Dear Family!
Happy Christmas as they say in Nova Scotia! I look forward to skyping all of you
this Thursday at 4pm Canadian Atlantic time. Should be 1 or
2pm your time but you'll have to check on that. Unfortunately I can't do that. Cole Harbour is the promised land. There is just so much untapped potential here it's insane. So much to do and get done. I am officially serving in the Canadian equivalent of the Bronx. Don't worry one bit about me, Mom-MEMS trained me for this. I know we all joked about the places I would go before I came out on my mission and so far I have served in the Canadian equivalent of the places you have stated in the past. St. Stephen-Kanab UT and Cole Harbour-the Bronx. I love it here. I can't wait to tell you this hilarious story
this Thursday about knocking. Lemme just tell you we keep it real here in Cole Harbour. I wish I could talk to Elder Stubbs about how he does work in Detroit because city life is way different than backwoods life. More to come in our skype call. I get 45 minutes. I don't care who comes or who gets on as long as Mom and Dad are there.
So I really faced some physical adversity this past week going into this new transfer.
On Tuesday I had a really bad migraine. To the point of taking a ton of medicine and passing out for like three hours before going back out to work again. Sister Leavitt told Elder Wolvers to hold me down to rest. If there's one thing that I don't like doing is not proselyting. We have to do all that we can to invite others to come unto Christ. This is eternal life.
So plenty of tylenol, ibuprofen and peppermint oil later my migraine was going in to remission. It's a funny thing about the maritimes because migraines just happen a lot out here because of the storms we get. The pressure changes and that messes with everyone's head. I'm sure there's some kind of wikipedia article about it. Got good to go and met with Brother and Sister Hansen for one last time.
I will continue to write them on Facebook. We had an excellent lesson with them about the Restoration. We asked if Brother Hansen wanted to meet with missionaries again and come back to membership. He explained that he just wasn't ready. It's a funny thing about how we hold ourselves back from the blessings of heaven. When priesthood holders declare that we are worthy then we are worthy. We are truly great in the eyes of the Lord.
Here's the next part of the story that you may hurt me over Mom. We drove up from St Stephen to Fredericton
Wednesday night and that was the craziest thing that I've ever done. Icy rain that turned into snow. We are on the backroads in the middle of the woods and our car doesn't have winter tires yet. Not the ideal situation to be in in Canada. We don't know how we got up the hill but plenty of prayer, pushing the car, and Heavenly Father, we made it into Fredericton by late that night. It was pleasant to be with more missionaries. 6 of us all in the same apartment. Not a whole lot of sleep went on. Just swapping stories and talking about frustrations and successes. It was great to be with my brothers. We'll bring the world his truth.
The next day was my dance with fate (Man I should crochet that on to a pillow or something, dance with fate? who am I like Edgar Allen Poe?). We swapped cars with the Fredericton sisters car because they weren't being transferred and I was driving. It's just this thing about New Brunswick. The government and economy aren't the hottest so the roads don't get plowed all that often. We needed to be in Moncton by 10 in the morning to then go on to Halifax. We were headed up the hill when we hit black ice and spun off the highway. Thankfully because we were in a caravan we had help to push us back on to the high way. God must really love his missionaries because spinning off the highway didn't happen once, but twice. I know I know I know, Mom you're just reading this wondering how I'm still alive. But hey! We got to Moncton around 11 and the weather had improved for our drive to Halifax.
Said goodbye to Elder Wolvers who is now serving with Elder Tincher in St. Stephen. Drove up with Elder Waldie, the senior companion assisstant to the president and he answered questions about zone leadership and general questions. Love to hear all of the different schools of thought around street contacting, knocking, working with the ward council and members and just thoughts about the gospel. Got to love real people who show Christlike love. Went to the temple in Cole Harbour. It's a small temple and what keeps that open are senior missionaries who serve temple missions. So great to do an endownment with the metro missionaries and President Leavitt. Was just the best Christmas present.
Brother Wood
Brother Arnold
Met my new companion at the session. Elder Corbett is from West Jordan, Utah. Is a huge Star Wars fan. Has 6 weeks left. Is 25. And is just filled with a lot of knowledge about the gospel. He is my favorite companion so far because we have zero differences in personality and we both want the same things in the work. We will be visiting more less-actives and part-member familes over street contacting and knocking. There's plenty to be done in Cole Harbour. We have a serious ward out here. 125 active members!!!! And yesterday we had 200 plus at church!! It was like coming home. Our ward mission leader could seriously be the next prophet.
Brother Moses gets his own paragraph because he's that legit. He is a Cole Harbour Native. Served a mission in England. Has been Stake President twice. Branch President of the YSA in Halifax three times. Mission president once. And the majority of the recent converts in Cole Harbour are is friends. He is a killer Gospel Principles teacher. We are having a baptism for his friend Terry in January. The sisters have been teaching Terry, but we'll be teaching him the Law of Chastity
tomorrow. Terry is not on welfare, has a job, comes to church in a suit, and said the closing prayer in Gospel Principles!!! Brother Moses is the man! He just radiates the Spirit. He's going to send you a letter some time. We had an actual coordination meeting and he ran the show instead of us! He's called Brother Frank as his assisstant to oversee the Cole Harbour Digital Mission-our missionary work on social media and blogs. We are going to get so much done!!!
We get fed plenty out here. Oh my gosh it's like coming home and just having so much to work with. We need to get home teachers and visiting teachers involved with fellowshipping less-active members and part-member families. We also are teaching one stable clear minded individual, Alex from Eastern Passage. He's a very logical guy so we really have to explain the gospel as if we were teaching math. Went over the priesthood yesterday with him and the sisters. He asks great questions but doesn't really do much to resolve his concerns. We got him out to church yesterday!!! President Leavitt was around also and we gave a church tour with him and Alex. Alex loved the Christmas program-the ward indepently does stuff without us asking them to!-and said he will be back to church next week. He hasn't been to church in 20 years! GAH COLE HARBOUR WILL BE NEW UTAH! This place is going to be eating jello with carrots in 6 weeks. You can count us
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