Transfer Predictions‏

5/27/2013

I want you to do transfer predictions for, as we say in missionary lingo, where I am going to "die". You can either point somewhere on the map of the mission and guess OR I will give you the zones for the mission.  Please do it! It should be fun! Possible prize for the winner, but don't count on it. :) Zones: Airdrie, Calgary Zone, Calgary North, South, East, (I'm in the West...probably won't be staying), Foothills, Ft. McCloud, Lethbridge and British Columbia. :)

Yes, transfers are next week and as always, I am hating the unknown.  I know that there is a really good chance that I will be purging my last area.  Which will be an adventure in itself, but I still had not knowing until the day of.

Last week was pretty good. I cannot say anything extraordinary happened, not that you expect it to happen. But we did have a neat tender mercy.  We had a ward chili cook off and we were really trying to get the Bates there.  We had members of the ward council email them during the week with a spiritual thought and some of them told us that they invited them to the Chili cook off.  They did not show up, but a former investigator did! And Brother Hartzler showed up with some non members friends! It was pretty great!

We had dinner with Thandi again this week...and much laughter ensued.  Previously this transfer...maybe even last transfer we were giving so much bread! It has been sitting in our freezer so we asked Thandi if we could come over and make french toast.  It was amazing.  Missionaries love breakfast for dinner because we don't have enough time in the morning to make a nice sit down breakfast.

A less active member that we have been working with returned from her holiday in Las Vegas.  Lisa has told us that she wants to learn how to make Cinnamon buns.  We have been wanting to get her visiting teacher to come over and teach her how....hopefully that will happen this week.  I would be in Heaven. :)

We were able to have another lesson with Barb.  We thought she was still out of town, but she came back on Wednesday and will be leaving for another holiday in a few weeks.  We watched the 20 minute Restoration video which hopefully helped her understand Joseph Smith better and to help her gain a testimony about him.  We read 2 Nephi....29..? The chapter that talks about the learned man not being able to read a sealed book.  I felt pretty special being able to explain the story - thank you Martin Harris Pageant. ;) Barb is super sad that I will be leaving and she wants to feed us dinner.  Yeah! It will be amazing!

We will keep working hard this week and we shall soon discover what our fate is. :) ie - me possibly being the Sister Training Leader and Sister Fenn training.

Love you lots and lots!!!!

-Sister Douglass

Crazy Week

5/21/2013

Last week we ended up going to the zoo for P-day.  It was really fun.  The big things at the zoo are the penguins, they just came last summer.  Some of my other favorites were the red panda, baby owls, giraffe, and tiger.

The zoo was probably the highlight of the week- then...we had an elder go home in our district due to medial reasons so his companion was placed in a three leg with our district leader.  Then a zone leader in another zone also went home early for medial reasons so our district leader went zone leader and took his place in the other zone.  The two remaining elders are now companions over three wards.  There was also a shooting at a bank and a stabbing in our area.  Do not freak out - we are safe!

The Bates fed us dinner - fajitas - it was delicious.  We finally were able to have a nice sit down lesson with them.  We watched two Mormon Messages about the Book of Mormon and we read 3 Nephi 11 with them.  They felt the spirit and we feel that it helped them to understand how they can take time to read from the Book of Mormon.  They told us that they are a little scared to come to church because they feel that they are not ready to be fully committed.  We told them we don't expect them to be living the commandments fully with their very first time coming to church.  They didn't not come to church, but they sound interested in the chili cook-off our ward is doing this week.

We had another lesson with Brittney.  We think she will be having a slow come back to church.  She had a good experience last week and the Bishop talked to her about he had a less active phase in his life and how he over came it.  Since her husband is a pilot they tend to just up and go on holidays.  They will be in Jamaica for a week....and we just will do what we can.  She seems really interested in attending RS activities, so good things to come.

We picked up a new investigator this week.  A recent convert in the ward invited to her daughter to attend church.  Her daughter has been coming and loving church.  We officially started teaching her this week! She is a very sweet and tender spirit and she just loves how she feels after she goes to church.  We foresee a baptism in our near future.

Yesterday for p-day one of the sisters gave us sisters a pedicure.  It was amazing! I hope you have a great week! Love you all lots and lots!

-Sister Douglass

Another Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

13 May 2013

The weather has again been gorgeous this week.  I believe rain is in the forecast but we will survive.  This week has been a slight blurr, I feel that all we did was run around.

Monday we had a fantastic P-day chillin' at the park. The elders and sisters played soft ball and tennis and just soaked up the sun.  I got a little sunburned, but I bought sunscreen. :) Tuesday our 2.5 walking days a week were enforced thankfully members are very willing to give us a ride to our next appointment.  We helped the Bishop out with some yard work and we did a little bit for his neighbor.  His neighbor was so appreciative of our kind gesture that he brought flowers over to the Bishop.

Wednesday we spent the day helping a member prepare to move, cleaning and waxing our car for car inspections and another fantastic lesson with Barb.  The member we brought to Barb's lesson was perfect for her.  Barb is really eating up conversion stories and is really relating to them.  Again she is getting close, but she is having some mountains to climb and face before she will commit to baptism.

Thursday was Zone Conference, which are always great.  Our Zone Leaders called us at 10pm Wednesday night to ask if we would do a musical number.  Sister Fenn was such a trouper and sang with me.  I kept telling her is she didn't want to sing she didn't have to, I was fine with singing a solo.  We talked a lot about goal setting, but in particular having a vision.  It just struck me today as I was doing my personal studies that that is what I feel Heavenly Father is needed me to focus on.  I need to have a vision of what I want out of this transfer and to keep my eye on it and keep working towards it.  Sometimes I tend to have great ideas and I set goals, but I sometimes get stuck executing and following through with it.  I'm not sure how to work on that other than maybe posting sticky notes everywhere to remind me of the goals I have set this week.

Thursday we had a full evening and thankfully we had rides to and from most of our appointments.  We had Thandi come with us to our lesson with a family whose daughter is turning eight.  The family just loved her and they offered to give Thandi and Sandie a ride to church.  Their oldest daughter is Sandie's age which is perfect because Sandie is needing friends in this ward. (They were effected by the ward boundary change so they are trying to meet people).

Friday was an interesting day.  We have discovered that it takes about an hour to walk from one of our communities to the next.  The two closest ones together. We have no idea how we are going to manage walking from the two farthest areas of our boundaries.  We had someone that was going to take us to an appointment, which the ride fell through.  It ended up being a tender mercy because the lady probably would not have been home.  We asked Thandi if she would help us prepare our lesson for Gospel Essentials call.  Super helpful.  I feel terrible because Sister Fenn has an awful blister on her heel from walking around so much. :( Not fun when we have walking days still ahead of us.

Saturday we got in with a less active teen.  She is super great, but really shy.  Her family comes to sacrament meeting but then they will leave right after.  We brought Thandi with us to her lesson to help her overcome fears that she has with coming to YW.  It was a great lesson, but her family didn't come to church.  Probably due to Mother's Day.  We also did some more service doing yard work.  It was in the heat of the afternoon and I was slightly dying.  Sister Fenn didn't even consider it hot.  I think she is going to die when winter hits.

Sad news on the Jakin family.  The member asked them if they were willing to meet with us and they politely declined his offer. Blah. But if they are still in contact with him and they are reading the Book of Mormon we are happy.  We will be here when they are ready.

Sunday was great.  We had some amazing speakers.  The Gospel Essentials calls went fairly well.  One of our recent converts has been bringing her daughter to church. Actually, her daughter has been wanting to come to church and she loves the spirit that is there.  Definitely potential there.

It was super nice to talk to the family.  haha, okay mostly mom, but that's sort of how I planned it. :)

Well, despite it probably raining this week it should be great!

Lots of love!

-Sister Douglass

Mucho Adventures

4/29/2013

So...guess where we went last week? If you guessed Banff you are correct. :) The entire zone went out and we hiked Johnston's Canyon.  It was super entertaining because there has been so much melting and freezing going on that it was really slick and none of use had proper footwear.  Much sliding and falling happened.  I will have to get pictures from someone.  It's really neat to begin to see the turquoise color of the lakes that are there.  We shall see if I end up going for a fifth time being here.  Speaking of which - I am still in Calgary for another six weeks with Sister Fenn! We shall see what the next transfer will bring.

Other stories - we made it to the east side for our oil change just fine.  We did miss the building, but it was just a minor thing.  There and back again safe.  Sorry, nothing really exciting to report with that.

Okay so two Saturdays ago was the BOMB! We had left our Ensign at Thandi's house and we needed it for Visiting Teaching (yeah, we are official visiting teachers for some sisters in the ward). Thandi asked what are plans were for the night, where we were going for dinner and we told her we had none.  She asked her mom if we could stay and bam - we had dinner at her house.  But the fun did not stop there.  First of all - I met my first white African NOT from South Africa.  He's from Uganda, there was a many from Kenya there and Thandi is from Botswana.  I thought it my head "if Jasmine was here she would freak out." :) AND we had an authentic meal from Botswana!!! No utensils allowed! It was corn meal, vegetables and meat.  You had to get a clump of corn meal, roll into a ball, imprint your thumb and then scoop up the vegetables or meat.  It was so great.  Then we had an incredible lesson with Thandi.  She brought up such a good point.  Why is it that people accept that Satan still has influence in the world, but they get all upset when we tell them that God continues to talk to us today? Just some food for thought.  We left the lesson and I told Sister Fenn, yeah, it's moments like this that make your mission worth it.  We were all so pumped afterward, we just wanted to take on the world.

Highlight of last week was having dinner with the Schindler's from Lethbridge. :) They were coming up for the farewell fireside and Sister Schindler insisted that we had to have dinner together.  It was so great to see them and play catch up, but it was hard to say good bye again.  But I know it's not permanent!

We have had two incredible lesson with Barb.  Our first one we got nine verse into 2 Nephi 9 and Barb asked us, "How can I know if this is the devil influencing me?" We had a great discussion about how to recognize the spirit and how Satan cannot duplicate the fruits of the spirit, especially peace.  Barb said that she feels that her opinion is changing and she is beginning to feel like this is the truth.  We gave Barb a lot to think about.  The lesson last week she told us that she is thinking about what changes she needs to make in her life.  Such as, What would happen if I did stop drinking coffee? Well, I'd have more counter space. :) She is progressing so much and we feel that she is going to be baptized soon!!!

Other endeavours that happened- we built a gate this weekend! Our ward mission leader broke his leg and so we went and assisted him.  He also wanted to use it as a finding activity with his neighbor.  We painted it and we will probably go by sometime this week to make sure it gets hung. :) That was pretty exciting.  I let Sister Fenn use the power tools. :) I am not my mother's daughter when it comes to things like that.  I did use the electric sander once.

The past few weeks we have had farewells in the ward.  It is so neat to see these young men be super excited to go on a mission.  Especially when it may not seem like a glamorous mission like the Canada Winnipeg mission. (Did you know that Winnie the Pooh originated from Winnipeg!!!)

Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers!!!

Until next week! (Oh and it is snowing again outside....yeah!)

-Sister Douglass