So being in a tripanionship is pretty cool. It's always a party and sometimes a crowd. Our apartment feels more like a college dorm sometimes. Someone always has something to say.
Oh and can I just say how fantastic it is to be with two missionaries who are experienced and know what they're doing? It's just lovely :)
But this week has been great! It's been non stop teaching and then planning to teach more :) I love it! :D
Monday the 3rd:
We got to have dinner with Angie and Drake which was delicious! Drake made a mean mashed sweet potatoes :) We read through Alma 36 together and talked about the healing power of the Atonement :) Then we saw Irena. She's struggling to really progress now and is just looking to finish out the lessons now :/ She wants to be baptized but doesn't have the solid foundation that she wants before committing to a date. Prayers are welcome! But we keep bringing it all back to the Book of Mormon and the importance of reading it every single day to bring the Spirit into our lives. Persistance is a virtue... I think :)
Tuesday the 4th: Emergency Transfer
So in the morning we took the other Champlain missionaries and met up with the Petewawans. I got to see Elder Peery which was fun :) Then Elder Tallon headed off to go up north and Elder Spencer and Elder Flitton came with us for the day. Elder Flitton is fantastic and I will miss him :) But spending that half day with him was great fun :)
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| Elder Flitton from Park City who went home a little early |
As we drove out to meet up with the Assistants in Hawkesbury, Elder Flitton gave us his last advice to really make sure we do diligent nightly planning. That is where all missionary work comes down to . If you can plan well, then you'll teach and even teach well. Good stuff :) It was cool to see Elder Lund in Hawkesbury for a moment and then I realized that I saw all of my companions that were still in the field in one day. Crazy! :D
On our way back home, we decided to stop by the referral we received out in Thurso. We drove through the country side to a small batch of three houses across from a huge farm space. Then we went and knocked on the door and this woman starts telling us about how her baby granddaughter recently passed away. She invited us in and we sat down with her and her daughter and start teaching. We used the Book of Mormon to assure them both that the baby was yet "alive in Christ" (Moroni 8) and that their grief could be turned into the sweetest of joys (Alma 36:21). It was so amazing! They were both so intent on learning and I knew that the Lord had prepared them to receive us. And now we're going back on Wednesday! :D
On the way home from there, the GPS told us to take a ferry. So we did :) And I was super giddy about it :}
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| Ferry trip! :D It was very exciting :) |
(See videos at bottom of blog post.)
Wednesday the 5th:
After a fantastic District Meeting about how Finding isn't as hard as we make it out to be but in reality it is just talking with people and interacting to edify, we exchanged with some other missionaries and I had Elder Rudolph and Elder Spencer with me.
We first taught Annalee about the baptismal covenant and after we read from D&C 20:37 she asked if we really were washed completely of all past mistakes. And, after explaining that only denying God after knowing him perfectly was unforgivable, we told her that all things can be forgiven. She really understood what it meant to receive a remission of sins which was so cool! :D She's doing awesome!
Following that we went down to Ottawa and met with Bart. He is a less-active that Elder Spencer met on the street a while back. He blew me away. After getting to know him a little better, he pulled out his wallet and from it showed us an old weathered piece of paper. It was his baptism and confirmation certificate from when he was 12, 10 years earlier. So cool. We talked to him about coming back to church and he really wanted to! So cool! As we were wrapping things up he asked if dreams had any significance (He's of native american descent :) ). So first we interpreted a simple one about the atonement that he had and then he whipped out a little deeper one. He said he saw his grandfather running away with the 10 commandments. I was super confused but asked some more questions and found that he was running away from something. Then words just started coming. I assumed that his grandfather was a good man and Bart affirmed it and then the interpretation just came. It meant something along the lines of how it is important to us now in these times to protect those things that are important to us and to sometimes run from the world. I was surprised by what I said because it wasn't really me. But once again, the gift of interpretation of dreams showed itself :)
That evening we went over to visit Leslie with Bro. Samson. We taught her about tithing which we felt was the last hurdle for her.... She had absolutely no problem with it at all. SHE'S READY! :D Such a miracle :)
Thursday the 6th:
We visited the Chapel Hill district meeting that morning but first we gave Elder Spencer to President Bruneau to go to a lesson during it. Yup a member split :) Then I got Elder Soll back and Elder Spencer as well and we went to work! That afternoon we got to visit Earnest who is the coolest old man ever! He's blind and reminds me a lot of my Grandpas :) Classy and Old Fashioned :) We got him a braille Book of Mormon and he was so happy and grateful :)
For dinner we got to visit the newly weds in the ward :) the von Steins who are awesome! It was their first time having missionaries over and it was strange for Bro. von Stein to be on the other side of the dinner :) Then we watched a hastening the work video and talked about how they can do missionary work. They loved it and we started a family mission plan with them!
Right after we rushed over to meet up with Christopher and he took me out to go teaching. Second member split of the day! We visited Irena and taught the rest of the Plan of Salvation. She really liked the whole fact that we'd receive a perfect body and that everyone gets a reward :) I like that too :) And following that we visited Brother Lytle for a beast lesson about prophets :) We had a little bit of a fiasco getting back together to unsplit... their phone turned off randomly and they didn't have the GPS to come pick me up so I made the decision to just head back to the apartment with Christopher and thankfully they got a hold of me and we were able to meet there at the same time :) But in one day, our trio taught 7 lessons. Super crazy awesome :)
Friday the 7th:
We had weekly planning all afternoon. Yeah two areas made it interesting but we made it! In the evening we taught Leslie again. We went over the rest of the commandments with her and then went over baptismal logistics for a bit. To finish out we did a mock baptismal interview with her and she was just fantastic :) She is so excited to get baptized!!!! :D And it's going to be this next Saturday! :D Then after we had a great lesson with Sandra about what we call Spiritual CPR:Church, Prayer, Reading. It was awesome! We really got down to how we can receive personal revelation. The Spirit really led our lesson and we all testified and promised blessings when she committed to do these things :)
Saturday the 8th:
We got to teach Annalee again with the wise old Brother Andrews. We read through the Family Proclamation and talked about the points therein. She's pretty much a mormon mom already which is fantastic :) She ordered the children's scripture books from online and she reads them with her kids every day :) Too cool :)
We visited with Angie in the park after that and read some scriptures with her before heading to dinner with Mama Guerard :) They fed us some delicious chicken noodle soup and sandwiches :) Then we taught about prophets and really guided her to focus on our current prophet and then go to previous ones because the most important prophet is always the living one :) Twas great :)
Sunday the 9th:
Ward council was good. We organized a bit for Leslie's baptism :) Then while Elder Soll and Elder Spencer went on the bus to guide people back to the church, I hung out at church with the Gatineau Elders and went to an extra 2 hours of church in French :D For Gospel Principles, I actually ended up teaching it with Elder Jones which was a blast! It was a good confidence booster to see that my French was still doing really well even if some of my vocabulary has slipped.
The Champlain services were great! Leslie's baptism was announced over the pulpit :) Everyone is excited :) We had a lot of good coordinating going on with members for the week. We had planned the night before to have a Faith Dinner with someone and this week a member brought us a dinner of sandwiches and muffins. It was awesome. Faith really works :)
After church we passed by a less-active and his girlfriend and got an appointment set up with them for the week at the same time as Elder Soll setting up an appointment on the phone. Trio power! :D
We got to visit Sister Easley and her 8 year old son where we talked about prophets and going to church. His cousins were over who are also members and I was blown away by some of the answers these kids were giving. The kids these days are awesome :)
The work is going so well! Our biggest struggle right now is to make sure we use all the members that sign up with us and also plan well enough to fill up two schedules sometimes haha :) But it's definitely a great learning experience for me :)
I love this work so much. I continue to learn so much every day and I can't get enough of it :)
I love you all!
Love,
Elder Brooks :)
Ferry Excitement Video #1
Ferry Excitement Video #2
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