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