we went to help Josh again. Well our phone was being weird and Josh actual tried to text us to say he had to go to Calgary to get his tools fixed, we didn't end up getting that message until about two hours later. So we went over to help and he wasn't there. Bro Day called him and he said he would be right over. He explained everything and then while he went to go rent so equipment we moved more boards. He came back and said to keep going, he was going to go home for lunch. We kept going and then about when we had to go he came back. Oh well. We were still able to help him out a lot. The Day's were going to take some bottles and cans to the bottle depot. It's like recycling, but you get money back. We needed to go to so Elder Marsh said, "If you take our bottles you can keep the money". Bro Day "If you take our bottles you can keep the money." He ended up filling our trunk and back seat with bags of bottles and cans and jugs. $76.95. He let us keep it and we are using it for laundry money. We were then able to have a cool lesson with some members where we applied the ZL's training. It will really be helpful in the future. We then had dinner with Todd. Pretty much, it took longer than expected and he isn't really as interested as we thought, but we still consider him a new investigator.

Well I have to end it there. It was a pretty eventful week.

FYI we had transfer calls this morning and ...We are both staying here in Innisfail.

Love and miss you all
Elder O'Neill