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.
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