Spring, spring, spring...almost

Calgary has been experience a rather warm spring, which is fantastic! I think it might be a little bit cooler this week, some storms coming in, but I think it's rain instead of snow.This week was rather difficult to get a hold of people: Easter weekend and Spring Break for most schools, but we still pressed on in the work of the Lord.  We got in with some less actives this week.  We helped one do some house work and she fed us lunch.  Another one told us about how she knows that she needs to come to church.  She even had a dream about it. :) We followed up with her that evening to make sure she had talked to her mother about driving her and her sister to church.  And she did!!!! Ah! It was so great to have the two of them at church! She shared her testimony in Relief Society about how she joined the church two years ago and she loved the feeling of peace and joy in her life.  She said that despite being ridiculed by family and friends she knew joining the church was the right thing to do.  She has been less active for about two months and she said that it crushed her, because she never ever thought that she would be one to go less active.  We are hoping to get her as a ward missionary and to keep her involved with the ward.

We had a dinner with a part member family, which was great.  It kind of was a last minute arrangement, but they love to help out any way that they can.  The husband isn't really interested in taking the lessons right now, but he is open and willing to listen to spiritual messages that we leave.  We attempted to introduce them to family history and we are hoping that a member who has more knowledge and experience can come with us next time to help us help them with their family history.  We will let the Spirit of Elijah work on them for a little bit :) But the wife shared a cool experience that her husband had.  I guess some Elders approached him (this was probably 5ish years ago) and gave him a Book of Mormon with their testimonies written in it.  He has kept the Book of Mormon and really treasures it.  I have a feeling he will join some day, but now may not be the time for us to invite him.

We have been trying to think out of the box for finding activities and our brilliant idea for the week was: put pass along cards with the QR scan on them in Easter eggs and place them along walking paths and benches at bus stops. :) It was pretty fun! We may not see immediate results from it, but we prayed that the people who find them will go to mormon.org and feel prompted to learn more.  Since the weather has been nicer we have been trying to do more street contacting - taking walks.  We got into a heated discussion with a Seventh-Day Adventist.  It was intense.  She was nice, but she kept going off about how we should not teach from the Mormon book and we only should teach from the Bible.  She was offended that my Bible was tucked away in my backpack and I had a Book of Mormon in my hand.  Then she went off about how we do not worship the Sabbath correctly.  I think we ended on good terms.  I just get frustrated when people tell me that I am on a mission because I have been "indoctrinated" and that I am "forced" to go and that I need to pray about the "truth" and find the "correct" path.  Yeah people, that is the whole reason I am on a mission.  Because I have prayed and I do have a testimony about the whole truth. :)

We did have a miracle this week, okay we have miracles every day, so this is our big one for this week.  A member of the Temple Presidency called.  Let me tell you, it's a little intense when you are having your personal study and your phone rings and "Calgary Temple" shows up on the caller id. :) President Stonehocker told us a man walked into the temple wanting to know what church it was. :) President Stonehocker had a good twenty-minute talk with him, gave him some pamphlets.  The man, Frank, really wanted to join us for Sunday services. We called him twice, but he didn't answer the phone. We have the community where he lives...but that's about it.  Pray that we will get in touch with him this week! We need to remind him of what he felt when he went into the temple.

We didn't have much success getting in with less actives with weekend and sharing an Easter message, but we did finally get a hold of Sharon and scheduled an appointment with her.

Easter was great. I didn't realize it was testimony meeting (due to conference) but there were some powerful testimonies born.  Especially a 17 year old girl who lost her father last year and this is their first Easter without him.

Good things are going to happen this week! Hope you have a fantastic week!!!!!

Love!

-Sister Douglass

Ward hopping and fast offerings‏

3/18/2013

 

This week has been a little crazy.  Let me start off with the most important details: My new companion is Sister Fenn from the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas (needless to say she is freezing).  She is the third oldest out of eight siblings.  She was going to BYU-I studying International Studies.  She was there when President Monson made the announcement of the mission age being lowered so she sent in her papers and boom she is here.  Yes, she is 19. :)

I will try to explain how crazy this week has been.  It all began when we went to the fireside with the new missionaries.  At the fireside the new missionary gets a paper and it says where they will be serving and who their companion will be. Sister Fenn read out that we were going to be in 17th ward. I had a slight heart attack at that point.  It is because the Zone Leaders had told us about a week before that we were only going to be over one ward, Arbour Lake ward and the Elders in Bow Valley Ward would take over 17th ward. Sister Little and I had been prepping 17th ward so it would be a smooth transition...and then this happened. I asked President about it ...twice and he said that the Elders in Bow Valley were covering Arbour Lake ward and we were to be in 17th ward. Well, my stress level just sky rocketed and all of the appointments we had set up for the next day went out the window. Calling everyone (ward mission leader, investigators, less actives you had been working with, ect) that night= not fun and tears were involved. We tried to not let this hiccup affect us too badly, we set up appointments and tried to press forward. Things were going fine. I just accepted that we needed to be in 17th Ward and that is where the Lord needed us to be. 

Barb was thrilled! We had a great lesson with her and she even mentioned baptism to us.  She still is struggling with the trinity, but she will accept the truth as she continues to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.  I have a feeling that she will be baptized.

Life is peachy, we are getting appointments set up...then...Saturday afternoon we got a phone call from the Zone Leaders.  They inform us that the Elders in Bow Valley will now be in charge of 17th ward and we are officially over Arbour Lake Wards. Gong show.  I asked when this was effective - immediately.  We showed up to Arbour Lake ward on Sunday and the ward council had been informed that they were getting Elders...surprise! I'm sure 17th ward was also in for a little bit of a shock when Elders showed up instead of us. It's been a slight headache, but I know there is a reason for this. Sister Fenn and I have been having fun trying to come up with every possible scenario of what President could do for next transfer. :) We technically are living with members from 17th ward right now, so my guess is 17th ward will get their own set of missionaries and we will have to find a place to live in Arbour Lake Ward and we will be placed in the three leg. haha it's been great.

There is a great blessing with paying fast offerings as a missionary.  You get food coming out of your ears.  I've been bad and I haven't paid fast offerings for a while. Mostly because I never had cash with me and we would forget to go to the bank. We had our mission debit card recently change so I had to pull all of the money from my old card and thus I have cash to pay for fast offerings...and the food keeps coming.  Keep the commandments, you will be blessed. :)

I think that was most of the highlights for the week.  It's been a little cold (in the 20s) but not bad.  Hopefuly it will be warming up soon, but people had said to keep expecting snow. yeah!

Love you lots!

-Siste Douglass

Banff times three... I am so spoiled

3/13/2013

I shall have to keep this quick, due to us needed to leave for South Calgary in 20 minutes.  Trainers training was great. Sister Hoyt did not come up from the South :( Sad face. The sisters from the South missed their turn off so they were an hour...maybe more like two hours late to the training.  The arrived right when we were leaving.  I got to talk to Sister Garner for a few minutes which was nice.  I did find out that I will be staying with my Trainee for the full twelve weeks. Some of the Sisters that are coming out will be training in six weeks. Yikes.  That also means that I will have another 6 month area. Which sort of boggles my mind.  Sister Little is being transfer up to Airdrie, which is where she began her mission, but it will be in a different ward.

We had a amazing lesson with Barb.  She is progressing so much! She loves reading from the Book of Mormon and I can tell the spirit is really touching her as she reads and talks about it.  We were heartbroken when we had to tell her that Elders would be in her ward. :( But I am going to put my trust in the Lord and know that this is happening for a reason.

We also had a fantastic lesson with Erin - she's a less active coming back to church.  She fed us dinner and we talked a lot about the plan of salvation (she had just come from a funeral).  She is living in a house that each person is renting out a room. So, one of her male roommates, Chris, had dinner with us and sat in the lesson.  He's the one that commented about our singing.  So, Sister Little and I each sang a hymn and then we sang one together and bore our testimony.  They both were feeling the spirit very strongly.  We gave Chris a Book of Mormon with our testimonies written in it. They are both sad to hear that we won't be in the ward any more and Chris said that he would try to read the Book of Mormon before Sister Little's farewell - which they both want to attend.

Banff was great again.  We got separated from our members for a little bit, but no worries. We prayed and we found them five minutes later. :)

Sorry this is short.  I'm sure there will be lots to talk about next week.  I'm going to be meeting my trainee tonight...eeek!

Lots of love!!!!

-Sister Douglass

Curve Balls

3/4/2013

Well we had a few surprises this week.  Sister Little and I found out that we will no longer be over 17th ward next transfer, it will be taken over by the District Leader. I was quite upset at this information because two of the people that I feel a very strong connection to and I feel have made the most progress since I have been here are in the 17th Ward.  But two of our investigators are male and it will be a lot easier for the Elders to get in than us.  Plus as we have been trying ti figure out what will help them the best we both agree that they need priesthood holders to help them progress...so overall it will be good.  I know that President Nicholas was prayerful about this decision and this is what the Lord wants.

Next item that we were not expecting this week....training calls.  Sister Little and I are both training.  One of us will be purge training....they didn't tell us who.  Most likely it will be Sister Little, but anything can happen.  So...in mission terms I'm going to be a mom on March 13! Yikes. I knew that I would be training this upcoming transfer due to the amount of Sisters coming in, but after the Assistants told us I just felt a weight of responsibility come down on me.  I have been worried about training and Sister Little has helped me a lot.  We've been going over the trainer's manual and if I have questions about anything she has given me suggestions.  I did get a blessing from the Elders yesterday, which helped me a lot.  It is amazing at how much the Lord is aware of us.  There is such power in the Priesthood.  I still am nervous about training, but not enough to distract me from other things.  I don't feel it as much as I had before. (When I get stressed I tend to feel the tension in my back and it's gone, which is super nice). A bonus to training...we get our own specialized Sisters Trainers training meeting this week!!!! Every companionship but two will be there.  It will be such a blessing to see Sister Hoyt and Sister Garner (Sister Rice won't be there :( but I did see her last week on P-day!)

Last week was pretty great.  We had a combined Zone P-day and Sister Little drove us through Canada Olympic Park yeah! There is a development that is literally right behind the Park, kind of crazy! It was super fun to be able to see Sister Rice and her companion, Sister Beasley.  It was a nice relaxing P-day. We caught the Bates again, did a short lesson on the Plan of Salvation in their doorway.  Hockey championships are just about over, so hopefully we can meet with them again soon.

We had an amazing lesson with Barb.  We went over the Tree of Life and the interpretation of it.  Barb told us that she is loving reading the Book of Mormon. It is coming to life to her more than the Bible! We are going to ask her to pray specifically about if the Book of Mormon is true. :) She also has agreed to let us come over twice a week! Ah! I just love Barb; she is so great!

We had quite a few lessons with less active members - two of them we have been trying since January to get in with. We also had a get together with some of the less active/part member/investigators in Arbour Lake ward.  It was a chill meet and greet plus movie. Justin and Lorena came and they had a good time.  It's nice for people in the ward to meet them so they can help us with fellow shipping them into the ward.

Random fact:

Canada no longer has pennies. They did what I believe the United States has threatened to do. We shall see how this goes.

Best story of the week:

We were running home late after an appointment...yes, after "pumpkin time". And as we got on the main road home there was a huge line up of cops.  We thought there has been a terrible accident or shooting so we were going to have to figure out some other way to get home. Our district leader called as and as we approached the cops I saw a sign that said "Alcohol check point". The officer motioned for us to pull over and we told our district leader we would call him back.  The Officer asked if we had been drinking or if we had any alcohol in our possession.  We told him no and he let us drive on.  We busted up laughing and called our district leader back. Only as a missionary when you are running home because you are late for "curfew". Good time, good times.

Yesterday we had a huge storm hit. I bet it will be coming down to Utah today. We got about 10 inches of snow dumped on us.  One of our wards was canceled, but we made it to the other one.  We were told not to do any unnecessary driving.  We were able to watch the CES Broadcast, which was spectacular, you should watch it if you didn't get a change to see it yesterday.  The entire time Elder Bednar was speaking Sister Little and I kept thinking that Barb needs to watch it.  He talked about Elder Maxwell's quote, "It is better to not shrink that it is to survive." Elder Bednar was asked to give a blessing to a young man and Elder Bednar asked the question, "Do you have the faith to not be healed." Interesting question.  It made me think about where my faith in the Savior is right now and how I am approaching a stage where I am probably going to have to rely on the Savior like I have never had done before.

Life is great and I will let you know how the trainer's training is next week. Next week is transfers so we will be emailing on Tuesday.  Also, we are going to Banff again...(I know...we are spoiled) but we will be emailing first.  We shall see which one of us is purge training - eek!

Lots of love!

-Sister Douglass