Londonderry-Chapter 1

Wow this past week has been a tough week. I have honestly had a hard time adjusting to this new situation. I agree with Bro Harris. The first transfer is the hardest. It was really hard to leave Innisfail. I had a hard time saying goodbye.

Well it has been an interesting overall week.

Monday

Well I told you mostly about monday. We had transfer calls. We then went and emailed. We went shopping and I really didn't need to buy much. We went back to the apartment for a little while and I started packing. Packing wasn't actually that bad.  We went and played basketball with some of the youth again. We had a good time. We then had to hurry back to shower, change and then go out to the Robertson's. It was a really cool experience out there. one of there daughters is LA and we were able to answer a lot of her questions and concerns. She had some concerns about eternal families. We told her that if she prayed and read her scriptures and came to church the next week that she would be able to find her answer and know for herself the importance of eternal families. The Spirit was really strong. We then drove back and stopped by the Mower's. We stopped by to say goodbye and we had some things to talk with Bishop Mower about. We were talking downstairs at his Japanese heated table. It is the coolest thing. It is a low table  that sits on this rug, it has a blanket that comes out just underneath the edge of the table. underneath the table is a heater that heats up the space underneath the blanket. It was soo warm and comfortable. We went back and we were about to do some planning when there was a knock on our door. It was the Georges'. They were dropping off some left over Turkey soup. I was able to say goodbye to them.

Tuesday

Well today we were running around saying goodbye to some more people. We got a call that morning and Bro Ellis wanted to make breakfast for us. We went over and then I said goodbye. It was probably the hardest goodbye I had to say. It was like leaving home again. Later we went up to Penhold and help Lori out some more. We ended up crawling underneath her trailer to try and put some supports in place so that the wood stove would be  stable. Well we crawled from the only opening available until we hit a wall. We pushed out the side of the trailer  to be able to see better and found out that we weren't there yet. Well we went to the other side of the trailer and pulled out a wall. Well then there was a wasp's nest built into the insulation. Elder Sorensen had gloves on and pulled it out and then we Raid-ed the rest. Well we really didn't want to crawl under there anymore, but we peeked under and found a giant stump already holding up where we needed it.

"Oh the guy that lived here before had a wood stove there."

"How big was it?"

"Bigger than mine"

It was not a fun conversation. Well with that done, we went and grouted her tile. Oh the things you learn how to do on your mission. Well then we drove back and Sister Kinder was going to meet us at a park so the kids could say goodbye. Met them at a park by the local pool. It was a good thing that the windows were closed, Elder Sorensen would have been dying. (He was a swimmer did I mention that). We went over and said goodbye. Then went back to change. We changed and went over to the Blanchards. We then went back and picked everything up. I got to say goodbye to the Georges one last time. Bro George was just getting home and they helped load everything into the car. We then went to say goodbye to Bro. Burns but he wasn't home. We then stopped by the Woodruff's and M&B Ellingson. We then had dinner at Sharon's. It was a great dinner. We were able to share a little message with them and I bore my testimony. The lesson didn't go really how we would have liked, but Elder Sorensen is going to start teaching her again one day. We then drove up to Edmonton. We got out of Sharon's late so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the Christensen's and Joseph's like we were planning. I called them as we left town and said goodbye. It was hard. I still miss Innisfail and the wonderful people there.

Wednesday

Well we had transfer meeting. We had to be there early, because Elder Sorensen had to go to the trainer's meeting. His new companion is Elder Nemeth. He is from England. He seems really great. Well my new companion is Elder Phillips. Thought I told you that last week. He is a great missionary. He has been out for 3 months. Have I told you about missionary posterity? Well your trainer is you dad and his trainer is your grandpa and then there are brothers and sons and nephews and uncles. Well Elder Phillips is my nephew. He was trained by Elder Crow who was trained by Elder Marsh. Getting it?? Well anyways Elder Phillips has had a rough couple of weeks. Elder Crow had some depression and went home. He was with with another missionary in the next area over and they were covering both areas until transfers. He is great. Well we had transfer meeting and it was great. Then the adventure began. I thought it was a little unfair. So they were shuffling a lot of cars around because they were trying to get the Subaru's which have four wheel drive out to the outlying areas and leave the Chevy's Cruzes in the city. Well we lost our car. We are in a car share with the other Londonderry Elders. The bad part of it is that they are the Zone Leaders. So we don't really have a car. Well we called them and they came down to pick us up. They dropped us off and then the adventure began.

Well the next couple of days were just about all the same. We had to walk everywhere until we got bikes. It got cold. It snowed yesterday. My legs are in constant pain. All of our lessons with our investigators have fallen through. It hasn't been too much excitement or fun.

Well that was my week. I'm trying to stay positive, but it's hard.

Love you all

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 18...Final Chapter

Innisfail Chapter 18...Final Chapter

Colin O'Neill

Today at 12:27 PM

Well this morning was a rough morning.

It was transfer calls and I'm being transferred. I am going to be serving in Londonderry. I am really sad to leave Innisfail, but I know that I am supposed to go up there now. It's going to be a new experience.

I did have a cool experience last night regarding transfers. I just had a feeling that I was. I was praying to really find out and I had a confirmation that I was. I really didn't want to, but I am.

Well let me tell you about this past week. I can tell you right now that I'm not going to be able to tell you much of what went on and it might be a little scattered. I'm still in a bit of shock from the call.

Monday

I guess I already told you about Monday.

Tuesday

Well we went and emailed on Tuesday. Then we went to see Bro. Burns. We were able to meet with Rob and really have a good lesson with him. He is also changing. He really has a desire to meet with us more. We had supper with the Hallman's and then did the PMG lesson with the Mower's. They are great and it is super fun to see how different people are learning. Oh I forgot the crazy experience that we had with Laurenne. We were calling her to see if we could still go see her tomorrow, and we couldn't. Apparently the night before she was walking home and was hit by a truck. Ya crazy right. She is doing alright though. She broke her wrist and her foot, but everything else is fine. Crazy things happen.

Wednesday

Well we went and meet with Bro Crawford. We are able to meet with him again. We can't go over when his son is in town. His son works in Madagascar for about a month at a time. He went back to work, so we went to meet with him. We then went to meet with Fred. It was a mutual drop. We won't be really seeing him anymore. We knew it would come out, but we just have too much of conflicting opinions. It was good that is was mutual. We then went over and started the PMG lesson with the older Ellingson's. They are really great. (talking about who we have visited is really tough. I'm really going to miss this area.) We really didn't have too much else happen. We had supper with the Byam's and we got to see their new son again. Little babies are so cute.

Thursday

Well today we had ZTM. Well we went out in the morning and went tracting. Not too many people were home or interested. It wasn't super cold. It was only like 5C, but the winds were ridiculous. We were only cold because of the 40-50 winds. We were on the Blanchard's street and we went and got to talk with Bro Blanchard a little bit. We then headed off for ZTM. It was really good and I learned a lot. We talked about some unique finding ideas. I might take some up to my new area. We then had supper with Melanson's. We went up to Springbrook and were trying by some potentials. We knocked on one door and we had talked to the wife Carry, but the husband Marty answered. He thought it was the neighbor that he was going to go help move a deep freeze. (ya another deep freeze). We ended up talking to him in the driveway for a little while. The neighbor texted and said it would be later so he went back inside. They are definitely still potentials. Well we were walking back to our car that was around the corner and the 3rd ward sisters drove up. They were lost and didn't know if they were still in their area. They were far from. They told us that they had just stopped by Marty, because he was on a potential form of theirs. Well Marty is definitely prepared if two sets of missionaries were sent to talk to him. It was great. We then had a small lesson with Lori. She went to the RS activity and we were talking to her afterwards. She was on overload and the lesson didn't really go too well.

Friday

Well pretty much all of our plans that we had set fell through. We pretty much just spent the day doing some tracting. We had supper with the Clark's. Later that night we went to stop by a family that we didn't know all that well, Beckers. We knocked on the door and no one answered. we were just about to our car when someone came to the door. Bro Becker, NM, answered and we went in and talked with them for a little while. I have seen her at church, but didn't ever really put a name to a face. It was a good visit. We then went and talked with Bro George. He is a fun guy. He told me that Big Bang has started up again. How is it?

Saturday

Well I was exhausted. We got up and helped the Kirkpatrick's move. Then we went down the street to help Lori lay some tile with Bro Ellis. We didn't have much else happen. We went and stopped by a bunch of people, but nothing worked out. We went over to M&B Ellingson's and continued the PMG lesson. They have finally finished L1.

Sunday

Yesterday was a really good day. It was ward conference so we had ward council with the stake. It was good and we talked a lot about how to help the ward become a more Zion people. Well Lori and her son Devin came to church as well. It was really good. She is really coming along. She is so willing to learn. Her son enjoyed it and said that he wants to come back again. It was great for them, they are really getting involved with the ward. We also had Pot-luck again. So much food. Afterwards we went out to do some visits with Bishop Mower. We were able to catch the Coopers and we know how we can help them now. They are going to be reactivated really quickly. The ward has got it covered. We then went back and had "dinner". Elder Sorensen didn't have much and I was still full from earlier. We tracted some more and then went to see Bro Votary. He is a great man. He hasn't been feeling good for a little while. Elder Sorensen asked if he wanted a blessing. It was really good for him. We then went and saw the Woodruff's. We started lesson 2 with them. They are so much fun.

Well that was my past week. Now I get to pack up and go to a new area on Wednesday. These next couple of day's are going to be a lot of goodbyes. I guess I'm ready for the change.

Love ya all

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 17

To Family EmailMeDad's Work

Today at 2:07 PM

Happy Thanksgiving!!! (yesterday)

Well I'll get back to that later. This week has been just INSANE. This past week has been quite a roller coaster. So much happened. This was the most exciting week of my mission so far. Don't want it to ever be more. This isn't going to be a short email.

Monday

Well I told you about playing pool. It's very fun. I'm a righty but play pool and drive lefty. It's fun. Well later on we went and played basketball with some of the youth. We moved tuesday night basketball to monday afternoon so we don't have to play in pros. Well then we went and had dinner with the Propps. Bro Propp isn't a member and so our lesson was teaching him about the Book of Mormon. We might start teaching him soon.

Tuesday

Well we started by helping Mary drain her water barrel. Well it was about 5 C with a pretty strong wind. We had to take a bucket and fill it and dump it in the garden or on the dry spots on her lawn. It wasn't the warmest activity in my life. Well the rest of the day was quite boring. We had supper with the Ellis'. Later that night we went with Bro Ellis to go look at Lori's house. She is wanting to put in a wood burning stove and Bro Ellis has taken it upon him to oversee the job. At least he knows what he is doing. We went over to look at the situation and figure out what needs to be done.

Wednesday

Well we had district meeting today. We had district lunch afterwards and we made egg mcmuffins. It was really pretty good. We then went on exchanges. Well Elder T can't drive so I had to drive out to Rocky. It seems like a longer drive out to Rocky that the time I drove up to Logan even though it's only like an hour. Well we went out there and meet with some people. We ended up having supper with the Michele's. I actually already knew them. Sister Michele is the oldest Motley girl from my ward. They were living with her family over the summer and I got to know them then. Well I guess they moved out to Rocky about 3 weeks ago. It was fun to see them, because Bro Michele is super super sarcastic. I think I'm the only one who thinks he is even slightly funny. We then went to go to another member lesson. Well it was out on a range road. Well I'm driving and don't really know where I'm going. We are looking for 8-4A. Well all that I'm seeing is 38-5 38-4 38-3A. Well I thought maybe whoever wrote it down wrote it wrong so I'm trying to find 38-4A. Well it apparently doesn't exist. I guess the range roads don't make too much since and if you keep going the road curves and then there is 8-A. A little weird.

Thursday

Well we tried by some potentials and formers and went tracting a little and then had lunch and drove back to Innisfail. Well we had supper with the O'Connell's. We took some advice that Sister Manion gave us in the last mission newsletter we got. We had called them a few days before and asked them to invite a non-member friend over for supper. It worked. They invited Bro O'Connell's sister and we had a good talk with her. We still haven't quite figured it out, but she lives in RD so we might start teaching her at the O'Connell's or RD1 is going to start teaching her. It was way cool that it actually worked out. Well then we went and had a lesson over at the Herbert's with Lori. The Wolfes were busy and we decided to call the Christensen's since they are ward missionaries. We had a great lesson with her. We started teaching her the Plan of Salvation. We were teaching her out of the scriptures like she has wanted. We really broke through and we could tell that she was definitely feeling the Spirit and was starting to understand out message. At the end of the lesson we asked Lori if she would say the closing prayer. SHE DID!!! It was the first time that she had prayed out loud in front of us. It was amazing. I was at a loss for words.

Friday

Well today we had weekly planning. Not much else exciting happened. We had supper on our own. Kind of a boring day overall.

Saturday

Well today we did a lot of service. We started by helping Sister Kinder rake up some leaves and help her pick up her yard for the winter. We then went up and helped Lori. We were going to go with Bro Ellis to lay some tile before trying to install the stove, but Bro Ellis wasn't going to be able to make it. Well we helped her clean out her garage instead. She had moved some things so that we could get to the stove and pull it out. We helped get down all of the pipes that were necessary. She then wanted our help moving this big deep freeze. Well we had to help clear everything out of the garage so we could move it out. Well that thing was just toxic. It had food in it from 3 years ago and the best part was that it has been unplugged for just as long. Words can't even describe the horrific smell that was smelt. We didn't open the lid and we were gagging on the stench. We finally got it outside, but needed to move it over just a little more. Elder Sorensen had a dolly on the back trying to pull it back a little bit. Meanwhile I was on the front going to push it back. Well I didn't push low enough on front. I went to push and I pushed the door open. In about half a second I had realized what happened let go and started to walk away. I'm glad that I held my breath for a split moment. The toxic stench could be smelt to a gagging level within about 20 feet of the thing. It took a moment before we could resume. It was horrible. Well we went back and changed and tried by some potentials. Well not long after Bro Day called us and asked us to come help one of the Ellingson's move. They were moving out to her non-member parents house. So we went back and changed again and went to go help. We finally got back, and had supper on our own again. It was really good Elder Sorensen made a pork roast in his crock-pot. It was delicious.

Sunday
Well we met with the Sister's early that morning. We are going to try and meet once a week to try and coordinate a little better in case we find someone the others could teach and talk about lessons with member that we might both see. We then had church and we had to teach GP again. The lesson was rough at the start, but definitely got better. We went tracting a little before supper. Well it was pretty fun. Monday (yesterday) was Canadian Thanksgiving. Well a lot of people got together as a family Sunday for it instead. Well we were able to talk to one guy and actually were able to have some what of a lesson with him on his porch. He finally came to that he had worked for so long to free his mind from any type of bias and that his mind was soo open that he wouldn't take a Book of Mormon, because it would just close his mind to much. The logic that some people have utterly astounds me. Another lady we talked to saw us coming and ran to the door because her son was sleeping. She then goes on to chew us out about how this is a horrible time to be knocking on doors, and people are going to be busy with their family. I just love how frustrated and upset she was that she didn't know what to say. "This is a horrible time to be doing this. Just go home, just go...do....something" as she is waving her hands and shuts the door. We had a laugh about that one. In reality it is a perfect time to go tracting. Families are going to be home and together. We also held back that Thanksgiving is tomorrow not today. Tracting can be really funny sometimes. We then had supper with the Wells again. We then went over to the Blanchards. They are back from their trip to California. The whole time they just raved about how they love the PMG member lessons and now that they are home they really want to continue. We also went to the Woodruff's and they taught us the Restoration. It was a good lesson. Finally someone is ready for Lesson 2.

Monday

Well it was a pretty great day. 3 things. It was P-day, Thanksgiving, and Elder Sorensen's Birthday. Well we went over to the Ellis' that morning to do laundry. They had told us to come back about noon for lunch. Well we went shopping and then went back to the apartment for a little while. The Library was closed so we didn't have much else to do. Elder Sorensen had a headache and so we both took a nice nap. Well we woke up and went over to the Ellis' for lunch. Well we got there and Sister Kinder and Sister Coull and Tanner we just getting there too. We thought it was a little strange. Well they had a birthday party for Elder Sorensen. His mom had been in contact with Bro Ellis and she had ordered a birthday cake. It was super cool. Bro Ellis' brother was in town and was there too as well as the Blanchards. It was so much fun. We talked and a lot of them had left so Bro Ellis took us down and we played some more pool. I won two games again. I'm not a bad lefty. We then went and changed then went up to meet with Bro Joseph to go up and play basketball in Red Deer. It was a ton of fun. We had thanksgiving dinner with the Millers and Sister Kinder. She had a very missionary day. She was at the Ellis', then went with the Sister to the Mower's, then was at the Miller's with us and then later on we just stopped by the Ellis' to get a picture and she showed up a little while later. It was pretty funny. We then just hung around our apartment. We were supposed to be in our apartment by 6 unless we had appointments. It was a really good day.

Wow. See I told you I had quite an action packed week. It was utterly insane.

Life never stops for a missionary

Love ya

Elder O'Neill

Innisfail Chapter 16

4 Months! Where has the time gone!

This week was a lot of fun. I don't know what really made it such a great week, but I really enjoyed it.

Tuesday

Well Tuesday was interesting. We had a rough morning. I wasn't feeling all to well. Something went wrong with my stomach. I'm perfectly fine now, but it was a rough day. Well I don't have much else to say about it. We held basketball at the church for anyone who wanted to come and it went really well. We were told that we could play just we had to be in pros. I didn't want to get physical with an upset stomach, but Elder Sorensen did. It was a good time. We had an appointment that night so we only played for an hour. It worked out much better than before.

Wednesday

Well today we had a District meeting and District lunch. It was a lot of fun. Elder George and Elder T were going on exchanges with the ZL's, Elder Knaphus and Elder Dutson, so we had a district meeting with everyone (us, Innisfail 2, Rocky and RD2). 4/5 of the Innisfail Elders were there we were just missing Elder Marsh and we would have had all of the Elders that have served in Innisfail this past year. I have probably told you before, but Innisfail used to have sisters. Elder Knaphus and Elder George were the first Elders here in the last 4 years. Elder Marsh was with Elder George for one transfer and then I came. and the rest is history. It was a really good District meeting. We then had a pancake district lunch. We had a bag of mix at our apartment. The sisters brought some hot chocolate and juice. Rocky brought some syrup and Elder T made some egg sandwiches (stayed away from those). The ZL's brought some strawberries. It was super fun. Later that night we had dinner over at Bro Day's. It was pretty cool since he is the Ward Mission Leader, both the sisters and us were there. It was good to be able to talk with everyone in just a casual setting. We then had correlation.

Thursday

Thursday was a lot of fun. Most of our plans went out the window. We had interviews with President Manion today. We have interviews right before conference. Well our interviews were supposed to be at 12:20. Well according to the schedule, each missionary was only going to have about 10 minutes with President Manion. Well that was never going to happen. We ended up leaving about 2 hours later. We didn't end up getting back down to Innisfail until around 3:30. Well we ran around and tried to see some people. The ward was having a Food Storage night. We went to that and it was really good. They had a "Thanksgiving Dinner". Well it was a "Thanksgiving Dinner" if you are in dire circumstances and are using what's in food storage. It was just rice and beans with various toppings. It wasn't too bad, just not what we were expecting. It was a really well attended event. We even got Lori our investigator to come. She didn't exactly like some of the food, but got super involved in some of the wheat and rice bagging. It was really good.

Friday

Well Friday was really cool. We had our weekly planning, which I'm pretty sure will never take just two hours. There is so much to go over and think about that it just can't be done in two hours. So all of our plans got pushed back a little while. The Christensen's were going to have us over for dinner, but they were working on their new house so told us to meet them at the Penhold Family Restaurant. We have driven past that place many times and have been scared to try it. There sign says

Penhold Family Restaurant

Western

Pizza

Chinese

It never really looked to good to us. Well the Christensen's were going to take us to we went anyways. It actually was a great place. The food was really good. I had Shrimp Alfredo and I loved it. We decided they really need to redo the sign and Exterior to make it look more inviting. We then went and talked with Bro Young and had a really good conversation with him.

Saturday

General Conference was so amazing. I don't know whether if it is the fact that I'm on my mission, but I loved it so much. It really seemed to be such a different conference than ever before. I had one of my little leather notebooks and I took 19 pages of notes total. It was amazing. Watch it if you haven't and rewatch it if you have. SO AMAZING! It was kind of nice trying to plan out the day because every two hours we had general conference. We tried by some people in between the first two and then tried a couple more after the afternoon session. We had dinner with the Georges and then went to Priesthood. Afterwards the ward had Ice Cream. It is super cool to be in a small close ward.

Sunday

Well yesterday was great too. More conference to learn from. Inbetween the sessions we went with Bishop Mower and went to visit some LA's. It was a good time. We got to do some missionary work with the Bishop. After conference we were back to normal missionary work. We tried by some people. We then had dinner at the Wells. It was a good Sunday dinner. Chicken, potatoes, stuffing, carrots, asparagus, cauliflower. It was good. Sister Wells was also baking some bread and sent us home with a loaf of bread that came right out of the oven. The ward is so great to us.

Monday
Well so far today we went over to the Ellis' to do laundry. We had our studies over there and then played a little pool with Bro Ellis. I won to games in a row. I found out that I play pool left handed. Thanks Dad for splitting my hands on different things. It was fun.

Thank you for all the love and support.

Love you all,
Elder O'Neill

P.S. Did I tell you that I bought a Pineapple last week. It cut it up and it was super good.

PPS That is Elder Sorensen's hand
 

Innisfail Chapter 15

Hey there everyone,

First off I want to say sorry for not being able to email yesterday. We ended up having to do some service for a LA in Penhold. She is moving from Penhold to somewhere in the Stettler area. It was kinda weird. She is so LA she wasn't on the records, but after yesterday we figured that she called us because of a member in RD2. We went up to RD afterwards to go do some shopping. So we had no time to email yesterday.

This week has been pretty good. We are really able to see the success of the PMG member lessons.

Monday

We had P-day. We ended up just playing around at the church. We had a fun time. We took a new take on basketball practice. Elder Sorensen went back and forth trying to make basketballs, while I was running around trying to hit the ball out of the air with a volleyball. It was pretty fun. We then had dinner with the Georges' (our across the hall neighbors). We then went to the Byam's and Ellingson's to continue on the member lessons.

Tuesday

Today was interesting. We had a pretty slow day. We went out and helped at the Food Bank again. It's good for us to get out in the community and help. We had dinner at M&B Ellingson's. They are such fun people. We then finally had a pass-over lesson with Charlie and Lee with the sisters. It was good that they finally got to meet them and now I don't have to worry about that anymore. We then had to bust down to the Church for Basketball. There was a tradition of Tuesday night basketball with Elder George and Marsh, but it stopped during the summer. So we started it back up. It was kinda a waste of time. It is supposed to be a good way to find potentials. We were there to 'supervise' but we just sat on the sidelines the whole time. We thought about some more beneficial ways to go about it next week. Elder George also told us that we can play, but in Pros.

Wednesday

Today was a pretty good day. We were able to meet with Ron (LA) again today. He is the one that lives in a retirement home. We walked down to his room to find him and he was in the room next door, working on a puzzle. We sat there and talked with him for a little while. We couldn't help it. We ended up helping him finish the puzzle. It was a bummer though. It was missing one piece. AHHH. We were able to have a really good visit with him. Later we were able to have a lesson with Nathan (RC). We talked about the priesthood with him. He is ready for it, just has been gone and not going to church. It was a good lesson with him. Coincidentally we also had dinner with the Joseph's. So we were in the house for about 2 1/2 hours. It was good and fun. I may have told you, but they have 2 year old twins. It's like having two Williams running around. Super fun. We then had correlation meeting and were able to talk about things that will really help.

Thursday

Today was interesting. Nothing really happened until that night. We had dinner at the O'Connell's. I was surprised to actually go to their house for dinner. They usually pick us up and have something else planned that they take us along with. It was cool to be at their house. We then waited around until Bro Woodruff and Bro Day showed up so we could go on splits. SPLITS!!! We were finally able to work it out for once. I went with Bro Woodruff and went Home Teaching with him. His regular companion was busy to go. We went to Cindy's and the Christensen's. It was a lot of fun. Elder Sorensen went with Bro Day to the Wolfes to teach Lori. Apparently it wasn't a good lesson. We usually go over to the Wolfes at about 7:00 and then Lori comes at 7:30. Well about 7:20 Lori texted and said that she probably wasn't going to make it. She said she had a rough day. At about 7:50 she finally showed up. The lesson was more like a therapy session and she was just asking a bunch of questions. It wasn't really helping her to progress, but she still wants to meet which is good. She recognizes there is a better feeling when she is at the Wolfe's, but doesn't quite recognize what it is.

Friday

MARKERVILLE

Today was a fun day. We have been doing super well on klicks this month so we decided to go out to Markerville today. It is a little bit east of Penhold. There really isn't much out there, but Elder Sorensen had heard a little bit about it so we went out and did some tracting. Not much success. We only had 1 QGC, but it was a solid QGC. It was a ton of fun to go somewhere new.

Saturday

Today was a lot of work. We went out in the morning to help D&L Ellis with their roof. They were re-shingling their roof and it didn't sound like they were going to get much help. We went out and there was a pretty good turn out. We helped for a while and then we drove up to Penhold to help Lori get her yard ready for winter. We drove up there and found out that she wasn't there and was at her boyfriends house with a headache. We just went back and help re-shingle some more. We stopped at about 3:00. We were supposed to have a lesson with Rob, but when we got there he wasn't feeling good. The rest of the night was just trying potentials and tracting.

Sunday

Today was church and I really enjoyed it. We had a combined Preisthood/RS lesson about family history work. I really enjoyed it. It was a couple of videos talking about different aspects of it. One part that stuck out to me was the number of names possible to find. They talked about going back and having a 10 generation pedigree chart and how many names that is. They also talked about if you take one of those 10th gen ancestors and find a brother or sister and come down the line from there. how many people on average you could find from that line. Then times it by the number of 10th generation ancestors that you could do it with. It came out to be about oh 419,000 names or so. It was an eye opener. I wish I could just spend some time and do more. I guess if I have extra time on my p-days I can. We then had some really good member lessons that night.

Monday

Like I said earlier we helped some LA move and then went up to Red Deer to shop. I'm just going to warn you now, nothing is cheap. Good news is that the US dollar is worth more than the Canadian dollar so it was cheaper in US than I thought. We were able to get some good stuff that should last for a long time. We then went and played basketball at Bower with some of the zone. At the end of the night we went over to the Ellis. We have started to do laundry there. We had to leave with our colors in the dryer so we went to pick them up. When we got there the Millers and Mower's were also there. They were having a FHE lesson on The Savior's Earthly Ministry and Atonement from Preach My Gospel. We have started the PMG member lesson with the Ellis' and Millers', but not quite with the Mowers'. It was really cool to see that the members are really getting involved.

Well that was this week's summary.

I love hearing about what's happening at home.

Love ya,
Elder O'Neill