Then Sings My Soul!

1/28/2013

Dear Family,

Well we have had some gorgeous weather up here.  Today is the warm before the storm and the temperature plummeting. Thankfully it should stay in the teens, but with the wind chill it will probably be close to -20. Yuck, but another tender mercy - we have quite a few appointments set up for this week.

We had our big stake meeting yesterday and technically we no longer have one of our wards.  They dissolved two wards and created one.  They dissolved one of our wards and one of the Elders wards.  We are pretty sure we are going to be over the new ward since it was most of our "old" ward plus some of the Elders ward. There is a lot of work to be done.  We feel that in the March transfer they will probably split up our two wards between two sets of missionaries since there is so much work to be done up here.

We continue to see lots of miracles. We were able to pick up two new investigators this week - and both are looking pretty promising.  I'll start with the sad news. We will probably be dropping Heather this week.  We stopped by her house and she told us that it again was a "bad time". We are going to try by one more time this week and if she is unwilling to meet with us we will officially "drop" her.  Which is sad.  When we stopped by I asked Heather if she had read from the Book of Mormon and she said no. I told her that she should and started to promise her blessings and she gave me a forced smile and practically shut the door in our face. If only she knew what she could have! But - we had an amazing lesson with Barb.  We talked about scripture study and read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, the Testimony of the Witnesses and Joseph Smith.  Barb told us that it made a lot more sense this time around when we read it together.  She is so sweet and we both feel good that she will progress quite well.

We were trying to get in with a part member family this week.  The wife is less active and her husband has been taught.  We finally caught the husband when he was home, but it was bad timing.  We will try again next week, but since we had exercised our faith and had another sister with us we decided to stop by some male potential investigators and we would be able to get in with them right then.  We stopped by Edward and he invited us in! The Spanish Elders originally found Edward and gave him to the Mandarin Elders, but Edward wants to be taught in English no Mandarin.  Okay...I guess we'll teach him. Edward and his family is from China. I think they have been in Canada for at least 8 years or more.  He has four daughters and his wife works.  I guess he is too old (he's probably in his 50s) and no one wants to hire him.  Also, he says his English isn't that good.  (He speaks English very well, but he may have a harder time comprehending). We will have to take things slower for Edward, but he's great.  He has been to a Catholic ESL class and the Jehovah Witnesses have taught him, so going over the Godhead was interesting.  His face was priceless when we told him we believe in three separate beings. "No, no, three in one, three in one." Oh my he is hilarious.  It's going to be great teaching him.  Especially when we found out that the word "Mormon" in Mandarin means something like "devil" so the Book of Mormon translated in Mandarin reads like "the Devil's Book." Oh boy....thank goodness for having a Elder from China who can help us with these concerns.

One more great story.  So we went over to a less actives house.  She has had depression, but she is getting motivated and is heading on a good path. She needs continual encouragement and positive influence.  Erin is living in a house with five male roommates. I know, it sound interesting, but what can you do.  Last week when we stopped by we decided to have an opening hymn and we sang "I am a Child of God". One of her roommates decided to record us on his phone and apparently Erin has heard him listening to it throughout the week.  Another one of her roommates paused his video game to listen to us. And others have commented on our singing. :) We are going to try create a singing lesson for her this week. :) I thought it was great. haha.

I hope you are staying warm and all is going well!

-Sister Douglass

Continuation of a Chinook - yes please

1/21/2013

Dear Family,

We have had a few days of cooler weather, but it still is not bad.  I'm still waiting for us to reach -40, but I will not complain.

The highlight of the week was definitely going to the temple. Oh my it had been way too long - nine months to be exact.  Yeah for having the temple in your zone- you can go every other transfer.  Any who, I had an overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort while I was in the temple, just what I needed.  Sister Little told me she was worried that she would not be able to get me out of the temple.  I could have just spent the entire day there.  Thankfully I was able to get the boost that I needed and I am so grateful for that.

We have been doing very well at establishing weekly visits with people, especially less actives, which is super nice.  We finally were able to get a hold of some less actives and we tried to set up appointment with them.  The most common response: please call me and then we will set up a time.  Okay...we will do our best to get a hold of you.  Or "we will call you back." I wish I believed people when they said that.  Our weekends still are a little empty, but we are working on it. 

We had a lesson with a former investigator.  We were hoping to bring a member with us, but the member fell through.  The man's name is Tesfa and he and his wife are from Egypt.  I do not think his wife knows much English.  Over a year ago Tesfa had gone down to Temple Square and had a good experience.  When Sisters had taught him before he had concerns regarding almost every point of doctrine in the first lesson.  Our plan of attack was going to be to watch "Between Heaven and Earth" and talk about his experience at Temple Square.  Well, that did not go as planned.  He had a question for us about priesthood authority and that's what we pretty much spent the entire lesson about.  We did point out the scripture about baptisms for the dead - which he had never noticed before.  (Tesfa is very knowledgeable with the Bible). It was also interesting trying to teach purely from the Bible, he would not let us use the Book of Mormon.  There doesn't seem to be very much real intent or interest with him at this point.  But Tesfa said that he would do some research about how men receive authority from God in the Bible and we will follow up next week.

We also contacted another former investigator, Barb.  She is a sweetheart.  Barb has a really good friend who is a member and her daughter took piano lessons from her.  Barb attended a baptism in the fall and then no one has been in contact with her since.  She is undergoing chemotherapy and has cancer related fatigue.  She is more than willing to let us come over and visit.  She doesn't like to ask for help, but she is willing to let us doing some light house cleaning as needed.  Sister Little also asked if we could come over and read the Book of Mormon with her.  Barb loved that idea and admitted that she really has not been reading it.  That is the key - you need to read the Book of Mormon in order to know that it is true. (And pray about it....)

Other exciting news - the ward boundaries will be changing on Sunday.  There has been so much speculation going around, it's kind of funny.  It's sound just like the missionaries trying to do transfer predictions.  It's a little strange thinking that we will be having a new area next week - losing some people, gaining some people.  I'm trying not to be stressed out about it, because there is nothing that I can do, except to just accept the Lord's will.  So, you shall be hearing about that next week.

That's about all I can think of for this week.  Hopefully we will help Barb to progress and continue to help bring people closer to Christ!

Have a fantastic week and don't freeze!

-Sister Douglass

Now Comes the Snow

1/14/2013

Dear Family,

 

Our trip to Banff was amazing!! Of course my camera is in my other bag at home, so hopefully I will be able to send pictures next week.  Banff is a very mountainous area that was cover with snow and packed with pine trees. We drop past Two Jack Lake, stopped at Lake M or W something (haha) and took a few pictures and then we went to Johnston Lake.  Sister McIntyre's daughter drove us and she brought her family.  While we walked on the lake and around it the children went sledding.  Yes, I did walk on a lake. :) It was frozen over, but it was still neat.  We then headed over to the Banff Springs Hotel.  There is a little ice rink in front of the hotel, so the children continued to sled and ice stake while we checked out the hotel and took many pictures. :) Sister Little warned everyone that we were going to look like tourists while we were there.  It was so peaceful and nice not to be rushed going places.  We walked up to a castle looking restaurant that over looks the ice rink and it was so pretty! It looked like a very classy winter wonderland puzzle or post card with all of the people ice staking and giant snow covered mountains in the background.  We did drive to the main street in Banff and spent a little bit of time looking at some of the shops.  We got fudge at this famous candy store.  I've been saving mine since I am still working on the mountain of candy I got for Christmas. ;) I am looking forward to going back in the summer time.  And...we would like to go again.  We shall see what we can arrange.  There is this hike through Johnston Canyon to some waterfalls and I think it goes up to Lake Lousie.  I cannot describe how wonderful it was, but it was probably one of my most favorite p-days ever.

 

We stopped by two potential investigators and we talked about families.  They both said that we could come back on Saturday.  We did and neither one of them were home.  Yeah for people having lives and wanting to do things with their children.  No worries, we will catch them another day.

 

Okay my mind got blown TWICE this week.  We had a zone meeting and the zone leaders told us about the projected numbers for in coming missionaries for the summer.  The elders will increase by about 40, there will be two more Mandarin Elders, I think Spanish missionaries will increase by four - two of which will be SISTERS! And...are you ready for this? There are saying that there will be SIXTY sisters by the summer. I just about had an ulcer when they said that.  I could feel my blood pressure rising.  Then we had interviews with President Nicholas and he said that five sisters will be coming out next transfer and there will be FOURTEEN coming out the following transfer.  Yikes.  It's super exciting, but it most likely means that I will be training two sisters at the same times.  President asked how my Spanish was....yeah...I am going to pray that I will not train the Spanish sisters (the two come out at different transfers).

 

We had a lesson with Heather.  We went over the Restoration and we really tried to emphasize on priesthood authority and how the gospel blesses families.  It was kind of hard to concentrate because her child was watching a movie and the volume was very loud.  I will be better about asking people to turn off all distractions or at least turning the volume down. After our lesson Heather told us that she sees a lot of parallels between our religion and her culture so she does not see a need for her to change. :( I was really bummed after she told us that.  She did schedule an appointment for next week....so we shall see what will happen.

 

Thursday was Sister Little's Birthday.  Thursday is when we do our weekly planning so we thankfully spent most of the day inside.  I'm trying to remember if that was the day we had a big snow storm or it was cold.  I think it was rather cold that day. It was really funny that the weather said we would have "flurries for a few hours".  Yeah...it was near white out conditions at times and we ended up getting close to 5 inches of snow in two days.  It was great.  It is snowing again today, but we have a Chinook coming our way.  It's suppose to be in the 40s later on this week.  I'm trying to brace myself for when we get our week of -30 to -40.  I think every one's prayers are working if it hasn't been to bad yet. Thank you! :)

 

We were invited over to Binithi's house the day after her birthday.  One of the family friends were over and she asked us a lot of questions about being a missionary.  It's great when people think that we are nuns.  She many of her questions were about mission rules, so we tried to help her understand that we don't live these standards for the rest of our lives.

 

The baptism went well.  I think 1/3 of the ward showed up. :) We had the service in the chapel because there were so many people there.  We did have joint baptism with a child of record.  I am so grateful for all of the ward support we had.  It was a little crazy, but everything worked out. Hopefully it will be a day they both remember.

 

Hopefully we will be able to get in with the rest of our investigators.  Scheduling seems to be our challenge right now.

Love you lots and I hope you don't freeze down there!

-Sister Douglass

This scene looks familiar and a SURPRISE!!

1/7/2013

Dear family,

 

last week was kind of a blurr...so hopefully I will not repeat myself too much.  We did pick up another investigator last week.  Her name is Heather and her sister asked us to stop by.  Our initial contact with Heather she had just had an augment with her husband the night before so she just needed someone to talk to.  She set up an appointment for us to come back. Heather told us that she loves Mormon and they are very nice people, but implied that she does not want to be one.  She is Native so we thought it would be a good idea to listen to Elder Larry Echo Hawk's talk from Conference (he invites Natives to read the Book of Mormon). We feel that it peaked her interest, especially when we emphasized that the Book of Mormon is about her people.  We shall see how our next lesson goes with her.

 

We taught Binithi twice this week and know it is just preparing her for her baptismal interviews.  She is so sweet! Binithi is very excited to be baptized! Ah! I just love their family. (If only I could say their last name...I will work on that.) ;)

 

Then....I got sick again on Saturday.  Bleh. Thankfully it was not nearly as bad when I got sick before, but throwing up is no fun. Period.  So, we spent the day inside.  Which I feel is a blessing in disguise because Sister Little has had a bad cough all this week.  She may finally be calling Sister Nicholas today or tomorrow.  I spent most of Saturday in bed.  My stomach hurt, but I did not have a fever, which I was very grateful for.  And the McIntyre's (the family we live with) will make sure we are well taken care of.

 

Sunday was nice - great testimonies.  It was super nice to be able to attend most of both wards.  Last year our wards started at 9 and 9:30 in two separate buildings.  Now they start at 11 and 1 pm.  I am trying to remember what was said...oh one member got up and said he has a testimony of believing the unbelievable. Such as the Joseph Smith story among other things. I thought it was neat.  In RS the lesson was on Elder Christofferson's talk about William Tyndel (I feel like I spelled that very wrong) and the importance of scriptures.  I think it was from April 2010 or 2011.  I will need to go back and reread it.  It was a good lesson.

 

So the surprise that happened this morning.....Sister McIntyre asked if we wanted to go to Banff today. :) Um...yes please! So, we need to quickly run to the store and get back to the house to prepare to leave. It's going to be a fantastic day!!! (And week!)

Love you all!!

-Sister Douglass

 

PS- Shout out to members of the 8th ward and my YSA ward who sent me Christmas cards! Thank you sooo much!!!!!! You are the best!!!!

Many are cold, but few are frozen

12/27/2012

Dear family,

 

It feels that we are having a heat wave today!! We have been at -8 for the past four or five days and today we are at about +12. yeah!!! You know you've been in Canada for too long when.... :)

 

I was in such a rush and in shock with transfers last week that I forgot to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!!!! I cannot believe we are less than a week away for the new year.  2013? When did that happen?  For Sunday I was a little bummed because our wards meet at 9 and 9:30 at two separate buildings.  So, we were only able to attend one sacrament service.  Thankfully they are going to 11 and 1 next year so we will be able to go to both.  The songs and talks were great.  I always love the Sunday before Christmas, it is so nice to spend so much time focused on the true meaning of Christmas.

 

Then...the feasting began.  Oh my.  Let me back up.  First of all on Christmas eve Sister Little woke up sick.  She felt well enough to go to district meeting...after a bunch of layers and a blanket where put on her.  We read stories from missionary's experience on their missions at Christmas time and talked about Christmas traditions.  The Elders wanted to go to Chili's for lunch.  Sister Little and I didn't have anything since we had two dinners lined up for that evening. Our first dinner was with a family that lost their father/husband about a year ago...or this is their first Christmas without him.  They gathered up the children/grandchildren and acted out the nativity and sang Christmas songs.  We then headed over to the Palmer's for our second dinner, but mostly for dessert.  Again, tons of people were there, but it was nice to just sit and chat.  We then headed to our last stop by where someone gave us a whack load of tamales (pardon my Spanish spelling).  We hurried and got to bed in great anticipation for Christmas.

 

We both were startled when our phone went off at little after 6 am (our alarm is set for 6:20). It was our member calling to confirm our breakfast appointment.  The member we live with invited us to have breakfast with her.  Yes, two breakfasts within 45 minutes of each other. Not fun.  But something that is fun is how diverse Calgary is.  Our second breakfast was with Sister Simpson.  She was born in Jamaica, moved to England and then moved to Canada.  We headed off to lunch, which at this time the thought of food made both of us want to cry.  The family that invited us over is a recent convert/less active/part member family.  They are from Sri Lanka.  We thought there would be a lot of people there so we would not have to worry about eating too much.  Nope, there were two other families that were there and only one of them sat down at ate.  We hardly ate anything and we felt terrible, but we just could not eat any more.  We headed off to our dinner appointment where we were able to Skype!!! yeah!!! It was so nice to talk to everyone.  It really helped me feel at peace and more rejuvenated for the day.  We thankfully didn't eat until around 4:30 or 5 pm.  We headed to another members house who offered to feed us, but we told them no.  I was convinced that I would not be able to eat for the rest of the week.  Christmas was wonderful, especially to see the small children get so excited about everything.

 

Yesterday was Boxing Day (Canada's wanna be version of Black Friday).  We gathered up the other sisters and headed up to a mall which was about 20 minutes away.  We were getting closer to the mall when we hit a really bad traffic jam.  We thought an accident had happened....but after being in the traffic for an hour we realized no.  This indeed was Boxing Day traffic.  Oh my it was hilarious to see how the Canadians were not able to merge properly.  We had a good laugh about it.  The sales were not that great, but we had a great shopping trip.  We went to a men's work store and got some more heavy duty cold gear.  I got mittens, really thick socks and a thermal undershirt.  I may not freeze as much now.

 

Guess what we have today? Two dinners!! I'm going to die!! Thankfully next week the holidays will be over. :)

 

We have a 10 year old that we are teaching.  Her parents were baptized in October or November and she was not ready, but she is now taking the lessons (again) and will be baptized on January 13.  I get a little confused of who is our actual investigators and who are former investigators.  We have a lot of work to do in our area.  There are quite a few part member families and a ton of less actives.

 

Oh another funny thing.  I felt really bad because Sister Garner and Sister Spencer will be moving this week.  I know that Sister Garner's stress was already high enough.  I come into this area and...we are moving next week.  haha. I have been doing my best to just live out of a suit case and unpack minimally.  Also, we tend to go out of our area a lot.  We will be living outside of our area and some of our investigators live outside of our area.  I will eventually learn this area :)

 

This upcoming week looks like its going to be a good one! Pray that we won't freeze!! :) Love you lots!!!

-Sister Douglass