Canadian on the Run

 Monday October 16

Hello everyone! How's life treating you this spooky season? It's been great over here in the Horse Capital of the World. The weather has cooled down quite a bit and it's been raining this past week. Sweater weather has definitely arrived here ha-ha, my companion is very excited for it. 

So, essentially these last two weeks have been constant finding with lessons and member visits sprinkled in. Calling previously taught people and knocking doors definitely isn't my favorite way to spend my time but it's important to fill our time with the best we can. We've got in contact with a few pretty cool people though, so it's always worth it in the end (even if it takes days to get there). 

So, the major story of two weeks ago is our runaway Canadian ha-ha. Elder Peterson, who finishes his mission in 2 months, is a Canadian citizen and his resident VISA expired. His family has been living for years in Texas and often has to travel back to Canada to renew their VISAs and it just so happened that it happened to him while on his mission. So, he flew out Thursday morning (the 5th) and met up with his mom in Toronto. They were able to get it figured out in a few days but it's crazy how he had to leave the country and meet up with his Mom so close to the end of his mission. All is good now and he's happy to have had a short break so now he can finish out his mission strong.

On Friday (the 6th) we had interviews with the mission president. It's always amazing to meet with him and share all that's been on my mind. I haven't been getting along super well with my companion as of late. We had just started to get our feet under us and then we got sick for like a week and a half. So, it was nice to be able to discuss with the president ways that I can improve our relationship and resolve any conflict. We're doing better now, and I do appreciate him and all the work he puts in. 

Saturday of 2 weeks ago was the busiest day we've had the entire transfer, and it's looking like it will continue to hold that spot. We first stopped by a house full of Haitians that we've been trying to get in contact with and we were able to meet with a man named Reggie, he's really cool and very kind and open to learning more about Christ. We then stopped by a member named Byenigulu and his family, he's been coming to church regularly but hasn't been bringing his kids. Even to the point where they recently went to church with a neighbor because they have friends in that one, I think it also doesn't help that here in the branch we combine young men's and young women's classes with the English ward in the area (and they don't speak English yet). But we're still working on them, they said they watched some of General Conference though which is good. We also met with a friend named Albert who speaks French, we read from the Book of Mormon about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to read another chapter about it. He seemed quite interested about the Book of Mormon and I'm excited for when we can meet with him again. After that we met with another new member family whose mom is named Regina. They are awesome, there's three baptized kids and they all come to church every week (Regina hasn't even come once since I've been here). We showed them the thinking Celestial talk and discussed temples and what we do in them. Lastly, we met with José, he's the adult son of an Angolan family of 3 who the mom was on baptismal date when I arrived. We talked with him about the Book of Mormon and started talking about the Savior's visit in 3 Nephi, which he claims he's never heard of before, but my companion says he remembers reading it with them in the past ha-ha. But we had a good lesson where we were able to explain to him the purpose of the book and why we read it. 

Aside from zone conference and an exchange last week has followed the same pattern as the rest of this transfer: meet with 4 new member families once a week, have a lesson with Albert, the Angolans, and Philip, and have a random lesson here or there with someone we haven't seen before with a bunch of calling sprinkled in there. But let me tell you about Phillip, this man is amazing. We've met with him 3 times so far, and they've all lasted over 45 minutes with the last one taking almost an hour and a half. He is a man of a million questions and a true desire to learn more about other religions and see people from their perspective. He says over and over how he just wants to be open to new information and learn more, and how he will never turn anyone away if they want to share what they know. He says he's talked with Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, and various other faiths. We have primarily focused on the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, with our last invite being for him to pray to know if they are true. He says he likes the book and has no problem praying about it, but pushed back against Joseph Smith saying it is very hard to believe that there is a true prophet who speaks for God living on the earth today (honestly a very fair idea to imagine that someone with the same call as Moses speaks today). Sadly, for us though is that he doesn't speak French and his Swahili is not good. He moved from Congo when he was 14 around 20 years ago, so his English sounds almost native which is awesome but means we should pass him off onto English missionaries if he doesn't intend on meeting with the branch. We have a lot of hope for him and he's super great to teach because we can be comfortable in English, and he understands everything really well. 

We also had zone conference which was a blast as always. We learned about uniting with local leaders and all the unique things we get to do as missionaries. The AP's had a great line, they asked if we have "FOMO or JOMO" (the fear of missing out or the joy of missing out).  It gave me a good perspective that we can have joy in all the things we don't have to worry about as missionaries. 

Have a great week everyone! I love you all. Feel free to send me a message throughout the week and I'll be sure to respond on Monday.