Innisfail chapter 11

Wow!! I can't believe I've been in Innisfail for 11 weeks already. Sometimes it seems like I just got here yesterday.

Well I'm glad to hear about all of the fun at Swiss Days. I almost forgot that it was labor day weekend. The only way I was able to know was because it was September long weekend up here. First monday of every month pretty much is a holiday. Kinda sweet. Except nothing changes for us.

Well this week was a little crazy. A lot happened and I hope that I will be able to explain everything.

Monday

We had p-day today obviously. We just relaxed around the apartment a little, until the O'Connell's picked us up for dinner at the Dyck farm. Well we had to work for our dinner a little. They have a cattle ranch and some of the cows had hoof rot. We had to give them some penicillin. So we had an experience herding cows. Not too much fun. It was just trying to get a few of them down the chute into the squeeze to give them the medicine. Dad it reminded me of Weimer's Neighbor's. Darcy, "Looks like there having problems down there" :) It made me laugh. We had dinner then went back and met with the Byam's to share the PMG lesson. (YLM turned into the PMG lesson)

Tuesday

Today was pretty great. The afternoons aren't usually too exciting. We had dinner with our neighbors which was fun. Across the hall from our apartment is the Georges. It's cool to have member neighbors in an apartment building. We had a fun time there and then shared the PMG lesson. She is a school teacher and really enjoyed how we are presenting everything. She is also going to help us to make the lesson more kid friendly with pictures. We then had a lesson with Rob. He is a great man. He knows a couple of families in the ward really well. We were able to go over and start talking to him. He is incredible. He really wants to find out more and really wants his whole family to be baptized, He is just trying to find out if this is the right church. It is a really promising situation.

Wednesday

Today we had exchanges with Rocky again, but this time we drove out there. They weren't doing so well on clicks and we were so we drove out and had a district meeting. We Then exchanged and I brought Elder McFall back to Innisfail with me. It takes about an hour to drive out to Rocky and an hour to drive back. I was a little sick of the car. We had a couple of cool experiences. We were just getting back into Innisfail, when the mission office called. You never know if that is a good or a bad thing. It was actually good. Someone had a referral for us. It was sweet. We also went to try by a former and went tracting around there. We were able to meet Yesenia. It was so cool. We talked with her for a minute or two and set up a time to come back Tuesday (today). I loved it. Possible new investigator. We then had dinner with the Ellis'. We then had Ward correlation. It was pretty much all on me and I actually did really well. I felt really good about it. I was able to talk about each of our investigators and talk about there situation, all by myself. I was impressed.

Thursday

Well we tried stopping by the referral that we got, but she wasn't there. The referral is actually one of the hotel managers. She is apparently gone for another week. We then went to drive back to Rocky. We planned some extra time to stop in Spruce View to do some finding. Spruce View is in our area, but it is like half way between here and Rocky and there are no members. We really never had a reason to go to Spruce View, but since we would be driving through we thought that we could try. Nothing really happened, just were able to share some mormon.org cards with some people. We then continued to drive out to Rocky. We came back and I had time to do some family history. Mom again you might want to check my progress, but I do feel pretty comfortable with it. I checked out Maria. I was able to find some Census records with her and Henry. Then a couple more with her kids in later years. As I kept searching I was able to find more about Henry's family. I found a Census from when he was 8 and added His parents and siblings to the picture. It was really amazing. I pretty much ran out of time before I could continue on. It was pretty amazing. I'm really finding a love for it. I'm just very limited. We had dinner with the Clarks and then went to one of the Ellingsons for the PMG lesson.

Friday

We had weekly planning today and we tried to do it as quickly as we could but it took an hour longer. The goal is to be able to do it in two hours and I don't possibly see how that can be done. We always take longer. We were able to get another haircut from Sis. Dyck (they are the ones that live in town). We then shared the PMG lesson with her and her kids. They gave us a great idea for kids. We then went for dinner at the Blanchard's. They had a crazy day and were both just getting home right before we came and planned on that so they bought some Thai food. It was Spicy fried shrimp with rice. I call it rice with inferno Thai shrimp. It was way too spicy for me to finish. I graciously passed on taking the leftovers. Elder Marsh did which surprised me. The Blanchards are so incredible. They have really taken the PMG lesson seriously and the next step with them is to start learning lesson two. I didn't think that we were going to go that far for a while. I guess it has been a while since we started it though. :) We were able to see Todd for a little bit though. It was his first day off of work yesterday. He was off until Monday, so he said he would be able to come to church. It's a miracle!!!

Well I know that I didn't get through my whole week and I hope that I will have time next week to finish up and write about this week. Things are going great up here and I'm truly loving it.

I love you,

Elder O'Neill

P.S. I finally was able to get the package home yesterday. Thank you for all of the clothes. That was definitely more than what I was expecting. Thank you. I'm wearing some of the Khaki's right now. :)