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

A week of firsts :)

4/15/2013

This week was pretty spectacular! First of all, I learned how to play Phase 10. Sheesh, where I have been this entire time it's been out? Hiding under a rock? :) Family- you should invest in it and we shall commence in playing it when I return, okay? Okay.  We have an Elder from Bolivia serving in the West Zone, Elder Pozo. He is hilarious! And we had a zone meeting last week and he made us Bolivian food.  It was pretty great - so that was another first - Bolivian food.

We had interviews with President and car inspections.  We got 100% on our car inspection and we have to get an oil change and our tires rotated.  Thus, we have to go to the North East side of Calgary. We are having a member print off directions, but I have a feeling that we will have a great adventure ahead of us this week. hahaha. Pray that we won't get too lost. :) Another exciting thing for this week: President gave us permission to continue to teach Barb!!!!! yeah!!!! She was thrilled to hear this news!!!! Ah! I just cannot get over how excited I am!!!!! We had lunch with her this week and we will be back to our regular Wednesday evening appointments.

Other firsts that happened this week: first time going to Costco (we only have Sam's Club in Logan), I tried poutine for the first time (the most authentic Canadian food you can get) ;) and...wait for it...we went to the temple! No, this isn't a first for me, it was for Sister Fenn (the Calgary temple) but we both went through a SPANISH session. hahaha. We were going to the dressing room when someone asked if we would need a headset for the Spanish session.  Of course, of course I would manage to choose the ONLY Spanish session they have a month to attend. But it was really really neat- it sure makes you pay lots of attention to what was going on.  Good times, good times.  Sister Fenn survived her first winter snow storm.  It may have been a blizzard. And she shoveled snow for the first time. :)

Due to spring break we moved our 5th Sunday combined lesson to this week.  It was really neat.  Bishop Evans, did a wonderful job presenting the temple open house follow up.  He also shared a really neat story with the members.  Last week we had dinner with his family and we shared a message and asked them how they are "Catching the Wave?" Everyone told us what they are doing to share the gospel, which was fantastic.  We then left two commitments with them: one - to have the family pray for our investigators this week and two- we asked Bishop if he would call/text/send an email to two of our investigators this week to help them continue to have a spiritual experience during the week.  Bishop Evans then shared how he heard back from one of our investigators and thanked him for sending a message.:)  Bishop assured the members that we will not be pressuring them into doing missionary work and we will probably be asking them to pray for those we are working with.  We felt that this will really help move the work forward! It was a really neat experience. yeah!

I cannot remember if I had told you about Thandi or not.  Thandi, oh my, is hilarious and amazing.  She joined the church two years ago and she went a little less active, but now she is back.  She is attending a family instead of a YSA ward for now because she is trying to help her younger sister feel comfortable coming to church. Random fact- she's from Botswana, yeah it makes the coolness go up a notch. :) I had one more bag full of spices for Pumpkin Cookies. Mom, they are famous up here in Canada. You should patton the recipe :) People go gaga for them.  Yeah, it's pretty sweet. Any who, we went over to Thandi's and made them and watched some golden oldie films on lds.org such as "The Phone Call" and "Johnny Lingo".  Good times, good times.  Thandi makes me laugh so hard every time we go over, to the point of tears. She's just so great :)

We were unable to get in with our investigators this week, besides Barb, but good things are going to come.  Especially if we get members on board to pray for our investigators.

Hope you all have a fantastic week.  Spring will come....so they say...

-Sister Douglass

And it's back

4/8/2013

It's snowing outside. Welcome to Calgary. I thinking Sister Fenn is having a harder time with it than I am.  People don't seem believe me when I tell them Cache Valley has very similar weather.  We're use to it being funky, especially during the spring.

If this letter seems a little scatter brained I apologize, I woke up with a headache and it has not gone away so I'm having a hard time concentrating. Don't worry, nothing too serious, just enough to make it a little more difficult to think.

We have been seeing small miracles this week.  At our dinner appointments with members we have been asking them to pray for our investigators.  We were able to get a hold of two of our investigators that we have not been able to get a hold of for about three weeks.  We had an appointment with Sharon, but she had to reschedule for this week.  We asked the RS President to invited her over to dinner when she is feeding us this week.  We are really trying to get the Ward Council involved more with our investigators and really trying to work on having members at all of our lessons or members invited investigators to have lessons at the members home.  We saw the Bates and they are really close to dropping us. :( Sister Bates told us they are just so busy with life and lots of things are happening right now, so church is not at the time of their priority list.  We talked to her about General Conference and asked her to watch/listen to it and we promised that she would receive guidance for what she needs to do in her life.  We are hoping that we will be able to get back in this week to talk about it.  Our ward mission leader came with us to some appointments that we had set up.  He is so great at helping people feel comfortable and just reminded them that we are here for them, no matter what, and that we hope they always feel welcomed at church.

We also got in with a less active who wants to come back to church.  I cannot remember if I told you about Brittney or not, but the Spanish Elders tracted into her back in December and we have been trying to get a hold of her since.  She told the Elders that she wants to come back to church, but is scared to do so.  We had a good conversation with her and she just let everything out.  Another miracle for the week- she scheduled a return appointment with us! It's really tricky to tell people to come back to church when they do not know anyone in the ward, so we are taking the RS President with us and hopefully we can work through some of the concerns that she has about coming to church.

Now onto the big news...General Conference!!! Okay - Cedar City is getting a Temple!!! I am super surprised by that announcement.  Sister Fenn and I have been talking about what "themes" we picked up from this Conference.  The two that I got were: true discipleship and obedience. So good. I just love Conference. It's the BEST!!! I have to admit I was having a hard time with the realization that this is my last Conference on the mission.  Some of the Elders like to remind me of that fact. I was a little emotional during parts of Conference, but over all I was just filled with a sense of peace.  I just have to trust in the Lord that all will be okay and that His ways are not my ways, but He will lead and guide me. And I just have to say: I love when General Authorities talk about musicals. :) Oklahoma and Les Mis!!!! Yeah! Sister Fenn also is a huge Les Mis fan, which is great.  Most of my other companions is not super familiar with it.

Any who, we have interviews this week and hopefully Sister Fenn and I will be able to go to the Temple! Hope all goes well for you and it is not snowing in Utah. ;) Lots of love!

-Sister Douglass