Welcome to Innisfail

Wow I can't believe everything has happened in just one week. It is crazy how time has flown by.

Quick question. Have you gotten my letter? A lot about the rest of plane ride is included in it.

Well let me start off by telling you about where I am. I am in a pretty small town called Innisfail. It is the second/third most southern areas in my mission. I'm in the Red Deer zone and the different areas are Innisfail, Olds, Red Deer, Three Hills, Rocky Mountain House and Stettler. Olds and Three hills are farther south, but they are both about equally south. The Innisfail area covers Innisfail, Springbrook, Penhold and Bowden. It's quite a big area.

Innisfail is built pretty much on top of a hill so we haven't had to worry much about the floods. Some families farther out in town that are closer to the river were effected and we might go and help them once the water has receded enough.

My companion is Elder Marsh. He is from Holiday, UT area. He is just a great trainer. He is really encouraging me to put myself out there and be able to share the gospel.

Well I hope by telling about everything that has happened will tell you a little more.

Well Tuesday we went to a church and had lunch (it was 4:00 and we were all used to having dinner at 4 so we were surprised later that we were going to have dinner), We then watch a driving video and had to read through and sign a bunch of papers about driving. I don't get to drive for at least 6 weeks, but I don't care. We then were supposed to meet with the assistants and individually meet with President Campbell. Well the last two to meet with him were Elder Sorensen and I. Sister Galovich had just come out and I was about to head in when he said he had gotten a phone call and dinner was ready back at the mission home. So we loaded up and went there. We had dinner and then we got to meet with President Campbell. We then had a little devotional in the basement. The sisters stayed there in the basement. 3 of the Elders (they were 3 of the 4 odd men out, aka not in my MTC district) were upstairs. The rest of us went to the Assistants apartment for the night.

Wednesday morning we all got up and went to the Stake Center right next to the temple. (yep even in Canada) The temple is actually really small. The Church might be bigger than it is. We brought all of the luggage and piled it into some side rooms. We then had a small meeting about our allotment cards and medical stuff. (talk about that in a minute). We then went into the Relief Society room and got to meet our trainer and find out where we were going to be serving. I guess I was too excited to here who my trainer was that I didn't really pay any attention about where I was going. (like I would have known anyways). I kinda looked stupid later when I couldn't remember. We then got our pictures taken and those are the ones you saw. After a little while we went into the transfer meeting where everyone who was being transferred came to meet. We all stood and told where we were serving and then heard the departing missionaries testimonies. Afterwards we went into the gym and got to talk and say goodbye to everyone. We then jumped in the car and drove down to Innisfail.

Well the members here are so great. We have a meal at a members house pretty much every night. They are so wonderful. I have found out that I really need to be doing more exercise in the morning because those 30ish pounds that I lost I'm going to be gaining back pretty quickly. The members here are soo great. They love the missionaires. They are strong families and even though many of them are part member they are still so great.

Well I better wrap it up.

Dad did you say that you went to the worldwide training? Did you hear the announcements about Facebook and Church tours? Crazy, We might be able to get on facebook.

Well I love you and can't wait to tell you more.

Elder O'Neill

P.S Here are some pics. The one of the sky was at 10:00 June 22. Crazy how bright it still was. One of them was from dinner with the Kinders. We had a green meal for the "greenie". The others are of me at the airport in front of the Canadian flag there is one that I cropped that I hope you can use for my plaque.