In my prayerful preperation of this address, I received a few very distinct promptings. Without a shadow of a doubt, the Holy Spirit was illuminating my mind and understanding to very specific topics and resources I must consult to. I spent most of my Saturday refining and ensuring that this talk captured the Lord’s will. When I reviewed it Sunday morning, I noticed that it was quite a bit shorter than I thought would cover the time I’ve been allotted. However, after consideration and review I felt that it was not needful to expand it.

The sacrament service was wonderful, we had the blessing of hearing from two speakers prior to me. The first of which took a great deal of time with his message, so I was left with just five minutes to spare at the end of the meeting. The delivery of this message was truly remarkable, I can only credit what took place on that pulpit soley to God. As I read through it, I felt very distinctly and clearly the Holy Spirit lead me to the core message the Lord would have me give. Within seconds or even fractions of seconds, it was revealed to me what paragraphs and details I should skip as I delivered the message. Following the Spirit in the pacing of the message, I never felt that I was speed-reading—and yet, I am amazed with how much the Lord delivered through me in just five minutes. It was a moving experience.

Tuesday quickly rolled around and I was truly blessed to find a seat at the devotional. It was a glorious sight to behold, thousands of students lined up seeking to hear a prophets words, crowding parking lots, streets, roads, all around the Marriot Center. When his devotional began, I started to recognize very familiar patterns in his message and in mine. By the end of the devotional, I was speechless. Capturing in words what I felt then, in that moment, is quite beyond my ability. But I seek to convey it best I can—our messages matched so well, that I could not deny the reality that these are truly the prophetic words and council of the Lord to us today. I would be denying reality by saying this was a coincidence, it certainly was not!

It was truly a humbling and remarkable experience that gave me an undeniable witness of President Dallin H. Oak’s prophetic calling as prophet, seer, and revelator. It also has given me witness that when we truly live and seek the words of Jesus Christ, we will be fully unified with what the Lord’s Apostles and Prophets are teaching. I hope that I never forget this experience, I’ve had similar like unto it, but never so clear as was this one.

Source to the original talk - Sustaining the Prophets

Faith Through Unexpected Means

Naaman was known for his excellence, he was a successful commander, a prominent leader in Syria; however, he was afflicted with skin disease. He became aware that there may be a prophet in Israel who could heal him. A message was sent requesting healing on his behalf. Elisha the man of God overheard this message and sent word to Naaman.

He approached the house of Elisha with his horses and charriots. Then, a messenger of Elisha spoke to Naaman saying: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean”¹. Disappointed and angered, Naaman walked away saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.”

In his final conference address, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland speaks of the plain and simple means Jesus Christ works mighty miracles among the children of men. He declared, “Another truth that is evident here are the instruments the Creator of heaven and earth and all that in them are used to provide this miracle: spit and a handful of dirt! These very unlikely ingredients declare that God can bless us by whatever method He chooses. Like Naaman resisting the River Jordan or the children of Israel refusing to look at the serpent on the staff, how easy it is for us to dismiss the source of our redemption because the ingredients and the instruments seem embarrassingly plain.” ²

Hearing his rage, the servants of Naaman approached saying, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”³ Naaman’s heart was softened, he heeded the words of the prophet and to his astonishment he found himself restored and clean.

Sometimes we may find ourselves in the same position as Naaman, I know I do; failing to heed a prophet’s invitation because we relied upon our own wisdom rather than the wisdom of God. What must we do to counter this?

The account of Naaman illustrates one great solution: surround yourself with people of faith. As he was about to walk away and abandon the prophetic invitation, his servants came and convinced him to follow the prophet’s words. Never underestimate the profound impact your discipleship can have upon your friends.

Signs of Apostasy

The next great solution the Spirit impressed upon me is the truth and council given by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the North America West Area General Leadership meeting.⁴

A portion of this meeting was dedicated to defining personal apostasy. Speaking upon this subject the prophets spoke, “Apostasy refers to a person’s abandonment of most basic personal beliefs, belief in God the Father, the mission of His Son Jesus Christ, and of the restoration.”

They then outlined a common pattern that leads to personal apostasy:

1. Looking to past prophets more than living.
2. Over focusing on misalignment on science and religion.
3. Proposing one’s own special learning as a substitute for prophetic leadership.
4. Persisting to speak on subjects that the Lord has chosen not to reveal more about at this time.

May we continually be watchful of ourselves as King Benjamin expresses, and intentionally take time to prayerfully study the teachings of modern prophets.

Brothers and Sisters, “the Restoration is not the filling of a bucket, but like fire emerging from the wilderness.” Even during our most extreme trials, as we hold tightly to our Savior Jesus Christ, we will find deliverance and greater faith in Him. What a marvelous blessing this is: we may find truth in some of the most unexpected of places. However in a world full of voices, Christ urges us to seek the words of His ordained prophets: “And whosoever will hearken unto my words and repenteth and is baptized, the same shall be saved. Search the prophets, for many there be that testify of these things.”⁵

Prophets, Seers, Revelators

When we sustain the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators, do we truly apprieciate how much that means? Are we continually seeking to live our lives in accordance with the words of Jesus Christ spoken by the mouths of these witnesses. It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit may enlighten our minds as to what we must do in our private and public lives to better sustain the prophets.

As I’ve pondered and prayed in preparing for this talk, I’ve had many distinct impressions to share the prophetic words that Elder Neil L. Andersen expressed when touring the Canada Vancouver Mission.⁶ I will do so now.

• “Here is the key to finding your future spouse: Find someone of deep, deep faith. Make that your number one priority. You can see a lot of markings of a person of faith.”

• He then spoke of the revelatory process and the sacred experience of ordaining Russel M. Nelson as President of the Church. “It is a priviledge to know a Prophet of God,” he added that he felt the revelation when they ordained President Nelson.

• “Learn what you can. This is the time of your life. You learn how to put forward your faith. Nothing is stronger in scriptures than the lessons of faith. We live in a scientific world. But the lessons in the scriptures are centered strongly in faith. You need to be familiar with how the scriptures come together.”

• Speaking of Christ’s visit to ancient America he emphasized, “even those people that had faith in Him, didn’t recognize Him mortally when He appeared to them in America.”

• “Faith is garnered over years, it’s not that you have it or you don’t. Look for people of great faith, get that into your own bones, your testimony will never leave you.”

• “Every life changing decision should be made in the Celestial room in the House of the Lord.”

Closing Testimony & Prophetic Invitation

I bear you my personal testimony and witness that prophets are special witnesses of Christ’s resurrected body. The reality of Jesus Christ, His everlasting light, and the infinite enabling and reconciling power of His Atonement is marvelous and breathtaking. I am continually changed forever by Him, and to that I can only be forever grateful. Recently I had an experience in the House of the Lord that has only cemented the promise that His reality and His presence are to be found in these sacred sanctuaries. I witness to you as you seek Christ the Lord, you will find Him in His holy temples.

In closing, I’ll share the words of President Dallin H. Oaks, speaking to young adults world-wide:⁷ “my dear friends, one of the greatest opportunities to learn, gather, and lift others is found at institute… At institute you will learn how to distinguish truth from error, build your relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ, find direction and discover answers to life’s greatest questions, meet others to help you along the covenant path and meet people who you may choose to date and marry and prepare to love and lead like the Savior. My dear young adults, I invite you to consistently attend institute; I also encourage you to invite friends to share in these same blessings. I promise that your time in institute will bring the Savior’s peace, joy, and divine love.” in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

In the Presence of The Vine

Jesus of Nazareth, knowing His earthly ministry is coming to a close, offers the gift of His eternal words of farewell to His beloved disciples. They walk with the Light of the World, into the darkness of the night. The passover was completed, and the ordinance of the sacrament instituted. Families united, offering up their pure lambs unto the Lord. When prepared, they all sat to enjoy the fruits of that sacrifice; bread was broken, Psalms of praise sung, and the trevials of the great Israelites were illustrated. They were the ones who came before, the ones who were proved and strengthened by the Lord.

On this dark walk, the Holy One of Israel deepens His Apostles knowledge with these truths:

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, excpet it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. —John 15

This passage of scripture recorded by the Apostle John, reveals the true source behind light, joy, and eternal life. The second verse is especially important in understanding the course necessary to eternal life.

The Greek word behind purgeth in this verse, means to cleanse from filth; for example grain by winnowing, a tree by pruning, sin by atonement or expiation.¹ The word is also associated to the Topical Guide entry “Test, Try, Prove.”

With this understanding, reading the second verse again is instructive.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Jesus isn’t just seeking who we are right now, He’s seeking for who we can become.

Understanding the True Nature of Proving

President Eyring, in His most recent General Conference address, has deeply expanded my understanding of proving. He explains,

The word prove has several meanings. To prove something is not simply to test it. It is to increase its strength. To prove a piece of steel is to place it under strain. Heat, weight, and pressure are added until its true nature is enhanced and revealed. The steel is not weakened by the proving. In fact, it becomes something that can be trusted, something strong enough to bear greater burdens.

The Lord proves us in much the same way to strengthen us. That proving does not come in moments of ease or comfort. It comes in moments when we feel stretched beyond what we thought we could bear. The Lord teaches that we are to continue to grow and never tire in our efforts, that we never give up, that we keep trying.²

The world struggles to understand why God proves His children in this way. Many exclaim, how could there be a loving God if He allows such terrible things to happen to good people? We may even find ourselves wondering the same in periods of extreme trial and pain. It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit may illuminate our minds and provide direction in accordinance to God’s will upon this matter.

We Owe it all to Him

Christ truly is the vine. He gives us root: connecting heaven and earth. What shortly followed that discourse, led to the events that shaped eternity, permanently. If it weren’t for Him, none of us could have new beginnings. Our sin would be the end, all of His mighty works would fall away, death would triumph, and Satan would reign over us.

How grateful we are for the mercies and justice of the Holy Messiah. His is the only name given under heaven that we may truly realize our divine nature and heritage. Nothing in this world is as permanent or as breathtaking as His infinite Atonement and literal resurrection.

Sacrifice brings forth Heaven

Lectures on Faith includes a remarkable expression of the law of sacrifice; it states,

Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation; for from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things.³

I believe sacrifice and proving often go together; and its enduring fruits of salvation are beautiful. But they are necessary and required steps in-order to realize our divine inheritance in the Kingdom of God. We must become like-unto heaven here on earth before we may join the rest of the refined, proven heavenly hosts above.

Receiving Gifts to Overcome

Jesus Christ is the key between bridging heaven and earth. He has ordained His Holy Houses connecting us to Him and His power; the light and knowledge we and the dead need together to become perfect, holy, without spot, through His Atonement.

President Thomas S. Monson once taught,

Those who understand the eternal blessings which come from the temple know that no sacrifice is too great, no price is too heavy, no struggle too difficult to receive those blessings.⁴

In the House of the Lord we, and those on the other side of the veil are blessed with the needed light and power for the building up of God’s kingdom on the earth. As we approach the altar before the Lord, we are blessed with the mighty strength of God to overcome our trials, temptations, and weaknesses. President Russell M. Nelson spoke on this point,

Regular worship in the house of the Lord increases our capacity for both virtue and charity. Thus, time in the temple increases our confidence before the Lord. Increased time in the temple will help us prepare for the Second Coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.⁵

Never Truly Forsaken

If you are going through some of the greatest challenges you have ever faced, I plead with you, don’t give up. Keep going. Jesus Christ is in your midst. He “will go before your face. [He] will be on your right hand and on your left, and [His] Spirit shall be in your [heart], and [His] angels round about you, to bear you up.”⁶

I bear you my witness, my most faith strengthening and refining trials have been my most difficult. And I look back, and feel blessed beyond measure to become refined by them. Jesus Christ reigns supreme. I cannot deny the reality of the Father and the Son. They are so real and They are gift-givers—They seek to bless you. Don’t allow the scales of darkness to take you away from Their merciful hands.

At the end of his address, President Eyring shared these inspired words.

Brothers and sisters, your proving and strengthening may not look like Moroni’s or Jacob’s or the Prophet Joseph’s. But it will come. It may come quietly, through the trials of family life. It may come through illness or disappointment or grief or loneliness.

I bear witness that these moments are not evidence that the Lord has abandoned you. Rather, they are evidence that He loves you enough to refine and strengthen you. He is making you strong enough to carry the weight of eternal life.²

In our darkest nights, we like the Savior, may find ourselves unable to grasp why God has forsaken us. But rest assured when we stand before Christ at the great and pleasing bar of judgement, we may stand with a perfect brightness of knowledge and with gratitude. United with Elder Hugh B. Brown in saying: “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.” I offer these things to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Today is a day that I’ve been pondering for a great deal of time. The Holy Spirit has impressed upon me even prior to my mission call that something about this address to you today would be very important. I pray for the assistance of the Holy Ghost to deliver the message that the Lord has for each of us.

Serving the Lord Jesus Christ as one of His set apart representatives is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have. I cannot thank my Father in Heaven enough for the past experiences I’ve had these past two years. However, this is only the beginning. With love and reverence my prayers go out to Russell M. Nelson and his family. He is truly a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Lord Jesus Christ. As declared “In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory,’ He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.”¹ We live in a remarkable season. I’m grateful to witness just a small portion of these great manifestations.

The Sign of the Covenant’s Fulfillment

Throughout the history of time God the Father has made covenants with His faithful children. The Holy Scriptures are records of these covenants—especially the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, which is a sign of the fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Risen Christ Himself bears witness of these glad tithings. Speaking to the gentiles in the Western Hemisphere He declares:²

1 And verily I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place—that I shall gather in, from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion;

2 And behold, this is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign—for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father, shall be made known unto the Gentiles that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them;

3 Verily, verily, I say unto you, when these things shall be made known unto them of the Father, and shall come forth of the Father, from them unto you;

4 For it is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things might come forth from them unto a remnant of your seed, that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel;

5 Therefore, when these works and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter shall come forth from the Gentiles, unto your seed which shall dwindle in unbelief because of iniquity;

6 For thus it behooveth the Father that it should come forth from the Gentiles, that he may show forth his power unto the Gentiles, for this cause that the Gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent and come unto me and be baptized in my name and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel;

7 And when these things come to pass that thy seed shall begin to know these things—it shall be a sign unto them, that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel.

Two hundred years ago, the dispensation of the fullness of times was ushered in by the visitation of God the Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Heavenly light filled the earth, miraculous heavenly visitations and miracles occurred. The resurrected prophet Moroni and many other heavenly tutors taught Joseph Smith from on high. After years of preparation, Joseph translated the ancient records of the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. Together with the Holy Bible, this sacred text is undeniable evidence of God’s pure love for His children, through the fulfillment of these covenants by the messenger of the covenant Himself, His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

The Abrahamic Covenant

One of the most profound demonstrations of God’s covenant love is preserved in the account of Abraham and his son Isaac. Often referred to as “Akedah” meaning the “Binding of Isaac” in Hebrew; this event was one of eternal import, one of the most moving representations of our Heavenly Father’s love for His children, and a forerunner of things to come.

God called upon Abraham saying, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”³ The phrase, “thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest” is instructive. Despite Abraham having other sons, Isaac was emphasized as his only son. Isaac was the child of promise, the one through whom God’s everlasting covenant would be fulfilled. This is symbolic of our Heavenly Father sending His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant, to seal the inheritance of the rest of His children.

Abraham took up his journey early in the morning the following day. On the third day, he arrived to the revealed place on the mount. Laying the wood for the burnt offering on his son Isaac, they continued their travels to the divine place of altar. I struggle to imagine the anguish his father felt knowing that the loss of his beloved son is imminent. His innocent son asks, “behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”⁴ With deep faith in his God, Abraham replies, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”⁵ The love that He had for God and for his son is heart wrenching. With an altar built, Isaac was bound and laid upon the wood. Just moments before what was thought to be the last moments of Isaac’s mortal life, the heavens opened up and God’s pure love poured out. He was spared, and because his father was willing to give up his son to God, he received grand eternal blessings from on High. God covenanted with Abraham that the great Redeemer would come through his lineage and that his seed would be multiplied “as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.”⁶ And that “in [his] seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”⁷ He was also promised that God’s authority and power would come through his seed.

Witnessing the Fulfillment of God’s Promises

Serving in the sacred land of British Columbia, I was blessed to witness the covenant God made with Abraham being fulfilled today. Speaking to the mission, President Mark A. Bragg observed that this mission is the greatest representation of the gathering of Israel in the North America West area. I had the blessing of meeting wonderful children of God from the four corners over the earth, prepared to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the close of my missionary service, I witnessed a wonderful son of God receive the binding covenant connection with God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the ordinance of baptism. He is now heir to many of the glorious promises made to Abraham. I taught Joe at the beginning of my mission. He had been taught for more than five years, by more than forty missionaries, and had attended sacrament meeting over 140 times.

It was sacred experience attending his baptism. I reflected upon the beauty of how the Lord showed His love to “the one,” as taught in the parable of the lost sheep. You think about how many missionaries taught him, how many lessons he’s had, and how many times we came over to fix his printer. If you were to quantify the resources, money, and everything that went into that, by worldly standards—someone like Joe wouldn’t have continued to be taught. However the Lord’s higher holier purposes prevail. This expression of His love captures a small sense of His abiding compassion for each of us. God will employ every possible measure to help us find joy and ultimately return to our heavenly home. He has given us the whole world, all we need to do is choose Him.

It was a blessing to see the joy on Joe’s face seeing all of us at his baptism. When he was raised out of the baptismal waters, witnessing the joy and light on his face was very touching. You can almost feel the heavenly hosts on the other side of the veil rejoicing in his faith and commitment to the Savior.

I have witnessed that covenant connection with God truly transforms us. The House of the Lord is our pathway back to our heavenly home. Jesus Christ and His gospel are at the center.

I bear witness of God the Eternal Father’s love for His children—His love fills every breath and depth of this magnificent creation. The veil of darkness by the evil one consumes the earth, and drives many of God’s children away from feeling His love. If you struggle to feel God’s love for you, I testify that God weeps with you in your trials, He celebrates your victories and successes, don’t give up, faith was never supposed to be easy. It wasn’t easy for Abraham, it wasn’t easy for Moses, and it sure wasn’t easy for the Savior of the world. The Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson has encourages us to “listen to this promise of Jesus Christ to you: ‘I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.’”⁸ Christ the Lord is in your midst.

His Son is near. I testify that these are the last days. Standing at the Head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is preparing the world for the day that “scales of darkness” will fall from our eyes and all flesh shall see His glory revealed. Jesus Christ has transformed me, countless lives in British Columbia, and all around the world. He is truly the master healer, the captain of our salvation. I love Him with all my heart. His infinite Atonement and literal Resurrection connect heaven and earth. I bear witness that Christ’s eternal sacrifice is the greatest act of love in the history of the world and if we remain faithful we may become heir to all that the Father has, enduring joy, in my Savior’s name I rejoice, in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

I am so grateful to behold these marvelous miracles. The gospel of Jesus Christ is real—the power of His Atonement is eternally transformative and breath-taking. I can never deny these truths for I have received numberless witnesses of these realities. I love Him with all my heart. I look forward to being reunited with you all and for the great blessings and opportunities that lie ahead.

Yellow Deli Experience

As we drove back from the Kelowna Zone Conference we had the opportunity to stop by Yellow Deli for lunch in Chilliwack, and oh what an opportunity it was. I’ve only heard the rumors and legends about this place, and let me tell you—it did not disappoint. Their sandwiches are incredible!

Now for some background, Yellow Deli is a restaurant completely run by the “Twelve Tribes” religious movement. The restaurant gives you warm cabin vibes; as you walk in you are greeted by rustic wooden furniture and yellow accents. We noticed pretty quickly that the staff were all strangely very similar. The place is run by a bunch of men over the age of thirty, all with man buns and muted flannel shirts. They all were very kind, they kept coming up to talk to us as we sat at our table.

One man in shorts and a beard came over and asked us, “who was the guy who sailed over the ocean with those rocks in that book you have?” We answered that it was the brother of Jared. Unsatisfied with the answer, he responded, “I’m thinking of a different guy… what was his name?” After some pondering, we discarded the whole “rocks” part of his question and asked, “was it Nephi?” He quickly exclaimed, “Yes! Yes! That’s the one.” Then quickly ended that topic of the conversation with that he really liked that story…

He then proceeded to his intended topic, which was that he once was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then briefly unfolded his backstory. Some time ago—I can’t remember if it was specified—he had some questions about the church. He went to his priesthood leaders, wasn’t satisfied with the lack of answers that were given by them, and explained to us that he was treated wrongly by them. He took out his records due to social issues and was glad he found a community here.

He concluded that Joseph Smith got one thing right, “that none of the churches were true.” Which looking back is an interesting assertion. In very brief summary, this is an organization that believes in…

1. The restoration of the Twelve Tribes to create a New Israel.
2. The church will be restored to its original form as described in Acts 2.
3. Observance of the Sabbath maintaining parts of the Mosaic Law.
4. Three distinct prepared places for eternity.
5. An anticipated Second Coming of the Messiah.

Now, to believe that the fallen nature of all churches was the only thing Joseph Smith “got correct” is a severe misrepresentation, even if you are simply comparing belief systems. However, let this not disregard the most central figure, Him who has given us His gospel, Him who created the heavens and the earth, Him who makes men free and salvation possible. We must not lose focus on the Savior Himself, Jesus Christ.

If anyone is looking for “peace that passeth all understanding,” healing, and most importantly the cleansing power that comes through His Atonement, we must look to Him. As we do so, we may take diligent heed to the words of Christ that will direct us to His living Church today. Apostasy quickly comes as we take Him out of our central focus and replace Him with a figure or doctrine that is. It’s especially common in Church History to put the central focus on a prophet or event rather than Christ himself. I found it inspiring that those in the Church History department ensured to keep Christ at the center while writing a multivolume narrative history of the church.

Mission Leadership Council

Staying on the topic of keeping Christ at the center, we had our bi-transfer leadership council meeting. I felt that the Spirit was present and led to some inspired council that was very helpful for the Vincents, but by the end we came crashing down when President opened up the floor to questions. All of which were presented by missionaries in the council had to do with interpretations of specific standards and rules we were to follow as a mission.

I quite honestly feel that we have “gone beyond the mark” similar to how the ancient Prophet Jacob teaches. Addressing the people he explained that, “the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble” (Jacob 4:14).

I definitely don’t believe that we are stumbling as badly as the ancient jews did, rejecting the messiah who stood in front of them with open arms. However, I do believe that we are missing the mark, who is Jesus Christ. A brief passage in Matthew’s account of Christ, clearly manifests how we truly follow the commandments and rules.

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

My Final Exchange

Elder Fielding is awesome. Despite all of our lessons canceling we had an incredible exchange. We made opportunities to teach the words of Christ on the phone, over text, and once in person. It was really good chatting with each other, we both got a lot out of the exchange.

Mapping Madness

Sister Vincent tasked us with the project of creating mission maps for each Stake of British Columbia. The idea is to have these maps printed and laminated so she can visualize everything and take notes on it for transfers.

Do not be deceived, one would think that such a simple task would be easily accomplished. However, it took us one and half full days in the office to get this all mapped out. The Prince George Stake is the size of Texas, tracing that took several hours.

Despite the challenges we faced, we have completed the maps for all the Stakes, with Church buildings and transparent boundary cut-outs. I would have never thought I’d be doing this the last week of my mission; but it was still pretty cool to see it all come together. Hopefully it proves to be helpful in the future for the Vincents.

Taking time to map all of British Columbia brought my mind to ponder upon the uniqueness of this sacred land. What a tremendous blessing to serve here, a place where the gathering of Israel is so prevalent. With so many languages, diverse backgrounds, and people from all over the world moving here—and not only that but the wonderful First Nations people, who’ve lived here for tens of thousands of years. These people are descendants of the Lamanites and the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, is a keystone to their history and speaks directly about them.

Joe Dass gets Baptized!

After five years of being taught by 40+ missionaries, and attending church 140+ times, the historic day has finally arrived. I had the blessing of teaching Joe at the beginning of my mission. He now seals the end of my mission with his baptism—pretty incredible.

Joe is a character. He’s from Fiji and works at the Rogers arena. Each missionary has the opportunity of hearing about all the concerts at this arena and Joe’s perspective of the celebrities. It’s pretty funny haha. He really likes the Hans Zimmer guy because the audience is much more reserved. He then will talk about Eminem and how he can’t understand a single word they are saying. With others he will talk about how crazy the audiences are.

It was really special attending his baptism. I reflected upon the beauty of how the Lord showed His love to “the one,” as taught in the parable of the lost sheep. You think about how many missionaries taught him, how many lessons he’s had, and how many times we came over to fix his printer. If you were to quantify the resources, money, and everything that went into that, by worldly standards—someone like Joe wouldn’t have continued to be taught. However the Lord’s higher holier purposes prevail. This expression of His love captures a small sense of His abiding compassion for each of us. God will employ every possible measure to help us find joy and ultimately return to our heavenly home. He has given us the whole world, all we need to do is choose Him.

It was a blessing to see the joy on Joe’s face seeing all of us at his baptism. When he was raised out of the baptismal waters, witnessing the joy and light on his face was very touching. You can almost feel the heavenly hosts on the other side of the veil rejoicing in his faith and commitment to the Savior.

Seeing Old Friends

My heart is full. I can’t express my thanks and gratitude for these great blessings enough. On my last weekend of the mission, I had the opportunity to travel to Maple Ridge, the Vancouver Temple, and the Fraser Valley YSA to film videos of those sharing their witnesses of Christ.

I had the privilege of seeing many of my friends again and it has opened my eyes once again to the vastness of God’s work. I did not go in with the intention to see all these wonderful disciples of Christ again, God orchestrated those interactions and made it possible.

Till we meet again

Marvelous opportunities lie ahead of us. Words cannot describe these past two years I’ve had serving the Lord Jesus Christ in this sacred land. I love Him with all my heart, He has changed everything for me. I look forward with hope and confidence.

The best is yet to come, the Savior is coming again. May we all prepare and serve with all of our hearts. Then, with Job and all the refined faithful, we will behold a world “too wonderful” to understand. I so testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Whatever we are doing, it’s working. These past 2 to 3 nights in a row, the devil has been sending demons to torment me in my sleep. This wasn’t anything too serious, it’s like having a nightmare, except I felt as if I was awake. Jesus Christ reigns supreme, and by His power they are cast off. It’s reassuring to know that the work we are doing is so important, that Satan is actively trying to thwart its progress. Each morning following those nights, I have felt a complete renewal and boost of energy. It’s honestly quite incredible, the reality of the enabling power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement has clearly been made manifest.

Receiving Direction on the Final Training

With the set of sisters now, the idea of attending all Zone Conferences and giving training became unsure. President Vincent prayerfully sought the answer to this. After a few days he got back to us and concluded that he’d like us both attending.

This is my last cycle of Zone Conference training. Planning this one was quite difficult—but over the course of a few days I believe we nailed down something that could work. We sought for President’s direction as to what he would have us focus on. His direction was to focus on members and finding. After spending a day brainstorming we kept hitting barriers. Simply figuring out how to get the training past the missionaries, bridging the gap between missionaries and members is something that’s quite difficult, especially with the goal of having them share the gospel in a 20 minute Zone Conference training.

Looking for further direction, we sought out President’s direction again. However, he was occupied with interviews. Luckily Sister Vincent was available. Discussing with her was full of the Spirit and revelation. In our short meeting with her, the Lord’s will clearly was manifest. It’s difficult to describe in words what it was like, but it was a great blessing. She also shared that while speaking with us, she has the impression that this is not only something that’s important in my mission right now, but I will be involved with this after my mission as well.

Justin’s Baptism

I’m grateful to behold the day of Justin’s baptism. It was a great blessing to share a part in it near the end of my missionary journey. Looking back, he is the most prepared individual I’ve taught and witnessed being baptized. He’s absolutely incredible! Cristian—a wonderful member of the YSA he’s gotten close with—taught and baptized him.

Ever since the day he first saw the missionaries on the streets of Vancouver, he saw the light of God and has followed it. He earnestly searches and ponders upon the things of eternity found in the scriptures. With more than half of the Book of Mormon completed, he asks us incredible questions and seeks to understand the deep symbolism. He shares his wonderful insights at institute, actively participates in activities, has made many new friends, and ultimately has found true and lasting joy.

I bear witness of the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In just over three months Justin has been transformed by Him! Though he didn’t need to make drastic changes in his life to live in accordance with God’s commandments, his character and countenance has changed. When we first met him, he was very shy and struggled to explain his thoughts and feelings. Now, he’s open, joyful, and full of light.

You Are the Gospel Message Initiative

I’ve had the blessing of traveling around the mission field one final time to deliver our Zone Conference training. It’s been just miraculous. This training is just the perfect culmination of my whole mission; everything has fit together so well. One may say that my mission is chiasmus, to which the Gills would be pretty excited to hear haha (they love chiasmus).

One key aspect of this training was a video I put together. The original video was an interview with Elder David A. Bednar following up on his invitation to ‘flood the earth’ with gospel messages on social media. This video is an engine in bridging the gap between missionaries and members. We invited missionaries to use this video when visiting members, when opportunities arise with local leadership, and if possible, ward/branch council. I am just amazed at the impact it’s already having! My prayers have been answered, several missionaries have been sharing great successes from this effort. This movement has the potential to exponentially magnify missionary efforts in bringing souls to Christ.

Though this may be my last training here in British Columbia, this is God’s work. This is a future movement for the mission. At the end of our presentation, we shared a timeline. There has never been so much opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, great things are coming to pass, and many more to come. We look forward to this upcoming general conference, this Christmas season to celebrate the birth of our beloved Savior, and this Easter to rejoice in His literal Resurrection. I pray that we may engage and work with members of Christ’s Church to invite many who are seeking, to find the peace and joy of Jesus Christ at many of these upcoming events.

Homecoming Details

I’ll be speaking about my experiences serving the Lord Jesus Christ on Sunday, September 28th. Details for this event are found on my website.

Sister Vincent had big plans for the newly arriving missionaries. And we so happened to be voluntold to be a part of it. This new missionary day was unlike any other I’ve seen on my mission; this was by far the largest group we’ve seen, totaling around 25 missionaries. The Vincent’s and office staff needed all hands on deck, picking them all up with their luggage. So we picked up a van-load of missionaries accompanied by their luggage and headed toward the mission home. Our friends in Salt Lake had been booking flights pretty early too, so upon arriving they had a full afternoon and evening of hanging out in the mission home. This is what initiated Sister Vincent’s plans: the idea of having all these missionaries hanging out at the mission home with little to do was going to need a new solution.

It was at this point that we were elected to drive our new arrivals touring them around Richmond and giving them the “Canadian experience.” “What might this look like?” some may ask; to which I’d respond, “I have absolutely no clue.” As one could expect, the role we played in this wasn’t communicated until we arrived at the mission home the day of. The Surrey sisters were facilitating it all at the mission home and gave some sort of presentation which was completed when we arrived. Both us and the sisters had to take two groups of missionaries out for a tour.

The first group of missionaries that we hauled consisted of four missionaries, three of which were from Canada. So we were off to a great start. We embarked upon the first and most important stop, the mission office. From there, they completed some important paperwork while we set up and gave out church provided phones to those who didn’t receive them. I’m grateful this process took up most of the time, to be honest I wasn’t looking forward to driving missionaries around for the sake of driving them around. After that was completed, we took them to tour one stop: Tim Horton’s. It was a new experience for one missionary, the rest of the Canadians were just along for the ride. With that, we were out of time and headed back to the mission home for the next group.

At this point, it was almost 4pm and our schedule consisted of traveling back and forth all day picking up missionaries and setting things up. We didn’t have time for lunch, so we both weren’t super excited about touring this next group. We took this group to the mall, and pretty much just walked around. We took the new missionaries to Muji, walked through the store for a bit. The new missionaries weren’t super enthralled by it, so we continued to walk around the mall, essentially just burning time. I am so grateful that I will never have to do this again. Maybe if we had lunch before it would’ve been a lot better.

Once the new missionaries got their paperwork done in the office again, to our relief we headed back to the mission home and dropped them off. We then assisted a missionary with setting up her Facebook account. She tried making a new account previously using her missionary.org account, but it immediately got marked as suspended. It turns out that Facebook doesn’t like missionary emails, plus one to my never-ending list of dislikes for this company. We tried making a new account on the laptop using her home email. Same problem. We then tried making a new account using a temporary email address, with the hopes of changing it afterward. Once we did that, it asked for a face to scan to confirm identity. Oh boy, my list just keeps getting bigger. Despite doing this, the account was marked as suspended again. We had to get going, so this was an issue for another time.

As we were about to leave, the Vincent’s insisted that we stay for dinner. We were so hungry, it was a blessing to finally sit down after a long day and eat. To end the night, we headed to pick up more missionaries from the ferry.

Meeting with the Social Media Crew

When the trio of sisters saw the transfer board, they were confused as to what the special assignment meant. All the areas had been renamed, assignment names were no longer included—which made things a lot more confusing on their side of things. After contacting President and the APs, they finally got the response as to what that entails. They then had a meeting with President and Sister Vincent to learn more about their role and what they should do. At this point, they knew way more than us. We hadn’t heard anything either, we just assumed they were social media sisters. From the information they gathered, they have the same responsibilities as us.

The day after transfers, we met with them in the morning in the office. The meeting was two hours, we covered so much information and it went so quick! We gave them a big overview of the assignment, roles and responsibilities, ensured that they had access to resources, and planned for the future. The meeting was filled with inspiration and the Spirit unified us all. It was a great amount of information to be processed, but we covered a lot of ground and are moving forward. They now have a laptop, camera, mics, and access to the Christ’s First Light media kit and additional resources to guide their editing.

Ask! Seek! Knock!

Elder Badesso made a video to be posted on a ward page. We received a message asking if it were possible to edit it and make it like a food ad. This commission was quite honestly too much fun to put together. We edited it while waiting for our lesson with Partik and in the evening.

The video is already a classic, we’ve probably watched it around 20 times now. Its humor is timeless and doesn’t get old haha.

I totally recommend giving it a watch.

The social media sisters quote it every time they see us haha. We even got a shout out at our weekly PMG Zoom meeting. Elder Badesso shared his experience trying different finding sources and shared that he had us edit it to post.

The Finding Support Coordinators

We are now officially scheduled to have Monday meetings with the Vincents. It only took a transfer and some to get here haha. Both us and the sisters met with them and it went really well. The Lord is preparing a way for the future of His church in British Columbia, and I’m grateful to participate in that. President Vincent shared that in just six months this whole mission is going to be turned over. In that space of time most of the mission will be new missionaries. There is great potential to set a new standard for the mission.

We opened up by doing a scripture study in 1 Nephi 17, specifically focused upon Nephi’s inspiration and zeal to keep the commandments of the Lord and build a ship. The sisters talked about Nephi inquiring of the Lord as to where he might find ore and searching for it in the land of Bountiful. They shared that we are in the land of Bountiful. Each zone has different ore, you have to use different tools to harvest the potential of each zone. I found it interesting that after many days of traveling in the wilderness with great affliction and very limited resources, they finally made it to the land of Bountiful. Naturally, our instinct would be to stay in such a plentiful land. However, despite that pretty soon after they arrived Nephi was instructed by the Lord: “Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord.” Immediately following this was the revelation to construct a ship that would lead them to the land of promise. I bet that would’ve been very difficult. If we aren’t receptive to the promptings of the Lord we may become comfortable, idle, and resistant to change. We would miss out on our land of promise that the Lord has prepared a way to. And not only that, if we zoom out our perspective, think about the countless individuals and generations this affected. If they settled in the land of Bountiful, the Lord’s church may not have been established in the new world. We may not even have the ancient prophecies of the Book of Mormon today. Now the Lord won’t withhold His blessings from His people, He will always prepare a way, but certainly an action like this had an unfathomable magnitude of consequences. May we be open to the voice of the Lord, and not settle for less.

We were asked what the official title was for the guy at the head of the social media meetings for the North America area. We shared that it was the Finding Support Center Specialist. They found it interesting that despite the heavy focus on social media, the official title is about finding support. They noted that that’s exactly what we are doing right now in our roles. We are to support, sustain, and strengthen the finding efforts in the mission. President Vincent has now opted to call our meeting the Finding Support Coordination Council haha. So I guess we and the sisters are now “the finding support coordinators.”

Artificial Sources of Living Water

I was studying some of the names of Jesus Christ, and was looking through living water in the topical guide. I came across this scripture in Jeremiah 2:13 that really stuck with me.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

The covenant people of the Lord were forsaking Him, and turning to false idols. The emphasis on “two evils” stood out to me. The first of these two evils is primarily the forsaking fountain of living waters. The second is forming their own, artificial cisterns.

People around the world are searching for comfort, for peace, and ultimately for happiness. They often turn to or form sources that hold this living water. However, these artificial sources are empty, they are cracked, and hold no living water. Those turning to these sources find themselves dissatisfied and unfulfilled, turning to the next idol rather than turning to the true source of living waters. If we aren’t careful, we may find ourselves forsaking Him and turning to these other sources. President Nelson put it nicely: “your obsession becomes your god. You look to it rather than to Him for solace.”

We wake up. Elder Chandler rolls over. Whispers, “transfer news is out.” I’m half conscious trying to remember what day it is. Oh yeah, it’s Monday. Wait a minute… that’s when the realization came. They chose to send out transfer news on Monday rather than the typical Tuesday, quite surprising, and quite frankly no one saw it coming. Needless to say, not much has changed for me. I’ll be sticking it out with the same assignment, companion, and area to the end of my mission as expected. I can’t complain, I’m pretty happy here. I hope that there’ll be opportunities to grow, my only fear is that I’ll keep doing the loop and fail to exhibit growth. But I have faith and hope!

Elder Ellis (my old companion), is now AP so that’s super exciting! Looking forward to working with him again; kinda saw it coming for a bit.

A Great Exercise of my Faith

I haven’t yet written about my journey of learning to align my will with God in regard to college. When I first put in my papers for the mission, my plan was to attend University of Utah immediately after. I went through the steps to differ my enrollment for two years, moved my college credits, and even secured scholarships. I was very confident this was the direction I needed to take. But just as you might guess, that all changed. The roots to my journey of alignment with God can be traced back to my time in Nanaimo eight months ago.

My release date is in September. This doesn’t align with the fall semester. Going home early was essential to make the date. Thus, this was my original plan, however it wasn’t God’s plan which I later came to a knowledge of. 16 months into my mission, time was running out. The decision was speedily approaching, so naturally I was thinking and praying about it more. I remember receiving distinct spiritual impressions that made me rethink my initial plan to go home early. It wasn’t quite clear what I needed to do yet. However, one thing was absolutely certain, I needed to council with President Gill about it. Over and over again, the Spirit spoke to me urging me to speak with my mission President about it at interviews. Once I did, the answer was made manifest and it was clear what I needed to do. I wrote about this experience previously in my letter: “A Touch of Heaven & the Veil is Thin”.

From that day, I proceeded forth with a sure confidence I needed to stay out for the full time God has appointed. I then began to receive new impressions through the Spirit in my supplications to God. He truly does work line upon line. As much as I resented admitting it at the time, God revealed that I needed to attend BYU. When I began my college enrollments for high school, I didn’t even make an attempt to enroll in it; I was so sure at the time, BYU was not where I needed to be. Fast forward, I then received three distinct impressions that indicated that this was His will and path for me. Proceeding that, up until right now I haven’t received any additional witnesses. My faith is being tested, and I must rely upon the direction that God has given me previously. In the same light as Oliver Cowdrey, I must: “cast [my] mind upon the night that [I] cried unto [Him] in [my] heart, that [I] might know concerning the truth of these things. Did [He] not speak peace to [my] mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can [I] have than from God?” (D&C 6:22-23)

I recently began really diving into the application process last transfer. Spending a great deal of time writing the essays and ensuring that they were adequate. And then came the letters of recommendation. The deadline to submit was August 31st, I still had a couple of weeks. I sent one to President Gill and he completed it quite quickly, however I was required to submit one for a core subject in high school. I really felt strongly that my English college course teacher was perfect for it. I did everything I could to get in contact with her. Each method, I would wait days or even a week for a response, but all yielded nothing. Now I find myself with only a week left till the submission deadline. At this point, my faith was increasingly being tested. Worry began to fill my mind, each time this occurred I had to remind myself that if this is God’s will, He will prepare a way. I can be confident that all will work out.

I then felt like it was time to reach out to my video production teacher. At first I was hesitant to have him fill out this letter of recommendation, because I felt that it didn’t fulfill all of the requirements. However, upon pondering more about it, I felt that it just might work. He was quick to respond, and eager to the task; I was so glad. I felt this burden ease. A couple more days continue to pass, as I checked the application I could see that he hadn’t filled it out yet. I began to worry again. At this point we are days away from the deadline. Time was almost up! I sent him another message, to ensure he hadn’t forgotten about it. In response, he shared that he was out of the country and would finish it once he returns on the 30th. I was so relieved.

The letter of recommendation was submitted and that marked my application complete August 31st. I never doubted God, but definitely doubted myself multiple times in the process. My faith was definitely tested: I needed to stick it out and follow through. I’m so grateful everything worked out, and I just pray that I continue to stay aligned with God’s will and be receptive to His promptings.

To whoever reading, I hope that this story helps you stick it out with whatever trials of faith you are facing. Sometimes the hardest part is putting one foot in front of the other not knowing where you are stepping. But knowing that this is the direction that God has set out for you. Have courage. Walk in confidence. He is in our midst.

Reflection

With this transfer ahead of me, we now have social media sisters again. Our job will now be to complete the transition before I return home. Some days, I almost feel like I have a job for the church. It’s been quite an interesting assignment, I’m grateful for the things I’ve learned. Looking back on my missionary service, I’m amazed. This whole experience has been everything I could have ever wanted. Coming out on a mission, I had great aspirations and high expectations for what I wanted to accomplish. I had great desires to use my talents and abilities God has gifted me with for the building up of the kingdom of God. All of these aspirations have been fulfilled, and more! I bear witness that God is incredibly aware of you, He knows your desires and wants to bless you! My mission has been an incredible blessing and testimony to me of His love not only for me but for others. I look forward to seeing what the future holds.

I stand amazed at Christ’s enabling power. I’m a witness of it, especially these past couple of days where I’ve seen marvelous manifestations of it in my own life. It’s difficult to adequately explain or record it, but I will do my best. As tech/social media leaders, we have the opportunity to present each transfer at the new missionary training.

Overshadowing Blessings

There was an excellent theme to the talks given at sacrament meeting. One lady spoke on the principle of focusing too much on a specific need when praying to God. She shared numerous examples of how she was praying for something specific she needed in her life, but continued to see blessings in so many other aspects in life. Despite these many blessings, it wasn’t the specific need that she was looking for that wasn’t being met. She continued to pray and petition God for this need; she expressed her gratitude for the blessings that she has seen, but acknowledged that she was looking for something else right now.

Doing this, she’s now recognized that she was overshadowing and failing to see the marvelous blessings that God was bestowing in those moments. I believe that we are all very vulnerable to this type of spiritual blindness; I’m grateful for the remarks given today highlighting this principle.

Quoting Elder D. Todd Christofferson she shared,

“We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select the desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered. God will indeed honor His covenants and promises to each of us. We need not worry about that. The atoning power of Jesus Christ—who descended below all things and then ascended on high and who possess all power in heaven and in earth—ensures that God can and will fulfill His promises. It is essential that we honor and obey His laws, but not every blessing predicated on obedience to the law is shaped, designed, and timed according to our expectations. We do our best but must leave to Him the management of blessings, both temporal and spiritual.”

Presentation Making with Haste

Many mighty miracles of the Lord’s hand were shown this week through small and simple means. Running against the clock, I was inspired and empowered in putting together our presentation for Zone Conference. Considering the limited time I had, one would think that I would be facing immense stress in this undertaking. I stand amazed at the peace and the clarity that the Lord has brought to my mind, enabling me to be an instrument in His hands. This is just another witness to me that with God all things are possible, despite my shortcomings.

Victoria Zone Conference

This Zone Conference was quite special. Not only because it was the Vincent’s very first, but because of the great manifestations of the Savior’s hand guiding the meeting through the Spirit. There was a heavy emphasis on the account found in Luke 24, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

I felt inspired to make heavy connections with that story in our presentation. I now realize why. Initially, when putting together the presentation I wasn’t very confident to include the story. It made a lot of sense to incorporate, but I felt this particular scripture story has repeatedly been emphasized by me recently. Looking back, I’m grateful I took the Holy Spirit to be my guide, rather than leaning upon my own understanding.

A musical number was performed: “Abide with me, tis eventide.” It really tied together the meeting very nicely.

Priesthood Blessing

We became informed that our friend Parteek was facing some physical health challenges. We offered to give him a priesthood blessing and he readily accepted. Upon meeting, we learned that he had no significant health concerns which was a relief. He expressed that it’s been having difficulty sleeping at night. As a result, he’s struggled with decreased focus which has impacted his schoolwork.

We gave him a brief rundown upon priesthood authority as this was his very first blessing. Elder Chandler then anointed him, and I sealed it. The room was very still and we all felt great peace in the Spirit. After the blessing, Prateek expressed that he felt really good and reenergized.

I pray that he may remember this Spiritual experience and that his faith will continue to grow. I’m grateful to be a part of supporting him in making his first covenant with God.

With this interaction, I reflected that some of the most spiritual experiences that we have in life aren’t the ones where we are overwhelmed by the Spirit. More often than not, it’s those times of quiet, peace, and stillness. You wonder why the adversary is working so hard to clutter our thoughts with constant distractions.

“And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12)

Harmony in the Spirit

Looking back, I marvel at how the Spirit of the Lord has enabled us to be unified with the Vincent’s. Right when they first arrived, we filmed a video consisting of different missionaries sharing their favorite names for Christ and why. The Vincent’s big focus coming in just so happened to be the names of Christ.

When we put together our training for their first cycle of Zone Conferences, we were inspired to make the account of the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 an underlying focus for our presentation. Little did we know, the Vincent’s had a large portion of their training on this very story.

This really is a testament that this is God’s work. As we let Him prevail and hearken unto His Spirit, He prepares a way for His work to move forward. It’s pretty remarkable that we continue to find ourselves on the same wavelength with the mission leaders.

Traveling to Kelowna: A Day Led by God

In the past, scheduling time to film members has been quite difficult. Either missionaries forget to reach out and follow-up or members struggle to find a time that works. However, I really feel that despite the difficulty, member videos are so worth posting to the page. I’ll continue to push and make these videos a goal.

Driving up to Kelowna for Zone Conference, I thought would be the perfect opportunity to film some members sharing their testimony online. So we took time to plan and schedule two member videos before traveling. To my surprise, both worked out, and we had an action packed evening. It’s incredible what the Lord made possible with our limited time constraints. The members were quick to share their witnesses and testified with power.

A Dream of Comfort

Upon arriving at the Kelowna chapel for Zone Conference, we began switching vehicles and completing administrative tasks with other missionaries. Once completed, they left and entered the chapel. Sister Vincent then approached us and said that she had something to tell us. With tears in her eyes she said that she was feeling inadequate and was unsure if she could fulfill her calling. Then, with eagerness, she explained that she had a dream last night. In that dream, she felt that God was reaching out to her. She shared that God comforted her, in response to her fear He said, “look at all these great missionaries who are here to support you.” Among those missionaries she added, we were the ones in her dream, the ones that she can lean on for support.

God truly prepares a way for us. He sends angels to bear us up. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity, the Vincent’s are doing incredible work here in British Columbia!

One Work that Never Ceases

As I’ve taken time to reflect in the stillness of the Spirit, I just stand amazed at how fast and smooth this major change in mission leadership has undergone. I almost feel as if I blinked, and now we have new mission leaders. They are immediately going forth in the full speed and swing of the work, and it is marvelous. They’ve only been here for a month, and I feel like they’ve been here for at least four. It really is a testament to me that this is the work of God. It wouldn’t be possible to make such a major change and maintain the swiftness and unfaltering work that the calling requires without Him.

Our stop in Kamloops

With surprise, we received a message from the Kamloops sisters sharing that they had some members who’d love to be on a video for the mission’s Facebook page. Kamloops is about a four to five hour drive from Richmond, too much driving to warrant a video. Luckily enough we happened to be in Prince George at the time for Zone Conference. And even more lucky, we were driving a vehicle down. By the grace of God we were able to make a stop in the Loops and get filming. Upon arriving we were shocked, the sisters had three members at this park all eager to be in videos, and they were still expecting more members to come! At this point, one could have thought the whole ward may show up. By the end of the filming process we had five member videos come out of it. Pretty incredible! The Master Creator had some great orchestration to make this possible. We even got a video filmed with the sisters as well. We probably won’t be stopping in Kamloops again anytime soon, so it’s a really good thing we have lots of videos completed from this great day.

The Secret Knock

This one’s totally random. Pretty funny moment, I thought would be amusing to include. For context, there’s a scene in the Lego Movie when Vitruvius “administers the secret knock;” which is thus expressed as a single pound on the door. This scene is far too funny from what it warrants to be. When we approached Benjamin’s door, I joked with my companion about administering the secret knock. In which I confidently did, but with great surprise and comedic value, Benjamin immediately swung open the door and greeted us with, “hey brothers!”

It was at this moment that the great hidden power of the secret knock was made manifest. If only this priceless knowledge had been revealed at an earlier time in my mission…

Devotional with Sister Spannaus

The course of this event all came to fruition at the very last minute. On Saturday, at the Surrey/Abbotsford Zone Conference, President Vincent pulled us to the side and asked us if we were busy on Monday. To which our answer led to, “great, we are booking you a ferry to Victoria.” So that was fun.

There will be a devotional from Sister Spannaus the Second Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, and we were in charge of making sure it was broadcast to the whole mission. So we ferried over and quickly got to work.

Luckily, the devotional was held at the stake center in Victoria, and they had plenty of equipment to facilitate our needs. We were able to tap into their camera system and Zoom setup to stream a webinar to the whole mission. Overall the devotional was pretty good. I’m grateful we had the opportunity to attend and that the broadcast turned out.

This week has been one where the spiritual experiences and preparation of our friends has been made manifest. Our friend Prateek shared with us that he had an experience where he was extremely close to being hit by a car, but in that experience he gained a perfect knowledge that God is real and cares for him. He’s currently very busy with school and locating a job, but he’ll have more time at the beginning of August. We plan to have his baptism sometime then, if he can continue to keep commitments.

Final MLC with the Gills

This Mission Leadership Council was blessed and filled with an overwhelming outpouring of the Spirit. That whole day, I felt as if I were bathing in the Spirit, it was quite special and remarkable. Over the course of this meeting, the Gills shared the teaching and direction given by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles found in the 2025 Seminar for new mission leaders. President Gill would often go back to his notes as missionaries shared their thoughts and conclusions; he was amazed at how much they aligned with the council given by the prophets in this meeting. They shared a simple but profound statement given by President Jeffrey R. Holland, “you promised to always remember Him.”

President shared what he called a strange thought of his that he had taught to him by the Spirit at that moment in the beginning of the council. His mind was brought back to the COVID pandemic. He added that from a medical perspective, this virus was astonishing; it was able to penetrate and fill the earth so quickly. He paused and explained, if a virus can penetrate the earth so quickly, how much more confidence does it give us knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ’s gospel will penetrate and fill the earth.

In tears, President and Sister Gill stood up for the final time at a mission leadership council meeting. “We are sure going to miss this,” they then expressed their heartfelt gratitude and confidence in each of us who the Lord has called. President then added his final remarks with a simple and brief testimony. He concluded by saying, “I’m going to do something I haven’t done in over forty years. Not all of you may be able to recognize what I say, but the whisperings of the Holy Ghost will guide you, let them with ears hear and understand.” He proceeded to bear his testimony with greater tears in his eyes, in Japanese. This tender moment sealed their very last meeting with us.

A Dream

I received an email from a close and dear friend from home. As I read the email, I was filled with so much joy. My friend expressed that he’s looking forward to when I return home and shared briefly that a lot has been happening on his side of things. He wrote, “I’ve been having some pretty unexpected experiences lately that honestly changed how I see God.” I don’t know what these experiences have been, but the Spirit hit me when I read it. I’ve received a witness that he’s been having experiences with the Holy Ghost leading him to Christ.

I haven’t told him this yet, but 6 months ago I had a vivid dream about him. In this dream, I remember witnessing him enter the waters of baptism. That’s all I can recall from it, but the days following this experience, I had my mind going back to him time and time again. I was unsure what the meaning of the dream was, whether or not it was revelatory, meant to be taken literally, etc. But what I did know is that it probably was a sign to reach out. So that’s what I did.

There wasn’t much that immediately followed that, but my mind has caught hold upon this experience once again. After hearing that he’s been having experiences with God, I firmly believe that this dream was a divine manifestation from God. I cannot begin to describe the feelings I received upon reading that simple sentence in his email. It could mean a lot of things, but this exceedingly great joy and the outpouring of the Spirit are outstanding evidence of what my friend has been going through. I eagerly anticipate hearing of his experiences and sharing my own witnesses and experiences as well.

Performing the Final Backups on the Gill’s Data

On Monday we sat in the mission office with two Macbooks and two iPhones. We had to meticulously one by one airdrop each Apple Note to President Gill’s laptop from his iPhone. Apple doesn’t like to make it easy for those who either don’t pay for iCloud storage or whose storage is full. Owning your data only goes as far as iCloud storage goes, which isn’t very far. You probably won’t catch me using Apple Notes for this very reason. So after an hour of ministering one by one to each note, we had them all eventually backed up to the laptop. After which we would back up the Apple Notes database to the external hard drive along with the rest of each Macbook and iPhone’s respective data. Fighting against the clock, we eventually got everything backed up; and not only that but I attempted to recreate the home directory structure so the Gills can just drag and drop the files onto their new Macbooks and have everything function the same.

During the slow process of moving files, President and Sister Gill, probably for the first time in a long time, sat without much to do at all. This was one of the few times I’ve seen President without a suit jacket. He swiveled back and forth in his chair, looking out the window. After a few seconds of doing so, he paused, and shared that, he doesn’t know why but for a great deal of his life he separated his spiritual and professional life. He said over time, he’s come to realize that they are all one, they go hand and hand. He added that he’s had great manifestations of the Spirit directing him in his professional life.

Just as we completed the backups, the Gills shared that they owe us for backing up all their data. They suggested having us over for steak dinner or something, then President paused and said that we must bring dates in order to attend haha.

Baptisms for the Dead

We had a wonderful experience attending the House of the Lord. This marks the first time that I’ve done baptisms for the dead on my mission. Typically we do proxy endowments, but for this trip, we decided to change it up. The stillness and peace of the Spirit was with us as our small group performed baptisms in the font. The group doing this consisted of mostly missionaries, there was one other woman that came in, but for the most part it was just us. As I sat and recorded the baptisms, I watched the beautiful reflections of the warm morning sunlight shine through the glass windows onto the water in the font. I’m grateful for this experience connecting with heaven just minutes before the Vincent’s flight landed.

Arrival of the Vincent’s

The Gill’s were the new mission leader’s personal Uber driver for a short period of time. The original plan was to meet them at the mission office and at four o’clock and wipe the Gill’s devices. It sounded like there was a dinner with them, the APs, and the senior missionaries in the office planned. Soon after the Gill’s picked up the Vincent’s, everyone in the office received a text that they had a change of plans. President Vincent wanted to drive up and see the temple. So our plans to meet at the office inevitably got pushed back to six.

When everyone arrived, the Gills frantically told us that the new mission leaders didn’t receive new phones, they were going to need to use their old iPhones. We quickly began the factory reset process. Once completed, that was it. Everything was done. President Gill gave me one final big hug before departing. With tears in his eyes, he looked at me in the eyes, and said tenderly, “you’re going to do so many great things.” I felt an incredible amount of love come over me, and I am filled with gratitude. And then they left. I’m gonna miss both of them so much.

We had the blessed opportunity to meet the new mission leaders, the Vincent’s. They are super awesome, it’s definitely a new era for the mission. There’s going to be a lot that changes with their style of leadership. I hope and pray that this transition for them may be smooth and that the Spirit may sustain them.

Apparently, we were invited to this dinner with them, which we didn’t know about until today. We had the blessing of having dinner with them all at the mission home. All of this worked out really nicely in the end, because we were setting up their devices just after dinner.

Vincent’s Meet & Greet

President & Sister Vincent’s week has been packed full of traveling. They had meet and greets with eight zones spanning over the whole mission. This involved a jam packed couple of days of pure travel reaching everyone and going around the mission. When they both came to our meet and greet they were full of energy and enthusiasm for the work. They had each of us stand and share something that we’ve learned recently. The meeting was filled with the Spirit as each of us testified of Jesus Christ and His hand in the work. This was a time of revelation for President Vincent; it was remarkable how the Spirit worked in this meeting to assist him in receiving guidance from God for each individual missionary.

Assisting the Vincent’s

So about those church provided phones that the Vincent’s were supposed to have coming in…. They came! The very next day after they arrived, there was a package with both of their new phones. Now we had to do what we did yesterday again to get these new phones ready. This involved us meeting them at the mission home and performing the setup process again. President Vincent was having a transfer meeting with the Assistants, so it was just us and Sister Vincent. They both definitely work differently than our previous mission leaders, divide and conquer I guess!

Justin’s on Baptismal Date

Justin is very genuine and really sweet. In this lesson, he was able to come to know what the Spirit feels like, and reflect upon experiences in his life where he felt the Spirit. He recognized God’s hand in his life as he shared with us an experience when he first met the missionaries walking around in Vancouver. We’ve had two lessons with him prior to this one, and he’s pretty shy but super open and willing to keep commitments. He talked more in this lesson than any other we’ve had with him, it’s awesome! He’s been reading the Book of Mormon and he shared that he’s at page 80 right now! He’s been super prepared, and I pray that he can keep following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Benjamin’s Faith

We had an excellent lesson with our friend Benjamin as well! If he had permanent residency in a safe country he would totally be baptized by now. He’s consistently been meeting with the missionaries and has been taught for a while because of this. As we were preparing for our lesson, Elder Chandler and I had a distinct impression that we needed to show him a video. As to which video, we weren’t completely sure, but it was clear that’s what needed to happen.

Benjamin isn’t really much of a talker, however, just like Justin in a strikingly similar light, this is the lesson he’s talked the most in. I wasn’t sure how aware he was about his current situation preventing him from being baptized, but it was made manifest that he’s very aware of this just in this lesson. He expressed that before finding Jesus Christ and His Church, he wasn’t sure if he believed in God. But after many Spiritual experiences, he knew that God was real and couldn’t deny it. He shared that he hopes to receive a PR soon to allow him to be baptized. He mentioned the blessings of attending the temple after being baptized and how he longs for it. I’m so grateful that he is beginning with the end in mind. I hope and pray that he may follow the whisperings of the Holy Ghost and walk with steadfast faith in Christ without losing hope working towards the goal of eternal life.

I forgot to include some notes from MLC in the last email, so here they are. Once a year the Quorum of the Twelve visit an area and they give the Priesthood leadership instruction, it’s usually a four to five hour meeting. Elder Bednar instructed at the meeting to the North America West Area to read and reread Jacob 5 one-hundred times. He said that this prophecy has everything to do with what’s going on with this area right now.

In this meeting they also referred to specific guidelines that are signs of personal apostasy. They shared that this term refers to a person’s abandonment of most basic personal beliefs, belief in God the Father, the mission of His Son Jesus Christ, and of the restoration.

Patterns of Personal Apostasy:

• A focus on past prophets more than living.
• Focusing too much on the misalignment of science and religion and various scholarship.
• Proposing one’s own special learning as a substitute for prophetic leadership.
• Persisting to speak on subjects that the Lord has chosen not to reveal more about at this time.

Elder Bednar taught to learn of Jesus Christ, not just about Him. He also shared to look to the prophets for advice on personal pruning.

I found the details shared about this meeting very insightful, and I will definitely be focusing a lot more time and attention on thoughtful and prayerful study of Jacob 5. I invite those who may be reading this to do the same as well.

Changes & Exchanges

We were sad to see Elder Ransome-Habley go, Elder Fielding’s companion in Maple Ridge, Elder Bérubé had some physical challenges that led to him going home as well. They both left the same day, so Elder Fielding naturally went to Vancouver to fill in Elder Ransome-Habley’s place. A few days later, we went on exchanges and I went with Elder Fielding. He seems like he’s been adjusting pretty well to the new area so far. He’s such an awesome missionary, very sweet, pretty much anyone can get along with him. He was perfect for Elder Bérubé for his time serving here. We didn’t really do anything too significant over the course of our exchange. Mostly finishing up on office work, doing some contacts, and filming a video in Vancouver.

Impressions while teaching Commandments

We were teaching a friend who’s on baptismal date next month. He’s a really great guy. I’ll refrain from disclosing his name due to the details I’ll share today. We’ve been focusing on teaching the commandments. In our lesson we taught the two great commandments, ten commandments, and the law of chastity. But as we reached the end of our lesson plans, my companion and I had the distinct impression to teach the Word of Wisdom again. Which at first, we naturally thought, this principle has already been taught, so why would we need to teach it again. However we went through with the impression and asked him what he remembers about the Word of Wisdom. He didn’t remember it by its title, but as we briefly explained what it was, he remembered. He shared that he stays away from those things, but sometimes he turns to drinking when he needs to take his mind off of things. We explained the principle behind the Word of Wisdom and how it applies to many things in-life and he agreed to keep it.

Reflecting back on the lesson, I’m grateful that we were able to listen to the whisperings of the Spirit. It’s always natural and seems easier to lean upon your own understanding, especially when you receive a thought that seems contradictory to what you feel would be best. But as we put our trust in God, rather than leaning upon our own understanding, we will look back with gratitude for the wisdom of God.

The work in Vancouver

I’ve noticed that the work happening in Vancouver is quite different from the other areas of the mission. First and foremost, there’s just so much happening in the work. There are four congregations that meet in Vancouver, so naturally there’s going to be a large number of missionaries covering that all too.

• Vancouver 1st Ward
• Vancouver 4th Ward (Spanish)
• Vancouver Wah Yan Ward (Chinese)
• Vancouver YSA Branch

Our weekly coordination meetings in particular are quite large, those who attend are:

• Van YSA-SML/Tech (us)
• Van-1st Sisters
• Van-1st/YSA Elders
• Van 4th/YSA Sis
• Elder & Sister Binning (Van YSA Sr Couple)

So that totals 10 missionaries attending (if you count the senior couple). Luckily the Ward Mission Leader uses the My Covenant Path progress report so it makes everything flow very smoothly. In this area you receive so many referrals. Basically we just invite people to come to activities by sending them an activities flyer and then attending activities and teaching them then. Those are our biggest teaching opportunities and a great way for our friends to get connected with the members. Even with us staying in Richmond, realistically we don’t even need to be in Vancouver to do the missionary work in Vancouver. We can do all of our missionary work over the phone since we have so many who have signed up to find a young adult Christian group near them.

There’s been a recent influx of these young adult activity ads, and they’ve been performing very well. I believe that this has been arising to be a huge avenue for missionary work. More than ever people are interested in coming out to activities, events, and church to meet a community of like-minded and good people. I believe that the brethren are very aware of this, with the recent release of activity share which promotes the sharing and public use of these activities. I hope that this system gets more streamlined and adopted more in the future. There’s a great amount of potential here, and I think we’re just getting started.

Assignment Update

I believe this is pretty much everything that’s noteworthy to bring up. The assignment has been going well so far. We’ve been doing pretty much the same stuff that we were doing last-week: filming videos, editing, helping out the other office missionaries, mentoring sessions, and working on our Mission Leadership Council training. There’s been a great deal of acceleration that we’ve seen go on in the work in this avenue, and we are going to do our best to inform the missionaries, provide training, and keep up with it.

We were supposed to have interviews with the mission president yesterday. Typically they always run way later than expected, and yesterday was no exception. We are flexible so we haven’t had our interviews yet. President plans to reschedule them with us, so as to when they will be, we will find out soon.

I received the call Sunday afternoon. We were enjoying some nice ice cream brought to you by the after church dessert potluck social. This was a special Sunday where the all of the graduating youth that would be aging into YSA came, and the Stake presidency came as well. As they were announcing all of the leaders in the YSA Branch that’s when the phone began to buzz. I was quite surprised when I discovered it was President.

Upon answering the phone, President then asks to speak to me privately. He had a lot to tell me regarding what was to follow. He shared that he has some confidential early transfer news for me. I’ll be transferring early on Tuesday, so I need to have my bags packed by then. He then told me about my new assignment. I’ll be taking the place of the social media sisters and the tech elders. Me and my new companion will be leading out the social media page and the tech responsibilities for the mission. He shared that we will be covering the Vancouver YSA area, but we’ll be staying at an apartment in Richmond. We’ll also be full-time office missionaries as well; our proselyting time will be in the evenings after the office is closed and I’m guessing the weekends too. President eagerly told me that I would have my own desk in the office too haha, so that’ll be pretty neat.

The last vital aspect that he shared in regards to the assignment was that we were really going to be big in transitioning the new mission President. We’ll be having lots of meetings with the Gills but also with the Vincent’s when they arrive. It will be interesting to see what that will all entail.

President and Sister Gill were super sweet. They said that all of this is possible not just because of my talents but because of my consecration and obedience. They expressed their gratitude and love for me. I’m so grateful to have them as mission leaders, they are incredible!

A Special time in the House of the Lord

All the missionaries in the mission leadership council had the special opportunity of attending the temple for an endowment session the day before our MLC meeting. The last time I’ve seen this happen was a year ago, and it was just after MLC. Everything was arranged for everyone. Everyone traveled down a day before and seats were booked. My guess is that since the Gills only have a couple of weeks left, this was made to be a special occasion for them and us in attendance. We arrived in the evening and there was this beautiful warm sunshine reflecting off the side of the temple. After we progressed through the temple to the Celestial room you can see the bright warm rays of sunshine penetrating through the window shining onto all those in the room.

President and Sister Gill shared their experience seeing all the missionaries gathered in the temple together. They shared that missionaries are always brighter after leaving the House of the Lord. President spoke about the light that was present outside and reflecting in the temple. He said that photographers often refer to this light as “sweet light.” But as the light reflected off of our countenances in the Celestial room, he shared that he had seen nothing that compared that closely to the glory and the light reflected upon angels’ countenances. He said he was absolutely stunned seeing all of us dressed in white, filled and reflecting light, praying: some standing, some sitting.

“That thy glory may rest down upon thy people, and upon this thy house, which we now dedicate to thee, that it may be sanctified and consecrated to be holy, and that thy holy presence may be continually in this house;” (D&C 109:12)

Offline Missionaries

Just after we drove to Vancouver on Saturday afternoon, we received a call from the Williams Lake Elders (who live 8 hours away). They shared that they had some bad news, one of their phones has been lost; which wouldn’t be a big deal except that it was the device carrying the sim card. All connection to the internet can exclusively be found at restaurants and libraries for them, hence why they were able to call us. We were scouring around trying to find a solution to get a new sim card back to them by the end of the night. Realizing that the IMEI numbers of the phones were saved in a spreadsheet, we called the old technology missionaries. They said that it was saved on the old MTS laptop; unlucky for us, as that laptop was all the way back in the mission office. So after just arriving in Vancouver, we quickly made our way back to Richmond. Fortunately we located the document, and it just so happened that the Williams Lake area was closed when the document was made; so despite us having the information for all other areas in the mission, Williams Lake happened to be the only one we didn’t have.

At this point we had to be the bearers of the bad news to President. We laid out the current dilemma, and he asked us how we should go about it. We shared that we could try mailing it, maybe there’s a chance that we could find a carrier that with priority can get them it in less than two days. The odds were stacked against us, Williams Lake is quite rural, it’s a weekend, and most mail services were closed at this current time of day. After searching around, we realized that the soonest we could get it to them would be by Wednesday and it came with a lofty fee. At this point, we were at a loss, we couldn’t think of any other possible solutions other than having someone drive up themselves.

We both have been praying in our hearts, but we decided to pray together vocally to ask for direction from on high. After the prayer we kept pondering, no clear apparent solution had come to fruition yet. I had the thought to go try to login to their area email remotely through our office access. Once I was there, I went to account details and checked to see if location sharing happened to be turned on–as I expected it was not. But then we had the thought that maybe we could pry open Google Maps on their area email and force it to share location on the area email in an effort to locate the device. As promising as it seemed, sadly it didn’t work out.

We sat pondering again, at a loss at what to do. Elder Chandler had the idea to call around the Vernon zone to see if there were any spare sim cards floating around in one of the areas. If we happened to find a set that had one, it was a much closer drive to get it to Williams Lake from their area. We reported back to President, sharing that we were investigating this solution and will keep him updated on how it goes. We found one sim that was there, but unfortunately it was inactive. We waited the rest of the night for responses, but that’s all we had. Towards the end of our night, President Gill called us with a solution. He shared that having the missionaries in the Vernon Zone meet half way to Williams Lake is a good idea, but there are too many variables due to the Williams Lake Elders lack of internet connectivity on the drive. It’s not safe. So instead, he was going to have Elder Kuta (our vehicle coordinator) drive up to Williams Lake tomorrow with a new phone and sim card. All we need to do is work on reporting the phone as lost, and getting this sim card migrated to the area’s old number.

I’m grateful that we were able to come to a solution. The Williams Lake Elders now have a sim and all is well in Zion.

Meeting with Hunter

We had a meeting with our OTC representative, Hunter, he’s basically the guy over our mission for social media. He shared that our mission is in one of the top four missions in all of North America for media referral contacting and conversion rates. In the last 30 days, our mission has received over 1,000 media referrals. 0.80% of media referrals found are entering the waters of baptism in this mission, compared to the rest of missions in North America, we rank number two. Lots of super exciting news for the Canada Vancouver mission!

Our Constant Companion

In one of our meetings with the Gills, they asked us how things have been going outside of the office and in our area. They shared that they were hesitant to give us an area, and it sounds like they were thinking about taking it away. So we’ll see, I was pretty honest and said it’s been pretty difficult trying to balance all of this with keeping in contact with our friends over the phone. Realistically we only really have Saturday and Sunday as our real proselyting days. The travel to and from Vancouver really diminishes the actual time we have. So we’ll see what happens, I’ll do my very best, I’m grateful for the wonderful individuals in the Vancouver YSA, and the friends we’ve been able to meet. I pray that this assignment doesn’t take away from them, and diminish their progression in any way. President shared that if we are feeling bad that we aren’t doing enough in our area, that those feelings are coming from the Adversary.

At the close of our meeting, the Gills shared that the Holy Ghost is our constant companion. As we make virtue a highway to be in-tune with the whisperings of the Spirit, we cannot fail. There are more aspects that he described about the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and what it means for us and the APs in these assignments, but my memory is failing me so unfortunately I cannot write them down. However, I’ve been pondering what he said with regards to this and I’ve had feelings and thoughts that I cannot describe.

The Holy Ghost works in marvelous ways, He directs us in all aspects of our lives to lead and direct us back to Jesus Christ. When we first came into this assignment, we didn’t have a sim card, WhatsApp, an area, or a vehicle, even our apartment was subject to change. However, just over the course of two weeks, we’ve been so busy. It’s been remarkably clear what our roles are at this time, and the things we need to be focusing on. In the business world, you would think that we would need a manual or some sort of list of instructions of our responsibilities in order for us to be productive and ensure that we are working on what’s needed. And not only that, but to also ensure things don’t slip through the cracks! It’s pretty incredible that the Holy Ghost has been our constant companion and leading and directing us to higher and holier paths for the mission. I express my gratitude and love for the Savior, for this remarkable season and opportunity we have to serve and bless the lives of others. I know that as we follow the Holy Ghost, we and the mission will be prepared for the arrival of the new mission leaders.

Surprise friends at Institute

With our recent influx of young single adult ad referrals, we’ve been doing everything we can to get into contact with these people and invite them to activities. By the end of the night, as we were driving to institute in Abbotsford, we weren’t all that excited that we have all these “interested” friends that are difficult to reach and most of the time aren’t even interested in what they signed up for. Despite that, the work of God is not frustrated. As we put forth our faith we were met with a welcome surprise. Just after the dinner and before the class was to begin, the Spanish sisters walked in with two young friends. We both thought, “oh cool, at least the Spanish sisters have friends tonight.” Naturally we didn’t want to go up and infringe upon their friends. But then the Spanish Sisters were trying to signal that they wanted us to talk to their friends. Once we realized that it actually wasn’t their friends, we got to work. They’re awesome! The Spanish sisters invited their soccer coach, he said that he wasn’t interested but he had someone on his team who may be. After extending the invitation to him, he came to institute with his brother. James and Nathan both love Christianity, one of them has traveled the world and gone on multiple missions sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Very energetic and extroverted, they both loved institute! They were actively engaged and involved by raising their hands with comments and questions. Two of the members knew them from school, which was pretty sweet.

After the class was over, they asked if we could show them a tour around the church. We were like we could, but some of these members would like to give you one! Some of the sisters took the lead and showed them all around. They absolutely loved it! It was a very unique church tour, it felt like a bunch of friends having a good time. So that was pretty sweet, I believe they definitely felt the Spirit. Elder Ellis and I taught them bits and pieces as we walked and as they brought up more questions. Towards the end of the night, one of them asked, “I have this one question; I’ve asked my pasture, I’ve asked my parents, and it seems like no one has the answer: What happens to those who pass away without ever hearing about Jesus Christ?” You can imagine the excitement that filled our hearts when we heard this haha. We shared that we had the answer to his question, but we needed to sit down sometime so we could dive into it. We agreed to do it after the Stake Conference on Sunday.

A legendary member in the YSA gave them both a drive to Stake Conference, and that was pretty good. Other than the audio system being out in the back, making it very difficult to hear, it got better towards the end. They both fell asleep at some point during it. The member explained to them this is not our typical church service, coming to the YSA would be way better, to which they responded, “oh, thank goodness!” So yeah, Stake Conference would’ve been awesome if we could’ve heard it, but they said that they really liked the music so at least we had that going for it! Sadly we weren’t able to sit down with them. They didn’t realize that we wanted to meet just after, they had some plans and had to get going. Ever since then, it’s been a real struggle trying to get back into contact with them, I sure hope Stake Conference didn’t kill them.

Interviews

President opened up my interview with a prayer. It’s not often that he prays in my interviews, if I had to count this may have been the second or third time. In his prayer he expressed gratitude that we are able to live upon this earth and serve in these callings as missionaries at this time. He prayed that I may be able to receive my own witness, and that my prayers may be answered.

After the prayer he told me that I would be instrumental and play a key role in transitioning in the new mission President. He said I’m a missionary who has a lot of experience, seen the changes over the course of my mission, and have been consistent, adding that I will be valuable in stabilizing the transition. I still have no idea what this is going to look like or entail, but I’m praying that I may be helpful and not mess this up.

He shared that he is so grateful that the Spirit inspired him to make me companions with Elder Ellis. He said that Elder Ellis is a really great missionary and he can learn from my example. You can tell that President and Sister Gill love seeing us together as companions haha. It reminds me of when I was with Elder Evans, they were just absolutely eating it up. I’m truly grateful to be with Elder Ellis too, we’ve gotten a lot of work done together.

He asked me again how I was doing with all the responsibilities. I told him, “honestly, things are pretty good right now. If you were to ask me this two transfers ago, it was pretty stressful, but now we’re getting in the hang of juggling all the hats with limited time.” He then said that he is so grateful for the content that I’ve been making for the Christ’s First Light page. He added that he’s felt inspired that my perspective and insights will be very essential for the page moving forward. He’s emphasized that he wants me to stay in touch, and call him if I have any questions or ever need anything.

I was like, “dang, this has got to be like one of our last interviews, how many more do we have together?” He told me that we’ll have one next transfer. “But that’s okay, we’ll keep in touch," he said. He shared, “if you ever are hiking in Provo by the ‘Y’ you are free to come over to my house anytime for a gatorade.” Haha sounds good President, for sure.

Stake Conference

At Stake Conference I received another spiritual confirmation of an insight I had while reading in Luke 24. The story of the resurrected Christ appearing to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, has been one that’s received profound focus lately. In this most recent General Conference, President Eyring focused on this story in his message, “Draw Near unto Me.” Two weeks ago while studying the most recent addresses from the Prophets and Apostles, this message stood out to me. I believe this story is incredibly important and teaches us many things regarding Christ’s nature, the importance of ordinances, recognizing Christ, and what we must do to see him walking in our midst in everyday life. Give it another read, I promise you’ll learn something if you prayerfully ponder it!

Zone Conference

We had our whole lower mainland Zone Conference. And it was super awesome! Especially because we weren’t the ones hosting haha. There were these two members from the Portuguese group who prepared food for all of the missionaries at the conference. It was actually very remarkable considering the amount of missionaries! After the lunch they bore a powerful testimony to us regarding the importance of our missionary service. They said “we are so grateful for everything that you do as missionaries. You bless the lives of countless people. Although we’ll leave, the impact that we make stays. You’ll probably not remember your interaction with Mike on the street. But he will remember you. He will remember the impact you made on his life. So just keep going, what you do here truly matters.” I’m roughly paraphrasing it, but this is pretty much what they said with tears in their eyes.

Due to the sheer size of this Zone Conference, it was a blessing to see past companions and old friends. Some of my past companions were talking to me about how I’ve been making my way around the mission. Sounds like a lot of them have been talking about me and my ideas, so I hope I don’t brainwash the mission haha. From the sounds of it, I think I’ve converted a few people to open source software, how the social media page should be run, and among other things my Christian music haha. I promise that it’s missionary appropriate, it’s just actually good, that’s all.

Tying up Loose Ends

This was our list time meeting with Manuel. It’s been incredible seeing him go from where he was and where he is now. It truly is a witness and testimony of our Heavenly Father’s perfect love for him. When we began our lesson, he said that things have been better than ever before. He’s been praying, reading the scriptures, coming to church, and he even fasted. His mental health was doing so well, he didn’t have an issue of hyper focusing and stressing himself out with the commandments in the scriptures as he did before.

He even said that we went to Mike’s wedding (he used to be in the YSA, but now he’s graduated), and saw a bunch of the old YSA members. He said that it actually was really nice to see them again. He had a good experience.

We asked him, so what’s the next step? We’ve been meeting with you, now you are feeling the Spirit, feeling God’s love, what next? And he said, “I’m ready to go back to the YSA. I’ll attend in two weeks, send me a text to keep me accountable.” So, just like that, our work here is done. I’m so grateful for Manuel. He is an incredible member! It was such a unique experience teaching him, and a pretty sweet side-quest too! It’s pretty beautiful to see the tender care our Father in Heaven has done as he patiently has directed and strengthened Manuel, despite Manuel’s anger towards him. Over time, with the outpouring of His Spirit, his heart was softened. He understood the bigger picture, and God’s timing and perspective in the moments, but that didn’t diminish his anger towards him. Despite this anger, there was personal care, time, and love to help him work through his trials. We are eagerly looking forward to seeing him this Sunday!

MLC

I’m pretty sure I’ve included some of my thoughts regarding the last MLC in my previous email. But there was something that I don’t believe I recorded that I think is worth noting. President Gill briefly mentioned, “in the future, service missionaries will eclipse proselyting missionaries.” This was one of those hidden messages that you don’t quite get if you’re not listening for them, as it was jammed in with a bunch of other messages and wasn’t the focus. I believe it’s quite an interesting remark. There’s likely to be points in the future where they have to pull back proselyting missionaries, and naturally it makes sense that service missionaries are going to be very needed in those days.

Conclusion

Recently I’ve been feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love from God. I feel exceedingly blessed to be a missionary and I’m grateful for the blessings that I’ve seen from that service. I wasn’t expecting all these blessings, I didn’t think they would be already coming, even though I haven’t completed my missionary service fully yet. But I can only thank my Father in Heaven for everything. Serving a mission is truly a gift. I can’t express in words the personal experiences and learning I’ve received from God by serving. Every mission is completely unique to the individual, and I can bear witness that time and time again I am overcome with the Spirit. Just with how these experiences are representations of God’s perfect understanding of me. He’s truly in all the details, no matter how insignificant those things are, if they matter to you, they matter to God. He’s truly like a loving father who wants to spoil his children, all he asks is that we follow him.

At the end of MLC, President Gill shared his witness of our Heavenly Parents. He explained that our Heavenly Father sits upon a real, tangible throne and converses and counsels with our Heavenly Mother. Their love for each and every one of us is so vast, deep, and immeasurable that they had to put a veil of darkness over the earth. Otherwise, we couldn’t be tested, we would always choose to follow them. He also shared his witness that Joseph Smith is a real man, who continues the work of God through the Heavenly Priesthood.

Divine Orchestration

After MLC, we drove back from Richmond and dropped everything off at the apartment. As we were about to begin preparing dinner we realized that we were scheduled to be on temple watch at this time. So we quickly hurried over to the temple. Which isn’t exactly ideal, as we were trying to set the example considering that we organized the temple watch system on being timely to your watches. Upon giving the temple workers our shift card and proceeding out of the temple, I was talking to Elder Ellis, and suddenly I turned and behind me was Brother Walburger. He’s an incredible member from Nanaimo, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from him. He brought up that he’s been meaning to attend the temple every weekend. But since setting this new goal, each weekend just keeps getting busier and busier, things just keep getting in the way of getting to the temple. This was his very first weekend he was able to make it. And just before he entered the House of the Lord, we happened to meet. It was a really neat experience seeing him again. I could see God’s hand orchestrating this interaction.

Dispelling Myth

This week we’ve seen a major influx of referrals. Being in a YSA, referrals are never sent directly to us, however a recent ads have been targeted towards young people looking for a young adult Christian group near them. When home ward missionaries have been receiving these referrals, they reassign them back to us. We’ve received around 11 referrals this week alone in the past couple of days. Responses have been varied. Due to the nature of the ads, it’s not clear which church is producing them. It was discussed at MLC, but as soon as we call, they’ve realized after signing up that they aren’t interested in the “Mormon” church. I completely agree with what Sister Gill said at MLC, we have the responsibility to dispel myth. One of the friends we called told us, “sorry guys, I’m not interested in your church.” We then asked, “why not?” To which he replied, “I’m born again, and am not interested in the Book of Mormon.” We asked him what his beliefs are being born again. He started to share them with us, and we affirmed to him that we believe that too. He was quite surprised, we talked a bit more about his beliefs, and he began to ask us about ours. Over the course of only a 5 minute call, it completely shifted, he’s gone from being completely closed off to asking us many questions trying to better understand the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He definitely was very intrigued by the end and I believe he was touched by the Spirit. We invited him to give the Book of Mormon a chance, read some of it, test the waters, and see if it’s something that he feels has come from God. He accepted the invitation and we sent him the link to read the introduction. I’m grateful that we had the opportunity to dispel myth and help him feel of the Spirit.

The Veil of Mental Health

We’ve been having recurring lessons with a returning member, and he’s awesome. He’s a really good guy, served a mission, served faithfully in major callings in the branch, and knows everything he needs to do, but he has some anger kindled towards God. Without diving too much into it, he has some mental health challenges. And he took the statement, “give everything to God” very literally. He truly tried to give everything, but he found his mental health and his overall wellbeing declining in the process. He knew that God was always there, but he certainly didn’t feel it. So he stopped. He stopped going to church, stopped reading the scriptures, stopped his daily prayers. Despite all of this, he knows without a doubt that all of it is true; but it wasn’t helping with his mental health. After taking time to recover, he’s at a better place than where he was. At this point he knew that it was time to come back towards God. He had a dream of two missionaries, and knew that meeting with them was the first step. That was when he first texted us out of the blue asking if we could share a message with him. Upon our first meeting, he knew of a certainty that we were the missionaries in his dream.

Over the course of the next few visits we’ve been slowly beginning to come to grips with his perspective more and more. It seems that his mental health has distorted his views on doctrine. He feels that God’s grace is conditional, that he has to do everything and keep countless numbers of commandments in order to qualify for it. As he reads the scriptures and hears general conference talks, he gets overwhelmed by the amount of commandments that he needs to observe and apply. It reminds me a lot of Brad Wilcox’s BYU speech titled “His Grace Is Sufficient.” In this talk he challenges this understanding of grace and offers a new more complete perspective.

This reminds me of a survey conducted at BYU about grace. “The religious scholars—who conducted the study at BYU—found that religious young adults experience better or poorer mental health as it connects to their belief in grace or in legalism. They surveyed 566 young adults at BYU (most of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ) and found that when these young adults believe more in grace and less in legalism, they experience less anxiety, depression, shame, religious guilt, and perfectionism. They also found the opposite: When young adults have a more legalistic view of God, they experience poorer mental health “because it interrupts [their] ability to experience grace.” It may be detrimental to young adults’ mental health if their belief in grace is more founded upon individual good works (or legalism) than on grace they receive from God.”

He recognizes that he feels the Spirit, and feels at peace, but he doesn’t feel God’s love. He even shared that maybe he’s being prideful and isn’t recognizing it because he isn’t receiving it the way he wants. At the end of our visit I shared with him President Gill’s witness of God’s love from the MLC meeting. He paused, and responded that he felt the Spirit in those words. He then said, it may not be what I want, but I know it’s true.

From a young humble farm boy’s sacred experience calling upon God in mighty prayer vocally for the first time in a grove of trees we learn that Jesus Christ lives! He has a resurrected body of flesh and bones.

He is a God who tenderly cares for and loves us; just as in the days of old, He is the Great Redeemer who speaks and manifests Himself to us today.

We learn that He is the very Christ, the Lord of glory, it was He who was “crucified for the world, that all those who believe on [His] name may have eternal life."¹

One scholar observed, “the real resonance of the First Vision today is to know that it’s the nature of God to give to those who lack wisdom. … The God that reveals Himself to Joseph Smith in the sacred grove is a God who answers teenagers in times of trouble."²

We learn that Jesus Christ is merciful, forgiving, administering grace while also insisting upon truth. Forgiving of Joseph Smith’s sins in his sincere effort to turn to Him, whilst not condoning the sinful state of those in the world who have their hearts far from Him.

I bear my unwaivering witness that Jesus Christ lives! I know that He loves us all, and even if we struggle to feel it, I testify that His love is still there, stronger than anything we could ever know. I witness that He is a God of miracles. May we continue to draw our hearts to and cast our minds upon the Holy One of Israel, His life, and His literal resurrection this Easter season and be prepared for and awaiting His glorious return, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

We’ve seen the most success this week in the YSA then we have in the past two transfers. So that was quite nice. I’m grateful to see the work moving forward. On Wednesday, we had two lessons with two friends who came to institute, their names are Arshdeep and Emmanuel. They both have recently moved into B.C. Emmanuel had been going to a few different churches and trying to figure out what was right for him. He shared that he absolutely loved his experience attending the YSA. He was fellowshiped, the Sister’s friend Veronica (who’s on baptismal date), was teaching him during institute as well. I hope that we see Emmanuel and Arshdeep again.

Pass-off lesson with Inder

Inder is a new convert that the Clearbrook/Sumas Mtn Elders have been teaching. I was blessed with the opportunity to interview him for baptism. It sounds like he wants to go to the YSA branch now. We’ll begin inviting him to activities, and we hope to see him at church this upcoming Sunday. The lesson went super well, we were a bit late due to traffic so we dropped in towards the end of the lesson. The Spirit was incredibly unifying, despite not hearing what has already been taught and where the lesson was going, Elder Jensen and I were able to pick up right where they left off. The Clearbrook Sister’s friend, Enosh, was there too. The member they had to join their lesson with them and Enosh was running late; so he joined the lesson with us and Inder. He is YSA aged, and it sounds like he may be interested in joining us, but we’ll see what he decides. I jumped around a bit, reading a few verses from 2 Nephi 31 and connected it with 2 Nephi 32, and we shared that we will be hearing disciples speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, and the words of Christ will be manifest at general conference. We invited them to take some time to watch and prayerfully study the messages of the conference. The Sisters proceeded to give Enosh a church tour and lesson after that. I hope that it wasn’t too much for Enosh, and that he continues to follow the Spirit.

General Conference

General Conference was not quite what I was expecting, but I enjoyed the blessing that was to watch it. I thought it was interesting that they shared the parable of the ten virgins five times throughout the whole conference. This parable has been on my mind for a while, and I’m grateful to be studying it. There is this incredible podcast about the Hebrew Wedding ceremony that a member in Nanaimo shared with us. Well I mean, he brought it up multiple times, and every time I was like, “you have got to send us a link to it.” And every time he would forget. I finally asked him again if he could send it to us right before I left Nanaimo, and I am so grateful I did because he finally sent it. I recommend giving it a listen, this lady named Andrea W, has studied this a lot and shared some of her very insightful thoughts. After listening and studying this, it has completely transformed my perspective and has been a great blessing to understand why reading the Savior’s teachings. So the huge focus on that parable during conference was quite interesting.

Some of the messages seemed as direct reflections of the Preach My Gospel lessons. Most notably Elder Bednar’s message. I believe that the Lord is training the members to teach simply. Elder Eyring’s talk from the October conference, “Simple Is the Doctrine of Jesus Christ” also emphasizes this recent focus from church leaders. Now is the time to be preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now is the time to be admonishing each other and those we love with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this must be done through simplicity. I find that it admirable that the Apostles have been teaching us this.

Working in the YSA

This is something I’ve learned a lot from serving in the YSA; instead of taking all the opportunities to fellow-ship, invite, and make our friends feel welcome, we step back and let the members do their job. I believe that we often as missionaries, take away these experiences and opportunities from the members. And instead, we should be coordinating with and constantly working to empower them. That’s pretty much what I’m trying to do with the content on the Christ’s First Light page. The easy route is always to have the missionaries do it, but there is a more excellent way. It’s been substantially more difficult, but it’s well worth it in the end. The longer I’ve been out on my mission, the more I’ve realized that serving as a missionary is ultimately about teaching and helping you become a good, faithful member, and disciple of Jesus Christ. A member who teaches, invites, testifies, and fellow-ships. We need to empower members and give them the opportunities to do that, rather than take them away.

At the beginning of the week I put the finishing touches on the temple scheduler system. It’s now fully automatic (sends out each Sunday), accessible to update eligible companionships on mobile (through the Google Sheet), and we wrote instructions for the temple workers’ side of things. I’m thankful that the Lord has made this possible and has enabled me to quickly and straightforwardly roll this out. It’s streamlined enough that it isn’t dependent on me, and should work fairly independently, only requiring that the companionships are updated on the Google Sheet each transfer. I’m unsure how long they will continue scheduling missionaries on the temple grounds, but as for the foreseeable future it seems that it will continue to be used.

Activity Work is Finally Rolling Forward

We went over to Tommy’s place for lunch. The branch is getting him a calling to get him involved and in-charge of the Activity Share program; because of that, he wanted to have us over and give him a run-down on how it all works. It was great, I’m glad that he’s engaged and willing to help push forward this program. It’s going to do amazing things for the branch. Elder Ellis and him geeked out over League of Legends for half of it haha. I’m glad he was able to find someone to finally talk to about his League knowledge.

Exploring Trinity Western University

YSA finding has definitely been a difficult endeavor, and we were looking forward to trying something new. The idea of exploring some college campuses has been in the back of our minds, but we’ve been very skeptical and careful with it; we were scoping out the information that we would need to see if this would even be a possibility. We chatted with a few members, and even talked with a member who was attending Trinity Western University. She gave us recommendations on where to park, what to do and what not to do. In summary, actively proselyting didn’t seem like much of an option which is what we thought, but we could try going in, doing studies and giving people the opportunity to approach us if they want to learn more.

The sisters who we are ward sharing with had the idea to interview people on campus for finding. We counseled together about it, this has been something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. We shared with them it probably would be best to reach out to President Gill to confirm if that’s something we can do. He responded and said that they should get into contact with security and see what their policies are regarding it. The Sisters walked to the front desk and asked them about it, and they weren’t sure haha.

So Monday rolled around and we drove up to the University, found the free parking spot that was outside of it and made our trek over there. It was pretty rainy, so there weren’t many students out and about on campus. Even before we got to the entrance of the University, someone was driving out and gave us a look. Here we go, we are in, no going back now. We weren’t going to actively proselyte, so we didn’t talk to or stop anyone. We headed straight for the library. As soon as we walked into the entrance of the library, it felt like everyone was looking at us. We quickly sat down and continued on with our weekly planning. I believe we were planning for about twenty minutes, before we were approached by a security guard.

He told us that he was here because he received a call. Honestly, he kicked us out in the kindest way possible, I really don’t think he wanted to kick us out at all. He said that we are all under the Christian umbrella, and he really respects the work that we do; he looked down and saw that we had a New Testament, and said, even though you are doing good work and sharing your Bibles, others may see it as soliciting. He then shared that the campus had a policy against soliciting, and since we are on private property we can be seen as soliciting. I’m grateful to meet the guy, he was super cool about it. After talking with him, we quickly made our descent out. Our hopes and dreams of doing finding at a Christian University quickly had fallen away.

Out of Service Tiwi

We received a call from our vehicle coordinator that he wanted to switch out our vehicle to get an oil change. Elder Kuta said that the new vehicle that we received needed to have the Tiwi setup again. It’s kind of funny, he knows that I understand the whole process so he was like: you know what to do, give me a call if you run into any problems. We didn’t get a chance to set up the Tiwi until the next morning. The problem is that the Tiwi wasn’t even turning on. I attempted to unplug it and plug it back in, but found no success. We called Orbcomm to see if they could recognize the device and do anything on their end. They said that the device wasn’t coming up on their system and it hadn’t been set up in the first place. We attempted to call Elder Kuta, but it was Saturday so the office was closed.

We’ve basically been driving Tiwiless for the past couple of days now. We were able to get a hold of Elder Kuta yesterday. He said that it sounds like a faulty cable or Tiwi, so we’ll have to replace it. He told me for the time being, I can keep driving without a Tiwi, and he trusts me. So that’s good. I’ll try my best haha. It’s not too common that we get to drive without it, but I’ll still continue to drive it like I have one.

Call from Sister Gill

We were at a Family Home Evening Activity in the church. We were playing this charades game in the hallway with everyone, they had music playing on a speaker and everything. All of a sudden, my companion checks his phone and it’s Sister Gill calling. We both were like, oh boy here we go. We quickly ran over to a quiet room and answered the phone. She was calling me about a tech problem she was having haha. I find it funny that she didn’t call the tech Elders about it, but I’m happy to help. She was trying to share her Google Calendar with the new mission leaders who were coming in and it wasn’t working. I provided some potential solutions, so hopefully it helps.

Attending the House of the Lord After Far Too Long

The last two temple trips that we were supposed to have, have been cancelled. And I’ve been in outer Zones for the past five transfers. So all together, I haven’t been to the temple in about ten and half months. It’s been quite refreshing to be back. I’m grateful for the time that we’ve had there. Today I’ve definitely been able to draw closer to my Savior through worshiping in His Holy House. I look forward to this upcoming General Conference, it’s quite special. We’ve had the opportunity to attend the temple just before in preparation for it.

On my exchange with Elder Stewart I emphasized that the people that you meet at any time, anywhere, is your next divine appointment. God has put us in the path of these people, and it’s always for a reason. I often forget this, as I get focused on the task at hand. But more often than not, the task at hand isn’t the purpose of why we are there. This principle was illustrated clearly towards the end of our exchange, when we went to a small Italian pizza restaurant. The lady who was serving us recognized that we were representatives of Jesus Christ. She commented on how cool it is that we are out sharing the message of Christ. After we ate, and paid for our food, I gifted her a Book of Mormon and shared briefly what it’s about and the joyful message of the restoration. I shared that we are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ two-by-two just like the Apostles in the New Testament. She had some questions and was curious to learn more, she shared that she was Pentecostal and wanted to hear some of the key differences in our church. We brought up that we believe in modern revelation and that God has continued His work by calling living Prophets and Apostles on the earth today. I mentioned that we were here on behalf of the Apostles doing the same work, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. We invited her to take some time to read the Book of Mormon and promised that as she sincerely and prayerfully studies it, she’ll know by the power of the Holy Ghost that it’s the word of God. She was very interested and grateful to meet us. I hope that she takes some time to ponder on the joyful message of the Book of Mormon.

I shared with Elder Stewart that she was ultimately the reason why we went there. Not for the pizza, as good as it was, but for her. This all arose, as he mentioned towards the end of the exchange on our way home that his parents wanted him to take me out to eat. Despite my lack of funds left, he insisted and shared that his parents wanted him to pay for me. I gave him my phone and told him take us wherever you’d like. He definitely made an inspired decision for picking this restaurant, and I commended him for that.

He’s an awesome Elder! We’ve been able to spend quite a bit of time on exchanges together. Each week when Elder Ellis goes to Farsi class I go on two-hour temporary exchanges with him. He’s only been out for three weeks now, and it’s been good to get to know him and share a thing or two that I’ve learned in my missionary endeavors. It’s definitely been an adjustment, and it reminds me of my experience as a new missionary. I pray that something I said or did may help him in this adjustment.

Zone Conference

Elder Ellis played a musical number on the piano that’s a combination of many different primary hymns. He did an awesome job, the Gill’s loved it. After the Zone Conference, President Gill approached Elder Ellis, and asked him, “Did you realize that your musical number is chiasmus? He then asked, “does everyone think I’m crazy?” We all laughed, and we reaffirmed to him that we think it’s awesome that he and Sister Gill find chiasmus in everything and always talk about it. I will never be able to look at chiasmus and not think of President Gill.

Interviews

My interview with President was pretty good. He told me that I could do anything in the mission. He then asked me if there was anything that he and Sister Gill could do to help support me. I was like, I think you are doing a great job, I don’t have anything in specific. We talked about the temple shift schedule that we’ve begun working on. We then counseled about how we will get the missionaries numbers that will be scheduled to the temple workers to distribute to those that are interested in learning more.

We had our AP exchanges, I was with Elder Davies and Elder Ellis was with Elder Watkins. It was a good exchange! We talked quite a bit and counseled about things happening in the mission and in the zone.

Rolling out the Temple Shift Scheduler Program

Over the course of a few days, I spent some of my evenings programming a system that would automatically create a temple shift schedule and send it out via email to all missionary companionships participating in it. Each Sunday it automatically sends out personalized emails that details when the missionary set’s shifts are and highlights them on the schedule. Early on in creating the system I quickly found great success and was surprised at the pace I was able to create it. Everything seemed to be coming together very nicely. It’s pretty incredible what the guidance of the Spirit does to your programming. Especially in a language that I’m not super comfortable or familiar with.

This isn’t without challenges though, just as I thought I had the system rock solid and ready to go for Sunday, everything came crashing down that morning. Sunday was the day that the schedules were supposed to be sent out automatically. I ran into a multitude of errors that day. And thanks to Google Apps Script faulty debugger, it led me on a wild goose chase to find what the actual underlying issue is. The debugger would often point me in the wrong directions, and things that I thought were broken, were actually functioning just fine. Despite my frantic efforts to fix this before church began on Sunday, I had forgotten the solution that the Spirit revealed to me very clearly the day previously.

As I was going to bed yesterday, I was caught up in the thoughts of the date time system. I realized that I always ran the script ahead of Monday, and it had to work its way backward to grab the date of Monday. This train of thought led me to the idea that the script probably wasn’t equipped to be run the day before Monday and would result in errors. Needless to say, that’s precisely what happened; and I completely spaced this Spiritual prompting the next day, it wasn’t until I was sitting in ward council that the original prompting came back to my mind. After church, I hussled and fixed the date system. The emails were now sent out and the schedule was done.

MLC

Fast forward, we are arriving at MLC. On our way in, the APs stopped us and were asking me how I was able to make the temple shift system. We were previously coordinating with them, and I sent them a screenshot of what the email looked like. They were pretty impressed with it haha, they shared with us that they showed President Gill and he was very surprised as well.

President and Sister Gill shared that they attended a sacrament service in Surrey 3rd ward, and the sacrament prayers were given in Hindi and English. Both the priests would kneel, giving the same prayer in both languages one after the other. The deacons were almost like the United Nations as they had a variety of countries represented in the meeting, through the variety and diversity of their backgrounds. It’s pretty incredible! It reminds me of what President Bragg said when he spoke to our mission about ten months ago. Here’s what I wrote previously about what he said:

“He said the Canada Vancouver mission is the greatest representation of the gathering of Israel in the North America West area. It’s the most diverse mission in the area because of the diverse set of missionaries and the diverse areas, and people. He said last night his eyes were opened, there’s so much opportunity in British Columbia, so many people are moving here and it’s growing so much.”

The Gill’s also brought up that Elder Bednar shared with them a deeper understanding of the word “let” as used in the scriptures in an interview in January. He discussed that “let” is used in terms of Priesthood leadership. Let those who are less qualified be enabled and learn from the assignments that are given. Elder S. Mark Palmer brought this up with them as well yesterday. Sometimes the word let actually means stand back; and allow someone else to step forward. There’s a fine balance between what we do and what we let.

They also brought up what Elder Neil L. Andersen said during the General Session of Stake Conference, that we think that there’s more signs and more things that must be done before the Savior’s return and millennial reign. However, he shared that there’s nothing holding it back, the signs are here, we need to be ready. He shared that it’s much sooner than we realize.

Lesson with a Return Missionary

We had a lesson with a member after church on Sunday, that went really well. He had to return home from his missionary service early due to some health concerns that he is still currently experiencing. He’s been facing several trials in his life through those experiences; I’m grateful we had the opportunity to meet him and get to know him better. He shared that during his mission he learned love. Love was loyalty to him previously, a duty that he must perform to those he is indebted to. He shared that as he entered the mission field, the unconditional love that everyone showed and greeted everyone wasn’t something he was accustomed to. Throughout those experiences, he learned how to love.

An experience was shared where the missionaries had the opportunity to speak in the class anthropology of Mormonism at the University of Victoria. When the opportunity arose, President Gill, wasn’t too fond of the idea of having the missionaries attend. He brought the idea to his councilors and after some discussion and thought the Spirit inspired him to allow the missionaries to attend contrary to his initial thoughts. He had his councilor, President Gainor join them and it was a very uplifting experience. They shared a presentation and they planned to do a 15 minute Q&A but it turned out to be 45 minutes. People want to learn more about the church, and some of the students even attended church on Sunday after that experience.

President shared that our mission has 67 units. All of those units, except two, have a chapel. The House of the Lord came 13 years ago, and the number of units didn’t grow rapidly, but the attendance at these units did. We are beginning to see that as the Victoria temple is coming.

They also shared the purpose of gathering is to bring about the covenant. Any time saints gather, that is the gathering of Israel. Gather spiritually first, and then the physical gathering will follow.

It was announced that the Christmas giving machines will be coming to Victoria and Vancouver this upcoming Christmas season for the first time in British Columbia. This was announced at Missionary Stake Coordination by President Anderson in Victoria. He also shared that the restrictions and blocks that they were facing in preventing the preparation for the Victoria temple has been removed.

I knew you wouldn’t turn me away

Around 7am in the morning the phone began to buzz, we were getting a call. The caller ID appeared on the screen, I didn’t recognize the name, despite that I quickly answered. He said that he was at our church. His motorcycle died in the night, and he’s freezing cold and soaking wet, and his phone was about to die. As I began asking him some questions, the call hung up, his phone was dead. At this point we weren’t sure if it was a prank or not, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt. We quickly got dressed, grabbed a towel, a warm coat, and drove over. When we arrived, we saw him just as he described. He stood outside the parking lot cold, and dripping wet in the rain. He definitely was in need, and didn’t look like he was causing any trouble, so we let him come into the church building to dry off and warm up.

He shared that he’s on his way to a place to stay in Penticton and he was heading over from Burnaby. Just for reference, Penticton is 4 hours away from us. And Burnaby is about 45 minutes away from us. When we asked him about his motorcycle, he said that the battery that powers the lights was dead, but the rest is fully functional. This prevented him from riding at night, and it forced him to sleep outside till daylight came.

The struggle he was facing was that he was too cold and wet to ride. It was still raining, and even if he got dry, he would inevitably get cold and wet again. We called some members in the Willoughby ward for guidance and anyone who could help. After making a few calls, we couldn’t get through to anyone. We wanted to help, but there wasn’t much we could do, all we could do is turn him to resources that could help. One of the members called us back. We explained the situation to him, and he told us that there’s a warming shelter called Gateway of Hope that’s near us. Once he gets warm enough, he can ride over there and they can help him dry off and warm up more. After the call, he texted us and said he’ll be here in 20 minutes.

In the meantime, we waited for his phone to charge. We plugged it in prior to the call, and due to water being in the port it was struggling to charge. Luckily, we had it charging again. Now that he was getting a bit warmer, we started to get to know him a bit better. We asked him if he believed in God, and he shared some examples in his life where he undoubtedly knew that God was real. He also shared how this morning he was praying to be led to someone that would help him. God led him to the church and the Spirit confirmed to him that we wouldn’t turn him away. He told us, “I knew you wouldn’t turn me away.” He was very grateful for us coming out and helping him. He began sharing more about what he believed, and he said that misery is needed for happiness. You cannot have light without darkness. Basically quoting 2 Nephi 2, it was pretty neat haha.

When the member arrived, he had McDonald’s breakfast and hot chocolate for all of us. He also had some dry clothes in a sealed Ziploc bag, and a quick lunch in a sealed Ziploc bag as well. He brought his young son to come and witness the experience too. This member was such a legend! He wasn’t able to stay, he had to get going, but he went out of his way to help and serve. And not only that but he brought his son with him to witness it.

After he finished his breakfast, he powered on his phone and had enough battery to get going. We walked out to his motorcycle with him. Now when I say motorcycle, it’s most likely not what you are picturing. He had this rinky dink motor bike; I was surprised he was able to get as far as he did with it. After a few tries to start it up, it finally got moving and he made his way over to Gateway of Hope.

I’m grateful for the experience and the opportunity that we had to help him. It was a nice side-quest.

Looking for the Thorns

We talked with this young lady at Tim Horton’s; she was reading her study Bible. Said that I liked her study bible and asked her what translation it was, and I honestly don’t remember what she said. She was super nice, she asked us if we had a chance to talk. She shared her experience converting from Muslim to Christianity. Her family raised her Muslim, and she was very devout in it, it was everything to her. She said that on her spiritual journey she decided to better understand Muhammad’s prophetic call. This led to her conversion to Christianity, as she shared that she found false prophecies that Muhammad claimed. She shared Deuteronomy 18:22, “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” She has been using these verses as a litmus test for true or false prophets. She shared that she doesn’t know everything, but she’s researched many denominations of Christianity. She shared that in her research she found false prophecies that Joseph Smith claimed which led her to believe that he was a false prophet. She shared that Muhammad told a child that their generation would be the one that would see the second coming of Jesus Christ. That child eventually grew old and that generation passed. To her, this was a clear sign that Muhammad wasn’t a prophet of God. She shared a very similar prophecy that Joseph Smith had, identifying the time of the second coming. Let’s take a better look at this prophecy that she was paraphrasing:

“I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.” (D&C 130:14-17)

She claimed that Joseph Smith prophesied that the second coming was going to happen at this age, and it didn’t come to pass. This seems to be a misreading or misunderstanding of this revelation, because that’s not quite what he said. We know that prophesy is contingent, and the Lord makes this especially clear in this revelation by saying “if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old.” Then “thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man.” The Lord then affirms this to Joseph in order for him to move on from this question and to “let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.” Joseph then says, “I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.” It seems pretty clear that this may not even be in reference to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Seeing the face of the Son of Man doesn’t quite translate to the ushering in of the millennium. This revelation is quite plain and simple, and it’s ignorant to leave out contingency, and then claim that seeing the face of the Son of Man means the second coming. Despite any of this Joseph would have had to live to 85 years old, to actually claim this prophecy is either true or false.

There’s an important lesson I believe we all can learn from this:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Matt. 7:7)

If you are only looking to disprove prophetic callings by scouring and looking for any false prophecy that you can find, you will find it. Whether it actually be a false prophecy or something that was said once, or a misinterpretation of an actual prophecy, you’ll find that everyone is a false prophet. Why? Because, that’s all that you are seeking out, that’s all that you are looking for. You will never find the rose if you are only looking for the thorns. There can be so many roses and as soon as you find a single thorn, you’ll assume that the whole rose bush is corrupt and prune it.

Jesus Christ himself, teaches in his Sermon on the Mount:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matt. 7:15-20)

What is he saying that we should look for? Their fruits. We must look for their fruits. To see if their fruit is good or corrupt. He doesn’t tell us to look for the thorns. Those that sincerely seek the truth and follow the Savior’s teachings will find them, and they will know them by their fruits.

Everything that Christ taught, His church, His gospel, all principles of religion point back to one single most fundamental truth. This truth is eternal and as old as time. Why did Jesus lay down His precious life for us? Many of us would say to ransom us from sin, to save us from the grave? Yes, but let’s not stop there, there’s much more than that. Why did the Council of Heaven work together to form the earth? So that we can come here, receive bodies, and learn how to use our agency effectively. Yes, but again, let’s not stop here, we’ve overlooked the most fundamental truth of this all. Why would God send His Firstborn, His unblemished lamb to be sacrificed for all of humanity? Why would He allow all of this to happen to His Son, for the one that deserves much and was given little, the one who merited to be exalted above all, who had to sink lower then all.

In Nephi’s account of his personal visionary experience, he inquires of the Spirit of the Lord to know the interpretation of the “tree which is precious above all” (1 Ne. 11:9) from his father’s vision. The response he receives is quite insightful and leads to deeper understanding of this fundamental truth. Nephi wasn’t just given the answer, he had to find it out for himself. He wrote (1 Nephi 11):

13 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.
14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.

Before we go further, remember, all of this was in response to Nephi’s question: what is the interpretation of the tree which my Father saw? I find it interesting the way that the Spirit of the Lord manifests the answer by first and foremost casting Nephi’s mind upon the condescension of God. The Spirit now continues to lead Nephi to the answer he’s seeking for.

18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

The very question that prompted these visionary events, is brought back to Nephi. With Nephi’s enlightened understanding, “he answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.” (v. 22)

It’s quite beautiful that the Spirit showed Nephi the condescension of God; and this was done to illustrate His love which ultimately is the very symbol of this tree. The love of God is that fundamental truth. As Peter says, “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” (1 Pet. 4:8) Above all things, that’s pretty big; that’s not to be taken lightly when he teaches that. John goes even farther, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Paul profoundly teaches in his epistle to the Romans, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Rom. 13:11) Love fulfills all of God’s commandments. Christ gave us the two great commandments to help us grasp this. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland put it simply:

“The first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life.” (Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You )

It’s important to consider, why is love above all things? Paul gives a beautiful explanation of this in his letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 he taught,

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

Let’s pause for a moment. Even if Paul is speaking the words of Christ, if not being done in charity, availeth nothing. He goes further, even though he understands the mysteries of God and can work mighty miracles through faith, without charity, again comes to naught. Charity is a priceless endowment from God, it is above all other things. He writes, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” (1 Cor. 13:13) We should seek and pray earnestly for the gift of charity; for the love of God to fill our hearts and pour out to those around us. President Ezra Taft Benson taught:

“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.” (Born of God)

Moroni synergizes with this in his teachings, “Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also.” (Alma 60:23)

Reflecting upon the difficulties that he’s faced in life, Joseph Smith shared, “I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women—all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty, who will give me dominion over all and every one of them, when their refuge of lies shall fail, and their hiding place shall be destroyed, while these smooth polished stones with which I come in contact, become marred.”

As Joseph Smith endured severe persecution and hardship, he cries out to God asking where He’s been. The word of the Lord speaks peace to his soul: “And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” (D&C 122:7) All of this, for his good, and not only for him, but for us too. All of the trials, tribulations, persecutions, as hard as it may seem to see at the moment, are for our good. Henry Drummond writes, “[This] is the practice which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful though you see it not, and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself." (The Greatest Thing in the World)

Only a few weeks after Joseph Smith received that revelation in Liberty Jail, he writes: “Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.” (D&C 123:17) At seemingly the darkest moment of his life, he finds hope and love through Jesus Christ.

This ultimately, is where we learn to love. Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love, dwelleth in God.

I know that God loves me and all of you. His fervent love, fills us with life, love, and joy. I’m grateful that He loved us so much that he was willing to send His Beloved Son to accomplish the greatest act of love in all of humanity. I stand with the Apostle John and declare, “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) May we all be filled with the love of God, and spread that with all the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Let it be no surprise that something always goes wrong on transfer day. But that’s okay, because God in His infinite foreknowledge prepares a way for His work to move forward, despite the mistakes made along the way. We basically just drove around the whole transfer day and got the items to all the missionaries that had forgotten them. It all began as we waited in Langley for the transfer bus to arrive. Once the bus arrived missionaries hopped off, bags were unloaded, and a few missionaries including my companion, Elder Blake got on. My new companion Elder Ellis gets off the bus, and at least for us, it was the smoothest transfer.

We then received a call from a missionary in our zone that he left his Tiwi driver card in a vehicle parked at the mission office. Before we began our trip to Richmond, we noticed that there were two bags that had been left. To our surprise it belonged to none of the missionaries that were with us. We sent a quick message to the APs, and they responded it belonged to Elder Dessi and we needed to bring them to the 140th chapel in Surrey if that was possible. So I guess we’ll just make another stop on the way to Richmond. So we cram all the bags in the little Saburu and begin our journey. As we travel, we receive a call from the mission office. Sounds like there’s a set of missionaries that don’t have keys to their apartment in our Zone. The good news was we are already on our way to Richmond and will pick up the keys when we get there. The APs then call us, and tell us when we get Elder Dessi his bags, we need to take him and his companion, Elder Astle to the mission office. They totally forgot that they needed to get a vehicle. Now that we have two Elders in the back seat, we are really cramming for space. In an effort to make this work, we grabbed Elder Ellis’ bags and threw them in the church. Moved forward our seats and jammed everything in. Luckily, by the grace of God, everything worked out great.

The journey to Richmond has now begun. At this point, we are going to Richmond for a lot more reasons than just grabbing a Tiwi card, so I guess it was a lot more worth the trip haha. Once we arrive, Elder Astle and Elder Dessi get the keys to their new vehicle, and we move everything over. We retrieved the Tiwi card, got the keys for the sisters apartment, and just as we thought our job was finished, we got talking to Sister Crawford in the mission office; she needed to get the keys to the Surrey Stake Center to the Portuguese Elders. Luckily, we were already planning on stopping by the 140th Surrey church building, where those Elders are at, to retrieve Elder Ellis’ bags on the way back. So we grabbed the keys to get to them.

We drove back to Surrey, reunited with Elder Ellis’ bags, and gave the Portuguese Elders their keys. We then drove back to Langley, met the sisters at the temple and gave them their apartment keys. What a day! I’m sure this was super exciting to read about, now you have a taste of transfer day. If you’ve read this far, first of all, I commend you, and second, I promise the rest of the email should hopefully be a lot more interesting to read.

Members are Everywhere Here

This was pretty much my first time going out and walking around the area solely focused on in person finding. We went to this busy area downtown next to a park in the hopes that we’d meet some YSA in our endeavors. As we walked next to the park, a member noticed us, and wanted to talk with us. He was super excited as he thought that we were the new set of Elders that Brookswood was getting (they’ve only had sisters for a while). But when we told him we were the YSA Elders, his excitement quickly left him haha. Quick side note, the new Brookswood Elders are, Elder Astle and Elder Dessi, and they are housing with us which is kinda cool. When we told him that we were living together, his excitement came back. He then shared with us that his son was telling him that he never sees the missionaries walking around outside. And when he saw us he was like, look! Missionaries in the wild! So either way, despite not being the new Brookswood Elders, they were excited to see us haha.

We walked some more, talked to a few people, sat down, messaged people for half an hour. As we began walking we saw a very nice car drive by, and the guy in the car waves at us. At this moment, we realize that it’s the Surrey Stake President and his wife, President Engan and Sister Engan. They both are so awesome! Not to rank it or anything, but he is definitely at the top of my list for my favorite Stake President to work with. Anyways, we walk to Tim Horton’s and hop onto a bunch of Facebook groups that would have YSA audiences, in the hopes of locating more spots that would be successful. We spent about an hour doing this and walking back to our car. By the time we got back, President Engan pulls up beside us and rolls down the window. He then asks if we are the new Brookswood Elders. Man, the anticipation for these new Elders is crazy! The fact that he tracked us down again, an hour after just to talk with us is pretty crazy haha. I’m surprised we ran into each other again. It was good to talk to them though. I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Later in the evening, we had language study, so we were figuring out where to go. I normally never go to McDonald’s to just sit and work on stuff other than eating, but I felt that we needed to go. Once we arrived I worked on the laptop on my assignment, and Elder Ellis studied Farsi on his assignment. A member notices us and begins to talk with us. He said he’s from Prince George and his name was Brother Silver. I was like, oh no way! I served in Prince George, sadly we just missed each other (he wasn’t up there when I was there), but it was good to see him. He bought us both fudge ice cream so that was super sweet! It’s crazy how many different members we met today, pretty neat to look back on.

As we were about to leave, a high-school student who was sitting near us noticed the Book of Mormon and asked us about it. He said that he’s Christian and has a friend who goes to our church and he wanted to learn more about what the Book of Mormon is. We gave him a brief run down and he seemed very curious and intrigued. He asked lots of really good questions, and we bounced all over the place. Overall it was a really awesome experience, we gave him a copy of it, and a Restoration Proclamation, and if he wants to meet with missionaries he’ll sign up and his records will go to the right set of missionaries.

Welcome back to Spiritual Hogwarts!

Last week, the Willoughby Elders met a YSA guy while street contacting. They said that he’s currently attending a seminary in Mission and is interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon. I won’t record his name here, for the sake of privacy. But, he attends the Westminster Abbey Monastery. He asked that we meet him on the seminary grounds, as he can only leave them once a month. He then messaged us asking if it would be okay if his friend joined us as well. At this point we are both expecting to get absolutely bashed. But you know, it will be my first time in Mission so that’ll be sweet! I was also looking forward to seeing the seminary grounds, it looked pretty epic on Google Maps. Once we arrived, I got to say, it definitely did not disappoint! It reminded me so much of the Missionary Training Center. It takes you up this big hill that overlooks all of Mission. As we drove in, there’s a big open field on the right. We saw a Catholic Priest playing Frisbee, and on our left they had a few buildings and a church. Near the guest area, where we planned on meeting, we saw two young guys standing, one had a blue book in hand. I couldn’t tell if it was the Book of Mormon, but I felt that it was them.

We then got out of the vehicle, they came over to us, and we began to chat. They were so cool! Very nice and sincere guys, the one we were texting was our age, and his friend was 25. It was so funny! When his friend heard that he was meeting with “the Mormons” he was like, “I’ve never met a Mormon before, I’d love to meet them too!” So he came along just to meet us. We talked and walked around the campus and they took us to an overlook point. The experience was incredible, because in a lot of ways we saw how similar we were. They were studying to become priests. They lived on campus and would do their schooling there. I believe they said the program was about nine years, so you are definitely in it for the long run. When we arrived at the lookout point, it was incredible! Really wish I was able to get some pictures, we were focused on chatting with and teaching them, so didn’t really get the chance. But next time! We’ll definitely get some, they also said they will show us the church too!

We shared with them what the Book of Mormon is, the Restoration, and acquiring Spiritual truth. So many random things come up, I was talking about receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, the day of the Pentecost, spiritual gifts being present, and with the restoration those gifts are available to us today. Meetings are filled with revelation. The Lord’s Apostles and Prophet are on the earth today. I shared that they can walk into a room full of people they don’t know personally, but feel the sense of love that they and God have for them. And then go on guided by the Spirit and prophesy exactly what those people need to hear and what they need, without knowing them. This is the Lord’s Living Church, flowing with revelation all over the world. I told them that without a shadow of a doubt I knew of a surety that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He was pretty intrigued, he was like, “without a shadow of a doubt, that’s pretty big. How do you know with a surety?” I responded, “the Book of Mormon.” That is the strongest evidence of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling. I told him, if he could prove to me how Joseph Smith was able to write the Book of Mormon and deceive all the witnesses, then I wouldn’t be able to stand without a shadow of a doubt. But the Book of Mormon stands firm, and I know that it is the work of God.

You know when Nephi says, “the Spirit of the Lord constraineth me that I should speak.” Yeah. I kinda experienced that a bit. Because I definitely wouldn’t have said what I did. It was just a bit bold haha. I’m just glad that these guys were super chill and curious, they genuinely wanted to learn more. Both of them were super nice, really hope that we are able to meet them again! They were actually surprised that we came, they thought we wouldn’t show up at the seminary haha.

Social Media Meeting

I’m seeing a lot of parallels between this transfer and my 4th transfer. It seems that I’m starting a new assignment and this was our first meeting with the Gills. Last transfer was the experimental transfer when they first extended the assignment, and now this is the refinement transfer now that we are going to meetings again. Very much the same when I received the mission technology specialist assignment mid-way through my second transfer. I then did it for my third, and then Elder Evans became my companion in my fourth and we had our first meeting in Richmond together. And from there, the rest is history. We began going to Zone Conferences and the assignment got really refined. It’s kinda going the same way now, which is quite interesting to look back on. We’ll see what the future yields.

As for the meeting, it was pretty good. I shared how important it is to produce local British Columbia content for the page. Focus on the events and the people here. Show people the message of the gospel rather than telling them. I shared a few examples, shooting a service video at the inter-faith food hampers event, showing a family attending church–interview them and then show them doing family home evening and focusing on church at home, ward temple trip, etc.

The Gill’s were concerned about how much time we were spending creating content for the page. He doesn’t want the assignment to take away from the rest of the work. He asked the social media sisters, and then us, as for how long it takes. And honestly the part that takes the longest, is gathering together the footage; putting it together is the quick part.

We also talked about making sure the videos look consistent. I shared the Christ’s First Light media kit, which basically makes it super easy for the sisters where they can drag and drop transitions, subtitles, and the outros. This way we can keep the page high quality while still maintaining a uniform look.

Sister Gill asked us why don’t we just repost church content. The church has already provided so much high quality content, her point was, there’s no reason we should be spending time and resources making posts if we can easily just repost what’s already made. I shared that that’s great, and reposting is very important for personal profiles, but we are a Facebook page. The expectation is that this page offers content that you can’t find on any other page. This is the page for finding Christ in British Columbia, not in Washington, not in Salt Lake, but in B.C. So it’s very important to offer localized content. Also reposts don’t actually reach anyone on a page level, only those who are already following the page. But you can make a reel version of a video and post it and that would be great!

The sisters have also finally learned the importance of focusing on reels. After I’ve explained to them and I think after they’ve seen the impact that it’s made so far, they’ve come to the same conclusions. So I’m glad that they are finally on board!

When we concluded the meeting President, he shared that he agrees with Sister Gill and the Social Media Sisters to repost church content in reels. But he felt something when I was talking about showing the members, families, and temple trips happening in B.C. He calls this member profiling. He shared that we’ll go from here, and we’ll probably have another meeting in the near future. It sounds like this new member profiling assignment will continue to stay after I’m gone. My job is to get things started and ready to go for those that proceed me. Not going to lie, kinda sounds familiar.

Had a lesson with our friend Eric, and he brought his friend Isaiah. Always love it when our friends bring friends to lessons, we couldn’t ask for anything better. Bonus points on the biblical name as well. Overall the lesson wasn’t bad, probably much of what you would expect for meeting at a Tim Horton’s. Every time we’ve met friends there, it usually results in a great quantity of questions about our beliefs. Both the individuals were very nice and sincere, and I commend them for taking the time to meet with us to learn more about our beliefs; deciding to meet with us rather than drawing conclusions upon what the internet has to say. We had a good discussion, the member who joined us did a wonderful job as well. We talked about continued revelation, the Book of Mormon, what happened to the plates, the witnesses, the true nature of the Godhead, and why we don’t hold to beliefs from creeds, etc.

People really do like their evidence, I really tried to share our point of view that reliable historical evidence is an amazing resource to find out things as they really were and as they really are. We embrace and actively use these discoveries to better understand the past and our place here right now. We could use the many reliable historical sources and history to prove the reality of the restoration of Jesus Christ’s church. Many first-hand accounts and writings can be found of both members and non-members alike about the events that took place and the evidence behind Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling. But that’s not the point, although these evidences are wonderful, that shouldn’t be the foundation of our testimonies, because that’s not how we can acquire Spiritual truth and that’s not how we put our faith in Jesus Christ. Not to take away or diminish our use of historical evidence, but that shouldn’t be our foundation. Our foundation must be upon Jesus Christ, and solely on him, not the historical evidence that points to him; those are welcome to be built on top of that foundation. Ultimately, I believe that a testimony of Jesus Christ should not be founded upon temporal evidence. Understanding that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior and Redeemer of the world is a spiritual truth. Spiritual truths can only be acquired spiritually.

We invited them to read some of the Book of Mormon and to sincerely ask God and acquire the spiritual truth for themselves from the source of all truth if the record is the word of God. They both agreed, and I pray that their hearts may be opened and that their faith may be strengthened.

Portuguese Branch

Over our weekly PMG Zoom call, President Gill shared that the brethren announced that the Portuguese group in the Surrey Stake will be turning into a branch. They also prophesied that there’s going to be multiple Stakes formed in that area in coming years, and we are seeing just the beginning of those fruits. Pretty exciting stuff! I’m actually surprised that the Hindi group wasn’t the one that’s gotten turned into a branch yet (I thought that it was larger than the Portuguese group, but I may be mistaken). The amount of growth that has occurred in the Surrey Stake since I first began my mission there (17 months ago) is pretty incredible!

Limiting the Social Media Work

I’ve continued trying to quickly push out video content for our mission page with my assignment. It’s been good, a bit frustrating seeing the social media sisters make bad decisions with the page, and continue in “traditions of their fathers.” Because that’s how it has always been done. Despite there being other more successful ways of doing things, we fear to do it because it’s contrary to what we’ve always done. I’ve counseled with them a bit about some of these things. They were willing to make a few minor changes, but they are mostly sticking to what we’ve done before. So I’ll just keep doing my best with what’s in my control. It’s kind of sad because the tech elder assignment has effectively fallen into the same plague. It seems like they are falling into the same patterns, doing the same trainings, and eventually falling into monotonous work that isn’t necessary anymore, but once was. All because that’s what we did before and it was effective, so we must keep doing it. I digress, the assignments are probably more necessary or effective than I can currently see it being.

I’m grateful for the assignment for content creation despite the limitations and challenges we’ve faced. My mind is brought to the account where Jesus Christ feeds the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. It’s pretty incredible how the Lord does impossible math, and with the offering that we give Him, He magnifies it and transforms it to much more than anything we could’ve imagined prior. With the video stuff, we’ve faced a great amount of difficulty with resources, things falling through, scheduling just not working out, bad weather, and deadlines. Despite the difficult circumstances, everything worked out. The Lord made it possible to film and edit videos in just one night. It’s been a miracle seeing the balancing between our area and friends, working with members, zone leadership responsibilities, Elder Blake’s Farsi work, and medical care. Even while bouncing between so many things, the acceleration in actually accomplishing each of those activities has greatly increased to compensate for the less time. I’m just so grateful, that everything has been coming together, it’s been a great test of faith, and my faith continues to build seeing God work mighty miracles in even just the smallest of things.

Reflecting back on my mission, I’ve realized that the whole North America West area Presidency has visited over the course of my service. During the mission tour, Elder (area President) Mark A. Bragg, visited and ran the conference. We had the opportunity to hear from Elder Peter M. Johnson at the Stake Conference in Nanaimo; he also came to an MLC meeting and shared some council with us at the beginning. And now, Elder Neil L. Andersen visiting, and was accompanied by, Elder Takashi Wada, and Bishop L. Todd Budge (presiding bishopric). At this point we’ve seen the whole area presidency for our area, consisting of: President Bragg, Elder Wada, and Elder Johnson. Pretty remarkable to look back on!

As we arrived early in the afternoon for choir practice, we found the parking lot to the temple view chapel completely full. We were instructed to park at specific sections of the parking lot, but that plan quickly was tossed out the window as we drove around; we just located the nearest parking spot. As we walked towards the chapel, we were told that the lunch which was being held was running late, the missionaries were asked to wait. So we wandered around and waited, in confusion as to when we should enter. We eventually entered in with some missionaries, and began practicing.

Missionaries gathered and sat in a multitude of seats for a big mission photo featuring Elder Andersen and his accompanying authorities. We all sat quietly and studied, awaiting the arrival of an Apostle of the Lord. At this point everything is running quite late, but eventually President and Sister Gill enter into the room with Elder Andersen, Elder Wada, and Bishop Budge. Side note! All of these general authorities spoke at the most recent October 2024 General Conference. Definitely will go back and review more of their talks later. Everyone stands up acknowledging their presence. Despite Elder Andersen requesting complete silence, he commented on our reverence, and then proceeded to crack some jokes prior to the mission photo. I’m sure you can imagine the layer of awkwardness that was added, when we try to maintain our silence haha. After getting our photo, each missionary had the opportunity to shake Elder Andersen, Elder Wada, and Elder Johnson, and all of the Stake Presidents in British Columbia hands. It was a welcome surprise to see all of the Stake Presidents there. We learned later on in the meeting that that was not the original plan.

There was a comment that angels would be singing with the choir. After hearing what President & Sister Gill said and impressions from other missionaries that definitely was the case. I believe I have forgotten to mention that I wasn’t supposed to even be in the choir haha. As Zone Leadership we had the opportunity to make suggestions of members of the Zone who could be a part of the missionary choir. I thought I lucked out of it, because of course I wouldn’t suggest myself haha. Elder Blake was originally (we think) supposed to play the piano. But that got changed to Elder Takazawa. President insisted that Elder Blake should sing in the choir despite it going over his Farsi class. As we arrived for the first choir practice I was going to sit down with the rest of the companions that weren’t a part of the choir. President Gill then stopped me and asked if I were a part of it, to which I responded nope; he replied, “we’ll now you are.” And now we are here, I’ve begun to get a bit sick and my voice was not at all ready for this. So I guarantee you, there had to have been angels to make that work.

I’m not going to lie, I was not expecting so many one-liners and humor to come from the general authorities in this meeting. Elder Wada shared that people are naturally drawn to us by the Spirit, he boldly declared “you are all attractive.” Not really sure if that was the message he was trying to convey but it was hilarious nonetheless. Elder Neil L. Andersen was speaking about our example as missionaries and the profound impact that we have on young people that may become missionaries. He said, “when you put your arm around that sixteen year old,” and then tried to avoid misconception, “but not of the opposite.” And then he just left it there, not something I would expect out of an Apostle but I think we understood his message. Commenting on the prophet’s health, he said he’s doing incredible. President Nelson shared in a meeting that every morning when he wakes up his first thought is: “I’m still here.” Haha I mean if I were a hundred years old, I’m sure that would be my first thought too. Honestly, jokes aside, the experience with him was incredible.

Prior to Elder Andersen’s address, his wife talked briefly and prepared us for what was to follow. She shared that she is more sure of her husband’s Apostalic call and speaking on behalf of the Lord than she is sure of us in the room. She encouraged us all to take as many notes as possible. All of the blessings and council he will share today will be applicable to all those present including her. She shared that whenever he speaks she takes notes and can hear the mind and will of the Lord through them.

When Elder Andersen spoke he had an interesting structure in his speaking, including first and foremost a joke, and immediately following spiritual insight that would distill upon our souls. This pattern repeated as he spoke. It was interesting because you could feel the sudden shift each time he moved on from his jokes. It was clearly discernible when he was speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost. He began by giving us marriage advice, which I don’t think anyone saw coming. He said, here is the key to finding your future spouse: find someone of deep, deep faith. Make that your number one priority. He shared that it is a privilege to know a prophet of God. He witnessed the experience in the room when he was ordained as President of the Church. He brought up the process of assigning missionaries to missions, which was interesting because Elder Johnson and Elder Bragg spoke about that very process previously. We live in a scientific world, he said. One that has turned away from thoughts, feelings, and impressions, and has turned to evidence, and physical witness. Nothing is stronger in scriptures than the lessons of faith. A great focus of his teaching was on the principle of faith. Faith is garnered over years, it’s not that you have it or you don’t. He added, I want to infuse in you more faith. He shared some more thoughts and a blessing upon us. I will omit the most sacred topics that were discussed, including the blessing. Before leaving his blessing, he had all of the Stake President’s come up and share a very brief council to all the missionaries. Here’s my notes on what each one said:

• Do all things cheerfully that lie in your power and you will see the salvation of your God.
• Remember the spiritually defining moments in your life and help remind others of theirs.
• Speak up, confidently invite everyone. And promise them that they will experience the Savior’ reality.
• Learn the Savior, and learn His love.
• Put in the work necessary to receive the blessings that our Heavenly Father has in store for us.
• If you come to this mission you better be prepared to work. “We cannot be stopped.” Keep working, and eventually things will come around.

The following day we had the opportunity to hear from Elder Wada at the YSA breakfast. By the power of the Holy Ghost he shared some excellent thoughts to the YSA. He talked about how we need to define our land of promise. Nephi and his brethren, despite being in the wilderness, had joy. He brought up the daughters of Ishmael and how Nephi said he was exceedingly blessed. Despite having joy, Nephi knew that he needed to keep pressing forward to the land of promise instead of staying where he was happy. As you might have imagined, Elder Wada gave us marriage advice as well– I mean, pretty fitting for a YSA I guess. Ether defined the wilderness as a place where no man had walked. Your wilderness is something that no one but you have ever walked. He added that the Book of Mormon helps us know our place in the Plan of Salvation. We must see the scriptures spiritually and putting ourselves into them. Just as the Liahona, new writings and direction from God will appear according to our faith. God will provide you with the writings that you need today. Move beyond pointers and find new writings; go to the House of the Lord.

After breakfast, we had the Abbotsford Stake Conference. This was a pretty pivotal day for British Columbia, there were three stake conferences occurring this day. Elder Andersen went to the Surrey Stake, Elder Wada to Abbotford, and Bishop Budge to Vancouver. Right before the Stake Conference was to begin, the Sister Training Leaders told us that Elder Wada was requesting the names of the Zone Leaders and them. At this point we are all nervous knowing that he’s most likely going to be having us come up at the Stake Conference. We handed him the names, and as you may have guessed he called us up. He then added that he was going to test our scriptural knowledge. Oh boy! Here we go, now the nervousness really kicks into gear. He has both Elder Blake and I stand side by side with him. He then links arms with both of us and keeps us nice and close. He had his scriptures turned to 2 Nephi 32 and turned the mic to Elder Blake to read one of the scriptures. Luckily he wasn’t testing us too much, he said that he’s a nice general authority so he wouldn’t do that. We answered his questions, shared very brief thoughts and insights. He stopped linking arms with Elder Blake, and put his hand on his back, but he kept me linked tightly throughout the whole experience. I’m sure it’s fully out of love, but man I can’t help but feel even more uncomfortable haha. Anyways, it was quite the experience, I didn’t get quite as much out of Stake Conference because of it, but it was still pretty good.

Over the past transfer, I’ve had to rely on the Lord more than I have ever relied on him in my life. I’m grateful for all of these wonderful experiences, and I know that through the Lord’s help all things are possible.

President & Sister Gill Crash District Council

None of us knew they were coming haha. But yeah President & Sister Gill decided to show up, and that was pretty awesome! It was a bit stressful for Elder Snow (our district leader, and my former companion) but he did an amazing job. It was super neat, they had the Sisters give a training on revelation. Which felt just like what we talked about MLC recently, so I’m sure the Gill’s loved it. I loved hearing their insights. President shared with me that he and Sister Gill have been loving the content I’m making. I’m grateful that they’ve been liking it and it’s been turning out.

Reflection of What Once Was

My exchange with Elder Watkins was pretty awesome. A bit weird being back in my old area (Richmond), with my old companion. Especially because we both served in that area together. It was nice to go back and see some of the members. Brother Mendoza told us that he became a faculty manager, crazy news! He just dropped his old job and he begins tomorrow. He’ll be traveling all over British Columbia doing the technical work on meeting houses.

Beginning our exchange we rushed over to a restaurant in Ladner for a lesson. We were teaching their friend who was getting baptized on Sunday. There was a new member who joined us and we enjoyed a good lesson and some good food. He seemed very prepared and ready. We still had a few principles left to teach him, so we focused on teaching those, and completed the baptismal program with him. Despite eating dinner at a restaurant together, the Spirit was strong and unified us all together. Even teaching some random principles from all over the place, the lesson flowed and was very smooth. A conversation turned into a teaching moment and an opportunity for us all to feel the Spirit. It really is a testament that all of this is God’s work.

Right before we drove back to end the exchange, we received a call from a member from Calgary who was visiting family in Richmond. They had a family member who was requesting a Priesthood blessing. We quickly arrived, and administered the blessing of healing. Blessings are truly incredible, I’m grateful to be a part of them. They’ve been some of my most spiritual experiences I’ve had on the mission. It’s remarkable to have the Spirit direct your words and manifest God’s will so clearly. The recipient of the blessing was in tears and expressed that during the blessing he saw a face. He couldn’t describe who it was. But we encouraged him to talk to his family more about it. We were running a bit late so we had to go quickly.

The Snow Strikes Back!

Today we were planning to have a baptismal interview for the Maple Ridge Elder’s friend, Corinna. That got a bit tricky when we discovered all the snow and were informed to not drive our vehicles. Fortunately, the Maple Ridge Elders were able to get a bus and their friend was willing to bus down as well. She even gave them instructions on the buses they needed to take and they went together.

So we made our journey through the snow to the chapel. Luckily we don’t live too far, so it only took around an hour. Upon arriving, we prepared the building and got everything ready to go. Everyone made it safely, and Elder Blake gave the interview. She’s super ready and we look forward to her baptism. After completing that, we saw Brother Mendoza and the other FM guy who was training him. It was pretty neat to see him in his new job after just talking to him yesterday about it. As we left the chapel they called to us as they were both in the car. They then asked for suggestions on where they should go for lunch. Elder Blake suggested donaire. But they were feeling pancakes, so they both decided to get pancakes together haha. You could tell they both were having a good time with each other. After that we made our journey back home in the snow. Once we arrived home we were both quite exhausted, not because of all the walking, but just with the craziness of this whole week. It’s been so much at once, so we made some lunch and we both laid down for the rest of our lunch hour.

I think that’s everything worth mentioning this week. Just been planning a lot, looking forward to the mission visit and Stake Conference!

The Keys to Eternity

We had a lesson with our new friend Justin, and I have to say, it was likely one of the greatest lessons I’ve been a part of on the mission. Which was great, because we didn’t have any other lessons this week and we’ve had to stop teaching almost 20 friends now. He began the lesson by asking us many different questions, I was worried that he was about to start bashing us haha. But he was just curious and knew that we could direct him to answers.

Among his questions include: Is it okay to have long hair, the Bible says that men are supposed to have short hair? Do I need to be legally married to my partner? When do you observe the law of the fast? How do I repent?

It’s incredible to teach through the Spirit; we focused heavily on the Doctrine of Christ, the importance of covenants, the Temple, and what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to offer that no other organization can offer. We read the Family a Proclamation to the World, as well as watched the Rome Italy temple tour, with him. I have high hopes for Justin; the Lord definitely has been preparing him.

Elder Blake and I were very united through the Spirit while teaching this lesson. I felt that we needed to share the Family Proclamation, and the Rome Italy temple tour video, and Elder Blake was on the same page and had them pulled up before I had the opportunity to haha.

While we were talking about covenants, I shared D&C 132:7 with him. I honestly wasn’t even close to planning on sharing that because we haven’t even gotten to explain what the Book of Mormon is yet. But despite this, I felt the need to share it, and that was pretty awesome.

Productive and Action Packed MLC

I’ve been to my fair share of seven hour MLC meetings, and I have to say that this was probably one of the most productive ones I have seen thus far. We touched on many important topics, and there’s a great amount of preparing ahead of us. So buckle up, this is going to be a good one!

We began the meeting with a quote from Brigham Young,

“The Lord can’t reveal to you and I [what] we can’t understand; …for instance when Joseph first received revelation the Lord could not tell him what he was going to do. He didn’t tell him he was going to call him to be a prophet, seer, revelator, high priest, and founder of the kingdom of God on eath.”

The early church was struggling after the loss of Joseph Smith and there was great confusion with the future direction of the church. President Gill then shared that Joseph Smith instructed Brigham Young and the brethren after his martyrdom to follow the Holy Ghost. This instruction is incredibly important, and its significance, especially today, cannot be understated.

President Gill shared his experiences learning the language of the Spirit. He said learning how to recognize the Spirit is one of the most important if not the most important thing that we may learn in life.

There’s a principle of leadership in the language of the Spirit. The Spirit teaches line upon line, precept upon precept, according to the understanding of the individual He is teaching. There are incredible blessings for God’s covenant people as they lead following these principles.

Throughout the history of time, the Lord has erected temples only when people are willing to be obedient to God. We are seeing a major growth in temples in recent years because there has been a major growth in people who are willing to be obedient to God. As Sister Gill says, many people believe that once the world gets wicked enough the Savior will come again, but instead the Savior will come again when righteousness is increased.

There was a very strong focus on social media. We are reaching a turning point in missionary work with regards to social media. The acceleration of this work has been incredible, and we are expecting to see an exponential increase soon. The importance of this work cannot be fully realized right now.

They shared the stats in the past year: 76 total people have been baptized through social media referrals. 7 total people have been baptized through home to home contacting.

The teaching rate for referrals has also increased from I believe 9-10% to 13-14%. We’ve been sitting at 9-10% pretty much my whole mission, we’ve really struggled hitting that 10% which supposedly is a minimum for qualifying to receive ads for the mission page. About 7 months ago there was a point that they were about to pull the ads from the page due to our lack of success increasing that teaching rate. In one of my emails to President I emphasized how incredibly important it is to do everything we possibly can to keep the ads going.

In that email I shared the following:

“The magnitude and importance of the Facebook page and keeping these Facebook ads running, cannot be overstated. It’s quickly becoming our number one finding source in the mission, and there’s so much potential that continues to exponentially grow in the page as the work accelerates. My hope is that as a mission, we can tap into that potential, and that other missionaries can come to a knowledge of it. Many missionaries come in with the outdated approach to missionary work. They go and do in person finding, door knocking, etc. Not that it’s wrong, but they neglect the friends that they already have that they aren’t actively teaching in PMG. And sometimes they neglect their referrals which are knocking at their door. My hope was with the Preach My Gospel mentoring sessions that the technology elders were doing is that it would change the culture of the mission. It would help missionaries step outside of going to find new people, when they already have so many people that are searching for answers at their fingertips. Not that those legacy finding approaches were bad, I believe doing a combination of these efforts will bear the most fruits in our mission labors. I just believe the magnitude of how much the page affects everything cannot be overstated. We truly live in the fullness of times, the work is accelerating, the brethren are preparing us, and we need to keep up. The urgency continues to rise. And with the rise of AI translation technology, we truly will be able to reach every nation, kindred, and tongue. I’m really looking forward to the adoption of these tools. This mission will benefit so much because of its diversity! People that it wasn’t possible to share the gospel with previously, it will make possible.”

We are now beginning to see and realize the matters that I brought up previously. Despite that we didn’t reach the required teaching rate to keep ads for the page, the folks at Salt Lake decided to keep the ads going. I believe the social media sisters at the time shared that they didn’t feel right to take away the ads, and so they left them. It’s pretty remarkable that we are now beginning to see the fruits of this. I’m looking forward to the future, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

At MLC they taught us that the effectiveness of getting into contact with referrals is much greater when calling; we should be calling our referrals for our first contact right when we receive them. People who are contacted within the first hour are 20% more likely to hear the first lesson. And not only that, but we should even begin to teach them a few principles and set up a time when we can meet them while we are on the phone.

There were a few logistics that we went through in regards to the mission visit from the Apostle of the Lord, Elder Neil L. Andersen. We’ve all been preparing for that, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts when that day comes. Each Zone will park at specific spots at the Temple View chapel, and will enter and exit through specific doors. This was done to ensure that we are able to efficiently and quickly arrive and leave and keep the silence that Elder Andersen has requested.

We also touched on having “temple shifts” for the missionaries. Many people will pass by the temple or walk around it that may be interested in learning more about the House of Lord. Because of this, we are working with the temple presidency to work out shifts that missionaries may be on the property.

Working Against the Clock

This week was packed full of meetings and planning. We’ve been calling and reaching out to many of our friends as well, and sadly haven’t been able to get into contact with much of anyone. Also, with my special assignment making content for The Christ’s First Light page, I’ve been working with quick deadlines, and with no resources to pump out content as soon as possible. It’s been difficult and I’ve faced a lot of stress and disappointment, but things have been working out in the end and I’m hopeful for the future.

There’s a big content calendar list that outlines the content that the Social Media Sisters want created. It covers all the principles in every PMG lesson. Next to all of them are a bunch of dates when they need to be completed by. So I began working on the first video about the resurrection. I reached out to some missionaries to film a video of a member for it, but that later cancelled and didn’t work out. The sisters didn’t tell me that they wanted the videos completed a week in advance before the due date so they have time to approve them.

We needed to have this video done by Saturday. At this point it’s Thursday night and we have MLC which will take up most of the next day. We were hoping to come across a member while we were at Richmond to film the video with, but that didn’t work out either. In our last effort, Friday night we had Farsi class so we were thinking of having the Farsi teacher bear testimony of the resurrection. Sadly for his security, he’s unable to do that. So we were left with nothing, and the video needed to be posted by that night. I was thinking we were just going to have to throw in the towel and just grab a clip from general conference or something. But right as I was about to abandon the idea of filming a member, a family walked into the building trying to set up some stuff for their child’s baptism the next day. It was a miracle that the father was willing to do it. He was the Ward Mission Leader in the Brookswood ward as well which was perfect.

I showed him a brief script, and told him this is the idea, you don’t need to stick to it. Feel free to add whatever you would like, and testify from the heart. He did an awesome job, and did it in two takes. Wonderful miracle, and it really shows that God always prepares a way.

So I had to steal the YSA laptop from the church. Which I know we are not really supposed to do, however, the work of the Lord must go forth! I don’t know how they expected me to fulfill this assignment without a laptop and a lack of any equipment (all the equipment I have is my own), but as I said before, God makes a way. At this point we are fighting against the clock, it’s almost 9pm so we quickly drove home to our apartment with the laptop in our hands. We arrive home, and the grind begins. I have a video to submit by 10:30pm. So I throw in the clips, process the audio with AI (cause I don’t have a good mic), and rapidly edit as fast as I can. Despite the immense amount of stress and pressure putting together the video, failing to find members, driving back and forth lots, with meetings and planning and preparing, the video was complete. The time was 10:15pm, I submit the video, and completely exhausted I hit the sack.

Needless to say, the video was okay, it’s a miracle it exists, and it’s nothing too remarkable. I’m grateful that God made it possible despite my lack of faith at points of the production process. But let’s not celebrate too quickly. The next video is due in three days. Now remember, when I say due that means that’s the day it gets posted. It needs to be “done” a week in advance. Now obviously with three days to the next video, it’s not physically possible to have it done a week in advance, unless I break the laws of time which is beyond the scope of my assignment haha.

So I went straight into planning and preparing production for the next video, which needed to be submitted as soon as possible at this point. Luckily I reached out to a set of missionaries in advance on Wednesday to locate some members that we can film for this specific video. I’ve tried to learn from the last painful experience. I followed up with those missionaries to see if they found a member for it, and sadly it fell through. This turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. I had a whole script ready to go and planned which included the member, and the missionaries, but now I needed to make some serious changes to the original plan. So it’s Sunday night, same situation, I’m cranking out this video as soon as I can.

I can make up as many excuses as I want, but I will stand with Nephi and say, “for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Ne. 3:7). So I scrapped much of my vision, similar to what I did with the previous video, and tried to keep it simple. I tend to overcomplicate and make my ideas much bigger than needed, because they sound so grand in my head. But I often miss the beauty and effectiveness of simplicity. I really tried to follow the Spirit and yield my will to God’s. As a result I was able to complete the whole video in under two hours and had it submitted and ready to go by the end of the night.

His Ways are Higher than Mine

Over the past week, I have gained a deeper understanding of this principle: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:8) I tend to lean upon my own understanding when it comes to computers and creating content. I often find myself with strong opinions on how specific technical things should be done. Similar to how the Apostles may have specific opinions on subjects and manners that they’ve specialized in prior to the call. And then in councils where those matters are put forth, they have to put aside their ways and their thoughts and yield to the Lord’s ways—which often may seem contrary to what seems most effective on the surface. With regards to the assignment I’ve been given, I’ve definitely been learning how to apply this more.

I’ve officially kind of settled into my new area. It’s Fraser Valley YSA, and man, I am totally not used to this at all. Since we are serving in a YSA, our area basically covers the whole lower-mainland. We cover from Abbotsford (Boston Bar) to Richmond. It’s totally crazy that we can drive pretty much anywhere. We’ll just have to be careful to not drive too many kilometers. There also hasn’t been any missionaries in the area for like a week, so there’s basically no plans in our schedule. Which makes things a bit difficult when we are both new to the area and have no idea what’s happening. But you know, we’ll figure this out, eventually.

It’s so blessed to serve so close to the temple. The YSA chapel is about right next to it. Just walking around the temple, and being in the area is pretty awesome. It definitely is a testament to me that temples bless all people in the area. The uplifting spirits and energy is very nice to be around.

We live in our four man apartment, currently with the (new) Portuguese elders: Elder Yamashita and Elder Araújo. They are quite the duo, lots of fun and personality haha. Never a dull moment haha. Also, when we arrived at the apartment, everything was gone. No food, no paper towels, no olive oil, no laundry detergent, pretty much everything that you would expect to be there wasn’t there. Elder Watkins really cleaned out this place before leaving. So we did a bit of shopping to get us to Tuesday.

First Lesson

Currently we are focusing on just getting into contact with our friends. There seems to be a lot of potential for the area, we just need to get it back into gear. We had a fun call with this guy named Tristan. He’s a super nice guy, and had a really good relationship with the Elders before us. He was willing to drive down a bit of a way to come and see us. We spent quite a bit of time with him because he really likes to chat, but I believe it was really worth getting to know him. He has some crazy religious background, but for the sake of privacy I can’t share here. But basically he was going down a very extreme religious path. He had a dream one day, of these very large closed gold and saphire gates. He then heard a voice, “if you keep going down this path, you will never enter into my Kingdom.” And ever since then he’s been changing his course. Pretty incredible. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon every day, and I look forward to meeting him again soon. This was also my first time where I’ve had a friend give us a church tour haha. We told him it was both our first time at that building, and so he got up and showed us around.

Farsi Class

I had no idea this was going on, but there’s quite a few missionaries that President Gill has asked to learn Farsi. Elder Blake (my companion) is one of them. And a member has just begun doing a Farsi class, each week and this is the third week of doing it. So we attended the class, and that was pretty neat. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but there were a few other missionaries that were there for the first time as well. But remarkably, they picked up on learning it really quickly. The instructor was stunned, it was crazy. The gift of tongues is truly incredible.

First Sunday

This is my first time serving in a branch, so I’m used to seeing more people, but church as always was very nice. There was a potlock afterwards, which was such a tender mercy because we had no food haha. We got to meet and get to know a few members which was nice, and we had three friends come to church! Which is the highest it’s been in the past six weeks and we just got here. We had two friends come from Surrey, they were asking us a bunch of questions and seemed very curious. It sounds like they’ve been to church twice before in Albertia, so this wasn’t their first rodeo. Regardless, they asked us for a church tour after sacrament. We were like, of course, we barely know the building, but would be happy to show you around! They both will be going to a talent show activity, so we’ll plan on talking to them some more then. It’s definitely been a shift in terms of missionary work. It definitely seems like our main ways of finding are referrals from other missionaries, and activities. So we’re going to try to focus on that.

So we received a referral for a guy named Ryan. Gave him a call, which turned out to be an hour long conversation… wait no that’s not the right word, hour long monologue, there we go! He’s a nice guy, very spiritual and connected to energy, feeling shifts in the environment and stuff. So we call him and I ask him what makes him interested in signing up for baptism which turned into an hour of him talking. The topics of his monologue (that I can remember) include: ICBC being evil, getting revenge on the people down-town, all religions lead back to God, something big’s going to happen, his girlfriend, and back to baptism. He was shocked when we called, he said how funny it was that we called at the time we did. At the end of his rant we finally got back to where we started, the topic of baptism. I briefly shared what baptism is, it’s a physical manifestation of a Spiritual commitment, starting a new life following Jesus Christ. He was shocked, oh my gosh he yelled. He started to cry a bit, and he said it all makes sense. He got so excited, he was like, who do I need to talk to, to get baptized? What do I need to do? I said, you are talking to the right guys, we are here to support you and help you make this commitment. And then I gave him a run down that he needed to be taught all the lessons, come to church, follow the commitments so that he manifests by his works that he has received the Spirit of Christ unto repentance. He was like, alright, so when can we meet? We set up an appointment for the next day.

So at this point, we didn’t know the guy was homeless. I even checked his address (that came with his referral), it’s definitely on a house. So I thought we were solid, but spoiler alert, we weren’t!

Since he didn’t have a license (long story that he shared with us about ICBC), we decided to meet him where he’s at. Which he shared happened to be around the mall. So we agreed to meet at the library. When we met up with him at the library, he shared that he had a better place he would like to meet. He shared a few directions and said we’ll meet at a big concrete building. The directions sounded okay, until we started driving. We then realized that we had no idea what he was talking about. So we basically do a wild goose chase trying to locate this guy. He was just walking on the sidewalk so we would drive up a bit far away, pull off into a parking lot and see which directions he took. Honestly, kinda creepy, but we’re just doing the work of the Lord. We get up to this one long road with a neighborhood on the side. We pull over and wait, and we wait, and we keep waiting. But to our terror he was gone. So we loop back around, trace back where we were and he’s nowhere to be found. I have absolutely no clue what big concrete building he’s talking about.

We gave him a call, got a bit more clear instructions, parked on the side of the road, and walked over to these concrete barriers. I’m still wondering, what the heck concrete building he was talking about, but this must have been it. We finally meet up with him, and he shares that he’s so glad we could make it. He then told us to follow him into the forest, he said that there was a place in there we could teach him. So anyways, we follow him into the forest. Now if I felt to Spirit to any degree say this is a bad idea I would’ve totally backed out of it. But Elder Jessop and I felt pretty good, and I thought there must be a house or something that we’ll meet at here. As we walk through the forest he notices a head lamp that’s powered which was left on a log. He’s like, this has been such a weird day. And I was thinking, yeah it sure has been haha. We finally made it to our destination. And to Elder Jessop and I’s surprise it’s a big tent and his campsite. He walks over to the tent, opens the door, and says please please, come in. Elder Jessop and I look at each other, and we share the secret word “which is our first name” to use to signal that we need to leave. At this point I’m really trying to follow the Spirit making sure this is right or not, and I didn’t feel like we needed to leave so we went inside.

He basically gave us another hour long monologue, said a lot of the same stuff. He got quite emotional at parts. It was getting dark and cold, so we told him we needed to get going soon. But I gave him a Book of Mormon and briefly shared what it is. He lost his mind, he was so happy. He said that he knew it, he knew it. Reflecting on that experience, I’m glad we were able to make his day. Even though it could’ve been pretty sketchy and took out most of our night, he definitely needed it.

So we likely won’t be seeing Ryan anymore. But a fun experience nevertheless. You truly will never forget some of the people you meet on a mission.

The Transformative Nature of the Doctrine of Christ

We received a call on Friday asking if we would be willing to give a talk on Sunday. I agreed to give a talk, too bad I didn’t really have much time to prepare. But it was a good experience, glad it all worked out. I was a bit stressed out, because I didn’t get much time at all to put it together. But, God works in mysterious ways, and it all worked out.

For those that are interested in reading it you can find it here. I honestly didn’t think it was anything too great, but many members of the ward liked it. I credit God one hundred percent for that, that definitely wasn’t me that made it good haha.

A New Assignment

After a bunch of weekly planning on Monday we decided to go out and spend our White Spot gift card–that the wonderful members gave us! As we are sitting, enjoying our expensive but very good burgers, we receive a call. It’s the social media sisters. We were both a bit confused why they would be calling us, and we were like, you know what, we’ll call them back afterwards. So we continued to keep enjoying our food. They then send us the following text, “Give us a call ASAP.” Alright, well now things are getting really weird. But you know it can’t be that important… President or the APs would call if it were, so Elder Jessop gets his second serving of endless fries. Once the bill was paid, we walked out to the car and called them back.

Now I’m going to be honest, that wasn’t really an ASAP worthy call, but man that’s so cool! I’m actually so excited! Basically they share how excited they were that we were calling them back. They then said that this news pertained to me and potentially my companion (Elder Jessop), depending on what happens with transfers. Sister Bryson basically said, you know how you have a camera, and a bunch of gear and stuff, and that you are a genius, and good with video and editing. And I was like maybe… but minus the genius part haha. They then extended the assignment for me to be a content creator for the social media page (Christ’s First Light). I was like no way! So of course I accepted the assignment.

We talked about some of the logistics of it, they asked me what gear I had, and if there was anything else I needed. I said a tripod, and if possible a gimbal would be incredible, some good mics would be good too but it seems like we don’t have much of those. We talked about how I edit videos, they asked me about one video I made for the district in Prince George. I replied that I put it together using an old Family History computer that was used by the missionaries that still had Davinci Resolve on it. But I shared how it wasn’t exactly the smoothest experience, the computer crashed nearly 20 times while putting together the video, so it wasn’t too ideal. Unfortunately in Nanaimo, there isn’t a single computer with Davinci Resolve installed. So that makes things a little hard, I would need to get someone to install it who had administrative control over those computers. I could try to install the sketchy portable version to make it work, but it’s kind of iffy. They shared that they can maybe give me a social media laptop, but the supply is tight, so they aren’t sure if it would work. But you know, we’ll figure it out! If that doesn’t work, I have a few ideas on how we can make this work.

They said we’ll be coordinating and working closely with each other, planning and producing content, we’ll be having a meeting beginning tomorrow I believe. Yeah, so lots of things to look forward to. Honestly, a dream come true. I’ve always thought it would be so cool to get involved with this on the mission.

I’m honestly very surprised that President Gill has been using me to make new assignments. But hey! I’m super looking forward to it! I am totally good to serve in any assignment other than AP haha.

Transfer News

Well, then transfer news came in. Kinda wish I can stay in Nanaimo for one more, but I’m still really looking forward to things ahead. I’ll be going to Abbotsford, serving in Fraser Valley. Super exciting stuff! My new companion is Elder Blake, I’ve met him briefly, but he seems super cool! Lots to look forward to for the future, I hope I’m prepared for it all.

The Doctrine of Christ is like an engine, driving us forward on a path to eternal life. This engine propels us toward the ultimate destination of becoming like our Savior Jesus Christ, as our very natures are changed. For an engine to run, it needs both fuel and ignition. The fuel is our faith in Jesus Christ and our repentence–our willingness to let God prevail into our lives. The ignition is the power of Godliness which is manifested through the ordinances and covenants performed by the authority of the Holy priesthood. The Doctrine of Christ advances the process of transformation, and propels us forward in our spiritual journey of becoming more like our Savior Jesus Christ. Just as Alma the younger puts it in the account of his conversion:

“For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit. And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” –Mosiah 27:24-26

Later, Alma the younger rehearsed his experience of turning to God to his son Helaman. He shared: “And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” (Alma 36:17-18)

It wasn’t until this moment that Alma the Younger was released from his “eternal torment." His soul was “harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all [his] sins.” (Alma 36:12) He knew that he “had rebelled against [his] God, and had not kept his holy commandments.” (v. 13) Despite his knowledge of his rebellion and sins, he continued to suffer until he remembered the Lord Jesus Christ. As soon as his thoughts caught hold upon Christ, he cries out for mercy, and the effects of this torment are immediately lifted. He experiences this shift from eternal torment to beholding marvelous light and receiving an outpouring of joy filling up his soul.

Repentance can be just like that. We may immediately catch hold upon the Savior’s mercy and receive a remission of our sins. As we do so, we may for a moment stand sinless before each other.

In his most recent general conference address, Elder Kyle S. McKay, touched on this a bit; as he shared Joseph and Oliver’s experience at the newly dedicated Kirtland Temple. Elder McKay shared: “We do not know what they prayed for, but their prayers likely included a plea for forgiveness, for, as they arose, the Savior appeared and declared, ‘Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me.’ In the months and years after this experience, Joseph and Oliver would sin again. And again. But in that moment, for that moment, in response to their plea and in preparation for the glorious restoration of priesthood keys that was about to happen, Jesus made them sinless.” (The Man Who Communed with Jehovah, Oct 2024)

Going back to Alma the Younger’s conversion, we find a similar experience of a blind man called Bartimaeus. In the Gospel of Mark, the scripture says, “and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” (Mark 10:47) By calling Him the Son of David, it’s clear that he recognized that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. You’ll also find similar language with regards to his conversion when compared to Alma the Younger’s words. It’s also remarkable that out of anyone in the crowd, a man who was born blind, would be the one to recognize the divinity of Jesus Christ. Elder Massimo De Feo notes that, “he saw spiritually what he couldn’t see physically, while many others could see Jesus physically but were totally blind spiritually.”

Not only that, but many from the crowd charged him to be silent, despite this he cried out ever more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy upon me!” I hope that we have that conviction. I mean I sure hope I have that conviction, to not silence my discipleship in response to the world silencing it.

When Bartimaeus came into contact with Jesus he was healed of his physical blindness. Now we may not be physically blind, but in the same fashion, as we sin, we become spiritually blind. If we call upon the Lord in repentance we may have our spiritual eyesight opened.

Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Twelve Apostles teaches, “the core of the gospel that the Church teaches is that Jesus Christ bore ‘our griefs, and carried our sorrows.’ He had ‘laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ He ‘endured the cross,’ broke ‘the bands of death,’ ‘ascended into heaven, and … sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy.’ The Savior did all this because He loves His Father and He loves us. He has already paid the infinite price so He can ‘[claim] all those who have faith in him [and advocate]’ for them—for us. Jesus Christ wants nothing more than for us to repent and come unto Him so that He can justify and sanctify us. In this desire, He is relentless and unwavering.” (“This is My Gospel” – “This Is My Church”, Oct 2024)

In his talk he later shares, “The Savior refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as ‘my church’ because He commissioned it to accomplish His purposes—preaching His gospel, offering His ordinances and covenants, and making it possible for His power to justify and sanctify us. Without His Church, there is no authority, no preaching of revealed truths in His name, no ordinances or covenants, no manifestation of the power of godliness, no transformation into who God wants us to become, and God’s plan for His children is set at naught. The Church in this dispensation is integral to His plan.”

As we see here, living the Doctrine of Christ and experiencing the power of Godliness through His restored church is essential for our journey toward eternal life. People notice something different about us as we pursue this path. Brothers and sisters, you are the gospel message. You are the example of how following our Savior Jesus Christ changes people’s natures. If you feel that living the Doctrine of Christ or serving in the church is a burden for you, now is the time to lay your burdens upon the Lord. When you cast your burden on the Lord you invoke his power upon you. By keeping our burdens to ourselves we are denying Christ’s power to help us in our lives. If He helped when we don’t ask or give him the problem we will lean unto our own strength or own mind or own power rather than allowing the power of God to solve the problem and receiving the opportunity to recognize the hand of the Lord.

In the Book of Psalms chapter 55 verse 22 reads: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

I would like to extend Elder Renlund’s invitation once again to you today. He said: “I invite you to commit yourself more fully to the Savior, His gospel, and His Church. As you do so, you will find that the combination of the Savior’s gospel and His Church brings power into your life. This power is far greater than dynamite. It’ll shatter the rocks in your way, transform you into an inheritor in God’s kingdom. And you will be ‘filled with that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory.’” (“This is My Gospel” – “This Is My Church”, Oct 2024)

Brothers and Sisters, I may not be able testify with the same conviction of the Apostles and Prophets of whom are special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrected body. But I do testify with the conviction of my soul that Jesus Christ truly directs His restored church and this marvelous work, which is preparatory to His second coming. And not only that, but most importantly that He completed His divine mission to intercede on our behalf and reconcile us with God if we so choose. I know He loves us. His Atonement is the greatest act of love for all of mankind. I’m incredibly grateful for Jesus Christ our Advocate. I know I can never repay Him for what He has done for me. The only thing that I have to give is my will. That’s all that He asks. May we all offer up our wills upon the altar, just as Jesus did to the Father. In the name of our great Redeemer, Jesus Christ, amen.

There was a fulfillment of a prophecy I forgot to record in my previous emails—so I guess I’ll record it here now haha. The first day I was with Elder Jessop we made this connection. So basically, not sure if anyone remembers this, but quite a few transfers ago I did a phone audit in an interview with President Gill of another missionary’s phone. (Again, weirdest interview I’ve ever had haha). Ever since then, it’s been a mystery as to whose phone it was. I’ve always wondered, and shared this memorable experience a few times with other missionaries. We had the Campbell River Elders staying with us (temporarily as my companion), and during the conversation with Elder Jessop he brought up that at the beginning of his mission his parents had to ship him a phone.

Transformed by the Touch of Heaven

You know. Sometimes it’s difficult to recognize the Spirit working within you. I know that I definitely struggle to recognize when my words are being influenced by the Spirit. Today I believe I was a part of one of the most powerful lessons in my whole mission; and I’m unsure if I would’ve been able to recognize it without an external sign from someone that listened to the lesson. We were teaching Arlene (Tyler’s grandmother) with Tyler participating. Now to bring some context to this situation, I’m going to explain again what I may have already brought up in previous emails, so bear with me if you already know.

When we began teaching Tyler he expressed that he’s been experiencing a large amount of difficulty and trials with his grandpa. He shared that his grandpa, Randy, would exercise unrighteous dominion over those in the home. A few examples were shared, but for the sake of privacy I won’t mention them here. Even Arlene, his partner, was threatening to leave him and move out. But due to her and Tyler’s dependence on him, they’ve continued to stay. According to Arlene it sounds like Randy doesn’t have any belief in God and seems to be against religion. She expressed that she’s afraid to pray vocally because he may walk in as she’s praying and express frustration with her.

Now that we have some background, as we showed up to their house, Randy showed up too. We haven’t had a lesson where he was present. Usually, he finds an activity to keep him occupied or outside of the house while we visit for a lesson. As we entered the house, he was doing his own thing in the kitchen. We then began the lesson and at some point during the lesson he made his way over to the kitchen and sat on the couch listening.

In the lesson, we reviewed the message of the restoration. After the lesson Elder Jessop asked me if I realized that I pointed at Randy during the lesson. I replied, I had no recollection of doing that.

Towards the end of the lesson Randy gets up, and gives Arlene a small kiss. Arlene, and frankly everyone else in the room was shocked, and she replied, “what was that for?” He responded, “I’ve been listening.” All of us were stunned.

Tyler then messaged us the following, right after the lesson:

That was different 🙏 I didn’t expect that. :o Randy had seemed touched by an angel or God, I’ve never felt something so genuine nor gentle from him thank you guys again for coming

Christmas Zone Conference

This one was a special Zone Conference. Luckily we didn’t have to give any trainings, same with the tech elders, social media sisters, and the APs. We all got to sit back and relax and watch the Gill’s run the show. This conference was full of music and many videos and clips. They did a Chiasmas in the nine hours that we were there. It basically went as follows: Missionaries -> Joseph Smith -> Book of Mormon -> Jesus Christ <- Book of Mormon <- Joseph Smith <- Missionaries. Overall it was pretty good, never thought we would be talking about Joseph Smith so much for Christmas haha.

The Veil is Thin for President Gill

At the beginning of my interview with President Gill he began with looking at the imos roster of my profile; looking through each of my assignments. We talked about it for a bit and then he offered to pray. After his prayer he asked me how I was doing and what I would like to talk about today. This was pretty neat because I’ve been planning on counseling about my plans on school with him, and have failed to bring it up in the last few interviews due to the lack of time. I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than this one, and honestly, he probably knew.

Here’s a basic rundown of what I’m working with. I’ve deferred my University of Utah enrollment for two years while being on a mission. I’m trying to move over the college credits I completed for my generals in high school. I have scholarships lined up for UofU as well. With the way that my release date lines up, I would either: A. Go home early for the fall semester or B. Stay out and go to the Spring semester. Option B risks losing the scholarships I have. So I was definitely in quite a pickle. For most of my mission I thought I couldn’t push my two year deferment back any more. So my mind was pretty much made that I had to go home early. As of recently, that all changed. It was so clear before what I thought needed to happen, but now I don’t know. I discovered that I can push back my UofU more. I began to pray about it much more, seeking God’s will as much as I can in the process. At this point it didn’t matter to me anymore, whether or not I’ll lose the scholarships, the important thing is aligning my will with God’s. So that’s basically where I was going into the interview.

President Gill showed me his laptop and the calendar of the date range that he can schedule my release date to. He said “these are the bounds in which the brethren have set for me to change your date.” Having said this, approval is needed from them to go beyond this. He added “If you need I can call Elder Bednar and change your date.” He told me that he didn’t believe it would be necessary but it is an option… to which I was like yeah, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary either.” He then gave me two dates. He explained that he could do other dates but he wants to avoid an out-of-sync transfer for the new mission president. If I wanted to go home early, I would go August 13th, and if I wanted to serve the whole time I would go September 23rd. Salt Lake buys the tickets for the flights home six months in advance for missionaries returning home. So the date I choose must be set in stone by the next General Conference.

After showing me all of this, he said, “I’ve felt impressed upon by the Holy Ghost twice to share a story from an Elder named Elder McCreedy.” He came out at a weird time because of a surgery he had to get for his bad back. When he entered into the mission field it was out-of-sync; which meant his end date was out-of-sync as well. So he faced a similar dilemma. He either had to go home early to make it in time for school, or extend a bit and change his plans. He had a great school lined up with scholarships and was already enrolled as well. When Elder Saben came for a mission tour, he sat at his lunch table. He asked him the very same question I’m asking President Gill: “should I go home early for school or stay out?” To which Elder Saben bluntly responded, “the Lord has called you to serve for the whole two years, why would you ever want to change that?” President expounded and said that we probably don’t get to choose when we are born and you don’t get to choose when you die unless you take your own life. He then said Sister Gill and him have talked about what Elder Saben said, but the Brethren have given room to work with to be used with judgement and discretion.

He shared that Elder McCreedy decided to extend his mission. The last transfer of his mission, he dropped everything and changed the school he was planning on going to, to BYU. He met a great girl and changed the rest of his career and life. When he said that, I was thinking, no way he just did that to me. He somehow finds a way to slide in BYU every time missionaries talk about school with him. He’s actually gotten so many people to change their plans to BYU, it’s actually quite impressive how he does it. Anyways, he shared that he extended and served as AP his last transfer. He then reassured me that “now I’m not saying that’s how it’s going to end for you.”

He shared that, “the last six months of your mission is going to be greater than any other part of your mission experience. All of your experience and everything has been built up to prepare you for those last six months.

At the end of my interview he wanted to make sure that he didn’t make me feel that he was trying to sway me one way or the other. He said he would be 99% happy with my going home early and 100% happy with me staying out. Just a little bit more haha. He said he wants me to do what I feel is best and is here to support me in whatever that is. He trusts my judgement. I told him that I’ve already been leaning towards staying out the whole time, and right now I feel that that’s what I need to do.

Now it’s difficult to describe it in words, but I marveled at all that President Gill has told me. He is so incredibly in-tune with the Spirit it was amazing. There are so many thoughts and feelings that I had that were reaffirmed through his words and connections that I have seen in regards to my Patriarchal blessing. I’ve never had any experience reaffirm and connect to it so much, then in those moments that I had speaking to him.

So yeah, basically I’m staying out. I still don’t really know what the future holds. But this is right for right now and I’ll keep pressing forward in faith towards where God needs me to be.

Exchanges with the APs

I had an exchange with Elder Wilkerson, and that was awesome! I was so drained after Zone Conference and interviews, and I gotta say I don’t know how God does it, but as I went out and finding with him I was reenergized. Everything that happened during that exchange was entirely led by God. It was actually super cool. Not so cool part of it is that Elder Wilkerson told me that he feels that he is leaving and so there will be an empty spot in the APs. He asked for my thoughts in regards to being AP, and said that he’ll bring my name to the list of suggestions. I basically told him that I don’t really want to be AP, but if that’s what needs to happen then I’ll do it.

We went to a park downtown and everyone at the park was celebrating Honica; it was this big public event. Super neat to see it all, and we just so happened to meet a man named Rayell, who we’ve been in contact with and Gyula, who we’ve taught in the past. The first time I came into contact with Rayell was over the phone, and honestly I totally thought he was a member. It wasn’t till our interaction at the park that I realized he wasn’t a member. He knows way too much about the church and is too nice to not be a member. In my first transfer in Nanaimo he called asking for information regarding the Nativity activity and Christmas concert that we were having at the church. He knew about Stakes, he knew about Wards, he knew that it’s common to have a Christmas dinner at the church around this time of year and he was inquiring of that too. We saw him at the Christmas concert and he came up to us and handed us a program. I assumed that for someone to go out of their way to give us a program that they would’ve been a member, but I was wrong haha. He came up to us at the park and was incredibly welcoming. Especially after he saw a young couple basically tell us to leave because this is not a place we should be proselytizing. We expressed that we were just checking it out. Rayele then came up to us and welcomed us. He was trying to get us to go in and have their jam filled donuts and hot chocolate. At first we politely declined, but as he was relentless in his invitations, we eventually gave in haha. He shared the Jews beliefs about Honica with us and how fundamental they are to know because that was the religion Jesus Christ grew up in. Despite being a Christian, he sees the good that the celebration brings and wants to be a part of it as well as invite others to join too. He told us that the Nanaimo newspaper for Christmas had the front cover featuring our nativity display at the church. He mentioned how good that is, especially considering the opposition you see in the world against the restored church. Of all the churches they could have chosen, they chose ours. He also shared that he was able to tour the Kirtland temple just after the restored church purchased it. He said the week before it was purchased they called a bunch of senior missionaries to give tours of the temple. It was an incredible experience for him and he feels a closeness to the temples. He marveled at the beauty of the architecture and how remarkable it is for the first restored temple. We had a long conversation about a bunch of more stuff, he’s quite the talker. But he asked us if we are having a church service on Sunday and said that he’d want to come again. So next time we meet him, I’m going to try to figure out why in the world he isn’t a member.

We met our wonderful friend Kyle and his two kids. He is so prepared! He has definitely been influenced and guided by God throughout his life. He said that he’s looking to get baptized in the future and wants his kids to be baptized as well—but he wants to make sure that they are old enough so they understand the commitment. He added that he believes that age is around eight years old, and we both looked at each other and said yeah that sounds pretty spot on haha. It was great getting to know him, he’s an incredible guy that has been working so hard to look after his two children. Really looking forward to the future with him. He’s already trying to make changes to his work hours so that he can come to church; he then reassured us that he will be at church every week when that happens.

Apostle Visiting the Mission

This MLC was quite remarkable. I believe this MLC is one that I have (and others mentioned) felt the Spirit the most out of any MLC I’ve been a part of; which I think is pretty remarkable considering that I’ve been in MLC since my 4th transfer—not only considering that but also considering that MLC is a seven hour meeting. To feel the Spirit that strongly throughout those seven hours is truly incredible! At the beginning of MLC we received news that Elder Neil L. Anderson, and Elder Takashi Wada will be visiting the mission on February 8th. Everyone in the MLC, including me, were quite surprised. At first I thought President Gill was talking about a future mission tour (which I thought would be far enough out in the future that I wouldn’t be in the mission by then). However, it’s coming up quick! It’s likely that they are coming to announce the location and plans of the Victoria temple; but I guess we will have to see what happens. President emphasized that we must prepare for the second coming to be prepared for the Apostle’s visit. He shared that we must be repenting and sanctifying ourselves each day (D&C 43:9). He boldly shared that “the Apostle’s visit will be a forerunner to the Savior Himself.” Now is the time to prepare.

The parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25) is the reality right now. The door is shutting; now is the time we choose if we will be prepared with oil in our lamps.

“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” (Matt. 25:10)

MLC Takeaways & Notes: The adversary loves the realm of indecision and lack of acting. Questions lead to inspiration and revelation; the entire D&C (and restoration) wouldn’t be revealed if Joseph Smith didn’t have questions. Love, Humility, & Obedience cycle — Inverted Pride Cycle. God speaks to us through the environment: He’s shouting at us in silence. “Every region in the world is seeing an acceleration in the growth of convert baptisms.” —David Weidman We need to increase the righteousness in the world to usher in the second coming.

Elder Jessop asked the MLC why the Zone Conference was longer than the other ones. President Gill’s reaction was priceless… he responded with a condescending and almost offended tone “it’s Christmas.” The reaction from both the Gill’s was priceless. He then shared a story where he was asked to speak on December 25th, he responded with “what topic should I speak on?” To which he received the reply, “it’s Christmas, Brother Gill.” Ladies and gentlemen there’s an important principle to learn here, never underestimate the importance of Christmas.

Timbits & Cancelled Referral

We had a lesson with Alabady today and wished him a happy birthday. We got him some Timbits, hope he enjoys them!

Stopped by a referral house, told her that she signed up on a YouTube ad. She told us she had no recollection of doing that. We then told her what we do as missionaries, asked and taught her about the Book of Mormon a bit, gave her one, only to get home and realize that she cancelled their referral right after we met with her. You know, for someone that had no idea that she signed up to meet through YouTube, she had no problem tracking down where she needed to cancel the request she made in the first place haha. Disappointing that she’s not interested, but now she has a Book of Mormon; hopefully one day she decides to pick it up.

The Only True and Living Church

This was probably the best lesson we’ve had with Lisa as of yet. Recently she hasn’t been to church because of some prior commitments at a neighborhood church she attended for eleven years; which is understandable, but we endeavored to establish the importance of the ordinance of the sacrament. Despite her not being baptized we need to help her focus on this sacred meeting. At the end of the lesson we showed her the Last Supper from the Bible videos. Elder Jessop had the idea to use that video and it was incredible! If you haven’t watched that one, I really recommend it; it’s probably one of the most spiritual videos that I’ve seen from the church. The Spirit was so strong. We were originally planning on inviting her to focus on her relationship with Jesus Christ as she partook of the sacrament. When Elder Jessop extended the invitation we both felt the Spirit to change it. He invited her to come to church every week to prepare for her baptism.

After that Lisa shared an experience with us. She said she made a bunch of juice for a Christmas dinner activity at that church. Unfortunately no one drank her juice, she recognized that wasn’t anything against her, but it still hurt. She struggled to take all the bottles of her juice with her as she made her trek back home. While waiting for the bus, to her surprise she discovered a big unused shopping bag. Almost as if it were placed there in her path. She recognized this tender mercy as her burdens were eased with the use of the bag. As she sat on the bus she noticed a bright light that was following the bus. Just as a sunset flickers by passing objects as you are driving, it was so for this bright light that was upon the bus. As she looked out of the window, the light descended upon The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She knew that the Spirit was directing her back.

Transfer News

I doubt I’ve ever had a companion as excited about transfer news as that of Elder Cockx. He’s been bouncing off the walls all week in anticipation for it haha. Definitely reserves the top spot for my most energetic companion, but he’s awesome. This morning we opened up the transfer board, together with Elder Clark (his trainer Elder Chapman went home, so he’s with us for the time being). The running joke is that he was going to stay in Nanaimo because he’s already been in Nanaimo for five transfers. To his excitement, he’s finally leaving Nanaimo, not that he didn’t like it, he’s just been here for too long haha. As anticipated I discovered that I am staying in Nanaimo, and receiving a new companion. Elder Jessop will now be my new companion, and I’m really looking forward to working with him. Now that I look back on it, we’ve kind of served around each other in and out my whole mission. The first time I believe I met him was while I was in Richmond—he was in the other district. Then he was in the other district in Prince George, but we saw each other for Zone Conference and while they stayed at our apartment, and now he’s coming over to Nanaimo with me. He’s a great Elder, lots of good things ahead. I’m sure gonna miss Elder Cockx and his energy.

We had the opportunity to meet our friend Prashant for the first time and taught him a bit about the Doctrine of Christ and the Restoration. The lesson was really good, you could tell that he felt the Spirit. This occurred when we spoke about and read from the Book of Mormon. That book never ceases to amaze me. It is unlike any other book I have ever read and is literally created for the gathering of Israel. The gathering wouldn’t be possible without it. I’m always reminded that I need to use it as much as I can in lessons.

Had a few lessons with our friend Lisa. Long story short her baptismal date is now February 14th again. She feels really good about that day for numerous reasons other than it being Valentine’s Day haha. So that’s what we are going to shoot for. She brought Elder Cockx a gift before he leaves Nanaimo, which was super sweet.

A Little Dive into Faith and Hope

We went over to the Walburger’s house one last time to teach Tenaya before Elder Cockx leaves. The lesson usually begins with the missionaries teaching her, then Brother Walburger brings up good points, the discussion continues to the point where he ends up teaching us. This lesson was probably the best I’ve seen since I’ve been here teaching them. We had a really good discussion about faith and hope. What they entail, the difference between them and how they both work together. I believe we all came out of that lesson with a new perspective. The consensus was that faith is an action, while hope is a feeling and expectations of good things to come. A good example of this is right after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. What was the first thing that they did after they were kicked out? They built an altar and offered sacrifices. Why did they do this? They had faith in the commandments they received from God, though they didn’t see him, they had faith that he was there. However at this point they didn’t have hope. What was there to hope for? It wasn’t till they were visited by an angel who spake unto them to bring forth eternal truth that the Spirit can bear witness of to bring hope.

“Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me. And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.” (Moses 5:6-7)

It was at this point that Adam and Eve could receive hope. This was characterized by the reception of the Holy Ghost—”and in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam” (Moses 5:9).

“And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.” (Moses 5:10-11)

It was at this point where they obtained hope and not just hope but the Christ-like attribute of hope. “And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.” (Moroni 7:41) The Christ-like attribute of hope is centered on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Christ-like attributes are needed and necessary for exaltation. You can have hope in a lot of things, but if you don’t place your hope in Jesus Christ you will be damned.

Let’s look at another example of faith and hope. This one is found in the account in Alma 36 where Alma the younger teaches his son Helaman about his conversion.

“Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments.” (Alma 36:13)

We find here that Alma had faith in God, he came to a realization of his mighty distance from him, harrowed up in his sins and iniquities. Despite his belief in God and His holy commandments, he rebelled against Him and His commandments, so I guess it could be argued that he didn’t have true faith and I would agree.

“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” (Alma 36:17-18)

Now this is where the hope comes in. He believed in God, he came to a complete knowledge of his sins and iniquities while he was thus suffering he then caught hold onto hope. This hope led to him “relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” (2 Nephi 31:19) which ultimately led to his redemption from the eternal pains of hell. Now the biggest difference between this example and the example of Adam and Eve was the first law of Heaven: Obedience. Although Adam and Eve didn’t understand or have a knowledge of the why behind God’s commandments they wilfully followed, Alma the younger however did not. There’s a wonderful Ensign article written by Bruce C. Hafen titled “On Dealing with Uncertainty”. He writes about three different levels of ambiguity and for the sake of the length of this email I’ll refrain from writing about them all (and also because my understanding of these levels is still developing). But here we read about the author’s stance on “level three of ambiguity.” This is what Adam and Eve have illustrated through their obedience outside of the garden of Eden.

“It seems to me that the most productive response to ambiguity is at level three, where we not only view things with our eyes wide open, but with our hearts wide open as well. When we do that, there will be many times when we are called upon to take some action at a point where we think we need more evidence before knowing what to do. Such occasions may range from following the counsel of the Brethren on birth control to accepting a home teaching assignment. My experience has taught me always to give the Lord and his church the benefit of any doubts I may have when some such case seems too close to call. I stress that the willingness to be believing and accepting in these cases is a very different matter from blind obedience. It is rather, a loving and knowing kind of obedience.”

The All-Knowing Nature of God

We discussed repentance, Brother Walburger brought up the point of predestination he shared that the scriptures discuss “those whom the Father hath given [him].” He didn’t directly quote any scripture but I believe he may have been pointing to this one: “But behold, ye have both heard my voice, and seen me; and ye are my sheep, and ye are numbered among those whom the Father hath given me.” (3 Nephi 15:24). We discussed what it means. What does it mean the Father hath given me? He shared that they are already numbered, similar to the Jehovah Witnesses and the 144,000. We talked about the all knowing nature of God. He shared for a long time he thought similarly to us that God knows those that will inherit His glory because He knows us so well; He knows the decisions that we will make due to our character and nature. Brother Walburger explained that this wasn’t why He knows. He brought up the point that God exists outside of time, to which he referenced the 4th dimension to this. This basically means that He has already seen everything past, present, and future, and that it has already happened. Due to this nature He would of course know and number all those that will inherit his glory.

Among these ideas there was so much else that was talked about, the burning of the earth twice, earth becoming a great Urim and Thummim that is a sea of glass, the size of the galaxy in lightyears. He shared that the parable of the Ten Virgins is for us and is currently happening right now. He mentioned that he doesn’t think we are going to be able to make it to the end of our missions; he believes that all missionaries everywhere in the world will be recalled really soon based on what’s going on in the world, to which I don’t know the magnitude of because we are completely isolated as missionaries haha. He brought up how he’s been studying Judaism and their ancient marriage ceremonies and how closely it connects with the temple and completes our understanding of what we do there. (It was actually super interesting, I would love to look into that more). He has many interesting ideas of and insights that I won’t be able to fully express here but we had a really good discussion.

So let’s begin with insights I’ve gained on the gospel this week. You’ll see a common theme here:

Priesthood ordinances The ordinance of the sacrament The ordinance of blessings

We had an MLC with the special guest, Elder Peter M. Johnson of the Area Presidency visiting and participating in the council (he was the general authority that visited the Stake Conference we had in Nanaimo this month). He shared that questions are preliminary to receive revelation. That particularly stood out to me and has been the conduit in which I’ve received insights on the gospel on these three particular aspects that I’d like to highlight.

Priesthood Ordinances

The first of these topics is upon priesthood ordinances. This week I have learned that priesthood ordinances are a physical representation of a spiritual reality. I can partake of the sacrament each week, but if I don’t align myself with God and act in faith to be obedient to His commandments, that ordinances will have no effect. Same with any other covenant I make. Whether or whether not it is done with proper priesthood authority, the end result has no effect. This is where we observe the disconnect where in this physical representation I may be outwardly showing something that is not in alignment with the spiritual reality. And that spiritual reality is that I am not aligned with God. In conclusion, the administration of the ordinance itself is not what makes the difference, the difference is made as I submit myself to God spiritually. Not to say that the administration of the ordinance isn’t important, because it definitely is, but that’s not what makes the difference. A common criticism that you see from those outside of the church is that there’s this contradiction between being saved by grace and being saved by ordinances. Once the true nature of the ordinance is understood, I’ve begun to understand that ordinances are only an outward manifestation of spiritual commitment. That spiritual commitment is what qualifies one for conditional salvation from sin.

“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20-21)

The Ordinance of the Sacrament

President David O. McKay taught, “no more sacred ordinance is administered in the Church of Christ than the administration of the sacrament.” This quote in addition to President Johnson’s observance of the sacrament being the only ordinance that we cannot do via proxy has encouraged me to study and ponder on this ordinance more. The process of reinforcing covenants cannot be done for others because the process of doing so is so individual and so personal. I’ve also been doing some research in regards to the history of the sacrament in the church and how it has evolved over time. There’s a great BYU Study paper on this titled, “The Lord’s Supper in Early Mormonism” that I recommend reading when getting into this topic.

The Ordinance of Blessings

The question of the difference between a prayer and a blessing came to my mind and has been effective in bringing inspiration and new insights this week. I came to understand that a blessing is an ordinance, a prayer is not. This encourages more questions which then encourages more inspiration. Why is a blessing an ordinance? Well typically ordinances reinforce or engage in a covenant. So what would be the covenant that we are engaging in with a blessing? Repentance is a covenant, when we are baptized we are engaging in the process of repentance; repentance occurs when we align our will with God’s. When one asks for a priesthood blessing, they are outwardly showing to others and God that they need God’s help and are willing to submit to the authority and power of the priesthood. Once this is done, they are repenting. This blessing serves as the sure witness of God’s will for that individual. That person can then receive a remission of sins from that ordinance.

“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” (James 5:14-15)’

MLC Featuring Elder Johnson

This MLC meeting was very memorable, it’s not often that we have a general authority come to it. (This is the first time for me, technically President Bragg did one for the mission tour but that was with the District Leaders).

Mission Presidents go through a process that takes longer than any leadership assignment in the church to identify and call those individuals to the assignment.

He highlighted “four” activities that missionaries should never go without.

• Personal Study
• Companionship Study
• Weekly & Daily Planning
• Partaking of the sacrament

So we watched the Young Adult devotional with Elder and Sister Bednar and it was incredible! We watched it with Tyler and Elder Tomasson. Elder Tomasson was just set apart the day before and will be serving a mission in Cameroon. So that’s super exciting! Anyways, if you haven’t watched the devotional, I urge you to take the time to, it’s well worth the time. I basically said pretty much what Elder Bednar said about AI in MLC like two weeks ago. So if you want to hear more of my thoughts on this subject you can read that email.

This particular quote from Elder Bednar, among others, stood out to me.

“Now beware. The ease of use, perceived accuracy, and rapid response time that characterize artificial intelligence can create a potentially beguiling, addictive, and suffocating influence on the exercise of our moral agency. Because AI is cloaked in the credibility and promises of scientific progress, we might naively be seduced into surrendering our precious moral agency to a technology that can only think telestial. By so doing, we may gradually be transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon. And we may unwittingly help Lucifer to achieve in mortality what he was unable to accomplish in premortality.”

Another thing that stood out to me from the devotional was that we must empower ourselves as agents to act, not as objects to be acted upon. This recurring idea and theme has been brought to MLC and Stake Conference (Elder Johnson talked about it) and now this devotional; this principle has become increasingly more relevant.

The Hospital Experience

I’ll try my best to describe this experience, but I don’t know if words can really describe it haha. It’s almost like I tried to explain the Office show to someone that has never seen a clip of it. You can’t understand it till you see it. Long story short, we received a call to give someone a priesthood blessing, which I mean that’s almost 100% time why missionaries are in a hospital, so you probably could’ve guessed it haha. So we went to go find this guy we’ve never met and give him a blessing. He was in the psychiatric unit, so we were definitely in for an experience. Let me tell you, we were only there for like 10 minutes, but it felt like we walked into a whole new world that exists outside of time. As soon as we walked into the hallway, we were greeted by a tall man holding a small flower. He acknowledged us by saying, “ah, children of God.” We then met the member that called us to give a blessing to someone there. We walked into their unit with her, and were greeted by a man running on a treadmill. The requester of the blessing met us, and he expressed that he was glad we were able to make it. We then found a somewhat private spot outside in a small greenhouse looking area to give the blessing. He sat down, expressed that he wanted the consecrated holy oil for the blessing. The one guy we met in the hallway came in with his friend. The member told them that they can come in only if they would be quiet. So then we did the blessing, and I gotta say it definitely lands the top spot for the weirdest blessing I’ve been a part of; not because of the words that were spoken. But because the guy we met in the hallway sat on the floor holding the hand of the recipient of the blessing and his friend held his hand. As I gave the words to the blessing, he mumbled the words of his blessing. After the blessing the guy’s friend asked us if he could tell us a secret. To which he responded, “I am Jesus Christ” the guy next to him then said “whatever he can conceive he can become in his dreams.” The guy next to him told us that we are “men of God that have come as destroying angels and to bring judgment.” He later asked me “look what I did to your keychain.” (He saw that I had keys in my pocket). I then asked him what he did, to which he responded that he turned it into titanium. He said our bones are now titanium and we are robocop. After that we made our descent out, and my companion said he was trying so hard not to laugh haha. Even though we were only in there for 10 minutes it seemed as if we were there for way longer. I tell you, it’s a whole different world. It was a fun experience, I’d do it again, mission core memory right there.

Tyler gets Baptized

We had Tyler’s baptism and it was awesome! He even shared a brief testimony with the ward which was powerful. He brought his grandma and now she wants to get baptized as well, so that’s pretty cool. We confirmed him a member of the church and bestowed upon him the Holy Ghost at the service as well. This was my very first time confirming, so that was a special experience. One of the members of the congregation transcribed the blessing and emailed it to Tyler. So I hope it was good enough haha. A member came up to me and told me the blessing was really good and that it sounded like I had a lot of experience with blessing. I’m glad that it went well because as soon as I put my hands on his head my mind went completely blank, but you know it wasn’t a blessing from me because if it was, it wouldn’t be anything remarkable. It’s all from God.

Emergency Transfer

We received a phone call from the Assistants about an emergency transfer. The Sydney sisters from the Victoria Zone are being transferred to Powell River. Which is pretty big! Considering that the Sydney area had 3 people on baptismal date and that Powell River is a completely new area being opened up. And on top of all of that, it’s the middle of the transfer. President could have waited till the transfer was over to put missionaries there, but I guess it needed to happen now. So he’s got to be receiving some big revelations on this because it makes absolutely zero sense on paper haha. He informed me two weeks ago in my interview with him that they secured an apartment up there. He was ready to do an emergency transfer back then and move the North Island Elders there. But that all changed when he discovered that they have one friend that they found and have been consistently teaching (which is a pretty big deal up there). Shout out to the North Island elders!

Joseph’s Patriarchal Blessing

Anyways that’s basically everything for this week. I’ve been studying Joseph Smith Jr’s patriarchal blessing which is incredible! If you haven’t studied it, take the time to read it here. Now you may read it and think we’ll duh it all just makes sense. And if that happens, read it again and really ponder it, it’s pretty epic (there’s parts of his blessing that haven’t been fulfilled yet).

“the heavenly Priesthood [bearers] will unite with the earthly, to bring about those great purposes; … a work that God and angels have contemplated with delight for generations past; that fired the souls of the ancient patriarchs and prophets; a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.”

Zone Conference

Zone Conference was very different from what I expected it to be. The Gill’s absolutely knocked it out of the park with their presentation. They shared about understanding the true character of Christ. They began by focusing on how the Savior often introduces himself by his obedience. This first law in heaven was the very first principle he would share to help the people understand his divine identity and mission. This leads into the next topic, understanding and synergizing the justice and mercy of His character. I believe that this spurred from the remarkable address from President Jeffrey R. Holland in his most recent general conference address.

“Yet down through history many have simplified, even trivialized our image of Him and His witness of who He was. They have reduced His righteousness to mere prudishness, His justice to mere anger, His mercy to mere permissiveness. We must not be guilty of such simplistic versions of Him that conveniently ignore teachings we find uncomfortable. This “dumbing down” has been true even regarding His ultimate defining virtue, His love.”

They shared two contrasting images of the Savior. One image depicts the Savior’s loving and merciful characteristic with children, and the other of Him riding a white horse with a crown, and an army behind him, characterizing his justice. Many more ancient orthodox paintings were shared depicting his justice. Often this was characterized by His sword of justice.

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34)

They shared many quotes from President Holland, these consist of: “Hold firmly to what Jesus Christ actually said,” “We must not be guilty of defining Jesus.”

There’s this wonderful BYU Study titled “The Resurrection and Recovering from Disillusionment”, it’s incredible, I recommend reading it. Much of what was discussed at Zone Conference really brought me back to this study and I believe it’s something all members of the church need to better come to grips with (including myself). The article throws you in the crux of Jerusalem and helps you begin to understand the culture of those that eagerly awaited for the anticipated Messiah. These people are actively looking for the “one special individual who will redeem Israel.” The Messiah was characterized as one that would “have dominion over all earthy kingdoms,” he would be “worshiped by all people,” “overthrow his enemies,” and he would “establish an everlasting kingdom.” They were looking for the successor of King David “who would throw off the terrible yoke of Roman oppression and bondage.” These people come to know Jesus of Nazareth and through his ministry and many mighty miracles. They are convinced this is the Messiah that they’ve been waiting for. It was only a matter of time that he was going to deliver Israel and overthrow the Roman government, right? It was devastating, despairing, and faith crushing to everything they have believed of the Messiah as they saw him bruised, whipped, scourged. A Messiah that didn’t fight back, didn’t conquer the kingdom, and suffered even until death being mocked with a crown of thorns. Even Jesus Christ’s very Apostles were left in disillusionment, after Jesus warns them and puts forth the things that will come regarding his death and resurrection. Some even outright denied it, the very thought wasn’t perceivable to them. Anyways, you guys know the history, he rose again, and this new understanding of the true character of the Messiah now began to be realized. The principle behind all of this is, not getting caught up in the traditions of our fathers. Don’t let that hinder you from coming to grips with divine and eternal truth. We must align our will with the Father’s.

The Gills concluded by sharing the purpose of the Book of Mormon is for Christ to manifest himself to all nations. Much of this was shared from a scholar, (they noted that they don’t normally do this) and unfortunately I don’t have the link to their work, but I’m sure you can find it.

There are three manifestations of Christ:

1. The Justice of Christ
2. The Mercy of Christ
3. A God who gives us a choice.

Without Justice and mercy, there is no choice, there is no freedom. Where there is no freedom, there is no growth. President Gill expressed that even though the scholar outlined these manifestations as though they are separate, he believes that both the justice and mercy are always present and that together characterizes Jesus the Christ.

Stake Conference

Stake Conference was incredible! It definitely surpassed my expectations. Elder Peter M. Johnson came to speak and with every session he introduced himself with, “I came to speak by way of assignment from an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Jeffrey R. Holland.” He established that the words that he shares with us are not from him, but from the Apostles and the Prophet; he is just sharing them on their behalf. We received an invitation from Elder Johnson to participate in the leadership session of the conference as well, so we got to see all the sessions. They sure made use of us being their haha; Elder Cockx and I were given handheld mics and our job was to run around and give them to all those that share their comments. This session highlighted the importance of love, share, and invite. Elder Johnson shared that as members of the church, we are doing a really great job with the love part, but not so much on the inviting part. He focused on the ministering of Jesus Christ to the Nephites and talked about the importance of ministering one by one. In ward council, just find one individual, one family that we can focus on to minister to.

The evening session of this conference was particularly powerful. He took time to learn as many people’s names as he could. For a guy like me that is so bad with names, it was incredible to see how well he remembered everyone’s names. It was like he already knew everyone there. During the hymns he would approach different parts of the congregation, shake people’s hands, and give them hugs. His testimony was so pure and powerful, he often was overcome with emotion that he struggled to get the words out. He often talked about the why behind everything, to the point where we get to the very striking core of eternal truth, such as why does Jesus love us?

The Trial of Faith

Tyler was interviewed for baptism, and he’s ready! We are incredibly excited for him, he’s such an amazing guy. When we reviewed the interview questions with him he told us that he listened to fifty sections of the Doctrine & Covenants. I also noticed that he has a Jesus wallpaper on his phone, so yeah he’s progressing super fast.

Now this is the hardest part. The baptism is a green light, he’s ready to go, and the adversary is doing everything within his power to stop him. He’s already been having a rough time at home with his family situation, but now it’s amped up to new heights. This is probably the hardest part of being a missionary, is watching people having to grow through the mist of darkness. If you can keep Tyler in your prayers, that would be very much appreciated.

Faith in Jesus Christ Before He Came

We had a great lesson with this guy and his wife who spoke Turkish. They were super nice, and brought their young kids too which was pretty fun. They kept themselves entertained in the nursery while we had our lesson. Now as you might imagine, this lesson was quite difficult because they speak primarily Turkish; they are both learning English, but we had to rely on Google Translate for a lot of it. They were very sincere and honest about what they believed which was nice. We showed them around the church a bit and the baptismal font. I believe they were able to feel the Spirit because the wife commented on the room and said that it was very beautiful and they were grateful for the opportunity to see it. We had another lesson and this time it was with a guy from Iraq which was pretty cool. We had a good discussion about faith with him. He brought up some interesting perspectives and it was a bit difficult to come to a good conclusion with him. At the end we all got a good laugh trying to find a middle ground with each other, so that was pretty good. He asked us how people can have faith in Jesus Christ before he was born. His understanding was that we can have faith in him because he was born, it’s history and we can read about his life. But how could those that lived before him had faith? We talked about the role of prophets and how they have been direct witnesses of Jesus Christ all the way from Adam (either by seeing visions, receiving revelations, and even seeing the premortal Jesus Christ in-person). But he was struggling to see how that answered his question. We continued to try to explain and help him draw a conclusion. We then asked him if he believed that He was going to come again. He said yes, and then we played his game and threw his argument back at him haha. How can you know that? That’s in the future, it’s not history, etc. His response was that he believed. Haha so we all got a good laugh at each other at the end. We concluded by talking about receiving a witness of the Holy Ghost. We can feel it in our hearts that it is true. He added how we don’t feel anything in our hearts, it’s all in our minds and how he uses his mind instead of his heart. We asked him if he believes that the Book of Mormon is true, and he said “yes.” We then asked, “well, how do you know?” In response, “it makes sense in my mind.” So you know, good on him for using his mind to find that the Book of Mormon is true. I personally like the approach of doing both with the witness of the Spirit being the foundation; but he may just be being influenced by the Spirit without realizing it.

Putting Tyler on Date

We had another great lesson with this guy named Tyler. He’s absolutely wonderful, his heart’s in the right place and really opened up to us. He’s going through a really tough time, but he really wants to get baptized as soon as he can. Hc’s been coming to church on Sunday and that’s been awesome. He’s also been listening to the Book of Mormon, so that’s been really good. He’s on baptismal date for November 23rd, but we may make it sooner if he’s progressing faster.

My First Sunday

This was my first Sunday in Nanaimo, and the ward seems super awesome! The ward is very kind and they fellowshipped with both of our friends that came. The ward’ also pretty big, probably 100-125 people came; bigger than any ward I’ve served in thus far. We also had a funny coincidence, in Prince George, we helped Brother Teixeira move and he just happened to move into this new ward that I’m staying in. Guess we can’t get rid of each other haha.

Nanaimo is Blessed

When I arrived, it rained a lot. Kinda was expecting it because it is a rainforest, but everyone said it usually doesn’t rain like this. Anyways, it’s cleared up now so we can do more in-person finding. We also are teaching a massive amount of people so that’s super sweet! Over the span of three days we’ve received nine referrals from people that signed up to learn more from social media. Which I was talking to Elder Cockx about and apparently they don’t usually get that many that quick. So I guess I brought them with me haha. We also had some guy named Dallas call us, and that’s pretty neat. He said that he was researching our church and wanted to know if tithing was required. I’m guessing he called us from Google Maps or something because he wasn’t expecting to talk to missionaries, but he was appreciative that we were able to answer his question. It sounded like he was sick and unable to go to work that day so he spent some time just researching the church haha. He’s been trying out other churches too, but he told us about his experience in the Catholic church that turned him away. As D&C puts it he is “only kept from the truth because [he] knows not where to find it.” But you know, he’s calling us, so he’s on track! We set up a time to meet with him so that he can learn more, and he’s going to try to come to church on Sunday! Crazy! Just from a guy that randomly decided to call us for a question. God is hastening his work. Especially with the Victoria temple being announced, that will be built on the Island. We just recently found out from some members that they have successfully purchased the land. It sounded like they had to move a road because of it.

“The standard of truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” –Joseph Smith

North America West Area Mission Leadership Seminar- A Church History Conversation

We had a really neat opportunity to watch a Mission Leadership Seminar as a whole mission. Elder Bragg (our area president) interviewed Elder Kyle S. McKay—the current church historian, he spoke in general conference with his most recent address, The Man Who Communed with Jehovah. We had the opportunity to submit questions about Joseph Smith and early church history to our mission president who then forwarded them to Elder Bragg for the interview. The meeting was really good, despite the questions being all the basic stuff that can be easily researched, blacks & the priesthood, polygamy, etc. What particularly stood out to me is when he talked about having experiences with the scriptures. He said we read the scriptures and we hear all about these stories and learn them. But we cannot truly understand them without experiencing them ourselves. He also talked about asking for forgiveness in your prayers and being cleansed of your sins. He shared that when he does this, it allows him to stand sinless before us while he speaks. Although he continues to sin and make mistakes, we all have the opportunity to stand sinless as we ask for forgiveness just as Joseph did.

Tyler’s Preparing for Covenants

Our friend Tyler is progressing incredibly fast. We are effectively meeting with him every day now. He’s quick to accept invitations, and has been doing an exceptional job in his repentance and conversion. I’m grateful for him and for the wonderful members that have fellowshipped him. In particular, we had Sister Tougas at a lesson, and she had so many great insights and was very supportive of him. She also brought cookies to the lesson haha, which is so nice. Our lesson went way longer than it did, but it may have been necessary. He had questions about the temple and we shared with him the video of Elder Bednar & Elder Renlund giving a tour of the Rome temple. If you haven’t seen that video, I recommend you watch it. The video is incredibly well put together and explained. Sister Tougas then invited us and him to her house the next day for dinner. She also invited two other new members who both came. We all made pizzas together, and the unity of Christ’s love was so strong between all of us. Tyler was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to come over and for all of the new friends he’s making along the way.

All Nations Flowing through Temples, MLC, & META AI Discussion

The Gill’s shared an experience at MLC about a meeting which included the North America West Area with Elder Bednar. In that meeting, Elder Bednar shared statistics regarding the pace in which temples are currently being built; he stated that at this pace, about 50 temples will be dedicated each year by 2030—that’s a temple being dedicated each week for a whole year. The whole world will have the opportunity to participate in temple open-houses; temples will be open to everyone. The prophecy in [Isaiah 2:2], will be truly fulfilled. These truly will be “days never to be forgotten.” The Gills also shared how there was a discussion of AI. I’m not entirely sure what was specifically discussed in that meeting in regards to that subject, they didn’t really share much beyond that it was a discussion topic. However they did mention that Elder Bednar put his general conference talk through AI and prompted it about the tone of the article. So rather than generating content, Elder Bednar was using it as a way of providing insight and direction.

This leads into my next topic of discussion. This was brought up preliminary to a question of making the META AI that we can access from our devices a “red zone.” META AI is an AI that you can interface with through Facebook or Facebook Messenger. Although the AI is incredibly basic and hasn’t been trained enough to be of any serious use, there’s also an image generator that can be used as well. Prior to the discussion of the Gills question, they were pretty set in-stone on making it a “red zone” which effectively is banning or avoiding it at all costs. There were a lot of points made on this subject. A few missionaries shared how they used it to generate the text for their Facebook posts and assisted in helping to construct their ideas more effectively and efficiently. Another missionary shared that they’ve been able to ask random questions particularly related to health or using a specific tool to get quick answers. Other missionaries shared that the absence of the AI would not affect their missionary efforts, we didn’t have AI before and having AI now hasn’t changed the work. The idea was also shared that this technology is not going away, and we need to learn how to use it.

It may be surprising to some, but my thoughts pertaining to this META AI ban are pretty neutral. I don’t particularly care for it right now. The quality of the output is not up to standards to warrant the need of having it. I do agree, I don’t believe it has had a big impact on missionary work… yet. I shared a few thoughts in the council, and my thoughts may have been seen as pro-META-AI, the sole purpose of them was to provide President & Sister Gill with good information so that they may have good inspiration. The first point I believe I mentioned was a quote from the prophet Russell M. Nelson, “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” You won’t know! You won’t know the difference between truth and error. We are walking into unprecedented territory. AI will blur the line so much that it will be impossible for the average seeker of truth to know. The guidance of the Holy Ghost will be more needed than ever in the history of the world. That mist of darkness is growing, confusion and opposition will rise to heights never before seen, but so is the access to the Lord’s power, His House is exalted upon many great mountains, and the power of Him is flowing out to all nations. Never has the world seen so many servants of God bestowed with power from on High, with the constant companionship of the third-member of the Godhead. He has given us access to all the blessings and tools that we need to conquer the darkness. As President Nelson stated, “The battle with sin is real.” This brings me to a thought that a member was sharing with us. He believes that the Spirit’s influence and the adversary’s influence upon our thoughts is way more than we realize. We are constantly having our thoughts tugged one way or the other and we don’t recognize it. But we have full control in which one we entertain or tune in to.

After laying this foundation, I shared that although it may seem pretty useless to missionary work right now, these tools will have an incredible impact on missionary work! I specifically mentioned AI translation which will open the gospel to channels of the world that previously were closed. Traditional translation software doesn’t cut it, we need a system that understands the culture and context so that we can have a more pure translation. I also shared how these tools can direct us to wonderful resources and information that can enhance our missionary endeavors. I expressed how the search function on the Gospel Library is not useful at all, but with AI I can be directed to so many great resources on a particular topic of study. And not only that, but this is incredibly useful when pointing our friends to resources that can help them. I shared how my father has found an incredible use of these technologies in directing him to specific resources of study on a particular topic. Good inspiration is based on good information! The church is becoming more and more aware of this principle in recent years and it’s been amazing to see how much they are focusing on informing us as members, especially on topics of great controversy in the early church. The church has also been putting a lot more emphasis on scholars and what they have to say. Anyways with AI technology, it will be easier than ever to have access to a multitude of this information, leading to better inspiration. This doesn’t come without it’s flaws, such as hallucination, false information and so on. But the idea is that you use a system like this to effectively and intelligently search an incredibly large database of information like a library and then point you to the books where you can find it.

Towards the end of the council Sister Gill shared that the reason why they wanted to “red zone” META AI. She shared with great emotion that there has been an extreme case that has affected the rest of a missionary’s life. At the conclusion of the council, they were unsure if we should “red zone” the usage of it. They decided to put it on hold, and President shared that he was very grateful for our insights and that we have brought up a lot that he hasn’t considered. He then shared this is what councils are for, he talked about the purposes of councils and how they can be effective. Throughout the rest of the MLC and particularly at the end, many marveled at how great that council was.

We had a lesson setup and secured with Brendan. He reached out to us and asked if it would be okay to bring a friend. That’s like the greatest thing that you could ever want someone to send you as a missionary! So when they arrived at the church, they all got out of the vehicle. To our surprise these were three YSA. We couldn’t believe it! It was incredible! Once we entered the church, I also couldn’t believe how busy the church was, it’s usually never busy during the day. There were kids running down the hallway—Brother Fraser was sitting on the couch and got to meet all of our new friends. We almost couldn’t find a room where we could teach them. They were almost all full on that side of the building. Luckily we found the perfect room, the High Council room. It was good, our new friends got a taste of the fun of the church activities as we were in the process of locating a room. I’m happy to report that we had a really great lesson with them; and of course we had to do the restoration! The lesson is hands down the best one, nobody can convince me otherwise. It’s the message that the world needs to hear, and it matters the most. They seemed quite interested too which was awesome! Questions were asked, and they had some good ones. Sometimes you really have to work for the answer because some people give the crappiest questions and there’s not much to work with. But their questions were either leading to the future of the lesson, or just were simply “good.” An example of this was, one asked, “how do they call prophets in the church?” We asked if they’ve heard about Joseph Smith before, and most of them said yes. We were probably both thinking, “oh crap.” It’s either a really good thing, or more likely a really bad thing. We then quickly followed-up and asked, “well, what do you know about Joseph Smith.” To which we get the reply, “not much, just have heard of him.” So they may have heard some things, but I’m glad that they were still willing to meet for a lesson and learn more, despite what they may or may not have already heard of him. One of them already had the Book of Mormon app on her phone, so that was super cool! We gave the two other ones copies of the Book of Mormon and they agreed to read some of it and pray about it. Pretty cool experience, definitely was not expecting that going into the lesson. But I’m grateful that the YSA is growing in Prince George.

Sickness goin’ around

So Elder Snow got a bit sick. We slowed down a bit, and unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to church on Sunday. We didn’t want to get anyone else sick so we thought it would be best to stay home. Which is so sad, because Landen came and brought his girlfriend to church. Luckily he texted us and said they had a good time at church and she said that she can see herself becoming a member; man you can’t get a better text than that as a missionary. The YSA continues to flourish! Elder Snow was getting better the following day so that’s been good.

Transfer News

This morning we opened up transfer news and I discovered that I am going to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island! So that’s pretty cool. I thought I was going to be transferred to another area up north, but I guess not. Dodged the Canadian winter haha. It should be pretty good, I’m looking forward to the next transfer. My new companion, Elder Cockx, has been there for five transfers. Which is kinda crazy, I remember dropping him and the trio he was with off at the Ferry while I was in Richmond.

Teaching a New Family

This week we met a family that was previously taught and had the wonderful opportunity to teach them. They were very receptive to the message. The father of the household had a recent leg injury within the past ten days and he was recovering from a major surgery. At the end of the lesson, we had the wonderful opportunity to give him a priesthood blessing. This is one of the few times that I have given non-members a priesthood blessing. It was a good experience, their son was very curious and asked a lot of questions haha. When we did the blessing he was asking about the oil and got up nice and close to see it. The family said that they have never seen a blessing like this before, but they truly appreciate it.

Spirituality Lesson

We had a lesson with someone we found on the street a couple weeks ago, and he was pretty cool. It was probably more of a spiritual discussion rather than a lesson. He loves talking about philosophy and theology. His faith lies in science and the way that the universe functions. He was raised Catholic, but he finds it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus. He said he has a hard time believing in the writings in which he is walking on water or raising people on the dead—his reasoning for this lies on how these acts defy the laws of science. He shared that he believes Jesus was a guy that lived around that time and instituted great teachings that have helped people and did a lot of good. As you might imagine we talked a lot about faith with him. He shared that his faith is laid upon the foundation of the evidence of science that can be tested and proved. He loves spirituality and how it can elevate you to be a better person. He was sharing some of the teachings of Buddhism with us, and how he uses meditation to clear his mind. There was this bracelet of rocks that he showed us and he talked about how each different color symbolizes something. He said that it helps him refocus as he thinks about each rock’s purpose throughout the day. And ultimately they could just be rocks, and don’t have much other meaning, but for him if it helps it’s good. It was cool talking to him, I definitely learned a bunch of new stuff. Our teachings about the after-life in the Plan of Salvation didn’t really stick with him, but he was particularly curious about the premortal existence. As not any religions really teach that.

For those that may be interested, here’s a few of my notes from general conference:

• Avoid being passive when it comes to serving & sharing the gospel.
• Worship is much more than just attending church.
• God is the source of eternal truth, turn to him rather than turning to other sources.
• Use other resources to enhance your guidance and direction as you turn to God.
• It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just need to try; He will make the difference.
• If you knew you could do it perfectly, you wouldn’t have to trust Him.
• The Heavenly Priesthood will unite with the earthly priesthood.
• Joseph Smith is a part of the Heavenly Priesthood and is not far from us. (President Gill’s testimony at MLC was on this very subject but he was incredibly more specific and shared how it pertained to this mission specifically)
• Study the Book of Mormon in a way to understand why each writing was included for us today.
• Obedience before understanding.
• “Are you too busy to eat lunch?” Spiritual nourishment is necessary.
• Spend less time talking and more time listening in prayers.
• Read less, ponder and savor more scriptures.
• 2024 to 2034 decade will be momentous, comparable to the years 1820 to 1830.
• These will be days never to be forgotten
• You are the gospel message.
• Your compensation is becoming all that He is.
• Avoid speculation or personal interpretation when teaching doctrine.
• Learn from the stories of the anti-Christ’s in the scriptures.

Chris’s Baptism

The sister’s friend Chris got baptized, and that was super sweet! There were years of work for both Chris and the missionaries that previously taught him to get him to this point. They had the Zoom running on the laptop and honestly it was pretty epic seeing an army of return missionaries. He probably had like 30 people on that Zoom; it was crazy! President Gill was going to try to fly out and come to his baptism, but sadly it didn’t work out. He did get the Zoom link though! He told the Sisters that he may or may not be sitting in another baptism while watching the Zoom haha. Anyways, Chris is awesome! He’s come a long way. I’m excited to see what the future holds for him.

Elect YSA

We had a lesson with our friend Landen, and he is amazing! He’s our age, and is such a good guy. He’s been reading some of the Book of Mormon and we taught him the Restoration; he was very appreciative of the lesson, he said it helped him understand a lot. Before we had our lesson with him he said that he’s actually looking into joining the church. He’s definitely on the right path. The other YSA in the ward are hyped and ready to join lessons with him, so that’s going to be pretty sweet. I hope the lesson went well for him, he was definitely really tired. He told us that he drove to Quesnel at 1am to go help his friend that was going through a mental breakdown. He’s been up for a while, but he still decided he wanted to meet. If we knew the situation we totally would’ve let him sleep, but he still came so that was pretty cool.

There’s another super elect YSA and his name is Hunter. Now Hunter has read the Book of Mormon in a week. A member that was at work gave him one, and the rest is history. We haven’t had a lesson with him yet, but I’m looking forward to teaching him.

Burns Lake is Burning

It began to get a bit smokey down here in Prince George. And we realized that there were several fires near Burns Lake. We then called the Elders that were there and they sent us pictures of the black sky and ash just falling. We contacted the Senior missionaries and they checked the fires and stuff online and it seemed like they were fine, it’s just the air quality was super bad. So we told them to stay indoors for a bit. Despite that they still went to a member meal which is even closer to the fires on the other side of the lake. But you know, after they were in Smither’s for so long with nothing going on, they needed something.

Transfer Conclusions

That’s basically everything worth mentioning for this week. The work’s moving forward in Prince George and I’m excited for the future. We just received transfer news, and honestly not much changed. Both me and Elder Snow are staying here and Zone Leaders. He’s broke my longest companion streak, so we’ll see just how long we can keep it going. I’m just praying they send me out of here for the winter haha.

We decided to have a little bit of fun on p-day for a change; so we went five-pin bowling. It was pretty good. Shoutout to Landen for telling us about this amazing game that’s only found in a few countries, and luckily we are in one of them. So basically, it’s exactly as it sounds like. You get five-pins. You get a small bowling ball with no grip holes—it’s small enough you can grip the whole ball in one hand. Which effectively makes it possible to chuck it at ridiculous speeds. Thus the game is incredibly fun, and I would reckon to say it’s better than OG bowling.

Transfer Things

The transfer news came in and basically nothing changed. So that was pretty cool, Elder Snow is now my longest companion going on three transfers now. I honestly wasn’t surprised to stay, I’ve done three transfers in every area, so it’ll be interesting to see where I go next. I’m just crossing my fingers I don’t have to be up here for the winter. But you know three transfers with one companion is pretty rare, so either me or Elder Snow are doing something really right, or we haven’t learned what we needed to learn yet; idk haha, but Elder Snow’s great, we get along super well, so I’m not complaining.

Baptismal Date & Opposition

We taught Landen again, and that was yet again another awesome lesson. We taught him about the doctrine of Christ and invited him to work towards the goal of a baptismal date. Which is pretty exciting! He mentioned how he has noticed that he’s receiving more opposition from his family and those around him. Everyone faces it, everytime they are about to do something really good, it suddenly gets extremely difficult. It’s sad to see it happen to those you teach, but ultimately it happens in all of our lives and we just need to hold fast to the iron rod. The same thing happened to our friend Parry; as soon as we put him on baptismal date he became extremely busy and we haven’t been able to meet since. He’s expressed that he’s still interested in working towards baptism, it’s just gotten really hard. But what we can learn from these experiences is that when things get hard, when they get dark, there is light at the end of the tunnel. More light than we have ever seen before. Just keep pressing forward, talking faith in each footstep. Trusting in God that he has a greater reward than we can imagine.

Exchange with Elder Astle

Our exchange was pretty good. We had two lessons at the old folk’s home. Pretty much every time I’m in Quesnel we go there haha. A new member came to one of the lessons and that was nice. He was definitely the person that needed to be there. They are teaching a friend that’s struggling to remember things. She’s quite older and believes in Jesus and loves the church, but she can’t remember the important things to pass the baptismal interview. The elders that are teaching her basically gave her a cheat-sheet with all the answers typed up on a big font for her to memorize and read. I have mixed feelings about this haha. But they can follow the spirit and see if she’s actually ready to be baptized. I also had a really good conversation with Elder Astle about follow-ups and how things are run in this mission compared to other missions. It was really interesting to hear about his friend’s mission and how they approach these meetings.

Interviews

Just a few highlights from my interview with President Gill. Friends need to have spiritual experiences otherwise they will not be able to hold onto their testimony. (We have a friend that doesn’t see the need to meet with us but read the whole Book of Mormon in a week). Asked about how long I have been in each area. Surrey (3 transfers), Richmond (3 transfers), and Prince George (now 3 transfers). He felt like I was in Richmond longer than 3. That day there was an issue where Facebook was down world-wide for the missionaries due to the church messing up their MASS360 configuration. They just barely sent out an email that they had a temporary fix in place and had instructions on how to fix it. President Gill copied and pasted the instructions to send it to the entire mission. He reviewed the process with me and asked if he should send it out. I added a few additional steps and said it should work. He was very excited to approve the message to Sister Gill; I think he was pretty stressed about it, so I was glad to help haha. It’s so funny how many of my interviews end up being fixing some sort of technical problem, but you know, I’m happy to help. He asked me if I felt like my faith was growing. It’s difficult to measure, I would say yes, it’s never stagnant; slowly but surely, I’m trying to trust God more and more each day. I learned later after the interviews, the Assistants told us this is a “growth area,” and President left us both here this transfer to continue to grow. So that’s pretty interesting. I feel like every area I should grow from, but you know, happy to be here.

Stake Conference 🥳

It was about that time again, so we hosted 10 elders in our apartment. That was pretty good, something in our apartment gets broken or wrecked everytime so hopefully It isn’t too bad this time. There was a YSA breakfast with Elder Hunsaker, and luckily we had a friend going so we were able to attend. It was awesome! Really glad we were able to make it. The message shared was really great. It was interesting when Elder Hunsaker was speaking about the second coming, he said that the Savior will come again in the next fifty years (we are living in 3 Nephi chapter 2 or 3). So that’s some food for thought, and based on President Gill’s testimony of Joseph Smith, the Lord is actively right in the work with us as it hastens. At Stake Conference they mentioned the amount of temples that the church is building and the membership numbers that we would need to sustain those temples. It’s clear that things will continue to speed up beyond anything that we could ever imagine. The greatest miracles are yet to come. I loved all of the thoughts at Stake Conference, but there are a few I would like to highlight.

Make the temple a part of every trip you go on. Every Fast Sunday pray for things to stop doing and things to start doing Stop letting your burdens weigh you down; be willing to let go of them. They really, really, really want a temple up north. They emailed the First Presidency to not forget about them. We’ll see a temple sometime in the future. Not sure if it will be next general conference as they all think, but we’ll see.

Zone Conference

We had Zone Conference and it was amazing! Probably one of the best I have ever been too! There’s only one other one that’s really up there with it, so that was pretty good. Surprisingly it was very interactive. We had an activity for our training about setting goals and making plans with using the resources of marshmallows and toothpicks to build towers. It went better than we thought, we had to base it off of chapter 8 of PMG and I feel like we are always doing Zone Conferences on it. But I’m glad we were able to integrate it into something that wasn’t a terrible training. Elder Orbeck & Elder Astle were doing a musical number and they wanted us to do it with them. We ended up doing it with them, and suddenly the Gill’s stood up and sang it with them as well. Apparently they planned this all along and we had no idea. So that was pretty cool.

Exchange with Elder Smith

After Zone Conference we had an exchange with the Assistants. And that was probably one of the most memorable exchanges both me and Elder Smith have ever had. The very first door we knocked, an extremely friendly guy answered and was really excited to talk to us. He then says that missionaries keep stopping by his place and must feel the Holy Spirit inspire them to come. He then proceeds to tell us that we are not Christian and that we should stop calling ourselves Christian. He talks about how the baptists & the presbyterians and all of these other church’s work together and all call each other Brothers and Sisters in Christ. He then adds that they all don’t call us that. And then makes his argument that since all of these churches (the body of Christ) agree that we aren’t Christians then we are not Christians. Now keep in mind his kids are just standing watching him at the door, one even comes up to him and said that Mom wants him back inside; he chuckles and continues to keep chatting. We tell him that “public opinion is not the arbiter of truth.” And he’s like yes, exactly! Which confused me because his whole point was about public opinion. He tells us that we live in this big echo chamber and because we grew up in this we have no idea. He then said, let me guess, you guys are from Utah. Luckily Elder Smith was from New Zealand haha, telling people I’m from Utah is the worst, even with members haha. He then moves on and we begin talking about the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he’s ever taken any time to actually read it. He said he read a little bit, but it wasn’t worth the time. He brought up these scholars that are rating Bible translations and Scriptures and said the Book of Mormon didn’t pass the test. Therefore it’s not even worth looking at. He asked us if we’ve read any other Bible translations, specifically the NIV (New International Version) and we both said that we have read a bit of it. Which is interesting because I think the NIV is not even that good, it’s way over used and there’s more accurate translations. He told us that we don’t follow Jesus and we can’t call ourselves Christians. He then challenged us to not call ourselves Christians for a week and see if anyone recognizes us as Christians without us telling them. We declined his challenge and told him we aren’t going to deny that we follow Christ. We invited him to take time to actually read the Book of Mormon and prayerfully ask God if it’s true. He basically laughed at us, and uh yeah, so we headed our own ways. It was definitely a very interesting and memorable interaction. It’s interesting to see the way that others teach and try to convince people using the strategies of the Adversary versus the persuading influence of God’s ways. The Book of Mormon is a great example of the anti-Christ’s and their tactics. This principle is illustrated at the beginning of Alma with Nehor and the end with Korihor right before the war chapters. Some people’s flawed logic continues to surprise me and I hope that they don’t overwhelm those that are sincerely seeking the truth. We met a lot of interesting people on the exchange. Lots of interactions surprisingly in such a short period of time. We had multiple people drive by us and yell some things that will not be recited here. Within two minutes we had 3 people drive by and say stuff which hasn’t really happened much before. So that was weird. But you know, that’s just how it goes. Anyways, it was a cool exchange. We at least got someone’s number.

Had a pretty good exchange with Elder Orbeck again. I love how bold he is, sometimes I think it’s going to be too much for that person, or they will take it the wrong way; but it ends up being exactly what they need. Here’s an example: We were at the Hopper’s house—the wife is a member, the husband isn’t. She likes to have us over because she’s unable to attend church with her sickness. Her son was just arriving home, and we got talking about him a bit. He’s a member, but it sounded like after covid he stopped going to church. When he arrived in the house Elder Orbeck said that he heard that he used to go to church. He then asked why he doesn’t go to church anymore. Her son didn’t really give much of an answer, he just said he just doesn’t. Elder Orbeck then gave him a Book of Mormon and he said, I’ll give you this book but you’ll have to come back to church to give it back to us. Sister Hopper was quick to jump in and said she’ll buy him a brand new suit if he tries to come to church. He smiled and said okay, but he’s got to get going. He planned on doing some bear hunting after work. Sister Hopper was really impressed and grateful that he was straightforward with him.

Copenhagen Cowboy

At the park today we met this awesome young guy from Denmark. He accepted a Book of Mormon and began to read it. He was a really nice guy and accepted the message. He told us he was from Denmark, and we commented on how good his English was. He was like “really?” And we were like “yeah man.” Then he asked “do I have a strong accent?” We added “a little bit, but not too much.” He then said how he thought he sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger and he said how he thought that wasn’t very cool. We both were like, “no that’s actually super sweet, the accent’s awesome.” He asked, “you really think so?” And we said that he has a really cool accent. It was quite an awesome interaction. He said he was from Copenhagen and he just moved here. He’s working at a ranch and riding horses and stuff. Pretty legendary! The Copenhagen Cowboy!

YSA Activity

The senior missionaries planned out this big YSA activity. They had this nice hike, with lunch and stuff. And afterwards they headed back to the church for a bunch of activities and dinner. We showed up in the late afternoon, and I’m glad we were able to support them. Sadly they didn’t get as many people to come out as they thought they would. But they still had a good time and the activities went pretty well.

Worldwide Mission

I have to say, British Columbia is a world-wide mission. We are teaching a guy from Ukraine, a guy from Denmark, and a guy from India. I don’t know what more represents the gathering of Israel. Just like Elder Bragg said, “the power from this mission comes from diverse convert baptisms.” Teaching and helping these people come unto Christ is the gateway to bringing the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. And it begins as these people move to BC for work and school and stuff.

This week’s been a bit stressful and busy, we had Zone Conference and two exchanges. The first of those two exchanges was with Elder Orbeck, he’s a legend! We had a really good exchange, he’s from Tahiti and actually a recent convert to the church, so he’s a bit older, but super awesome! We picked up some lunch, but didn’t have the time to eat it, we needed to drive straight to Quesnel for a lesson. We read through some of The Book of Mormon with their friend and have a spiritually filled lesson. Elder Orbeck was surprised how spiritual it was. We drove straight to another lesson at the church. The Spirit was really working in this lesson too, it was crazy. Brother Coleman joined us it, and was legendary! We taught the Plan of Salvation and he dropped the most epic Gandalf quote. I’m actually really considering using this in our future lessons now haha. The quote is something along the lines of: “Death is a gateway to your next grand adventure.” Just drop that quote, and boom spirit mic drop, tell me that’s not freaking awesome! After that lesson we finally had a chance to eat our lunch and head back to the apartment. You know it’s days like this that makes missionary work 100% worth it.

12 Elders vs 1 Apartment

Our apartment has room for eight elders max. So you may be wondering how we arrived at having 12 elders in our apartment. Glad you asked! It’s kind of a long story, it all began as we put together our travel plans for a zone the size of Texas. Oh yeah, and also Haida Gwaii, which the sisters need to travel via Ferry for eight hours, only to then travel another 8 hours by car. Anyways, after taking into consideration our apartment size and the limited air mattresses we have, we planned to have some elders drive an extra hour to the Quesnel apartment so that we would have enough room. After finalizing our plans we sent them off to the Assistants to be approved. In response to our travel plans, they basically told us that nobody will be driving an extra hour to Quesnel, they want us to host them all. We then responded and asked if they were sure they wanted twelve elders in one apartment. We weren’t sure if they knew how many we would be hosting, but they gave us a thumbs up, so I guess we just gotta make this thing work. So long story short, we hosted twelve elders. While the APs stayed in the Quesnel apartment with only one other set of elders. You know… we don’t get paid enough for this.

But God is a God of miracles, and orchestrates everything on such a grand and detailed scale. He made it work. I am truly grateful we have two showers.

Zone Conference

We made it through yet another Zone Conference. And I got to say, this was probably the most stressful Zone Conference I’ve planned for. But here we are again, God makes it all work. The new members came and they were so awesome! The panel worked out really well. One of the new members used to be in the army and he shared a bit about his experience in Afghanistan; he has so much faith, it’s testimonies like that, the whole world needs to know. We also had to plan the Assistants training, which was a big contributor to our stress levels. We were fighting against the clock the whole time. We had every companionship of each district do a church tour where we explain My Covenant Path experiences in different rooms in the church. These explanations needed to be about 1-2 minutes long so we could finish in time. We were also in two different groups because of the two different districts, so there were so many things to coordinate. So yeah, we enjoyed basically doing the APs training for them.

AP Exchange

Right after Zone Conference we did an exchange with the Assistants. I was so exhausted after the conference, but we had an exchange ahead of us, so I just did the best I could. I was with Elder Westover, and we had a lesson over Zoom with one of their friends right after which was pretty good. Elder Westover is a Chinese speaking missionary, so naturally he’s looking out for people that speak Chinese to talk to. He was asking us if we have any Chinese friends, we didn’t have a single one; but we did have a new member that is Chinese, and he is so awesome! He was just in Vancouver with his sister so I wasn’t sure if he was back in Prince George. His sister was just visiting him a couple weeks ago. The senior couple here actually had them over for dinner and games which was sweet. We heard that his sister only spoke Chinese. Her brother wanted to introduce the gospel to her, but didn’t want to be too pushy with it. Anyways, I remembered all of this, but I didn’t know if they were back in Prince George or if his sister is still there with him. So we shot them a text, and then decided to visit. Talk about God orchestrating this. We had a brief Plan of Salvation lesson, and by we, Elder Westover did it and I was his companion haha. It was perfect, his sister was able to learn more, she will be going to Korea for school, but he got her contact and stuff.

Interviews

Interviews were pretty good. Nothing too special, President wants us to help the other missionaries know that we are pioneers for the Prince George area. It sounds like it’s been hard for some missionaries because they don’t see much happening. But he told me that we need to help them understand that they are prophets of their areas. Sister Gill was showing us the Persian speaking devotional with Elder Bednar in it. That was pretty cool.

We had unique institute experiences. We helped out Sister Duncan with setting up and giving out pizza to the homeless, which was pretty cool. We walked around downtown with a bag full of sodas and some pizza slices and handed them out. So we didn’t really have our formal institute class, but it was great to see the people that come to institute help out with feeding the homeless.

Unique MLC Experience

We flew back down to Richmond for MLC. The night before MLC we got some food with the tech elders. We went to this restaurant that was on the dock by the ocean. So we got to eat, watch the sunset, and be by the boats. You definitely pay for it, but you know, it’s the experience that counts. We were surprised that it was a bit smoky in Richmond as well. I would’ve thought that the ocean would’ve cleared that up. MLC was pretty good, it initiated a lot more planning that needs to be completed for Zone Conference, but it’s all good. At the very end of the meeting President Gill paused and said “I feel as if we need to stand.” He then stood up with Sister Gill and he shared his testimony. The words that were shared cannot be written at this time. We were all astonished; I was surprised he was able to share what he shared. I’ve never heard a testimony like this in my life. This is one of those experiences you’ll always remember for the rest of your life.

Moving Furniture

We helped out Brother Dol with moving some furniture. He is an absolute powerhouse. He’s in his 60s, and I think normally he tries to do all of this by himself. So when he reaches out for help, you know he really needs it. We were moving a few boards and clearing the way, so that we could move the couch. We look back, and to our surprise he has the whole couch on one side in the air, ready for us to grab. He doesn’t mess around, he gets things done, he’s pretty awesome. He’s redoing a lot of his house and building a deck, so he’s been quite busy. I’m grateful we had the opportunity to stop by and help him out a bit.

Buncha Planning

We’ve been doing a bunch of planning for our Zone Conference. We’re working on a panel with some recently baptized converts, which should hopefully be pretty cool. We’re still ironing out a lot of the details with it. Planning has been a bit difficult and all over the place because the APs keep changing it, throwing wrenches in our plans. But we’re making it work.

We had transfers this week; both Elder Snow and I are staying in Prince George as Zone Leaders, so that’s pretty cool. Since Elder Astle’s companion, Elder Young, was traveling down to the lower-mainland he got to hang around with us for a day till his next companion came in.

Friend brought a Friend

Our friend Andrii brought his friend and we had a lesson with them, which was super awesome. His native language is Ukrainian so there was a bit of a language barrier, so I’m hoping that the Spirit carried the message. His friend that he brought was someone who helped teach English class; I assumed he brought them so they could help translate. But I think they were interested in learning more too, because they didn’t translate anything haha. Kinda weird having to teach a lesson and tailor it to the needs of both of them, but hey, the Spirit definitely does the job. The lesson went pretty well, he said he wants to meet every Friday for lessons!

Helping with a Move

We had finding scheduled for all day. No lessons, no nothing. While we were driving from down-town we received a call from a member. They said that they were struggling helping out a member move and needed more help. Luckily we didn’t really have any plans—so we just showed up and helped out for a couple hours. They’ve rented out a moving truck and had a ton of stuff to move. Since they only had the truck for a limited span of a few days, we had to get everything moved quickly. The move worked out, we were able to help get a bulk of the stuff moved.

Teaching Sunday School

A text came in, and we were asked if we could teach the Sunday school class for the youth. Another text came in later that night, asking if we could teach the Sunday school class for the adults. I feel kind of bad throwing it on the sisters to teach adult Sunday school haha, but hey we already accepted teaching youth. So basically the new two sisters that came in had the opportunity to teach that while we taught the youth. I’m sure they’ll probably get more dinner appointments from that, so in the end it’ll work out for them. Teaching the youth was pretty good, it’s a bit difficult when they aren’t very talkative, but I hope they enjoyed it.

Spiritual Thought

“Always expecting the spectacular, many will miss entirely the constant flow of revealed communication.” —President Spencer W. Kimbal

As a whole mission we celebrated Pioneer Day. So basically this meant no cars. We walked everywhere we needed to go. We began our day walking to the park by the church. Not too much came out of it, but we had a church tour coming up so we headed over to it. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it at this point, but we left the church keys at the apartment. Once we arrived, we discovered that they weren’t in our possession; we didn’t have enough time to walk back to the apartment, grab the keys and walk to the church. Luckily, there was a member casually hanging out in the parking lot that had keys to the building. Which was definitely a miracle. So the tour was a success. We then began our journey back to the apartment. On our way back rain started dumping out of nowhere. We happened to bring our rain jackets which was good, but the rain was so strong that our pants were completely soaked. We took refuge in a nearby Mcdonald’s and got some hot chocolate—which wasn’t that great, but hey we were out of the rain.

Exchanges

Pioneer day threw off our exchange plans with Elder Astle and Elder Young—just because we had to have district council over Zoom. But that’s okay, we met up the next day and had them. We drove up to Hixon—which is the only halfway point between us and Quesnel—and we began our exchanges. Hixon Takeout was the only restaurant in town, so as you might imagine, that’s what we got. It was really good, it definitely cost more, but definitely worth it. So the lady at the window yells out small ice cream, then Elder Astle goes to pick it up and let me tell you, that was no small ice cream. The ice cream was probably 3 times bigger than the cone! It was a mini-skyscraper! It was pretty epic and comical haha. It makes you wonder what their large ice cream may look like. We all got Hixon burgers and those were pretty good, you definitely pay for it, but it’s worth it if you’re in Hixon. Other than that my exchange with Elder Young wasn’t super eventful. Which was unfortunate because I was really excited to teach our friend Parry with Elder Young but he was super busy. So our day consisted of walking around at the park, messaging and calling people, and trying to visit people. We didn’t really see much success from it. But the last guy that we went to visit was home and had a long chat with us. The missionaries have done service for him and his wife in the past. But he was more than willing to chat some more with us. He’s quite the interesting character, we had a crazy conversation ranging from his born again beliefs and their not being a need to attend a church, to aliens, to why we shouldn’t dress nicely, to going back to the old church where people would whip their backs, and to the idea that people need a government that enforces church standards and policies more. Anyways, it was one of those weird interactions, but he took a Book of Mormon so hopefully he reads some of it.

Friends Came to Church this Week!

We never thought the day would come. We’ve given so many church tours, invited people to come to church, people committed to come, but nobody would show up. That was until this week. We had a recent referral come and bring his friend to church. They were so awesome! They don’t have very much background with Christianity, but they saw the church ad on YouTube and wanted to see what it was like. Now I got to say, Sikh people are probably some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They are just so awesome! We saw two Sikh guys at the park the other day and we asked them if they would like to hear a message about God; and they were like yeah man! So we shared a bit with them, they were willing to hear a bit about the Book of Mormon and it was great. We hope that these other two Sikh guys enjoyed the church service. We gave them a Book of Mormon as well, and they were excited to read some of it.

We flew back down to Richmond for MLC again. It feels like we were just there, but that was pretty good. There was a letter that was sent from the First Presidency that President & Sister Gill read to us. As you might of guessed, it’s related to the current political events that occured recently. Basically, just be extra careful now, they remphasized how we shouldn’t be talking about politics or making a political stance, and basically avoiding large gatherings and stuff. Gotta stay safe out there! Funnily enough someone pointed out that we are in Canada, it can’t be that bad… It’s pretty humorous, I don’t think I’ve heard Canadian politics once here, only American haha. We had a scripture study on Alma 30 which was pretty good. It was so similar to a previous conversation we had the day before with a guy at Yummy Slice, it was uncanny. We discussed integrating how religion promotes really high moral values and how to integrate that into society. The guy at Yummy Slice had been to our church a few times and decided it wasn’t right for him, but he recognized us as missionaries. He asked us if we have ever been to Vancouver. Then he went on to talk about how crappy the city is. He talked about all the issues with homeless in the city, and how the government wasn’t really doing anything to take care of it. He talked about how these cities are becoming dumps and it’s spreading all around the world. He then told us that we need to be active in the community and electing “our guys,” more “mormons” into society and stuff. He said if we can do that, then we could solve all of these issues. It was interesting talking to him. And it was even more interesting how this was being touched on in MLC. If you want to hear my take on it— the solution is temples.

Storms are Coming

We got to see some pretty sweet thunder storms. Unfortunately, with the extraordinary amount of heat, and with it being fire season there’s been so many fires in Prince George. Hopefully the rain helps, but the lightning wont. But you know, I won’t pass up a neat opportunity to get some nice pics. It’ll be interesting to see if they evacuate any of the areas in Prince George. It seems highly likely at this point. Apparently there’s about 281 active forest fires in BC.

Attending Five Baptisms

The Sisters that we are ward sharing with had a family that they were teaching get baptized today! They are the Gomez family, and they are awesome! One could assume that they were members already, they are so prepared. So we got to go to that, and that was truly remarkable! It’s really special seeing a family united in making covenants with God. We also got approval from President to go see the baptism of Dave. Elder Snow taught Dave quite a bit while he was in Quesnel, so it was a really special opportunity for him to see Dave again. Dave is just super awesome! Again, just super prepared. His wife who isn’t a member came, and asked him “why did you get baptized again?” To which Dave gave the most on-point response: “Priesthood Authority.” He then said “you should try it, sleep on that.”

Two Talks in a Row

Somehow I’ve been able to get this far in my mission without having to give a talk in a ward. Just last week was my first time having to prepare one while in-field. This week, we’ve been asked to speak in the other ward. Perks of ward sharing! I’m not complaining too much, I do actually quite enjoy putting together talks. So there’s yet another talk on my website. Feel free to check it out if you’d like.

The prophet Elijah and many of us can learn from his great observance: “And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” (1 Kgs. 19:12)

Our lives can be compared to this radio; we are constantly receiving a stream of information and noise. The stations we choose and the noise we tune out is up to us.

God is always speaking to us. We choose to tune him out. Our lives often become filled with extraneous noise and static, to the point where we fail to recognize the Savior’s voice.

This principle is remarkably illustrated when the Savior appeared to the Nephites.

The account in 3 Nephi 11 reads: “And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.

…again they heard the voice, and they understood it not.

And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came. And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard;” (3 Ne. 11:3-6)

Fortunately, the Nephites were able to hear God’s voice amid the hustle and rustle of daily life. However, despite hearing His voice—they weren’t able to recognize it. So not once, not twice, but it was only after the third time of hearing His voice they were able to understand.

Hearing the voice of the Lord requires a significant amount of effort on our end. Despite the Nephites actively searching for the Lord’s voice, they struggled to understand His voice the first two times. Sister Tracy Y. Browning shared her experience expending her efforts to hear the Savior’s voice, she writes: “Through rigorous effort to look to and for Jesus Christ in my every thought and deed, my eyes were enlightened and my understanding quickened to recognize that Jesus Christ was calling for me to ‘come unto’ Him. (Matt. 11:28)”

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for her nor the Nephites to give heed unto the Savior’s voice. It requires immense spiritual work on our part. Jesus Christ himself admonishes us to “Look unto [him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” (D&C 6:36) Even the Savior himself prepared for his ministry with an expansive amount of spiritual work and continued to do it throughout His ministry.

When Jesus calls and commissions the Twelve in the account of 3 Nephi he says: “And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” (3 Ne. 12:6)

Sister Sheri L. Dew shared that, “hungering and thirsting translate to sheer spiritual labor. …Spiritual work works and is the key to learning to hear the voice of the Lord.”

…Our ability to hear spiritually is linked to our willingness to work at it. President Hinckley has often said that the only way he knows to get anything done is to get on his knees and plead for help and then get on his feet and go to work. That combination of faith and hard work is the consummate curriculum for learning the language of the Spirit.”

President Jeffrey R. Holland sheds light on this subject in his most recent address, he states: “Luke describes Jesus’s descent into His expiation as requiring Him to pray ‘more earnestly.’ (Luke 22:44) How does one who was perfect pray more earnestly? We assume that all of His prayers were earnest, yet in fulfilling His atoning sacrifice and through the pain that attended its universal reach, He felt to pray ever more pleadingly, with the weight of His offering finally bringing blood from every pore.”

The static in our lives is not stagnant. It’s always changing. We either are getting closer to hearing the Savior’s voice or further away. We get to choose if we are going to make the time to hear the Savior’s voice in our lives. If we are going to pray more earnestly. If we are going to find time for those still moments. We get to choose to hear Him.

In Elder David A. Bednar’s most recent General Conference address, he proclaimed: “I believe the Lord’s admonition to ‘be still’ entails much more than simply not talking or not moving. Perhaps His intent is for us to remember and rely upon Him and His power ‘at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in.’ (Mosiah 18:9) Thus, ‘be still’ may be a way of reminding us to focus upon the Savior unfailingly as the ultimate source of the spiritual stillness of the soul that strengthens us to do and overcome hard things.”

With this in mind we must be looking to Jesus Christ every day, and ‘relying alone upon the merits of Christ.’ (Moro. 6:4)

The Prophet Russell M. Nelson warned us: “in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

Luckily there’s a remarkable promise in the sacrament prayers for those that have entered into a covenant connection with God.

If we are willing to…

• Take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ
• Always remember him
• Keep his commandments

Then, we are promised to always have his spirit to be with us.

Brothers and sisters, the gift of the Holy Ghost is one of the greatest gifts from God. If we are worthy of it, we can always have the presence of a member of the Godhead with us. Protecting us, warning us, leading us. We must do the spiritual work needed to tune our signals to his voice.

Over the course of my mission I have come to a better understanding of the remarkable language of the spirit. As you become more acquainted with the language of the spirit, one can assume that it becomes easier to hear in our daily lives. We learn from these examples that it requires a great deal of effort, even those that are most experienced in it.

I discovered more often than not, I’m following the spirit—even when I don’t recognize it. It’s only after I look back I am able to recognize it. I believe we have all experienced that.

This verse in Doctrine and Covenants section nine has embodied much of what I’ve come to learn of the language of the spirit throughout my mission. Verse 8 reads, “that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.” (D&C 9:8)

Time and time again I’ve learned, we can’t just sit around and wait for a spiritual prompting to come around. We have to act! God wants us to be agents for ourselves, and pressing forward without the sure confidence of a spiritual prompting is an act of faith. We wouldn’t really have to exercise a lot of faith if God just told us everything that we need to do. And it’s hard. But as we trust in Jesus Christ everything always works out in the end.

Just as the Lord did to the Brother of Jared, he may ask, “what will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?” (Ether 2:33) Maybe he won’t ask us about lighting vessels, but he definitely will counsel us in our lives so that we may find a solution for ourselves. It’s clear that the Lord already knows of many solutions that would solve the Brother of Jared’s problem. But he wanted him to resolve it for himself.

I promise that as you put in the spiritual work needed to tune your signals to the voice of the Lord you will Hear Him more; you will get to know him better and you will come to understand your divine role in His great Plan of Salvation better.

Brothers and sisters, I bear you my witness. God is in the details of our daily lives. He’s here for us; his arms are stretched outward for us. It’s up to us to turn to him—to search for His voice.

There once was a man, a man that the Lord gave great extraordinary gifts and remarkable talents to, a man who was gifted, a man who didn’t understand the great eternal weight given to him, a man that worried due to risk of vulnerability, a man who wanted to conserve and conceal what he had, a man that feared greatly, a man who despite his remarkable eternal potential and gifts failed to understand their significance, a man whom the Lord wishes he would trust and follow him—yet the Lord’s love remains, waiting for him to embrace his true potential.

The Lord saw this man. He knew him. He cherished him. His heart ached with sorrow for all that He gave Him that was buried. The Lord’s voice whispered words of encouragement and strength to him. Yet this man was absorbed in doubt and fear. The man’s Father had a marvelous plan in-store for him. He ordained a magnificent destiny specifically for this man. He found his heart aching with sorrow as He watched the man struggle to find the joy that He found. The Father and Lord’s love remained beckoning him to embrace his true purpose.

At various points in our lives, we may find ourselves in this man’s shoes. Lacking to fulfill what our Father has lined out for us. But with the power of Jesus Christ, we can do all things. That is why God has given us covenants, to empower us, to bind us to him, to making the impossible possible. These covenants allow us to better understand this great marvelous plan our Father has for us and the role that we play in it.

At baptism we covenant keep four things: Be willing to take upon yourself the name of Christ Keep the commandments of God Serve God and others Endure to the End

Reflect on your life for a moment: what are some things that we do each day to display our willingness to take the Lord’s name upon us?

President Russell M. Nelson has taught us that “taking the Savior’s name upon us includes declaring and witnessing to others—through our actions and our words—that Jesus is the Christ.”

Jesus Christ commands us in 3 Nephi, “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. …I have commanded that … ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world; and whosoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptation.” (3 Nephi 18:24-25)

Elder M. Russel Ballard said, “When we covenant in the waters of baptism to ‘stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places,’ we’re not talking solely about fast and testimony meetings. It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is always the right thing to do—always”

Jesus Christ needs disciples. It’s not a small task to stand as a witness of Him, it’s definitely not easy, but it is so rewarding and worthwhile. There are few things in life that are as important as standing as a witness of Christ.

President Russel M. Nelson mentioned, “We have the sacred responsibility to share the power and peace of Jesus Christ with all who will listen and who will let God prevail in their lives. Every person who has made covenants with God has promised to care about others and serve those in need. We can demonstrate faith in God and always be ready to respond to those who ask about “the hope that is in [us].” Each of us has a role to play in the gathering of Israel.”

There has never been a time like this in the history of the world. The Lord has reserved and prepared you to come into the world at this sacred time to be a part of the greatest and most important work on earth in the fullness of times. This is incredibly special—and eternally significant—the Lord sent you. You are remarkably important in this great work. He knows you, He knows how amazing you are, and that’s why he brought you into this world at the most important time in the history of the world. Don’t miss out on these incredible opportunities that the Lord has given to us. You are needed. You are called to feed His sheep.

President Eyering noted, “Because of technology, perhaps more of God’s children will hear and recognize the word of God this weekend than during any other two days in history.”

Everything has accelerated since the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and denotes of the restoration. Power, radios, TV, mass shipping systems, vehicles, planes, wireless networks, mobile phones, the internet, social networks, you name it! All of these haven been instruments given to us to accomplish the gathering of Israel and fulfill the prophesy, to preach the gospel to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.” This is the fullness of times—now more than ever!

Our mission leaders—President & Sister Gill —shared something that the Prophet President Russel M. Nelson shared in a meeting with the quorum of the twelve apostles and other representatives of the church just over a month ago. President Nelson said, “if I could have one wish, it would be that people would stop wasting time.” There’s a great sense of urgency. President Holland is really pushing urgency too in his last days. He recently said “go to work with urgency,” “However strong your prayers are, make them stronger. However often you testify, testify some more.” Even President Bragg, ended our MLC session with, “there’s too much work to do. Don’t give up, keep going.” Now is the time. Now more than ever. We live in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Prophets have all looked to this time today. The eternal weight of today and the importance of what we are doing right now cannot be comprehended. This is the greatest work on earth, preparing the world for the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We must be giving it all that we can.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf posed a deeply eternal question, “When our time in mortality is complete, what experiences will we be able to share about our own contribution to this significant period of our lives and to the furthering of the Lord’s work?” Just think about that. Maybe the things that seemed previously important now seem less important. I can’t imagine looking back on life in the eternities, with the eternal guilt that I didn’t fulfill the measure of my creation.

In the end, why do we do this? Why does it matter so much? Moses asked God the same question, when he asked “…Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them?” (Moses 1:30) God’s response is resounding and incomprehensibly significant. We review his answer every time we participate in the endowment session. The presentation unfolds this purpose. God explains how the earth was formed and the process of organizing it. And in this long explanation we finally arrive at the conclusion. God did this for families. That’s why the earth was created. That’s why we are here, and that’s what this work is all about. It’s about reuniting families, not just now, but in the eternities. That truly is where true joy is found. And that’s what matters most.

This is why I serve. Because I have been given much, I too must give back.

We had a really amazing miracle happen. We were planning on meeting with a member named Corey at the park. So we show-up at the park, but we happened to be a little late. We eventually found Corey and sat at a table with him. We began to pray and begin our lesson. After our prayer, someone came up to us and was wondering if they could join us. Of course we said yes! So he joined us, and we tried to get to know each other. He shared with us his struggles and the difficult times he went through in life. He said he went to prison for something he didn’t do, suffered abuse, had many bruises and scars from boxing, and was just struggling. He was super grateful to be able to talk to us, he didn’t have anyone to turn to. We asked about his religious background and he said he believed in the creator. Some sort of higher power, that we can pray to that created everything around us. We talked about Jesus Christ and how he suffered everything for us and that he was the creator of all that was around us. My companion shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon with him, and after he read it, he sat there for a second. And was astonished, he said this scripture was exactly what he needed to hear. He told us it was honestly kinda scary. I shared with him that because of the Savior’s sacrifice, he knows our pains and our afflictions and we can turn to him for support. So we shared the scriptures in Alma 7 about that. Afterwards I felt like I needed to talk about the importance of families with him. So we talked about that to which he responded “it’s like we are in my head or that we know me.” He was just amazed. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and promised him many great blessings as he read it. We hope that we meet him again soon. I can’t imagine what he was going through, but I’m grateful for the experience of meeting him.

Baptismal Date for Parry

After meeting with our friend Parry for a second time, we put him on baptismal date! He’s really great, super nice guy. I felt like we really needed to extend the Savior’s invitation to set a date for him—and this is my first time really extending a date to someone that wasn’t already committed to baptism. I’m truly grateful that he chose to work towards a date and begin his journey following Jesus Christ. He’s super busy, with college and working, but he sacrifices in making time to meet with us. At the core of faith is sacrifice, if we didn’t have to sacrifice, faith would be a whole lot easier. But ultimately life is a test, a test of our faith. We have to be willing to sacrifice to draw closer to the Savior and experience his power in our lives. We then lay up all of our sacrifices on the altar of the sacrament. All the Lord requires is a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Jesus Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for us; so we don’t have too. We just have to trust him and turn to him. In order to turn to him, it’s going to require sacrifice. I’m just super happy that our friend Parry trusts him enough to make sacrifices in his life to come to know him.

Lake Church?

We also met with our friend Peter, which didn’t go quite like I thought it would. We didn’t have his phone number in our records, so we previously tried to visit him. He wasn’t home so we left a pass-along card with our number in the hopes that he would message or call us. Fortunately he did! And on the call, he explained to us that he’s looking for a church; he’s tried many churches, but he’s yet to find something that even closely resembles the richness of the Bible. He said he was looking for the Lord’s church. Anyways, super kind guy, he was asking all the right questions and sounded really elect. He also went on to talk about the ad he saw, and he was telling us to tell the people that were in the ad that they did a really awesome job. He then asked if there are any videos that show what our church service looks like? I was actually just about to mention we could send him a video, so that flowed perfectly. After the call we sent him the video, and he sincerely thanked us for responding to his request so timely. He then said that he prayerfully watched the video we sent him, and wanted to talk about our church service some more. So we then met him at his house the next day. It was really great meeting him. He told us how he drove up to attend this Lake Community church, and he said it was super great. So he kind of already made up his mind before we met. He shared his concern about our church service. He had this big Bible and he turned to a few scriptures about the sacrament in 1st Corinthians and a bunch of other references I don’t remember. But basically his concern was that we use water for the sacrament. And he read these verses about drinking the blood of Jesus Christ and the fruit of the vine. He said that he wanted to be honest with us, it’s pretty clear that it should be grape juice (because that’s the fruit of the vine). We didn’t really get too much of a chance to talk, we kind of just put in our two cents because he just kept talking haha. We told him that it doesn’t exactly matter what the sacrament is, it’s what it symbolizes. It symbolizes the blood and body of Christ. I wanted to mention how the prayer and authority was also the most important thing, but didn’t get the chance to. He went on about a lot of churches and how they slowly stay away from the word of God in the Bible, and how important it is to follow it. To which we are all in agreement. At the very end of our conversation we finally had a chance to say something. I told him the answer to his question about the sacrament lyes in John 15. I invited him to read it. Long story short, Jesus is the vine. I hope he takes another look at the Church of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Thought

I realize I haven’t been doing spiritual thoughts in my emails. To which I hope the whole email is spiritual to begin with. So it kind of diminishes the need for a spiritual thought. But oh what the heck, we’ll dive into one this time.

This bishop pulled us aside after church last Sunday and said that he wants to do a missionary themed sacrament meeting next Sunday. He asked each of us to give a talk about missionary work in the hopes of helping get the members more actively involved and anxiously engaged in this great work. So as I’ve thought about what I’m going to write I’ve had a lot come to me. But I’ll share a portion of that today.

“When our time in mortality is complete, what experiences will we be able to share about our own contribution to this significant period of our lives and to the furthering of the Lord’s work?” - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Ponder on this question. It’s definitely made me think about the work that we are doing a lot more. I hope it does for you to. This life in mortality is a hingepoint of all eternity.

The Final Goodbyes.

Elder Chandler will be the new technology elder with Elder Watkins. I’m super excited for them, and Elder Chandler is going to be such a great fit for the assignment! Elder Watkins is doing an amazing job, he’s gonna do great things training Elder Chandler and giving trainings at Zone Conference. I already had spoilers on the next training, because I worked on it a lot with Elder Watkins, but they’re going to do an awesome job presenting it and I believe it’s going to help the mission a lot. I’m going to really mission the Richmond ward and Elder Watkins. That ward is the perfect representation of the term “ward family.” I wish them all the best, and I hope to see them again in the future!

Arriving to Prince George

Well, I’m now in Prince George. Pretty cool actually. We cover two wards–Fraser & Nechako– so that’s going to be interesting to juggle and manage, but things will work out. We also reset the area, so both me and Elder Snow are brand new. We’re in this to figure it out together. It’ll also be his first time being Zone Leader, so I’ll be helping him out and supporting him in these new Zone Leadership responsibilities. I’ve received many reports that we have the nicest apartment in the mission, so that’s super exciting! Definitely going to be quite the step up; it’s kind of keeping me on edge, I don’t know what’s coming. All these blessings are coming in, I sure hope nothing crazy tragic happens. But I’m incredibly grateful for all of the change. I really felt it last transfer, like my whole mission is going to change so much; it’s almost like starting a new mission. I’m excited to see what the future holds. And Elder Snow is so awesome, I’m looking forward to the rest of the transfer working with him. Also, our area is absolutely massive! We have a friend that lives about a seven hour drive away from us. Luckily almost everyone lives pretty close to us, it’s just crazy how big these ward boundaries are–hence the two wards. But you know it’s pretty awesome because we can still meet with those that live super far on Zoom.

Sunday Best

Church was pretty awesome! Also pretty tiring, since we cover two wards, we went to the sacrament meeting for both of the wards. And we had ward councils for both of them as well. One of the wards was even planning on doing a ward huddle right after– which I thought was super unnecessary but glad they canceled it. We didn’t really have much to report on at all since we just arrived, they were teasing us because of it haha but we’ll have a lot more next time.

Planning Day

Well since we are both new here we gotta figure out the area and everything. So today was a pretty big day to plan. I believe the area has a lot of potential. I’m hoping that we’d be able to tap into some of that. I was looking through the Preach My Gospel app and we have so many people that were previously on date. Some of these people haven’t been contacted in a while. So we are going to reach out and see if we can get things going again.

Untapped Potential

The social media sisters sent a message to the whole mission– and it sounds like if we aren’t able to increase our teaching rate for our referrals the church is going to stop paying for ads in our mission. Which is kind of a big deal, so we are all going to work together on getting that up. These referrals are quickly becoming our number one source of finding, and I’ve seen so much success from it. When we were doing Preach My Gospel mentoring sessions, the hope was that they would train the new missionaries and the trainers to switch their mindset in their finding. A lot of missionaries that are coming in are stuck in the old stigma of finding–where you have to knock doors and meet everyone in public. Even a lot of missionaries that are still out do that. We have so many people in our Preach My Gospel apps. People that have met with missionaries before. People that may have been busy and aren’t busy any more. People that may have initially not been interested but may be now. And with referrals we have people knocking at our doors wanting to meet us. No longer do we have to go searching for people. People will find us through the technology that the Lord has blessed us with to make the gathering of Israel from the 4 corners of the earth possible. The magnitude of how important this Facebook page is and the ads that we run on it cannot be overstated. And I’m not the only one that sees it, there’s plenty of amazing missionaries in this mission that understand this. We just need to help get the rest of the mission on board. We truly live in the fullness of times, the work is accelerating, the brethren are preparing us, and we need to keep up. The urgency continues to rise. And with the rise of AI translation technology, we truly will be able to reach every nation, kindred, and tongue.

President called us in the morning and asked if we could host two Elders at our apartment. One of those Elders was going home early, so they were just gonna stay with us. Anyways things lined up really nicely cause it’ll be on an exchange. So hopefully my exchange with Elder Wilson is good. On our exchange we had a lesson and that worked out really well. We picked up those Elders, hosted them for a night and at 4am the following morning, President Gill picked up the other Elder. It sounds like he’s planning on coming back out. So best of luck and prayers to him, he’s going to do great things.

Religious Diverse Lesson at Tims’

We taught this guy at Tim Hourton’s and I gotta say it has to be one of my most memorable lessons (in a couple of weird ways). We taught him once, he’s Catholic but we gave him a Book of Mormon, and he was interested in learning more. We begin teaching him about Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation and he’s quite the talker so we were derailed a bit. I started tying things back by sharing Proverbs 3:5-6, at this point a guy walks over with his miniature Bible and asks if he can join. We were like yeah of course! Now we are throwing a towel in the lesson pan and adapting it for everyone. We talked about unity in us drawing closer to Jesus Christ, despite our religious diversity. Then he was asking about some of the differences in our beliefs. We talked about the Godhead and shared a few scriptures from the Bible. We also talked about baptism by immersion and I brought up a scripture in Romans about being buried in Christ. Anyways, everything was going pretty good, then our friend noticed a lady looking back at us and smiling. We asked her if she’d like to join in the conversation. She said that she was only hearing half of the truth. Our friend then stood up for us and asked her if she had any questions and we could answer with the truth. She said that she found all of the answers to her questions in the Bible. She then said “you didn’t use your Book of Mormon.” Now if you can imagine the slug lady from Monsters Inc that said “you didn’t file your paperwork,” she sounded just like her haha. Anyways we tried to get the number of the guy that joined us for the lesson. He gave it to us and we said we’ll shoot him a text and see if he gets it. Everyone gets up, I send the text, and he disappears. We never saw him leave. Nowhere to be seen. We had no idea where he went. I looked back down at my phone to see the dreaded “message unable to send.” message. So yeah that was quite the experience. Sounds like we need to be at Tim Hourton’s more or something.

Interviews at Our Apartment

President has been touring the mission this transfer visiting almost every apartment and having interviews there. We just had the opportunity to have interviews right before the transfer ends. It was pretty good. When they walked into the apartment they pointed out the good spirit that they felt here. I had interviews first with President, and he just asked me to tell him about my family. So that was pretty good, I just went through each sibling and my parents and shared a bit about them and how awesome they are. He then asked if I had any other questions for him. I talked about the sense of urgency, there’s too much work to do, I feel like I’m not doing enough. He shared a bit about President Eyring, and how he’s talked about feeling the same way. He talked about how he would pray about which of his responsibilities and tasks were most important and focus on that. He also said that he’s not going to keep me in the same apartment for 14 months. I was not expecting him to know the amount of months I have left, but hey I guess that’s good I won’t be in one apartment for that amount of time. The Gill’s talked about how one of the big things we’ve taught them with our assignment was the importance of integrating the spiritual side with technology work.

Journal Entry 05/31/24

Here’s something a bit personal I wrote in my journal the other night, pertaining to how I felt about my work. I’m mostly leaving this for me to look back on. If this makes it sound like I’m doing terrible, don’t be alarmed, I’m doing pretty good, it’s just that I feel like I need to be doing more.

“I feel like I’m not enough. Not doing enough, not serving enough, falling short, and not paying back enough. I’m drinking out of wells I did not dig, in cities I did not build. I think about everyone that came before me. The Pioneers that crossed the plains and sacrificed everything they have for what I have today. I think about the prophets and how they sacrificed everything so that we may have these ancient sacred records today. I think about my family and everything that they have done for me; I wouldn’t be anything today without them. I think about Jesus Christ and how He paid the price for everything, sacrificed everything, gave everything, and continues to give everything. I know that I am eternally in-debted to Him, I can never pay Him back for what He did and what He continues to do. But my soul aches, and I must give back as much as I can. I don’t want to disappoint the generations of people that came before me. I don’t want to disappoint the pioneers that crossed the plains, the prophets that sacraficed everything, my family, my parents. But most of all I don’t want to disappoint Jesus Christ. I don’t want to disappoint my Heavenly Father. And because I have been given much, I fear I don’t give back enough. I know it’ll never be enough. But it won’t stop me from trying to give everything I can.”

The Big Invitation

We had our technology council meeting the day of our interviews. And that was pretty good. At the end of it, he asked the assistants to step out, and he wanted to talk to us as a companionship. He said that he and Sister Gill felt the spirit while in our apartment today and enjoyed our company. He then said he felt something in both the prayers Elder Watkin’s and I offered. He then said he would like us to read the Book of Mormon daily as a companionship and finish it by September 1st. He added that it should be a transfer and a half. He concluded that it will prepare us for something in our futures. You know when he was talking about it, he made it sound like we were gonna be reading like 5 to 7 chapters a day, but when we put together our study plan, it was only 3 chapters a day. I’m pretty excited to start doing it. I don’t know what to expect, Elder Watkins and I have just been thinking non-stop about it. But it should be good.

Derek’s Baptism on Saturday

We had a few lessons with Derek, and he seems like he’s ready for his baptism this Saturday! We just have the baptismal interview on Thursday and we should be good to go. He is actually so awesome! He’s done so much to prepare himself, he’s kept every commitment, he’s gone to church after a twelve-hour night shift, he’s read every reading material we’ve sent him, and he has a very strong testimony. We were counting out the weeks from when he first got into contact with us, and it’s only been like four weeks, and he’s getting baptized! The last call we had with him, we were just expressing our appreciation for him and how this baptism is going to change his life. He shared that he was grateful for us, for taking the time to meet with him and to work with him.

Spiritual Thought

President Gill shared something that the Prophet President Russel M. Nelson shared in a meeting with the quorum of the twelve apostles and other representatives of the church just this last Sunday. President Nelson said, “if I could have one wish, it would be that people would stop wasting time.” There’s a great sense of urgency. You can see that President Holland is really pushing urgency too in his last days. He recently said “go to work with urgency,” “However strong your prayers are, make them stronger. However often you testify, testify some more.” Even President Bragg, ended our MLC session with, “there’s too much work to do. Don’t give up, keep going.” Now is the time. Now more than ever. We live in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Prophets have all looked to this time today. The eternal weight of today and the importance of what we are doing right now cannot be comprehended.

My days in Richmond are Numbered

We had one crazy day. We went in the office to setup a phone for a missionary coming in; and I was resetting the device through the boot menu and one of the APs said, “Elder Anderson, what are we going to do in the lower-mainland when you are gone to Prince Rupert?” Quite the funny joke, idk if he was serious or not on that one. But be kinda crazy if President knew where I was going next transfer on the first week of this transfer. But we’ll see what happens. I know that I’ll probably be leaving out of the assignment to go somewhere, I just don’t know where yet. I just know my job is to get Elder Watkins trained and ready to go to run the MTS assignment, because President wants to get me out of the assignment so he can put me wherever the Lord needs.

A/V Tech Setup Madness

Words cannot express the experiences and miracles I’ve seen over the past two weeks. My eyes were opened when we had our mission tour with President and Sister Bragg. I feel like I have a better understanding of what this mission truly is. It was very eye-opening. Now before I get into this let’s do a bit of background; President Bragg is the area president of the North America West territory. Doing mission tours is his favorite part of the job, and he’s done three in the past three weeks. We had the wonderful blessing of witnessing two mission tours. They decided to split the mission in half and do two mission tours back to back. This consisted of Tuesday and Wednesday. Elder Watkins and I were in-charge of setting up all the A/V equipment, making sure it all runs smoothly, and setting everything up for the mission tour photo. Setting up the A/V equipment was quite the process. Basically everything that could’ve went wrong, went wrong. But that’s okay, in the end it’s all just God’s work and everything worked out. Last week we were testing a few things out and we realized the entire sound system was out for the whole building. Which made it a bit difficult to really test anything. We reached out to a few members of the ward and the Stake Technology Specialist and they said they’ve never seen anything like this before. They installed the new QSYS display just a couple of months ago and now it isn’t working properly. We tried quite a few things like power cycling everything and calling the QSYS support team to see if there was a way to force reboot the device from the software. The support team wasn’t very helpful. But the ward members and the Stake Technology Specialist created an email thread with the FM group to diagnose the issue. They were able to come into the building a couple days later and force the device to power cycle again to get it running. Which was so good because they wouldn’t have had their pulpit mic working for sacrament meeting if the issue wasn’t discovered. It’s important to note that this church building is outside of our Zone, it’s about an hour and 15 minute drive for us. So we didn’t have keys to get in, but luckily the distribution center was open, so we were able to get in through there. Which worked out really well considering their weird hours. While we were setting up we also needed keys to the library and the Chinese Elders happened to begin a lesson at the church so we were able to grab their keys from them. While we were setting up the woman that was working at the distribution center informed us there was a family that just showed up that was interested in English class. So we gave them a church tour and gave them the information to the English class. So let’s back this up just a little bit and get the big picture. We drove to the church next to the temple that’s outside of our zone. We happened to show up on the perfect day, to report the sound system in the church (and it just went down that day due to a recent power outage). And in the midst of everything looking like it wasn’t going to work out and it being a waste of time that day, the sound system was able to be fixed for sacrament, we met and taught a fmaily that were directed by God to meet us, and (I haven’t got to this part yet), we met a young member working at Olive Garden that was thinking about serving a mission but had some questions.

Mission Tour Day 1

The mission tour was awesome! President Bragg was really hyping up our mission. He said the Canada Vancouver mission is the greatest representation of the gathering of Israel in the North America West area. It’s the most diverse mission in the area because of the diverse set of missionaries and the diverse areas, and people. He said last night his eyes were opened, there’s so much opportunity in British Columbia, so many people are moving here and it’s growing so much. In the last 6 months the area had 16% convert baptisms, he said our mission was at 32%. The Lord is definitely preparing these people and this mission. He left us off with the idea that the strength of this mission will be in convert baptisms from diverse places. He stated that this mission becomes a model for the rest of the area. It was a really great experience, I learned a lot from hearing President Bragg. Luckily the equipment and stuff was working, we had a lapel mic for him and it worked great. We also had a wireless handheld mic just in case if he wanted to use it. The audio from the laptop went into the sound system just fine and everything sounded good. We did have the receiver for the lapel mic die during the tour. Luckily it was the receiver and not the actual lapel so we just ran over to the library and threw in some new AAA batteries and everything was good. We couldn’t have picked a worse day to take the picture, it had been pouring since the morning. So we ran over really quickly and dried off all the chairs with the towels. I had the camera set up and we were able to get the picture. The lighting was difficult to deal with, especially since people had umbrella’s, President and Sister Bragg were difficult to see, but the next day turned out to be a lot better. The weather decided to clear up on our drive home after the photo, so that was really awesome to see haha wish it cleared up before.

Mission Tour Day 2

President Bragg was telling us that the second day of the mission tour was going to look incredibly different compared to the first day. On the second day he talked about how we serve two missions: 1. To Preach the Gospel and 2. To bless our companion. He said we represent 0.0000001% of the youth in the world and that we are precious. He talked about the iterative process of revelation and what some of the process looks like when President Gill makes the transfer boards. He also talked about the process of selecting missions that missionaries will be assigned to and the revelatory process that the apostles go through while selecting those. He said that Preach My Gospel is the most complete handbook that the church has provided. And it doesn’t only apply to us missionaries but it applies to the general authorities as well, because they have the same purpose. That’s why they changed the name of Preach My Gospel from “A Guide to Missionary Work” to “A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The mission tour photo for today worked out a lot nicer. When it’s sunny and you can actually see, it helps out a lot. Unfortunately we had to do two separate shots, we couldn’t fit all of the senior missionaries. But I’m glad the photo turned out well.

Mission Tour Reflections

I’m just glad to be looking back on the mission tour. It was a great experience, despite the crazy amount of stress and problems with setting up, everything worked out. We didn’t have the right equipment, the equipment we needed got locked into the clerk’s office even after they said they would leave a key, the sound system was offline, Best Buy didn’t have the cable we needed, and despite all of that, the Lord found a way. And I’m just glad it worked out. Time and time again I look back on these moments in my mission, and I’ve really learned to rely and trust on thee Lord. Because it works out, every time. Maybe not in the ways I may have expected. But I know that with Him we can never fail.

Derek is so Ready

We put our friend Derek on baptismal date! Derek is just so awesome! The Lord has really prepared him. He’s basically done a bunch of research and he’s realized this is what he wants. He has a girlfriend that lives in Manitoba and she’s a member. She’s told him she wants to go to the temple with him, so Derek began doing some research to see if it was right for him. Derek actually met with missionaries about five years ago, but he didn’t commit to it then. It was actually quite the miracle how Derek was found. He saw Elder Heath’s Facebook profile and he noticed a picture from Coquitlam, where he has some family that lives there and he decided to reach out. He basically already had a testimony of The Book of Mormon and studied the Word of Wisdom and was trying to follow it. From his research he knew he needed to come to church a couple of times and meet with the missionaries, so he reached out because he wanted to be baptized. When we gave him a church tour and talked about the sacrament and the importance of making covenants with God, he said “yep, I believe all of that.” Everything we’ve taught him, he basically already believes, and he’s been keeping all the commitments we’ve extended. We’ve showed him all the principles we need to teach him and the qualifications for baptism and he’s ready to get it all done and make it happen! He works a twelve hour night shift every other week. And he came to church right after his night shift! Which is a huge sacrifice, and it was amazing to see him! He has so much faith. Looking forward to seeing him get baptized, it’s gonna be so great for him!

Elder Evan’s Final Temple Trip

Let’s start from the beginning, the saddest part of my week, seeing Elder Evans go. I drove him and a bunch of other elders that were going home to the temple. We had to take a Van cause there were so many elders and luggage. It was a hybrid and that was pretty sweet. Elder Evans always wanted the opportunity to ride in this vehicle, so hey, it worked out pretty well for him. Anyways, we arrived at the temple, dropped everyone off after our McDonald’s run. My new temporary companion was Elder Judd, cause his comp, Elder Shipley was going home too. So we basically just chilled in the car as they went into the temple and wrote emails and stuff. After finishing all of my emails and writing my testimony to Elder Evans, I began reading a bit of the Book of Mormon. A couple of minutes afterwards, President and Sister Gill, (which were apparently right next to us, didn’t see that haha, they must have pulled in while we were outside of the car dropping missionaries off at the temple). Anyways Sister Gill walked right next to the driver side and said “that’s a nice book you got there.” President Gill is just so polite, he opened Sister Gill’s door to get into the car. I didn’t know he did that everytime, it’s really sweet of him. Once everyone was out of the temple and got their pictures, we journeyed back to the land of Richmond. We dropped everyone back at the mission home and went our separate ways. Elder Judd and I continued to do our preparation day activities back at the apartment.

A Great Day of Finding with Elder Roth

The next morning we got up at 6:30am and headed straight to the mission home to pickup Elder Evans and Elder Roth. Everyone else was pretty much gone on their flight home at this point. Elder Evans’ flight doesn’t travel back home till 8pm tonight, so he has the rest of the day with us. And Elder Roth goes home midway through the next transfer. So we were trioed together for a few hours. We were sorting some stuff out in the office and before we knew it, Elder Evans was getting into Elder Ash’s car and going home. It’s absolutely crazy to think that people are home within hours. Even though we were both serving together in the mission hours ago. After that Elder Judd went with his temporary companion to Surrey 1st and it was just me and Elder Roth. Elder Roth and I had some cool miracles while finding, we met this really sweet lady by our apartment complex. We had a good conversation with her and she seemed interested in coming to church. She said she needed to talk to her husband about it, he’s a pasture, so we’re not sure if we’ll see her at church. But hey, we got her number so we’ll keep in contact and maybe we can share more. We also visited one of our referrals, it sounded like she just recently moved from Utah, and she was inspired by her friends that were going on missions and wanted to hear a bit more about it. You know when you meet someone that’s been to Utah and is contacting missionaries, they’re pretty close to baptism haha. She seems super cool though, we’re probably going to meet with her again sometime next week. We also knocked a few doors and gave out quite a few copies of the Book of Mormon. This is the most success I’ve probably seen going street contacting in Richmond; people just seemed a lot more willing to listen to our message, so that was pretty cool. Elder Roth is very bold in his teaching, I love it, but at the same time it gets on the verge of getting contentious, and based on who’s he’s talking to, I could see it turning into an argument. So I’ve tried to find that middle ground. But I definitely learned a lot from my short time teaching with him.

The Church’s Name

He’s a quick tip for everyone, never-ever associate the nickname “Mormon” with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had numerous times that people approach us and they are like “oh you’re the Mormon’s right?” To which Elder Roth would reply, “yes, but that’s just a nick-name” and proceed to say the church’s actual name. This is okay, but this kinda drove me crazy haha. There’s a higher-holier way. It’s gonna take eons to get people to actually use the name of the church when associating with it if we continue to tell people it’s a nickname. I feel like “Mormon” gives people a bad impression because that was a name given by those against the church. So the term “Mormon” is going to be associated more with anti material rather than the actual doctrine and principles taught in the church. So even though we aren’t necessarily calling ourselves that, that association is gonna do more harm than good. So when people ask that we are “Mormon’s” the response should be “no, we are representatives from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” What drives me even crazier is when people bring up the term “mormonism” & “christianity.” But you know, people are looking for the truth and “they know not where to find it.” And the internet isn’t making that any easier… But ultimately, you just gotta love one another as Jesus loved you. Not everyone has found the fullness of the truth, and that’s okay. Heck, it’s a continual restoration, everyone in the church is still coming to a knowledge of the truth. We are just here to guide people and help them along the journey. But yeah that’s my little rant about the name of the church haha.

The Guy for the Job

Fast forward to Thursday, today was the big day of transfer news. We were going to find out where the tech area was going to be and my new companion. Now I did know that my companion was coming from the Island, because the Assistants told me on Tuesday that I’d be picking them up from the ferry terminal. After schimming over the transfer board we received a call from the Assistants. They told me that they totally forgot to ask me the day before, but would I be willing to be a District Leader? I was a bit surprised, the District Leader assignment was totally off my radar. But sure I’m down to be a District Leader I guess. Which was interesting, because I was thinking about it, and this would be the only transfer I could be a District Leader with the tech assignment in its current form. Last transfer we probably were able to make it to like one or two district councils because of all the traveling. But because of the mission tour, that means that we won’t be having Zone Conferences. Which means that we are not traveling everywhere, which means I guess I can be a District Leader haha. I’m looking forward to the mission tour though, Elder Bragg is gonna be there so that’ll be pretty sweet! My new companion is Elder Watkins. He’s super awesome, and I have full confidence that he’s the Elder for the job. I didn’t really know him too well before, so he wasn’t really on my radar as someone that could potentially do the tech assignment. But I know President Gill received a strong spiritual impression that he was the one, and I knew it too. It was so funny I was chatting with him in the car, I asked him if President Gill gave him a call or anything beforehand. And he was like “yeah I knew like 4 weeks ago.” He said that in one of his emails he told President that he really appreciates the work that we do teaching people at Zone Conferences and with the tech assignment, and President responded with “good report.” He told his companion, “mark my words, next transfer I’m gonna be the next tech Elder.” And now look where we are today, haha. You know, the exact same thing happened when I was made companions with Elder Evans. After an exchange with him I wrote in my email to President, something along the lines of “Elder Evans is an amazing leader. I’m really grateful for him and all the great things that he taught me.” To which President responded “Good report. Elder Evans is a great Elder.” Fast forward a couple weeks, he asks if I could stop by in the office, Elder Evans happens to be there too and that’s when we find out we were gonna be companions in the tech assignment haha. I’m looking forward to working with Elder Watkins. We chat the rest of the night about the tech assignment.

Five Elders, One Message, Miracles Left & Right

Today we picked up Elder Bolingbroke, and Elder Rowley from the ferry. So it was me, Elder Watkins, and Elder Roth with the rest of these Elders. (Yes we are still technically in a trio, things get wack around transfers.) Now fun fact, Elder Rowley is my MTC comp, Elder Watkins (my new companion), trained Elder Rowley when he came into the mission. It was like a family reunion haha. We snagged some good pictures all together. Now I gotta say the Lord has a perfect vision of His work. He really makes use of transfers when missionaries are traveling around in areas for a bit. You can tell that He places people in our path that these missionaries would do best at connecting with. And this all happens over the course of one or two days, with unplanned finding opportunities, and decisions that may not seem logical at first. For instance, on Saturday, we were with Elder Cockx, Elder Roth, & Elder Jolley who all were going to Nanaimo later that day. Elder Roth and I already had lunch, but by the time we grabbed those Elders it was 3pm and they hadn’t eaten. The logical side of me was saying to just eat the food we had at the apartment. But they were discussing it and wanted to go to Burger King. The traffic was bad at the time and I’ve been driving all over recently so I was thinking it would probably be better to save on gas. After thinking about it, and counseling with my companion, I felt prompted that we needed to go. I was like well I can send messages to our friends while they eat, so at least it’ll still be productive. At the time I didn’t recognize it as a prompting, I thought of it as an opportunity to serve these missionaries. After some traffic we reached our destination at Burger King. Once we arrived, they ordered their food, and there’s a guy that approached us. He said he really loved the work that we do, helping people find Jesus Christ and everything. We talked with him a little bit and after he sat down and continued to eat his food. Once we all got our food, we sat by the table next to him and began talking to us. We had a really good conversation. Elder Cockx is from Belgium and knows how to speak French, this guy was from a part of Africia that also spoke French and he had been to Belgium before. He was such a nice guy, he was telling us about the miracles that he saw in Africa and the changes he made in his life because of God. We showed him the Book of Mormon and he was super grateful for it. He definitely seems super interested in reading it. It sounded like he actually lived in Surrey, but he was in town and for some reason he decided to go to Burger King with his two daughters at like 3:30pm. He said that God definitely put us in his path and that’s why he was at Burger King. Anyways, super-duper cool experience, glad I didn’t follow my logic of just making food in the apartment and messaging all of our referrals. We would have never had met him. And those Elders that we are with were just the people he needed to see.

The Two Scriptures

On Sunday we met this really awesome guy at church. His name is Jason, the sisters were teaching him before. But after Elders Quorum we had a really good chat with him. He’s searching for the truth right now. He’s been visiting churches all over and trying to see what’s right. He said he doesn’t really want to do research on the internet, but he wants to see how it actually is by visiting. He’s a pretty smart guy and he’s definitely going to find the truth. He had some really good questions. He was asking us about baptism and what that entails. He was telling us about how he can receive direction from God through meditation. It seems like he hasn’t found the need to read scriptures because he does that through meditation. But he does have the Gospel Library app so that’s pretty cool. He also was asking us, how do we know we are feeling the Spirit, and if there are certain emotions closely associated with feeling the Spirit. I shared two scriptures with him, the first of the two was Luke 24:27-32. I have recently fallen in-love with this scripture and this was a perfect opportunity to share it. It talks about the resurrected Savior’s visit and the scriptures he taught the people on the road to Emmaus. It shares what these people felt after the sacrament and after hearing these scriptures. “And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (verses 31-32). The second of the two scriptures I shared was Galatians 5:22-23 the fruits of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” It looked like he really liked the scriptures we shared with him. So hopefully that inspires him to continue his reading.

End of Week Reflection

As for the rest of the week, we have just been really busy with the tech assignment. Figuring out sim cards, setting up PMG mentoring sessions, and a bunch of other things. This week was filled with miracles and I’m really grateful for the amazing opportunities that I have to meet all of these great people and missionaries. Looking forward to the future!

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Today was an action-packed day of missionary work. It was awesome! Quite busy, but still pretty great. We began exchanges after district council and I’m with Elder Bracket now here in Richmond. Now I gotta tell you, something special happens when you go on exchanges. God puts more people in your path than usual; exchanges are always a great learning experience. After we did a buncha contacts we decided to go visit the park briefly, we didn’t have too much time because we had service right after. So we needed to quickly drive there, and quickly drive back home to get into service clothes. But I felt the need to go park contacting, especially because we are on an exchange and I’m trying to increase the learning opportunity. At the park we met this super nice lady from Hong Kong. She has a Christian background and recently moved here to visit with some family. We had a good chat with her about religion, and she was very interested in coming to church. We gave her the details and we basically just headed back home right after that. It’s crazy that we just met her right off the bat, and that’s why we needed to go to the park. Even if we were only there for 15 minutes. The service went well too, and on our way back we received a call from one of the members who needed help moving a piano into his apartment. We ran straight home, quickly changed into proselytizing clothes and were right over. We successfully got the super-duper heavy piano moved with all of the amazing help from the faithful members. Right after that we headed over to the church with a lesson with our friend Tom. Luckily the member that we were going to have join us for that lesson, Brother Kapoor was there with us moving the piano. So we just basically walked over to the church with him. After Which we had a great lesson, teaching the Word of Wisdom, with great insights and personal testimonies from Brother Kapoor. You know, God is definitely in all of the details. All the times for everything lined up and we were busy all day, jumping from one thing to another. But we had every opportunity to serve and each opportunity didn’t overlap the others. I’m glad for the opportunity that I have to be a part of this great work and to be able to witness the Lord’s hand each day! We all serve and are a part of this work in some way. Whether we are missionaries or not, God’s hand is in our lives each day, whether we see it or not. We just need to look for it, and we will find those opportunities and find God’s hand!

Interview Stuff 🫡

Interviews happened, and that was pretty good. Since Elder Evans is going home he had a 30 minute interview with both President and Sister Gill. And he said that was pretty good, they went over a lot of things and kept coming back to education. President Gill really is encouraging Elder Evans to try to begin his studies at BYU sooner but his plan currently is do some pathways when he gets to England and then go to BYU after. So we’ll see what happens. They talked about all of his companions, what he’s learned from them, marriage, and goals after the mission. Quite a lot to unpack in 30 minutes, but it sounded like it was pretty good. My interview was 15 minutes with just President Gill. It wasn’t anything too crazy. He was asking me what he should do, if he should reset the zone leader area or not. Now with Richmond he told Elder Evans that he would never reset it. Which now that he’s feeling the need for it, is kind of a big deal. I thought about it for a second and told him that if he needs to reset it, I believe the area and our friends would be fine. We’ll just need to communicate with the missionaries coming in what needs to happen with the area and the zone leader assignment. He said he’s thinking about moving the tech area and he’s not sure where it’s going to be yet. He also added that he’s been praying about my next companion and he’s had a few impressions, but he said that they weren’t on the list of suggestions that we put together. President was also telling me that I will be training another missionary on the technology assignment. He said that he needs me to get them all the way up to speed with the assignment so he can move me around wherever I need to be and not be dependent on the assignment. Which is a little bit different from my last interview where he basically asked me if I’d be okay not seeing the rest of the mission. I told him we were working on the documentation for the assignment, so hopefully anyone can come in and take the reigns. He also reassured me that even though I may not be a Zone Leader next transfer, he said he knows I can definitely do the Zone Leader assignment. Honestly, I don’t really care for the Zone Leader title. I know there’s quite a few missionaries and people that make it look like you stand out because of it. But realistically with that assignment, you are below everyone else so you can serve and raise them up. Anyways, interviews we’re pretty good, I always look forward to seeing President and Sister Gill and working with them.

Airport Finding 🛩

We met this guy that just arrived to Richmond for an inter-faith event at the airport while we were picking up some Elders so that was pretty awesome! He was super nice, and he shared his story of overcoming addiction and coming unto Jesus which was nice to hear. We offered the Book of Mormon as a gift for meeting him, and briefly explained what it is. He wasn’t interested, but we got a picture with him and he wants to keep in touch with us. So that will be pretty sweet.

My Bye-bye Note to Elder Evans 😢

As the prophets of old put it in the Book of Mormon, “I cannot write the hundredth part, that which I feel” in having the opportunity to serve with you Elder Evans. I wish that I was better at words, or even a “words-smith” like you so that I can better convey the deepest feelings I have. You are the greatest, most hard-working missionary I know. Don’t doubt yourself. Don’t fill your-self with regrets, the Lord is so proud of all the amazing work that you’ve done in British Columbia. I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it, those we serve around felt it too. Two years can’t be compared to the impact that you’ve made for eternity. The Lord has blessed my life with amazing people that will change it forever. You are one of those people, and I’m not the only one. You’ve changed the lives of countless people here in British Columbia. Even though we may have only served with each other over the course of a few months I know that it “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;” I know that I will remember and reflect on the experiences and things that I learned time and time again for the rest of my life. To all the great and gloriously filled spiritual adventures that we had together. To the highs and lows that we faced. To the rejection, growth, and acceptance. To the long days, and our travels. To laying the foundation and planting the seeds for the next generations. To laboring with you for the salvation of God’s sacred children. I’m not good with goodbyes, and I know that this is not the end. As our friendship flowed before this life, it will flow far into the future. Farewell my great friend, till we meet again.

I also made a video for Elder Evans, you can find it here. https://photos.app.goo.gl/eu7gEdbHadLAPSQW6

The exchange with Elder Bracket was pretty sweet. We got to meet a family that I was working with when I was previously in Surrey 3rd so that was a pretty sweet experience! I never actually met this family in person, just over text; but I found out that their native language is French so I sent them to the sisters that we were ward sharing with at the time. One of them could speak French so it worked out really well! So they really helped this family progress and now that they left the Elders have been meeting with this family. It was just a really cool experience to be able to see how this family had progressed since they were last in my hands. I’m very grateful I sent them to the sisters, I believe they definitely needed that, and that’s why they were there that transfer.

Assistant Exchanges 🔁

We went on exchanges with the assistants for the first time and that was pretty sweet! We didn’t have the opportunity to do those last transfer because we were “low priority” lol. Anyways I gotta go with Elder Witt here in Richmond and Elder Evans went to Vancouver with Elder Walcer. Which is pretty cool, cause Elder Evans loves Vancouver so he was a happy camper. He also gotta do a temple tour which is awesome because he saw our recent convert Navneet (who goes by Mike) go to the temple for the first time. He went and did some baptisms for the dead with the youth and it sounded like he had a really great time! Anyways, my exchange with Elder Witt was pretty good. I didn’t wanna make the exchange boring with just a massive hour of text contacts so we went out and did some door to door knocking. Not too much really came of it but we did meet this cool historian guy. He was pretty nice and wanted to hear a bit of what we are teaching people; Elder Witt did amazing and taught him all of the principles of the restoration in like 3 minutes. He said that he has a really good relationship with Jesus Christ and isn’t interested in joining our church. But he was still super kind, and I’m grateful for the opportunity that we had to teach him a bit. We had MSC (missionary stake coordination) to end off the day. It was kinda weird cause we were on exchanges, Elder Evans was planning on joining the Zoom call with us, but they didn’t have the time. But that’s okay, it was a really good meeting and I’m grateful to be working with the stake and aligning our missionary efforts with the goals and plans of the stake and local priesthood leaders. We showed them the stats of the missionary work in the stake at the end, which normally happens offline, so I wasn’t really too prepared to chat about that. But it was still really good and insightful for everyone on the call.

Another Progressing Friend 👍

We had a really good lesson with this guy named Ariel. He’s super nice, we met him at church last Sunday and he’s been going to a few different churches trying to figure out which religion that he wants to belong to. We taught him the restoration and the lesson went really well. I definitely felt the spirit and I hope he did too. We also had a phone call lesson with someone that was interested in strengthening their relationship with God through prayer. We gave them a call and the lesson was going super well until we brought up the Book of Mormon. At that point they hung up on us and messaged us that they weren’t interested because they only believe in the Bible.

5D Conversation ✨️⚛️

Elder Evans made a Facebook marketplace listing of the Book of Mormon and the Bible and it was super successful! We actually met two people from it. We had a lesson with one of them and it was pretty awesome! We gave him a French Bible, he said he already got a Book of Mormon from some other Elders but we had a really good chat with him. He’s quite the character, he was pretty fun to chat with. He was saying that he’s had Jesus his whole life and it’s crazy to look at people that don’t have Him. He was also was talking about how most people talk in 3D using logic and stuff, but when you incorporate the spiritual side you are speaking in 5D. At the end he said that we were definitely having a 5D conversation! 😂 Anyways he was awesome, we are looking forward to meeting with him again. He’s not really interested in attending church because he already has another church that he attends, but we’ll continue to try to meet.

Karoke Night 🎤🎵

The ward had a karoke night activity and it was awesome! Not only because there was a bunch of food, but we had Navneet and a bunch of our member referrals come! The sisters also had one of their friends come too! His name was Demetry and he seemed like a super nice guy. Both him and Navneet sang at the activity which was super cool. Navneet absolutely crushed it with his singing! He sang “The Night We Met,” and Elder Evans was like “I would’ve payed to go see that.” Haha it was so good!

Spiritual Thought 🙏

“As we attend the temple, there can come to us a dimension of spirituality and a feeling of peace. … We will grasp the true meaning of the words of the Savior when He said: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. … Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27, All Will Be Well Because of Temple Covenants)

We sorted out the whole computer situation in the office, so that was pretty good. I was on the phone with a guy from Salt Lake that works in the technology services in the missionary department for like an hour and a half. Basically we needed to get these computers in-compliance; this required getting all of the necessary software for that. The mission office has two spare laptops, both of which were in a cabinet; and one hasn’t been used for like a year. In order to get into the laptop I needed to put in the password to the Mission Support account. But this is where things get tricky… that password changes like every month. And so that gets a bit difficult when you have a laptop that hasn’t been updated for over a year. So basically while I was on the phone with the guy in Salt Lake, he was looking at the list of old password that goes for months back, and we were playing the guessing game until we found which was the right one. Luckily after about 5 attempts we were able to crack the password and log into the computer. Once I logged into it, we went to churchsupport.lds.org, which was kinda cool. I just threw in the session id, and he was able to remote into the computer and begin getting it up to compliance. Basically we just had to run a year’s worth of Windows and Dell firmware updates. No problemo, right? Which as you probably could imagine, took us like 2 hours. So as that was updating he jumped off the call to help with another support ticket. I.T. support’s just gotta be so fun. 😂 But we quickly ran into another problem, he needed to add the MTS (mission technology specialist) account to the computer for this process. Luckily Elder Yamashita, the man, the myth, the legend, spoke about this very MTS account at the Lower-mainland Zone Conference (which consisted of 5 zones, kinda crazy actually haha.) He was like yo do you want the MTS Microsoft account password?? And I was like yes please, I didn’t know such a thing existed, and why we had one. Now I know lol. I’m pretty sure he forgot, cause he never sent it to us. So we ended up giving him a call, disrupting is personal study, (so sorry Elder Yamashita), but we were able to retrieve the password. Then batta-boom-batta-bing, the MTS account was added and the magic begins to happen! 🪄✨️ Basically the MTS account is a workplace Microsoft account, which once logged into loads a bunch of shell scripts and software that gets Church Protections ready to go on the computer. It also gets you some pretty snazzy looking temple wallpapers. Anyways, our work here was done, at least on that computer. We jumped off the phone with him and I began the same process on the other computers. Needless to say we were in the office for the majority of that day.

Exchanges with Elder Cockx

Elder Evans went on exchanges with Elder Davies (DL), and I went with Elder Cockx. This is Elder Cockx’s first transfer and he’s a really great missionary! He’s from Belgium, which is actually pretty cool cause he speaks like 3 languages. We had a pretty good exchange, the Wu’s had us over for dinner and our recent convert, Navneet was there too! We shared a brief spiritual message about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them, and Elder Cockx did an awesome job in his teaching! After that we did some finding and we met this lady that wasn’t really interested but definitely was open to chatting. We tried to help her better understand the role of the Book of Mormon and how it goes hand-in-hand with the Bible, but she was not havin it. She was still nice, but it was a bit difficult to help her understand that the Book of Mormon is not our own Bible. She has this study group for the Bible, but she said that she doesn’t have time for another book. Anyways, it was still a good interaction, I hope the Lord continues to work with her and help her realize the role of the Book of Mormon.

Prince George Zone Conference 🛩

Baptismal Record Things 📝

The Surrey 1st Elders are putting so many people on baptismal date! It’s actually super awesome, but we are running into a few cinks. One of these people on date they discovered doesn’t live in the Surrey 1st ward boundaries; they live in South Surrey, so the Surrey 3rd Ward bounds. Which makes it difficult when they are going to be baptized this week. The Elders had some concern because this guy had a lot of great member relations in Surrey 1st ward and sending him to Surrey 3rd may be a lot harder for him. We directed them to reach out to the Stake President to see if they could have him baptized in Surrey 1st, if they absolutely feel that is necessary. The thing is that priesthood keys work by geography. The bishop acts under those keys and that only works for people that live under those geographical boundaries. Elder Evans was telling them that he’s pretty sure the general handbook says they need to get approval from the Area presidency in order to move the records from one ward to another. However, according to the email chain, it sounded like the stake presidency got back to those Elders and said that they are good to baptize them in Surrey 1st and they can move those records. We chatted with President Gill about it a bit after the Zone Conference, and he thought the same thing, but he said if the Stake President says so, then they are good to go! Some time later, they realized that permission was required from the Area presidency and now that’s currently in the process of getting approved. There was also a bug with PMG which seems to be happening world-wide. We actually experienced the bug with Navneet’s records. Basically, after you submit the baptismal form, the membership record gets created once the ward clerk approves it. The member dot gets created, but the previous dot that you submitted the baptismal form is still on there continues to say that “membership record in progress.” Anyways, after some looking into the problem we found the solution is to merge the two dots and PMG realizes that the record was created and the issue sorts itself out. It’s actually really good that we went around and did presentations on baptismal forms around the mission; I hope it really helps so we can iron out more of these record issues.

Spiritual Thought

“The covenant path is our greatest hope for avoiding avoidable misery on the one hand and successfully dealing with the unavoidable woes of life on the other.” -Why the Covenant Path

Today was a very special day because we had Navneet’s baptism! And it turned out great! The members here in Richmond 1st ward did an amazing job fellowshiping him and running the baptism. We were quite surprised how many members came to the service. This ward in Richmond hasn’t had a baptism in like a year, so the members are super excited to see Navneet join the ward! I’m very humbled for the opportunity I had to baptize Navneet. This was my very first time baptizing someone who is living. The experience of saying those sacred words before baptizing him is so powerful. When Bishop Umbach gave the talk about the Holy Ghost afterwards he spoke about how some of the most powerful words are those of the baptismal and confirmation prayers. There’s nothing quite like being able to witness and be a part of the greatest work on earth. I’m extremely grateful for this opportunity, and the sacred trust that Heavenly Father has given me and Elder Evans with Navneet.

Navneet’s Confirmation

After Navneet was given the gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting he said this really profound thing to us, he told us that even though he hasn’t committed a serious crime, he felt like this burden has been lifted off of him. Jesus Christ lifts our burdens so that they may be made light. He does this as we choose to follow Him and keep His commandments. The sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost is so powerful and it’s a wonderful blessing that we are able to tap into that power each week as we partake of the sacred ordinance of the sacrament. It’s remarkable that Navneet recognized this power and was able to gain a spiritual witness of it at that moment.

Basically Finding in the Apartment

We had an experience as we were arriving back from our apartment from a member appointment; we ran into a guy that lives just across our apartment room. We exchanged our hellos and asked him about his Sunday. He just said he was resting because he has a night shift at work. But on his way out he said that he hasn’t been able to come to our church but he’s hoping maybe one of these days he’s going to try to see if he can come. We were able to get his number and hopefully we can see him again soon! I can’t say I’ve ever found someone inside the same apartment that we live at; that being said, this is the only apartment building I’ve lived in, haha. Anyways that was just a cool ray of light we say today.

Mega Lesson

I probably had the biggest lesson of my mission today; I think there were like 12 people there haha. 4 of which were non-members. It was so awesome! The two families who were there invited their friends and Navneet! It was so cool to see Navneet there too, and hear from him participate in the lesson. He shared his testimony about prophets, which was super amazing to hear! Elder Evans crushed it with the lesson; he really knows how to teach from the scriptures and simply. He said that I carried the lesson too and did a good job asking inspired questions, which was really nice. I honestly really wish Elder Evans wasn’t going home soon. We make such great companionship. I just really feel like we are so unified in our teaching and trainings. I’m gonna miss him a lot. But I’m glad for the amazing times and things that we experienced together. I also had another amazing miracle after we arrived back at the apartment. I was putting my temple clothes back in my temple bag and I discovered that my ministerial certificate was in there! When I arrived on the mission I just couldn’t find it for the life of me. I knew I packed it!! There’s no way I left that at home, it was the first thing I packed. But I was really happy to see that I still have it. I’m really grateful for all the amazing miracles I’ve experienced this week!

Family History Miracle

My father shared a really amazing miracle family history work that I thought would be good to share here: He was assisting one of our neighbors with her genealogy on her computer. She had a hard drive that had a lot of local genealogy resources saved, but unfortunately she was unable to boot the computer. My father discovered that Windows was having issues booting from the drive but luckily the rest of the genealogy files on the drive we in-tact. He was able to get Windows to boot off of a different drive and once he got into the computer he began to browse the files that were in the hard drive. My neighbor was looking for a very specific file that she saved and she wasn’t sure where it was on the drive. Which was difficult because the drive had many partitions and each partition shows up as a different drive all together on the computer. So you have drive letters C, A, B, C, … all the way down to some drive like “T”. And each of these seemingly separate drives have a bunch of folders that you need to go through. The task of locating this specific file was no trivial task and could take weeks to find. When my dad began checking out what was in these folders to understand what would be the best course of action searching for the files… he clicked on the exact drive and the exact folder structure that the genealogy file was located in that my neighbor was searching for; the very first one. That experience was incredibly amazing for me to hear, and it really shows that the heavenly priesthood is working all around us and assisting us in our day to day lives.

Transfers: I’m gonna miss those Elders

Today was a very busy day, and one with mixed emotions. We dropped off Elder Hanson and Elder Lopez at the ferry terminal. I’m sure gonna miss those Elders, but they are gonna do some amazing work in Victoria. We made our way back to the mission office and gave two trainings as well as did some administrative work for transfers. I’m actually really surprised how well our first training went. It was for all the new missionaries that just came in and we just shared about using technology to share the gospel. The message seemed well received so that was good. After that we had a training that we gave at the trainers meeting. I definitely was a lot less prepared for that, I wish we had more time beforehand to prepare. But it wasn’t too bad so that was good I guess. Things have just been so busy, we didn’t have very much time at all to plan for two trainings. The transfer travel part of transfers went really well today. Everyone was able to get to where they needed to go and our travel plans worked out well. Unfortunately, we did run into a lot of issues with transfers because the teaching areas in imos were not configured correctly. We have new assistants that are still getting in the groove of things and they didn’t realize that’s something they needed to do. Elder Evans and I tried to help them out without overstepping our assignment. We had many calls from other missionaries that day because that’s something that they thought we could fix. So we just forwarded that information to the assistants and tried to help where we could. Quite a few missionaries weren’t able to have access to Preach My Gospel a day or two after transfers because of that, and I believe Elder Kuta (our mission vehicle coordinator) was struggling to work out vehicles and stuff because imos wasn’t up-to-date either. But that’s okay, we got everything sorted out and now we are chilling.

Dang, I realize that my emails sound super administrative and not as spiritual as I’d like. I’ll try to focus on the spiritual side of things, but I’m mostly just throwing the administrative side in here for me to look back on. Hopefully they aren’t too boring :P

Easter Sunday! 🙏

Brothers and Sisters, we have made it to Easter Sunday! I’ve been looking forward to today for a bit. We’ve been inviting a lot of the inactive members and our friends to church with print-out flyers, so fingers crossed we can help get more people there! We went to church and it was super-duper awesome! Very spiritually-filled, and I loved how they did a fast and testimony meeting this Sunday. (They moved it a week back cause fast and testimony Sunday would’ve landed on general conference next week.) Everyone’s testimonies were so focused on Jesus Christ and so many people got up and bore their testimonies’ it was amazing! Elder Wolsey of the area seventy persided and Elder Evans was telling me that when you preside your job is to observe the needs of the congregation as you are standing in place of the Savior. Our testimony meeting went a couple minutes over because he felt the need that there was someone else that needed to bear their testimony. And it wasn’t like there was a bunch of time in-between people getting up, people were like right after the other. I was going to try to bear my testimony but we were already out of time. But it was really inspiring to me that he was observing the needs of those around them and in-tune with the Spirit to decide to let the meeting run over. May we all try to be more observant in our lives and follow the whisperings of the Spirit as we do so. Sometime after church we decided to continue to visit less-active members. We first visited Brother Davison, he’s retired and is a super nice guy. He’s just struggling a bit after the loss of his wife a year ago. He just lives in an old-folks home and honestly we think he just really needs someone to talk to. So we’ve just been making an effort to visit him some more. After that visit we met this lady just outside. She just approached us and was wondering what church we were a part of. After we told her she said that she thinks she heard of our church, but she wasn’t sure from where she heard it. She was super nice and said she’d love to visit our church sometime. We gave her a card and we’re looking forward to seeing her soon! Looking back on it, I kinda wish we were able to get her number. But I have faith she’ll reach out to us. We visited with this one guy and he and his family seemed really sweet. I really felt like that whole interaction was very inspired by the Holy Ghost. It was probably one of the most normal and natural door knocking interactions that I’ve had on my mission. Usually it’s a lot more difficult for me to create conversation and come up with inspired questions, but they were just flowing through the conversation. I got to know him a lot better, and shared a brief testimony about attending church. I asked him if he’d be interested in hearing more spiritual messages with us and he agreed so we gave him a pass-along card. Anyways, I’m pretty happy we saw some success today. Sadly we didn’t see very many of our friends come to church on Sunday, but the interactions that we had after church has helped me feel more successful.

Planning Zone Conference Training 📝🤔

We did a lot of planning and had a meeting with President. We have another presentation that we are preparing for all the Zone Conferences this transfer. President Gill was thinking we’ll keep doing Preach My Gospel training. I wasn’t entirely sure what we should do our training on. We went through quite a few ideas like Weekly Planning in PMG and Device Safety with Device Audits. After a lot of consideration and prayers the Spirit impressed upon me that we need to focus our presentation on filling out baptismal forms. It seems like that’s something that gets overlooked and I’ve heard a good portion of missionaries struggle to get it filled out and everything correct. So we’re gonna buckle down and throw together a presentation. Hopefully it goes well. 🤞

Gangster Sandwiches 🥪 and Duncan Stay 🏕

We ferried over to Nanaimo with the Assistants for Zone Conference! It was actually my first time doing the drive on ferry which was pretty cool. The assistants just took their car over. Once we arrived at Nanaimo we stopped by this super awesome restaurant. It was so good, I totally forgot the name. 😂 Anyways we had a little something called the “Gangster Sandwich.” It was so good, 10/10 would recommend again. We met up with another set of Elders there, Elder Ott and Elder Carwin. They took us to their apartment in Duncan afterwards to stay the night before Zone Conference. We snagged some nice pictures with them on the way so that was pretty sweet.

Nanaimo Zone Conference 🎵

We had yet another wonderfully spiritually filled Zone Conference. There was a musical number at the beginning, and holy cow that was an amazing performance! Words cannot explain how spiritually filled those musical expressions were. President Gill gave it three wows. The missionaries here are so talented. President and Sister Gill were like wow, we should have that recorded. Little did they know Elder Evans in the back row recorded the whole thing with his mighty phone mic. Elder Evans comes clutch once again! President and Sister Gill had an amazing presentation about teaching our friends to the temple and beginning with the end in mind. The Assistants also knocked it out of the park with their presentation on My Covenant Path which was so needed! The lunch took quite a bit more time than expected, so when we got around to the time with our training we had to shorten it quite a bit. But it turned out way better than I thought! I’m glad that Elder Evans and I were able to make the message really Spiritual, even though we are discussing many application based training.

194 Years 🌄

Today marks a special day because it’s my second time watching general conference as a set apart missionary. I gotta say general conference just keeps getting better. Today also marks 194 years since Joseph Smith received all of the Priesthood keys to restore the church.

Victoria Temple! 🇨🇦

Today was quite the remarkable day. We went to the mission home to watch a session of general conference. Unfortunately our friend wasn’t able to come and watch it with us. We were planning on doing his baptismal interview right after the session too, but he had some family stuff come up so we’re going to try to do his interview tomorrow. I loved the amazing messages shared at general conference and especially the emphasis on covenants and building a personal connection with the Savior. We also got a temple announced in Victoria British Columbia!! The work’s moving forward in BC! It’s amazing to see the Gathering of Israel unfold Once the temple is built we will have two temples in the mission. Another cool fact is that Victoria is the capital city in British Columbia; which is kinda weird cause you would think that Vancouver would be.

Social Media Inspiration 💡

We had a lot of planning today, but ended off with a bang. We met with the STL’s and started figuring things out with Zone Conference training. We were told to focus our training on chapter 8 of PMG which is about making goals and plans. I don’t know how but it always seems like that is the goto topic for zone conference trainings. I’ve seen it so much more than any other topic. But that’s okay, I believe that’s something that we all can improve and do better at; so we’ll just keep seeing trainings on that till we finally figure it out. Planning took a bit to get the wheels turning, but I believe at the end we had a good idea on how we were going to present the training. After that we headed back to the office for a Technology Council meeting. The meeting went a lot quicker than usual, but it was very spiritually filled and effective. The Social Media sisters had a big zoom meeting with all of the missionaries that are assigned to do social media work and many of them shared great thoughts and insights. President Gill said at the end of it that he was very grateful for the meeting and council because he received a revelation for the social media page from the thoughts shared. After the social media meeting, he shared the revelation with us. But before that he began with a question, he asked: “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear First Light (the Facebook page name)?” We discussed it for a bit and then he shared that he had this very clear inspiration that we need to change the page name to “Christ’s First Light.” Which is so cool, because just last week, Elder Evans and I were talking about the exact same thing.

Road Trip to Kelowna 🚗💨

Road trip, whoot whoot!! We are driving 4 hours all the way up to Kelowna for Zone Conference! It’s been pretty awesome on our drive we saw all of the seasons of weather. We saw the shining sun ☀️, pouring rain 🌧, and snowing winter ❄️ wonderland. I feel like I’m on Spring Break right now. It’s kinda weird. We listened to some more of general conference in the car and now I’m reminiscing about when my family and I would go on a road trip at the same time and listen to conference.

Spiritual Thought 🙏

“12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” -Romans 13:12

Thursday Pday

We had our preparation day on a Thursday since we were in Terrace during Zone Conference stuff on Tuesday. So today was pretty chill. Last preparation day we found this cool little digital picture frame; Elder Evans always wanted something like that, so we bought it. Unfortunately it didn’t come with a power adapter, but we found one that fit, and the voltage was pretty close to the same. So we came back home, he plugged it in and it turned on! Wish was pretty sweet. We unplugged it to move it to a different spot and it wouldn’t turn on again. We were unable to turn it on since, and I was worried we ruined it with the power cable. We went back to Value Village today and I found a cable that fit with the exact voltage and amps. This was it! I thought this cable was the answer, but after we plugged it in, I think we wrecked it with the other cable. But that’s okay, it was a miracle because we found another digital picture frame and it was unopened! Power cable and everything.So I’m just glad it worked out for Elder Evans. God is good! After that we were having trouble disabling the contact syncing system, but upon diving back into the code, I was able to clear up a huge technical misunderstanding. I realized that each area email runs the code to sync contacts and they each run an update contacts function on itself. Before I thought that the Canada Vancouver Mission email looped through every area email and copied the contacts over that way. After discovering this I was able to get the contacts to wipe and disable syncing so that was pretty good. I’m glad that God helped me figure that out.

Exchanges with Elder Bracket

I began an exchange with Elder Bracket (DL) today. Now I’m back in Surrey 3rd ward, which is kinda weird to be back, but it’s been good. Elder Bracket is super chatty, but he’s fun. He’s making a big decision right now, so we had some good discussion about it. His visitor record expires in October, but his time as a missionary wouldn’t be over till January. So he’s debating if he should extend his visitor record and stay out, or go home and finish the remaining time as a service missionary, or just go home early. He’s been praying about it and bouncing back and forth on those options. I tried to offer some good council, I hope it helps. We didn’t really end up doing too much, I helped him work through the referrals though.

Church Flyers & Phone Logging

I’m pretty happy with the work we were able to accomplish today. We had a wonderful spiritually filled district council from Elder Strong. We talked about the Christ-like attribute of diligence as well as strengthening and working with members. It was probably one of the best district councils I’ve been to. We also gave Elder Judd his Tiwi, but since he’s only had his license for a year we did a driving test to make sure he’s good. We drove to the gas station and back, and he did a really good job so I said he passed! We went into the office today to print out flyers for church; I had an idea that we should have passalongs for our Easter Sunday church service, and they turned out pretty well. As per usual, we got wrapped up in a sidequest at the office, but it was a really productive sidequest so no complaints here. We labeled and logged all of the phones that we have in the safe. Most of it is just a bunch of personal devices that don’t support Church Protections, so the missionaries will pick them up before they go home. Now hopefully, we can keep track of all the phones. Most of the phones we don’t know the missionary that it belongs to so we gave them codenames. Some of these include, but are not limited to, Courageous Corgi, Excited Elephant, and Weary Wolverine. We had a pretty good time labeling all of these phones.

MSC Form Video

We began today by doing some park finding. Unfortunately as we walked through the park we didn’t see anyone to talk to. At the end of our finding session however we did see a couple of guys with cameras doing bird watching. We didn’t want to disturb the bird watching so we began to head home. We started work on a MSC form instructional video. It’s a bit difficult to record videos without all the equipment, but we got a bit creative and made do with what we have. The video took a lot longer to make than expected, but we are almost finished. Hopefully it helps to clarify misunderstandings that missionaries have about filling out the MSC forms. After that we stopped by some inactive members’ homes and gave out flyers for our Easter Sunday church service. It seems like it’s been super successful so far, we’ve had a lot of positive interactions with members we haven’t met. To end off the night we were going to stop by one last house. I found a nearby member, through the address in the navigation, and it took us to Dairy Queen. Kinda wacky it says the member lives at Dairy Queen haha! But we took that as a sign and got some DQ blizzards to end off the night lol.

6 Month Reflection

I’ve been so bad at writing in my journal the past couple of days so I’m just gonna write a 6 month reflection: I’m so grateful for my mission and all the wonderful people that the Lord has blessed me to be around. I’m grateful for Elder Evans, for his spirituality, his leadership, his example, and his love for the work and the people. He’s truly one of the greatest missionaries I’ve ever known. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve around Elder Hanson and Elder Lopez. They are such wonderful missionaries, and to be able to see the transformation in both of them over the course of a transfer was such a blessing. Elder Hanson is so down to earth, and it was amazing to see the work transform him. Elder Lopez is very diligent and hard working. I’m grateful to see that Elder Hanson and Lopez worked so well together and strengthened each other so much. There were times that Elder Hanson struggled after long finding sessions of no success, but Elder Lopez helped him push through. Anyways, I just hit 6 months and I’m so incredibly grateful for this amazing experience I’ve had so far. I see it as this wonderful gift from God, and I don’t think I could ever repay Him for all the ways I’ve learned and grown. I’m looking forward to the future and I’m so incredibly grateful for President and Sister Gill. They are some of the greatest people I know and it’s a blessing to be able to serve with you. I’m so grateful for their example and all the amazing things I’ve learned and will continue to learn from them. But most of all I’m grateful to come to the earth at this time and witness and participate in the gathering of Israel.

I’ll probably write a longer 6 month reflection soon…

Thank you everybody, I am so grateful for your love and support. I couldn’t do any of this without you. You all mean so much to me :)

My interview with President Gill was quite interesting. I always look forward to chatting with President and Sister Gill, they are some of the greatest people I know. My interviews continue to get more and more interesting. 1. I went through a device audit of another missionaries’ phone with him. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to do that in an interview, but I guess that’s cool. Most of everything on the phone was pretty good, I did see a Travis Scott song in there, which you know, probably isn’t missionary approved, so I brought that up with him; but other than that we are chilling. 2. He asked me if I would be okay not seeing the rest of the mission. Which I wasn’t really expecting .But I said I would be okay with that. 3. He said that he’ll have us (the technology missionaries) go to every zone conference from now on. 4. He asked me how things have been balancing the zone leader, tech assignment, and missionary work has been going. I said that we’ve been able to balance them out pretty well so far. Since we are opening up a new teaching pool in Richmond, the missionary work aspect hasn’t been too demanding in terms of time. It’s been about 65% missionary work, 35% technology work. He told me he can separate the zone leadership and technology assignment if I feel that it was too demanding. I believe we can definitely keep balancing the zone leadership stuff if we continue working in Richmond. President was thinking about moving the zone leader area, so we will see what happens. I just got to say President and Sister Gill are so sweet. They said that I was a gift to this mission. He also mentioned if I ever feel guilty or bad that I can’t balance out my assignments, those feelings are coming from Satan. He emphasized just how grateful he and Sister Gill are for all the work I’m doing. Interviews were not quite what I expected this time around, but I am so incredibly grateful for this experience. After that Elder Evans and I did roleplays with all of the missionaries after interviews. It went really well; we had everyone practice teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a baptismal invitation. It was really awesome to witness all the missionaries in the zone teach. Elder Evans said that his interview also went really well. President Gill complimented his tie so he’s going to try and see if he can get a tie trade with him before he goes home next transfer haha. He also said that he had Elder Evans down to be AP, but he feels like he’s better needed in this assignment. Elder Evans said that he’s honestly not disappointed about it, and glad that he’s able to do trainings with me at each zone conference.

Book of Mormon Miracle

Today was really tiring, which was kinda weird because we didn’t really do too much. We went to church and President and Sister Gill came for sacrament meeting too. After that we had ward council which went longer than expected, but it was still good. Once we all got home we were drained. Half of us fell asleep during personal study haha, Sunday always hits differently. After that we had a really cool experience when we began finding. We met a guy and we were able to have some good conversation about God and truth. He said that he’s done some research and believed in agnosticism. We asked him a few questions on how we can find evidence of God. Elder Evans shared the Book of Mormon with him and invited him to read it. He said he wasn’t really interested and didn’t want a book that he wouldn’t read. I shared my personal experience with the spirit and praying to know truth. We chat a bit more and at the end of the conversation he actually said he changed his mind and asked for the Book of Mormon. It’s amazing to see how the spirit opens people’s hearts.

Traveling the Mission (Terrace trip)

We had the wonderful opportunity to deliver another zone conference training on the Preach My Gospel application. It is kinda crazy being able to travel the mission with the assistants and the social media sisters. Unfortunately the Haida Gwaii Elders were unable to join us at zone conference in person because their ferry was canceled due to the rough waves. We were able to setup a Zoom meeting for them to join, which proved to be a lot more difficult than it should have been haha; due to the lack of equipment. But we made due with what we had, and it worked out for them. By the time we had our training, we were a bit stressed with all of the technical issues, but we were able to do the training and I hope it went well. We spent some time polishing up the presentation and our training the night before, but unfortunately we didn’t have an HDMI for the TV so it didn’t work out as well as I would have hoped. But that’s okay, it seemed like the training was well received and we all were learning during it so that was good.

Spiritual Thought

“Father in Heaven knew that you would face challenges and be required to make some decisions that would be beyond your own ability to decide correctly. In His plan of happiness, He included a provision for you to receive help with such challenges and decisions during your mortal life. That assistance will come to you through the Holy Ghost as spiritual guidance. It is a power, beyond your own capability, that a loving Heavenly Father wants you to use consistently for your peace and happiness.” (To Acquire Spiritual Guidance by Elder Richard G. Scott)

We traveled to Vancouver Island for Zone Conference! And wow, it was such a cool experience! We took the ferry from Tswassen early in the morning; it was scheduled to leave at 7am. So we quickly got up and ready at 5am, and began our journey to the ferry port. Once we arrived on the ferry we sat in anticipation to see the island. Elder Evans hasn’t had the opportunity to visit Vancouver Island so he was pretty excited to see it. Once we arrived we were picked up by the Victoria Zone Leaders and began heading to the stake center. Unfortunately the breakfast was too expensive for us, so Elder Evans was hoping we’d be able to have enough time to pickup some McDonald’s on the way there. But there wasn’t enough time so we just headed to the Zone Conference. We survived till lunch, so it’s all good haha! Once we arrived at the church Elder Evans and I were talking about the unique architecture of the building. It looked pretty sweet, not your typical stake center. We got to meet all the missionaries that were serving on the Island and that was a really cool experience. This was my first time meeting all of those missionaries. Elder Evan’s old companion, Elder Beisinger was also serving on the Island. We made quite the surprise appearance when Elder Beisinger saw us. It was such a cool experience sitting in for yet another Zone Conference in the same transfer! It was quite funny when the missionary that was conducting announced our names as the Social Media Elders haha. We had everyone confused; the mission used to have Social Media Elders, but currently we just have Social Media Sisters. Anyways, we had another really awesome Zone Conference! Lunch was also super-duper good, too bad we ran out. I was gonna go for seconds, but it’s probably for the best. After lunch we did our Preach My Gospel app training yet again. We split everyone in two groups, and they were taught by the Assistants and the other group was taught by us. Afterwards they would rotate, so we ended up giving two PMG trainings, once again. I was surprised to see that President Gill sat in for the trainings once again. Our training went really well. I definitely feel like we made quite the improvement from the last training. We incorporated a scripture at the beginning of it, because we both felt like our training was so concerned about the application, it was missing the doctrine. Obviously it’s a very application based training, so that’s naturally going to happen. But I thought it was really good to focus on the why, and not just what. It wasn’t like we didn’t focus on that in our last training, it was more of just a side note. It turned out really well, we had a lot of great council and discussion. The missionaries brought a lot of great questions to the table that allowed us to counsel and come to a conclusion that can help us further the work of the Lord. After the training President Gill came up to us and told us that he whispered to Sister Gill that we reminded him of Elder Holland and Elder Cook. All of the ferry’s were booked and the only one we could get was the one that would leave at 9pm. Which would mean that we wouldn’t get home till around 11pm. President Gill gave us the thumbs up on it, so we still had a few hours on the island before our ferry left. We just hung out with Elder Biesinger and Elder Jung and drove to Victoria with them. They took us to this super awesome poutine restaurant, and the guy that works there is a member so he gave us discounts!

Fast Sunday

Good old fast Sunday! This Sunday was pretty good. Sister Gill came to sacrament meeting, unfortunately President Gill was in meetings so he was unable to make it, but we’re glad to see Sister Gill! None of our friends were able to attend, hopefully they can come next week. We had a super good Sunday school class, had some good chat about Isaiah and Nephi with Come Follow Me. Sister Gill had some really good insights, it was great to be able to hear the discussion. After that we gave a Priesthood blessing to a member; they’re going to have a surgery on their finger and wanted to have a blessing to help. We then came home and began our exchange with Elder Jones and Bracket. I’m staying in Richmond with Elder Jones and Elder Evans is going with Elder Bracket. We had some good studies together, and did some Facebook work. The senior missionaries gave us a text and wanted to see if we could join them for dinner. We headed over to their place, and they made some really good homemade pizza and cookies. It was a great way to end our fasts! We had a quick lesson with them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Elder Jones did an awesome job teaching it! He’s only been out for 3 weeks, but he’s been working with Elder Bracket on teaching it really simply. We were planning on doing some finding outside afterwards, but it was pouring rain outside and we saw some lightning so we ended up just doing some more Facebook work. But it’s all good, overall it was a really good day.

Spiritual Thought

“Many of the things you can count, do not count. Many of the things you cannot count, really do count.”

“Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. … Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’” (Mere Christianity, New York: Collier Books, 1960, p. 167.)

Today was a bit stressful but everything worked out in the end. We had a super awesome district council with our new district leader Elder Bracket! Very spirit filled, and insightful. After that we headed over and helped a member out with moving. We were on a super tight schedule cause we needed to pick up the assistants from the mission office and drive them to the bus office. But it was still a great service opportunity. It was pretty sweet we were able to get the other elders we live with to join us and all four of us came and helped. After that we picked up the assistants and drove them to the bus stop. We were running super tight on time, we were really hoping that they wouldn’t miss their bus. Luckily we pulled in right at the perfect time, we ended up right behind their bus. It was quite the miracle, so glad everything worked out. After that I was worried about getting the MSC dashboards up and running. We got a lot of missionaries that have MSC’s really soon, some of them are tonight, and it would be really problematic if I didn’t have it up and running by then.

Fixing MSC Stuff

Luckily we were able to get all the MSC dashboards and stuff worked out; which is a relief. I feel like I throw too much technical jargon in my emails haha, don’t wanna bore you all with the details, but yeah it’s working again.

Five Guys at Five Guys

We had lunch with President Gill today! He took us to Five Guys; he originally was just planning on meeting with me and Elder Evans to discuss the technology in the mission, but we have some visa waiter missionaries that came in and will be staying with us. President had his interviews with them. Elder Contrearas and Elder Harris are going to Victoria but they won’t be able to get on a ferry till tomorrow. So they’re just chilling and staying with us. President interviewed them both and took us all to lunch. Which was super nice of him, when we all got in the car he was like “you know it’s not very often missionaries get to go out to lunch with the mission president.” We also had a super cool experience in Five Guys, this guy came in and President Gill noticed him. After he sat down he felt a prompting to go talk to him. He got up, had a good little conversation with him and gifted him a Book of Mormon. After that me and Elder Evans gave him a pass along card, and testified of the Book of Mormon. After that we came back to the mission office and had our technology meeting with President Gill. The meeting went pretty well, now we have a clear vision of what President wants for the technology moving forward. After that he interviewed me and Elder Evans separately. With Elder Evans going home next transfer, he wanted to talk to him some more about his plans for when he gets home. In my interview, he just asked if I had any questions for him and wanted to see how I was doing. I love being around and working with President Gill. He’s one of the most Christ-like people I know, and is so spirit led. After all of that we got back on the street and did some more finding. And it actually went really well. We chat with some Chinese folks that have met with the missionaries before. She saw us while we were walking and recognized that we were missionaries. She took us back over to her driveway and we met her husband. Luckily he is able to speak English fluently so we were able to chat a bit. While we were knocking doors we also had a chat with this lady who said she was a Salvationist. She was super duper sweet and we ended up having a 15 minute conversation.

Technology Council

We had a technology council meeting with President. That was pretty cool. Basically it’s the Social Media sisters, Assistants, interaction missionaries, referral secretaries, and those that are in charge of mission Facebook pages. We had a good council about the way social media is received in the mission and Preach My Gospel training. It was actually kinda crazy, after the meeting President Gill counseled with us about the Preach My Gospel training. We weren’t aware of how many missionaries don’t feel like they know how to use Preach My Gospel effectively in their missionary work. He proposed that we should incorporate a Preach My Gospel training in Zone Conference. Which is happening in two days and he wants Elder Evans and I to work with the Social Media sisters and the Assistants in creating the presentation and stuff. He also said to clear out a schedule for Friday because we may be giving the training at the Zone Conference in Terrace and on the Island! So basically there’s a chance that we may be flying out to do the training as well. Absolutely crazy stuff! Now we just need to create the whole training tonight and have it done by tomorrow night. No problemo haha.

The Find Grind

Lets just say that Richmond is a bit difficult when it comes to finding. We don’t really have very many friends at all so we haven’t been having lessons but we’re working to turn our finding into teaching opportunities. But overall we’ve had some good conversations and interactions with people. We taught this guy named Victor the whole Plan of Salvation lesson while we were street contacting. He was interested to learn more about our faith. But he wasn’t interested in a Book of Mormon or getting our number. But that’s okay, we had a good chat with him and it was good to share some common ground about our beliefs.

Spiritual Thought

“But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.” -Moroni 7:13

Transfers were surprisingly not too crazy. There wasn’t too much transfer travel that we had to plan for as Zone Leaders so that was pretty nice. We basically were working in the office, working on our technology assignment. We had a bunch of Elders stay at our place over transfer travel which was pretty cool. Our place is kinda of a mess just cause I haven’t been able to fully unpack yet and because we have like three sets of Elders over. But it’s actually so epic this apartment is huge compared to my last one! (Keep in mind my last apartment was the smallest apartment in the mission). There’s actually space, I don’t have to cram everything in our closet haha. So far the transfer has been super duper awesome, I’m excited for the future!

Mostly Finding & Fixing Contacts

We did a buncha finding today. This morning we jumped into the office to help figure out a missionary phone situation. We then worked on the missionary contact syncing roster thingy. It was so sad when we figured out the whole system wasn’t working. You would think that if I didn’t touch the code (which I didn’t), it would continue working. But nope! It chose to break with the most perfect timing ever; transfers! That’s when everyone needs up-to date contacts, when everything changes. But yeah the whole thing decided to go crumbling down. Which is not the greatest, so we did what we could to get things working again. After some time reviewing errors that couldn’t be traced to the issue, and reviewing a dev environment with the exact same code working, we weren’t really getting very far. We had a quick phone call with Elder Yamashita and he suggested we look at the caching system. So I located the caching functionality and threw it all in the dumpster and moved a few things around. And lo and behold! She was workin’! At least we think. We’re not gonna know for sure until tomorrow when all the contacts do the whole syncing thingy again. After all that fun stuff we got on the bus and did some finding. We had a really great conversation with a guy on the bus which was pretty sweet! After some walking we checked out the mall, went on the sky train, did a lot more walking, went to some stores, and a bunch more walking. We didn’t see too much immediate success from our finding, but we had some good interactions and left some pass along cards. Overall it was a really great day, my legs are just tired but I’m excited for some church tomorrow.

The Sabbath & The Tech Problems Strike Back!

Well the good news is that I got contacts working again! Church was also pretty sweet. Our friend Tom came and another guy who was found by the new missionaries that just came in and did some finding. The ward’s quite a bit smaller than Surrey 3rd, but it seems like a super awesome ward! Elder Evans says that President Gill is the most inactive member in the ward haha. He usually comes to church once a transfer, so it’ll be cool to see him at church sometime in the future. After church we did some door knocking and right off the bat we think we found someone with interest. We’ll have to stop by again, but we gave them a Book of Mormon. It’s crazy, I feel like it’s always at the beginning of our finding sessions, we find the most success. After that we did some office work. All of the zone mission stat forums aren’t working. There’s some problems that Elder Yamashita’s code is running into. Long story short there’s some issues with the contacts database which is causing the system to run into errors which is leading to incomplete forums and stuff. We’re on time crunch right now trying to fix all this stuff so people can submit their stats for MSC. We’re hoping to get it resolved by tomorrow night.

Getting Closer

Welp we didn’t get the system completely finished tonight. But we know what we need to do to have it done tomorrow. We also were chatting with President Gill a couple days about what these new systems will look like and what we are hoping to do going forward. And we asked him if we could have a laptop so we could work after office hours. He approved it and we just got a laptop from the social media sisters! It was quite difficult not really being able to work on the system much on Saturday and Sunday. But the laptop will be the way to go moving forward. Both me and Elder Evans are committed to concencrating the laptop and we are going to be very careful in the way that we use it and ensure all that we do is focused on our missionary purpose.

Spiritual Thought

“Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.” -D&C 9:7-9

I’ve learned a lot on the mission; but one of the biggest things that I’ve been learning is the promptings of the Spirit. With this scripture I’ve learned that I shouldn’t be waiting on solid spiritual confirmations. But instead I should do what I feel would be right. As I look back, I’ve noticed that when I do that I am following the Spirit, I just don’t necessarily realize in the moment.

We stopped by a few of our referrals today, and that turned out really well. At the beginning of the day we didn’t have any teaching appointments, so I said we’ll make a teaching opportunity out of our finding. And it ended up working out! We stopped by one of our referrals who actually lives in the basement of the member’s homes. Which was pretty cool, and it worked out even better because he was just standing out in his driveway when we arrived. So he joined us in our visit with Aman. He was so nice, he and his friend were there and we invited them to church. He said he’s going to come for sure this Sunday, so we’re looking forward to seeing him then! He was also interested in the Book of Mormon so we gave him one and invited him to read it. I was pretty happy with the day, we turned a day of finding into a member present teaching opportunity.

Making Temple Recommend Instructions

Not too much happened today, I was helping some people in the ward with creating instructions to enable the temple recommend expiration notification in member tools. So I threw those together and printed them off. We also had a great lesson with the Davis’ again about thinking Celestial. After that we had some extra time and I felt inspired to go visit some less active members. We stopped by this one guy’s place and he was really nice. He said he hadn’t met with the missionaries in a long time and was glad we stopped by. We’re planning on meeting again next week and doing a lesson. We didn’t really find much success after that, but that’s okay.

The Official News

The call came in today and it’s official, I’m going to be a Zone Leader in Richmond! It’s so weird, cause when we had our three meetings last week, I was told exactly what was gonna happen. Both Elder Evans and were told we would be comps, ZLS, and Technology Specialists, working as office missionaries for our assignment. I don’t feel prepared for what’s to come so hopefully it goes well haha. We’ll be at mission leadership council on Wednesday so I delegated Elder Hanson to do district council. Idk what’s happening with Elder Whipple cause he’s going to MLC too and president told him to pack his bags as well. I guess we’ll both be leaving. There’s a pretty good chance that they’re closing the elders from this area and having the sisters we are ward sharing with take the lead. Just because we have so many missionaries leaving and not enough are coming in to keep all the areas open. But idk, once transfer news comes in on Wednesday for everyone else, we’ll know.

Inspired District Council

Welp, we ran into a dilemma, since we’re all gonna be in MLC for district council, we’re gonna need to make some changes. Cause me and Elder Whipple, Elder Evans, and Sister Write will be at MLC. Leaving our district council with just Elder Hanson, Harmer, and Sister Elkins, and Conte. Which wouldn’t really work very well. It sounds like the other Surrey district was running into the same problem. So the Zone Leaders called up President to see if we can combine our districts together for district council this week. He gave the thumbs up, and we all got on a call together to coordinate that. Now the cool part about this whole experience is that when I counseled with Elder Strong (the other District Leader), we basically had the same thing planned for District Council. So combining district council’s is going to work out really well. I’m glad that the Lord is directing both of us District Leaders to create the most effective council for our districts. If it weren’t for his influence, there was no way we both were going to plan on teaching from Preach My Gospel chapter 1. I had a lot more trouble trying to receive the revelation for district council this week, so I guess this kinda explains it haha. But I’m glad that we’re on the same wave length. Also we got the Zone Leadership transfer board and my companion, Elder Whipple, is gonna be Zone Leader in Kelowna which is pretty sweet!

Spiritual Thought

When I pause, and look back on life, I begin to understand just how much God has directed and helped me. There is no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be here without his influence. Without his love. Without his infinite understanding. Without his divine guidance. Without the generations of people he inspired to assist in restoring his church back on the earth. Without the sacrifices of those that laid down their lives for our freedom and liberty. Without the trials that have been placed before me to help me learn and grow and become so much more. Without my amazing family that has always been there and supported me.

Without his Son. Who was smitten, abandoned, persecuted, and out of his infinite love, offered himself as a sacrifice for me and everyone who has ever lived. His son who led by his perfect example that inspires millions around the world today. His son, whose light shines forth in the darkness, giving us hope, peace, and strength today. His son, who is right by our side as we experience the storms of life. His son, who knows exactly what those storms are like. Even when we feel like we are alone. When all hope is lost; he’s right by our side ready to embrace us. Ready to lift our burdens. So that we may have a chance, a chance to return with our Father in Heaven again. A chance to experience His great joy and everlasting happiness. A chance to be united with our loved ones for all eternity.

We’re racking in all of the exchanges. Right now I’m with Elder Hanson, and he’s a super cool Elder. I bought two boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for district council because it was his birthday last week, and that was pretty epic. We had a lesson with one of their friends and he’s a super nice guy. He apparently always finds a way to integrate politics in the lesson. But that’s okay, we did a pretty good job directing the lesson and keeping it on track. He’s a super nice guy too.

Lots of Exchanges

I did an exchange with Elder Hanson’s companion, Elder Harmer. We did some door to door finding and some park finding. I learned how it’s important to teach and testify in these interactions, rather than only asking if they’d be interested. I’m really trying to improve in my finding efforts, I feel like my interactions would be more successful if they were improved. Anyways, it was still a great exchange, we had a good time getting to know each other. I’m trying to find ways that I can support these Elders. They are both 3 transfers in and in a completely new area with an empty Preach My Gospel. So they both are working hard. We had a nice conversation with someone at the park, so that was pretty good. Apparently while we were on exchanges my comp did some family history work in the library; and he actually found someone’s info that wasn’t in his family tree, so he was working on adding it. He also met a guy that was interested in learning more about God and they had a conversation for an hour. Which is actually so awesome! He didn’t get his number, but he’s in the library a lot, so we may run into him soon.

Big Update to Contact Syncing

Elder Yamashita updated the imos roster syncing system to version 3 this morning, so that’s pretty cool. Now we’re storing all of our contacts in an encrypted database. So the contacts were a bit wack this morning as they were getting synced. We headed over to the church this morning to unlock it for the Spanish Elders, cause they were having a baptism. While we were at the church I worked in the family history center trying to figure out the code and stuff for my technology assignment. I always feel bad because it takes more time then I intend, and I feel Like I’m not really doing anything. I’m just playing catch up trying to understand the code. I’m working on figuring out how to balance it with the rest of my missionary responsibilities.

Improvement & Google Voice

Lately we’ve been teaching more people, so that’s been great! I’m glad to see that we are seeing an improvement from last week. Now I just gotta schedule more appointments with members. I feel like I haven’t been doing that enough so I’ll try to message some more of them. I’ve been thinking about the logistics of transitioning from Android Messages to Google Voice. I believe it’ll be very positive for the mission if we could adopt that. But I first need to figure out the imos roster system.

Thesis Dude

District Council was pretty good today. We got a bit side tracked at the start, but it got really good towards the end. I’m continually trying to improve my district councils, I feel like I need to do a better job at guiding and directing the council. I’ll continue working on it. There was a guy that called the family history center and had some questions about our beliefs. So the family history workers gave him our number and he gave us a call. We hopped into a Zoom meeting with him and my companion was like “I sure hope it’s not the guy I think it is.” He said if it’s an old guy with a white background, it’s him. Needless to say it was an old dude with a white background, and it turned out to be him. Anyways he’s a super nice guy. My companion was only worried about it cause he talks forever haha. I didn’t think it was very bad at all. He said he’s working on his thesis and he had a few questions. He talked about the peace that religion tends to bring with the love of God and some scientific studies on it. Basically 4 Nephi haha. He also talked about the second coming of Christ and our thoughts on how we would discern if someone said that they were Christ if they were actually the Son of God. Anyways, most of it was him explaining his thoughts and his thesis. But we chipped in a little bit here and there. He said he really liked and agreed with our thoughts. He may send me his thesis once he’s finished so I guess that’ll be pretty cool.

The Trio Dream

Ahhh, where to begin!? Just when I think things can’t get any crazier haha. Let’s just say it all started with a dream I had that I was going to be put into a trio in Richmond. Now spoiler alert, that hasn’t happened yet, but very well can be happening in the next two or three days. Some stuff went down and one of the missionaries went home early, and we had a Zone Conference. So his companion was just with the assistance at that meeting. He also forgot to pack a suit so we real quickly had to run over to their apartment and pick that up for him. On top of that the ZLs weren’t sure if they had a projector at the Burnaby building, so we ran over to the Surrey Stake Center to see if we had one… lo and behold it was locked in the Clerk’s office. After doing a few calls we realized that nobody was going to make it in time to unlock it. So we just headed over to Zone Conference as fast as we could. Fingers crossed they have a projector. We ended up being late, but after President Gill found out we were getting the suit for that missionary he excused us. Pheew, that was good haha. President pulled aside a few missionaries during the conference for various reasons. There’s a lot happening right now, it sounds like that missionary will be staying with the assistants before they figure out where he’s going. The other tech Elder lost access to the code and stuff. Now it’s all on me to manage this stuff. Not gonna lie, I’m overwhelmed, idk if I have what it takes to figure out this whole thing and manage it right now. But I’m going to do my best and hopefully it works out.

Missionaries Moving Around (Pt 1. fulfillment of trio dream)

Today was a really good day. A lot happened and it was a bit stressful, but still a good day. This morning we had to get up pretty quickly to setup some tables and chairs at the church. I then ran over to the family history center to fix a buncha mission contact issues. It looks like one of the mission leaders deleted all of the mission office staff contacts, so that was really nice! I hope I fixed the issue, idk yet till the contacts try to sync again tomorrow. We headed back home to finish up our personal studies and then we headed back over to the church to take down the tables and everything. It was actually super sweet, they saved some food for us. So we had some brownies and chicken burritos! It also just so happened to be perfect timing because after we put everything away, the sisters had a church tour with two of their friends. Unfortunately they weren’t able to get a member there. Because the friends they were teaching were brothers, they couldn’t teach them alone without a member brother there. So that’s where we come along! They essentially passed them off to us and we taught them instead. They both were super awesome, they were interested and were asking questions and looking at the books and paintings. We gave them both a Book of Mormon and they were even reading it on the tour, so that was pretty awesome! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Elder Sachadina, one of the Zone Leaders, is now the other Elder’s companion and is going to Brookswood with him. Elder Evans is now trioing with Elder Hanson and Elder Harmer in Richmond. Which works out pretty well because they were already in an apartment together. Which is kinda cool cause I had a dream about it a couple of days ago, but I just assumed I was going to be in the trio since I had the dream about it. We had a lesson with our friend Byron who’s progressing super fast so it’s been awesome! We taught him the restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. It was a really good lesson. I’m trying to focus on bearing my testimony more. I feel like I improved a bit at doing that in this lesson, but I want to continue to focus on that more.

LDS Belief Discussion

We had a lot of our friends come to church today which was awesome! Even though 3 of our friends messaged us that morning and said they weren’t feeling well, we had a lot of them come. It’s been great to see all of the friends that our friend Byron is making. He’s progressing super fast, he’s going to be ready for baptism pretty soon. I’m looking forward to our next lesson with him; so far we’ve just taught one lesson, but he’s been coming to church every week! We had a nice discussion with our friend James. It was our first time meeting with James, he’s met with the missionaries a few times before. He said he had some questions about the Doctrine and Covenants as well as the Joseph Smith Translation. He’s a very avid reader, as he read his Bible a lot and has read many religious books. He also said that he’s read the Book of Mormon 6 times! And here I am about to finish it a second time haha. He said “I don’t have a problem with the Book of Mormon, it very well could’ve happened…” he just had some questions about some doctrine in D&C and the purpose of the JST. We clarified some misunderstandings of things he heard about our beliefs. Like Joseph Smith standing as a second judge next to Jesus Christ at judgment, and some misunderstandings about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Tithing. He’s actually one of the nicest friends I’ve taught on the mission, we had a really nice 2 hour conversation. It’s interesting he says he believes in a lot of the stuff Catholic practices, but there’s certain things he doesn’t believe in. He highlighted some issues he has with their church and acknowledged the imperfections. Which I thought was really cool because this is the church he believes in, and he isn’t afraid to acknowledge the issues. We highlighted some issues in our church with him as well, and it seemed like he had a pretty good idea of those too. He really wants to meet with us again and dive more deeply in the doctrine. He also really likes our current prophet, he said he felt like the Monson guy was more conservative and restrictive. So I guess that’s pretty cool, he likes our prophet haha. He did bring up that there’s a few scriptures in the Bible that say that God is a Spirit which contradicts what D&C says about God having flesh and bones. I concluded that it’s an error in the translation, “is” and “a” were both added into the english translation which leaves us with “God” and “Spirit.” I believe the verse is talking about God’s relationship and dealings with man through Spirit. The Joseph Smith translation clarifies this a bit, but that was the best answer I had at the time. I’ll have to study it a bit more. Anyways, the guy is super nice, I look forward to meeting with him again.

The 3 Meetings (Pt 2. fulfillment of trio dream)

Remember, when I said just when I think things just can’t get any crazier? I just gotta not say that anymore haha. And it came to pass, that thus things did indeed get crazier. We got a message from the Assistants this morning that I need to come into the office for a meeting. Elder Evans, Hanson, & Harmer came into the office as well. Elder Whipple trio’d with Elder Hanson & Harmer and Elder Evans, the Assistants, and I had a meeting with President. We discussed the imos roster system, and the future of missionary communications. I brought up the idea of using Google Voice in the future, and everyone seemed on board with the idea. That’s not something that will be happening soon though, cause that’s gotta go through Salt Lake first, but it actually comes in to solve even more problems than I initially thought. We talked about the migration of Elder Yamashita’s system to a new more stable system and discussed a few ideas of what that would look like. We’re moving toward something that is much more manual but should be more sustainable in the long run. Right back at square one with the system haha. But that’s okay, we’ll figure it all out. After that the social media leaders came in and we sat in and contributed to that meeting. And after that we had a 3rd! Yes, 3rd meeting with president, with just Elder Evans and I. I cannot disclose the details of that meeting at this time, but you’ll see what’s happening in the future. Anyways, this email’s long enough, I probably could just keep writing but I gotta put a stop to it haha.

Spiritual Thought

Our job as missionaries isn’t to convince people that the gospel is true. It is to create an environment where people can feel of the Spirit and invite them to learn for themselves the truth by the Spirit.

1st Nephi begins by discussing the goodness of God (grace), and Moroni closes the Book of Mormon by telling us to remember the tender mercies of the Lord. We are invited to look at all of the goodness of God in the writings of the Book of Mormon.

I can testify that as we read the Book of Mormon each day, although it may not seem like it’s making a difference, it is making all the difference. I wish I read the Book of Mormon more before I left on a mission, but it is never too late to start. If you aren’t making an effort to read the Book of Mormon daily, I invite you to start. One day you’ll look back and realize just how much it makes a difference. This book truly does change lives, not just right here right now, but for eternity. It will open up the windows of Heaven and will open opportunities for great joy and strength that we can not begin to understand. I bear solemn witness that the Book of Mormon was personally written for us at this time right here, right now. We need these words more than ever.

Today we picked up my new companion, Elder Whipple from the ferry port. We also had the opportunity to go to the temple, so that was pretty awesome! Since Elder Murphy was going home we decided to do some shopping at the mall. He may as well spend the rest of his MSF. He ended up buying a signed jersey, which I guess is one way to spend all your money quickly haha. But it’s all good.

Snow Day: Part 1

It was declared as a snow day by mission prez. We got like a solid foot of snow. It was enough that very few people were actually driving. We probably couldn’t leave our apartment with the car even if we wanted to. We ended up doing District Council online again, which is not my favorite. I hope we can meet in person next week, but it’s all good we made it work. Thanks to my dad coming in clutch with a paid Zoom account; we can actually have our full district council time online! We shoveled some snow afterwards and then began our journey to McDonald’s. My companion really wanted some so we made the treterious walk there. Most of the sidewalk was buried in snow, but we pushed through it and made it work. The Sakulsingdusit’s had us over for dinner which was super nice! We had some good discussion about the Book of Mormon with the new Come Follow Me. The Book of Mormon is just so awesome! I’m really going to try to keep the Book of Mormon with me everywhere I go. That was actually one of the invitations at district council and I think that it’s a wonderful thing to do.

Snow Day Part 2: The Snow Day Strikes Back!

Today was declared as another snow day. But that’s okay because even though our physical reach is limited, God’s work knows no bounds. We walked over to the church so I can work on some IT stuff. Right when we got there we met some of the members that are in-charge of food pantry. Since it was cancelled due to the icy roads, they were putting down all of the tables. And we just so happened to get there at the perfect time to help them take down. It was actually really cool, just a small little miracle, especially considering the amount of tables that they had to take down. After that I went in and fixed a few contacts and I took an in-depth look at the imos roster syncing code.

Photos in the Park

Today I was not as successful as I would’ve hoped for. I feel like whenever I street contact my mind goes completely blank and I don’t know what to share. So I’m going to try to put more work into preparing scriptures and questions beforehand. A lot of our day was spent trying to find people in public. We struggled to talk to people at the bus exchange so we drove to some houses and tried to knock on a few doors. We didn’t find too much luck, my companion really wanted to go to a park so we decided to do that instead. Not really the best use of our time since nobody was at the park due to all the snow. But we still had a good time, and got some sweet pics. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to do better missionary work.

Interviews

We had interviews with president today, it was pretty cool! He said he had so much to talk to me about. Which can either be a good thing or a bad thing lol. But no he’s great, he just told me how grateful he is for me and the work that I’m doing. We chat about all the technology stuff and my duties as a district leader. He basically told me if I know of any other Elders that would be able to work on technology stuff, he’ll make us companions. And if I need extra time for the assignment, he said that he can have me work in the office all day. I told him I wanted to balance the assignment with proselyting because I feel like I grow the most from that. But in the end if it’s really necessary I’m willing to do it. He’s just so sweet, we ran into him once again later in the day and he expressed his gratitude for us.

Exchanges with the one and only Elder Evans

I went on exchanges with Elder Evans, it’s been an amazing exchange so far. Despite all of our lessons canceling, we’ve still been having a good time doing missionary work. We went to the general session of stake conference and it was so good! I particularly liked the thoughts that were shared about the temple and creating a spiritual temple-like experience in the home. It was also pretty cool because Elder Evans had Mission Leadership Council tonight, so I got to see what that was like. Elder Evans is one of the most hard working and smartest Elders I know. He sets a wonderful example of leadership. He’s taught me a lot on the exchange. We did a role play on preparing and conducting a baptismal interview, which was a good experience.

Spiritual Thought

“And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will. Amen.” -Alma 33:23

Continue reading the Book of Mormon, I know sometimes it feels like it isn’t making a difference in our lives. But I know that as we read each day, we make better choices every day; it changes our very being, helping us become more and more “perfected in Christ.”

I had my first district council as a district leader! It suddenly got super duper cold, it was snowing and it dropped to like -15 degrees Celsius. So I ultimately decided to have District Council over Zoom. Just to avoid the unsafe road conditions. Not gonna lie, DC over Zoom sucks, in-person is so much better, but it’s okay we made it work. I wish I was better at holding district council, there’s a lot I need to improve. But some of the members of our district reached out to me and said it was really good. Which was really sweet. So maybe it’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be. I’m sure it’ll be a lot better in person next week.

More IT Stuff 👨‍💻

Today was a pretty epic day! I’ve been getting plenty of calls lately fixing phones and all kinds of IT support. I’ve been staying super busy with all the responsibilities I’ve been given. Not gonna lie, it’s been a bit stressful, but I know that I’m never going to be given a trial I can’t overcome. President Gill called the assistants and informed them to inform me that he wants me to be working closer with Elder Yamashita with the imos contact syncing system. So now I gotta figure out all of his code and stuff. That’ll be exciting. Not sure where I’m gonna find the time for all of this stuff, but I’m gonna do my best to make it all work.

Door to Door Finding 🚪

We did some door to door knocking, which I don’t really have very much experience with so that was good. We actually did find someone, he sounded pretty interested, we got his phone number and gave him a pamphlet, hopefully we hear back from him soon! I gotta say the cold makes me really appreciate all the referrals that we have. We can do a lot of our finding from the warmth of our apartment. But I also want to make sure we’re getting out too, so it’s been a good balance.

Sunday Blessings 🙏

Time flies, it’s already Sunday again. The sisters that we’ve been ward sharing with have been crushing it with their missionary work! They had two friends come to church today! One of which we thought was one of our friends… but it’s all good. We were glad we got to chat with him a bit. We also got a call from some missionaries from Edmonton. Apparently one of their members is visiting here in Surrey and she was looking to receive a Priesthood blessing. So we stopped by her house today and gave her a blessing. It was such an awesome experience. We all felt the Spirit so strongly. It was my first time giving a blessing out on the mission. So that’s pretty neat. Her family that she was visiting with was orthodox Christian, but they were so sweet and appreciative that we came over. They seemed like really awesome people, we were happy to have the opportunity to come over. After that we met with the James family again. It’s actually so cool, Brother James is getting the Melchizedek Priesthood, and his son just got the Aaronic Priesthood last week. So we got to see his son pass the sacrament! We had to tell Elder Evans about it cause he was the one that found their family which is actually such a miracle! And now here they are receiving the Priesthood and participating in ordinances, it’s so sweet. We also had one of our friends call ask, asking when we could meet! What!? That never happens. We’re always the one’s asking, anyways, we’ll be meeting with him on Saturday, we’re looking forward to it.

Reflection on this week and the Future

This week has been pretty wack! I’m still processing everything, last week on transfer day I was informed that Elder Day wasn’t going to be my companion and that instead Elder Murphy would be. Elder Murphy is actually going home tomorrow because of a medical condition. He plans on continuing to serve a service mission at home as it’s treated and to come back out after. We were just informed that Elder Whipple will be my new companion and we’ll be picking him up from the ferry tonight. He was in a trio in Port Alberni, but he used to be here in Surrey, so I’ve got to know him a bit. Anyways, this week has been pretty stressful, I’ve had a lot of responsibilities put on me and I’m trying to make sure I fulfill them all. I don’t want to be the one that inhibits this area. So I’ve been communicating and trying to assist the new set of Sisters that we’ve been ward sharing with. I’m the only one that really knows the area, so I feel like it’s all on me to get this all figured out. But it’s okay, things will get better as time goes on. I know that I cannot do it all on my own, I need to rely on the Lord in all that I do. Without the Lord guiding me, things would be a lot worse haha.

Spiritual Thought 🙏

“With men it is impossible, but with God: for with God all things are possible.” -Mark 10:27

I love you all so much! Hopefully something from my emails has been able to help you. I appreciate all your love and support, I couldn’t do it without you!

Exchange with ZLs & The Winning Shot! 🏀

I went on exchanges with the zone leaders today. It was great! We’re kinda in a dilemma right now, since the transfer day was pushed back, all the missionaries that were leaving already left. So our district leader (Elder Bultsma’s) companion left and now he’s just with the zone leaders. Since we hadn’t done any exchanges this transfer we were squeezing them at the last minute. Everything started getting a bit crazy with all of the exchanges. So basically what happened is I went with both Zone Leaders and my companion went with the district leader to his area. So both of us left our area which never really happens so it was a bit wack. We did a bit of finding on the exchange which was really good. I’m terrible at finding so it was great to see some of the things that they do in their finding efforts. After that we headed to the store to grab some art supplies for a poster. They host a basketball night at the church that a lot of non-members attend, so the idea was to make a poster of our beliefs and put it up. So hopefully those that may be interested in learning more can see the poster and reach out. Anyways, it turned out pretty well, we had our Plan of Salvation poster setup and ready to go. After a couple good games of basketball we headed back home and finished off the night. I’m terrible at basketball, but we had a great time! I did actually manage to score a shot, so in my eyes that was a success haha! It also managed to be the final winning shot, which was pretty epic. Idk how I managed to do that, I’m just really lucky I guess. More importantly we did have some people check out the poster so that was a success. While we were on the exchange we had a lesson with one of their friends at the church. We talked about the sacrament, eternal families, and the Savior’s Atonement. The message was really powerful. We showed him a video about why we have the sacrament and remembering our Savior and all that he’s done for us.

The Exchange with DL

We began another exchange and this time I was with Elder Bultsma in his area. We drove back to his apartment and had some dinner. We then drove back to Richmond to give Sister Toomey a blessing. She’s one of the senior missionaries that’s going home in a couple of days. She’s going through some hard times right now, and she asked Elder Bultsma to give her a blessing before she left. So we headed over and had a nice chat with her, and she received the blessing from Elder Bultsma. I’m so sad to see Sister Toomey leave, she brings such a sweet spirit to the district council every week. We didn’t realize but the transfer travel news was just sitting on the desk in the office. And Elder Bultsma was just looking through the papers, not realizing what it was. Sister Toomey didn’t know what it was either, but she figured it out pretty quickly and snatched the papers from Elder Bultsma haha. It’s okay he only saw the travel plans for two Elders. After all of that fun stuff we headed back home from Richmond. We’ve been bouncing around so much lately, but we are making it work. It’s been quite crazy because neither me or my companion has been in our own area in the last couple of days with all the exchanges and stuff. Since Elder Bultsma can’t drive, I’ve been the one driving us back and forth, so that’s been good getting more driving experience in Canada. Not gonna lie it’s gonna take a bit of getting used to the speed limits. Everyone goes like 15 km over the speed limit. But we have these Tiwi tracking devices in our cars that only allows us to speed 10 km over the limit. If we go over it reports it on your driving profile, which happens way more than it should haha, but it encourages missionaries to stay safe. Anyways the first 20 minutes I was driving I got like 4 speeding reports because I had no idea what the speed limit was haha. But I figured it out pretty quickly and that’s not a problem anymore.

The News 📰

My companion got a call from the mission president, I didn’t know at the time but he just received news that he was going to be a Zone Leader in Fraser. All he told me was that we both were going to have new companions and he started packing. While he was on call with president I was also given an assignment to handle giving out SIM cards, apartment keys, and car keys to all the missionaries that need them for transfers. So that’s gonna be super duper fun, we’ll be at the mission office bright and early and hopefully try to coordinate all of that. Later that night I received a call from the Assistants and I was informed that I was going to be a District Leader. I was honestly surprised, I don’t think I’m ready to be a District Leader, but I’m gonna do my best. I feel like I’m not very qualified for that yet, I don’t have as much experience as everyone else in the district, so I don’t know how much I can help everyone else. But I’ll certainly do my very best and I know with the Lord’s help, it’ll work out. The next day we received the transfer board. My new companion is going to be Elder Day who will be my senior companion as well. There’s also going to be another set of Elders coming to Richmond, and we’ll be ward sharing with a set of Sisters here in Surrey. We definitely needed another set here in Surrey 3rd ward. It’ll be great because now they can work through all the referrals with us, and we can give them some of the sisters we were teaching as well. We were struggling to meet with a lot of the sisters before because we couldn’t get a brother that can join us for lessons. So that’ll make that work out so much better now.

Transfer Day 🫠

This was the most stressful day of my mission so far. I had no idea how wacky transfers were gonna be. When we got to the mission office, I was given a spreadsheet with all the instructions for SIM cards, car, and apartment keys. Many of the keys I had to retrieve from other missionaries and swap them for another key. While I was reading through the instructions and trying to figure it all out, the assistants got a call from president about some last minute changes to the transfer board. I was informed that Elder Day isn’t going to be my companion and instead Elder Murphy will be taking his place. So basically they are now gonna swap places. There were also a few other last minute changes, but they finalized everything and submitted the board. While I figure out all the keys and stuff my companion will be with one of the old assistants moving furniture and desks to and from apartments. So I’ll be with Elder Bultsma as a temporary companion until Elder Murphy gets to the office. He just received the news that morning so he’s gonna be super busy packing everything up. We went into the Relief Society room and that’s where all the missionaries will be going before their training meeting. We had like 25 missionaries show up, and I got to see my MTC companion! I did a bit of catching up with Elder Rowley, as I multi-tasked with all the keys and stuff and made sure I was getting all the keys to the right missionaries. I started to get pretty stressed out cause I didn’t have all the keys I needed to give out to all the missionaries. It was a lot of information overload at once and they all left for their training meeting. After that I realized that I needed to get the keys from some of the missionaries that were there previously. But I wouldn’t be able to do that until after they finished their training meeting. We knew we would be waiting anyway so me and Elder Bultsma ran over to Subway really quickly to grab some lunch. We quickly ran back to the office, and we were trying to figure out what happened to one of the keys with the assistants. They thought they gave me the key, but I didn’t remember having it or giving it out. So we were stressed out trying to find this key. Luckily after some searching around and contacting missionaries, the assistants found that one of the keys that we already had was for that car. I’m so glad it worked out, and I didn’t lose the key, I would’ve felt so bad. Elder Shipley and Elder Day made it to the office, and we needed to take Elder Shipley to the bus station back in Surrey. I needed to be at two places at once so I could swap the rest of the car keys with the other missionaries that were coming back from training meetings. So what I decided to do was to throw the keys in the office with sticky notes on who needs to grab the key and leave their key there. We threw all of Elder Shipley’s stuff in the car and I started driving them back to Surrey. Luckily we figured out pretty quickly that Elder Shipley forgot his Tiwi card so we quickly turned around and ran back to the mission office. When we made it back we got his Tiwi from his old companion and we ran into my new companion, Elder Murphy. I was trying to figure out if we should just throw all of Elder Murphy’s stuff in the car too and just head back to our apartment after, because we would already be in Surrey. But I still felt like I needed to help out at the mission office, and we didn’t really have much room in the car. So I quickly headed back to Surrey with Elder Day, Shipley, and Murphy. I was so stressed out, I didn’t want Elder Shipley to miss his bus. After an hour of driving we arrived at Gilford mall in Surrey. The mall is huge, and there’s multiple transit bus stops, so we were trying to figure out where exactly his bus would be. After driving around the parking lot and calling up the other Elders, we located the bus stop which was right across from the recreation center. And thankfully, after all that stress, we got Elder Shipley on his bus on time. We then drove back for another hour back to Richmond and figured out a few more issues in the mission office. I was helping Sister Toomey with some technical issues, a few other Elders with their Whatsapp, and I started calling a few other missionaries to figure out the phone numbers of the SIMs I gave them. Anyways, it was a super long day. There’s so much to write about, but honestly I just need some more time to think about everything that just happened.

Today was boxing day, which to my knowledge is basically another Black Friday that Canada celebrates. So I guess you can imagine what we did today. Yeah we did a lot of shopping. My companion got some Christmas money so he was eager to spend it. We headed over to House of Cards to check and see what was on sale. Basically, most of everything in the store was on sale, which is pretty awesome. They had a table full of Magic the Gathering decks that were half off. So I pulled the trigger and bought one, I knew I was probably not going to find a deal like this for quite a while. My companion bought a Lord of the Rings deck which was pretty awesome. Now I own Magic cards, I never could’ve saw myself buying these things before haha. But now that I’m playing it, I’m starting to see some of the appeal.

👥 Many, many, contacts 👥

The referrals are speeding up again. Staying on top of messaging them all and keeping track of all the contacts has been stressful. But I’m going to continue to try to do my best. We were informed at District Council that our transfer day is being pushed back. So I guess I get an extra 6 days of being trained, so that’s pretty sweet. Anyways, doing all of our contacts has been difficult. I tend to overcomplicate things and make it more difficult for myself to write messages. But I donno, I’ve kinda done that with all aspects of missionary work. I just feel like I’m not cut out for it. But it’s okay, I just gotta keep learning and be willing to make mistakes in doing so.

📱The Box of Phones 📱

We headed to the mission office and we were given a whole box of mission phones and sim cards. Cause I’m the new mission phone guy. So yeah we returned to the apartment with a buncha loaner phones that I gotta setup with the church protections software. We have some Samsung A23’s and S10e’s as well as a S9 and an older A5. You know, they are trusting us quite a bit with all of these loaner phones. We basically have unrestricted access that isn’t being tracked by the mission. So theoretically, we can access Google and download additional apps if we really wanted to. But I’m gonna try to be responsible and just get the phones setup with all the church protections stuff.

⚙️ Troubleshooting ⚙️

Well shoot, my companion’s phone alarm didn’t go off so we didn’t wake up till 8 this morning. Whoops! So we got up and ready to go a bit faster today. President’s been redirecting all the technical phone issues to me now. So we’ll be doing quite a bit more IT support. And the other tech guy (Elder Yamashita) will continue to reprogram the missionary contact syncing program. So far we’ve received two technical issues that we are working to resolve with the other missionaries. It’s always a pain trying to troubleshoot problems over the phone. It’s so much easier to fix them when I have the phone right in front of me. But it’s all good, we’ll figure these things out. Sadly we weren’t able to meet with one of our friends today. So instead I got to work on all the phones. I began to factory reset the devices and reconfigure Church Protections on them. A lot of the phones were still logged into an old missionary account. The office wasn’t able to login to them without a password. Luckily I was able to get the devices to their bios screen and wipe them from there. It took some trial and error because the different models use different button combinations to get them there. But after a couple hours, I was able to get them all wiped and rolling with MaaS360. After all of that I began to pop in all the sims, testing out what works and what doesn’t. I put each sim card on a sticky note with their number and status. We also received 4 new sim cards that we can activate as needed. The assistants gave us a call that night asking us how many working sim cards we have. As they called it, I was already in the process of figuring that out. We ended up with 5 working sims. We’re thinking that they are probably opening up quite a few areas next transfer, so that’ll be interesting to see; hence the need for working sim cards haha. Also my companion has been such a great example haha, he grabbed one of the phones, logged into it with his personal email and downloaded Pokemon Go. To be fair the phone’s model wasn’t supported by Church Protections, so that kinda enticed him to do it. So yeah, he’s been catching a few Pokemon haha. We ended off the night with another lesson with the Davis’. It was good; we shared a part of the Sermon on the mount with them. The message was about seeking the Kingdom of God first and He’ll provide for us.

👍 Sundays are Great 👍

Church was pretty great today, Jordan Prasad had his homecoming talk; he just got back from the Winnipeg Canada mission. We also had some of our friends come to church today! It was too bad one of the buses our friend was taking came a bit late but he was able to make it towards the end. We got to chat with him a bit more after church ended and it sounds like he’s interested in coming to church again next week. I also had a neat little spiritual experience after the first hour we were walking around the chapel, figuring out who we needed to talk to. My companion turned towards me and asked me who I thought we needed to talk to. He asked me what the spirit was telling me. Immediately, this guy that walked right past us came to my mind. I didn’t recognize him. I assumed he was on his way about to leave, but he was actually chatting with Brother Prasad. We then realized that this guy was previously taught by the sister missionaries in our area. We actually tried to meet with him before, but he was busy. Anyways, before we knew it Brother Prasad had put us in a room and we were talking about the Restoration, faith, prophets, the Book of Mormon, and all the things. It was awesome! Brother Prasad is an amazing teacher; he has so much character and charm. He’s an absolute legend at missionary work and you can tell how much he loves it. Our friend actually had a baptismal date before, but it didn’t happen because he moved and we lost contact with him. But now he has moved back and he’s getting ready! It’s crazy, he’s actually already been taught everything, he’s just at the point where we are helping him prepare for baptism. It was such a great teaching experience! I’m glad I was able to follow the spirit and meet with him.

Spiritual Thought 🙏

“Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.” -The Answer Is Always Jesus Christ by President Russel M. Nelson

Temple & Sleep Over 💤

Today was temple day!! We were a but too late for the endowment session, so we just did initiatories. Which was still really good. I’m always grateful for the opportunity to go to the temple. The Zone Leaders gave us a call in the evening asking if we could have some Elders stay at our place. We ended up driving to Richmond to pick them up and grab some air mattresses. They originally planned on staying the night at the AP’s place cause they were closer. But the AP’s were’nt feeling feeling well so they stayed at our place instead. Elder Russel and Elder Webb crashed at our place. They were pretty cool. It was a bit crammed cause we got the tiniest apartment in the mission haha, but we made it work. They flew out from Vernon to make it to Mission Leadership Council and Zone Conference.

Wacky District Council 🃏

We got up quick and early this morning. We had to be at Richmond at 9am, and with 4 guys and one shower, the clock was ticking. We all got ready and we cooked this big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes. It was pretty epic. We dropped them off at the mission office and headed back home. After that we had quite the interesting district council. Since the mission leadership conference was happening, all the other missionaries were busy with meetings. So it was just us, the district leader, Elder Bultsma and his companion Elder Maher. We ended up meeting at a library, and then we went right across the street to House of Cards to play Magic the Gathering. With four players, that game takes wayyy too long haha. But it’s all good, we just ended it early.

Leadership Discussion

Well it’s Thursday, you know what that means? Food mesh! Yeah it was pretty good. There’s this one lady that we’ve been delivering food to and she is super sweet. She told us how much she appreciates us coming and the work that we do. She said that last week someone else came, cause we switch routes sometimes, and she was sad that it wasn’t us. We got to briefly talk about what we do as missionaries, and where we are from. She was like, “you guys are always dressed so nicely.” Which is like the perfect segway to talk about what we do as missionaries. Unfortunately, since we are doing service, we aren’t really supposed to teach people. Cause we are not trying to make that the point of our service. But we can always stop by another time if we want to teach her. After that we stopped by the Spanish Elder’s apartment to complete our studies and do some contacts. With the Zone Conference happening tomorrow, we were in charge of picking up the food and delivering it to the church. We found out we are having buttered chicken for Zone Conference, so that’s pretty cool! Lately it’s been so busy, I’m struggling to process all of my thoughts. On our drive to the church my trainer was talking to me about leadership. He wants to give me more opportunities to lead, and for me to gain a deeper understanding of what leading truly is. We listened to two general conference talks about leadership and when we got back to the apartment we read over some verses in D&C 121 and shared our thoughts with each other. Interestingly enough, President Gill shared with me a scripture that was in D&C 121. This is definitely something I need to grow my understanding in more and better apply to everything that I do. I know that this is all inspired and the Lord is trying to help me and prepare me for the rest of my mission and life. I marvel at all these learning opportunities, because I know that they are divinely inspired.

Zone Conference 🎁

Zone Conference was quite awesome! With it almost being Christmas, it was all about remembering the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. There was a buncha music and we watched all of the different depictions of the Savior’s birth. Since I’m the new tech guy I got the opportunity to run around and try to fix all of the last minute technical issues. After looking through the material center, family history center, and the Stake offices we realized that all of the equipment was locked away in the Clerk’s office. Which was quite unfortunate, but we made it all work with what we had. We set up a Zoom for the missionaries that were sick and unable to attend. It was all kind of a mess, but we made it work out in the end. Also we got all of our packages from our families today. I just want to give a heartfelt thank you to my amazing family! Thank you! You’ve given me so much more than I can ever ask for. Not just in my gifts, but for your support and love.

The Buckets 🪣💦 and the White Christmas

Alrighty, let’s start things off with this wasn’t a white Christmas cause we didn’t get any snow. But that’s all good, we had a white Christmas cause of a baptism! Which is even better! So yeah, we had Lakshmi’s baptism today! It was so good, her son came too! Since the baptism was at 9am we got up early and started filling the font as soon as we could. According to the instructions, the font is supposed to fill in about an hour and a half. However, by that time it wasn’t even half way. But it’s okay, we made it work. After filling the rest with buckets of water, we were ready to go. My companion baptized her and I got to witness, which was pretty neat. It’s actually quite interesting, my companion has been to a lot of baptisms but has never been the one baptizing. So it was really great that he finally had the opportunity to do that before he went home. What a great way for Lakshmi to celebrate this Christmas season. The rest of our day was super duper busy. We shared a message with a member, gave a church tour to a family, and finished off the night at the Davis’. Today was one to remember. This was my very first time seeing a baptism of someone I assisted in teaching. I don’t consider any of my teaching efforts to be crucial in helping Lakshmi get baptized. She was prepared by the Lord and through the missionaries that came before. I’m just glad that I was a part of this great work helping her make her first covenant with God.

You know, today was a really good day. I definitely needed a day like this. We had a really good district council and we all stopped by Subway afterwards. We had a chat with one of the zone leaders, Elder Evans, he used to be one of the tech missionaries. We briefly talked a bit about the issue that the mission is having syncing the imos roster. Which basically is all the missionaries contacts and areas, as well as some other info that gets synced to everyone’s phones. He showed me the error that they are receiving each time it attempts to sync and he gave us the key to the family history center. So that’s pretty cool, it’s crazy, I haven’t touched a computer since the MTC. Anyways, let’s have a miracle moment. Today something really cool happened. Just a couple minutes after we got home from district council, we got a call from someone that works at the family history center, which is in the church. They said that there was this guy that came in and wanted to learn more about the church. So we headed over there and gave this guy a church tour and a Book of Mormon. The tour actually went really well. He was really interested in learning more and reading more about our beliefs. He was checking out the architecture of the building, pictures of the temple, the bulletin board, and all kinds of stuff. He used to do construction, so he was commenting on how beautiful and well designed the church is. He said it felt very peaceful, and he’s never seen a building like this. And this is where the miracle comes in. Usually the building is locked and no one is there. Just because of the mission wide restriction of using church buildings for missionaries. But this guy, just so happened to come at the perfect time, when the family history worker was there. The family history center is only open for a couple of hours, two days of the week. If he would have come half an hour later, there would have been no one to let him into the church. And this was the last day the family history center was open, cause they are closing it for the rest of the month with the holidays. So yeah, if he came half an hour later, he would have missed out on this whole opportunity. It’s crazy this was probably the latest time he could’ve come by, and it all worked out. It definitely shows that this is truly the Lord’s work.

Busy Day & Mission Reflection 🤔

Wow, today was probably one of the busiest days that I’ve had on the mission thus far. We helped out in the food mesh program, it was really nice cause they did a potluck; just to share their appreciation to all those that dedicate their time every Thursday to helping prepare and deliver food packages to those in need. Just after we delivered our packages, we arrived back home and did a Zoom meeting. It’s basically for my missionary training stuff, we do it once every week. And then after that we did like 30 contacts. Just texts and phone calls to all the people that interacted with our Facebook ads. It’s crazy we are trying to establish contact and meet with 60 people! After that we left to drop off a Bible to one of our friends. He was so friendly, usually our Bible drop offs are pretty quick. Some people don’t really want to chat, they just want to have the Bible and leave haha. But this guy was super nice, he let us in, and we chatted for over half an hour. We talked about prophets, commandments, the falling away, the restoration, and briefly about the Book of Mormon. It was awesome! And we went into it thinking that we were just going to discuss the importance of scripture study and share James 1:5. It was a great lesson, I need to get in the habit of speaking up more, but it still turned out really well. Right after the lesson we went to an institute dinner. It was really awesome, the senior missionaries shared a brief message. It was a simple yet profound message; they talked about how they were sitting in sacrament meeting and they felt a strong prompting that they needed to serve a mission. And right after that day they started putting in their papers. Talk about faith right! Just being willing to drop everything right now and follow the will of the Lord. That’s so difficult to do, especially with the constant uncertainty in life. But I can testify that as we exercise our faith in Jesus Christ and follow the will of our Heavenly Father, our lives become easier and we receive so many amazing opportunities and blessings that we would have never experienced otherwise! I know I’m only just at the beginning of my mission, but I’ve definitely seen the Lord’s hand and I know that He is preparing me and knows what’s best for me. As I’ve reflected on my mission thus far it’s interesting to see how much I didn’t realize I needed to grow; socially, spiritually, intellectually, you name it. I totally thought I was doing fine and I was where I needed to be in all those areas. While on my mission I have been humbled so much. I’ve realized how inadequate I am, and I’ve really struggled because of that. When I’m feeling inadequate, I struggle to come to an understanding that it’s truly a blessing. If I came out here and was already strong in all these areas, I wouldn’t have room to grow. Serving a mission would not have had such a significant impact and help in changing me for the better. But now I realize how much I can grow, how much this mission is preparing and helping me for the rest of my life. I know that the Lord has placed me right here, right now, for this purpose and most importantly for sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. These truths are more valuable than rubies and diamonds; they reach far beyond the temporal reality of our state. We can’t even begin to comprehend just how important and significant the things that we do right now are. The things that we do now, the paths that we go down, will shape us and determine the rest of our eternal destinies. Sharing these priceless restored truths that give us direction, revelation, comfort, blessings, and peace in our lives with those around us is more important than anything we can do on this earth. These truths will change everything for us. It is a testament that we have a loving Heavenly Father. To have these truths today, to have a living prophet that leads and guides us, to have angels that minister all around us every day. He truly wants us to come back home and I’m glad to share these amazing truths and blessings with those around me. Thank you Heavenly Father, for this opportunity to be right here, right now, participating in the gathering of Israel. It is an honor and a blessing. I can’t fully express my deep love and gratitude. It’s not often that I reflect on this and I wish to do it more.

Christmas Musical 🎄

We had an epic Stake Christmas Musical Devotional thingy that we went to. It was packed! Multiple sets of missionaries were there, and the music was superb. There’s a ton of musical talent in Surrey first ward. The refreshments were definitely refreshing haha. We’ve had quite a bit of sugar, as you all might imagine with all the Christmas parties and stuff. They were serving fruit trays, which was a nice change of pace.

Five Guys 🍔

One of the members took us out for lunch at Five Guys! He was so nice! He was having us write down a list of foods that we enjoy haha.

Baptismal Interview!

Today the baptismal interview happened for our friend Lakshmi, and we are excited to announce that she is ready to be baptized! We are so happy for her! It’s gonna be great!

Spiritual Thought 🙏

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’ So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day.” -Minnie Louise Haskins

Today I shared a spiritual thought in district council. I shared some thoughts on seeking spiritual gifts. Much of my thoughts pertaining to that are found in my last email’s spiritual thought. The thought went pretty well. We had some good discussions as a district about it. I wasn’t able to execute my idea as well as I hoped for. But that’s okay, it still went pretty well. We also got Lakshmi set on baptismal date, December 23rd!! So that’s going to be pretty epic! I am excited to meet with her some more. We finished off our day with a Zoom call with the Neesom’s and their friends Ashley and Luis. They watched this Mormonism is not Christianity video and so we helped them understand and clarify our actual beliefs. It actually went pretty well. We just clarified some misunderstandings about God and Jesus Christ, salvation and exaltation, kingdoms of glory, etc. It was quite different from our typical lesson, it was my first time doing something like this. But my companion took the lead and did a great job helping them and clear up their misunderstandings. I threw a couple of my thoughts here and there. At the end I testified of the importance of personal revelation. We can all come to know of the truth and witness that for ourselves directly from Heavenly Father as we study the scriptures and pray. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon; and it was actually really cool cause Ashley said she really liked what I said and will study the Book of Mormon, even before we extended the invitation! Which is super awesome! I’m so glad that what I said made an impact and will help someone to know the truth. Also shoutout to my amazing mom that sent me some Christmas tunes! You’re the best mom!!

John Volken Market & Boston Pizza 🍕

We had another lesson with Lakshmi. We briefly discussed baptism with her and the covenants that we make at baptism. I still have a ways to go in improving my teaching ability; I need to focus on teaching the why and not just the what. But she was super nice, she said that she felt really good. We taught her at the John Volken market. Brother Prasad works there and set it up so that we could teach her at one of the offices. We saw so many members working there! We had no idea, apparently this is where a lot of them work. So that’s pretty sweet! We ended off the night going to Boston Pizza. I may be out of money now, but that pizza was so good!

Snow ❄️

Today I experienced my first Canadian snow!! That was pretty sweet! It was pouring rain like crazy and then it turned to snow. Basically all of our plans to go park finding kinda canceled. So we just continued to message people from inside the apartment. I don’t really like being at the apartment for most of the day, I gotta get out and do something. And some days, most of our day is spent in the apartment with all of our studies and contacts. Luckily the Sakulsingdusi’s called and asked if we could shovel their driveway. They are the members that live above us. So we went outside and started shoveling. After we finished shoveling, they invited us inside and we had some hot chocolate and chat. They are super nice, we also made plans with them to come over for breakfast on Christmas! Which is super sweet of them, we are looking forward to that. We then met with the Davis’ again, we helped Sister Davis make cake so that was pretty awesome. I had no idea what I was doing haha, but happy to help.

The Sabbath Day 🙏

Sunday’s are always awesome. The referrals we were hoping to make it to church unfortunately didn’t make it. But it was still really good. Ashley and Luis made it to church again, so that was great! They also were asking for a spanish Book of Mormon which we were able to get to them. After church we met with Lakshmi again, we are so happy for her! She’s definitely ready and feels the Spirit so strongly. Brother Inlayo, the ward mission leader, and his wife were able to join us for the lesson as well. It’s always so fun to include the members in our lessons.

Scripture of the Day:

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” -1 Corinthians 2:9

The time was 7:24am, I was going through my highly creative exercise routine, which only consists of jumping jacks, planks, and pushups. Mostly just jumping jacks though haha. Anyways I was doing my exercise, getting my jumping jacks in; I hear my companion answer a phone call in our bedroom, I then entered the room assuming it was just a member calling. I then hear President Gillask to speak to me in private. At this point my heart was already racing from them jumpin jacks, but now it’s racing a little faster. I tried to hide the fact that I was somewhat out of breath from my exercise, I’m hoping that it didn’t sound like I was so nervous I was struggling to breath haha. Anyways the big news came in that was discussed between him and my comp last week at the temple. I am now one of the mission technology specialists for the entirety of British Columbia!! So that’s super duper exciting! Now I getta look forward to fixing people’s phones and stuff, it’s gonna be epic! There’s only to MTS’s in the whole mission, one of them, Elder Yamashita is up in Terrace right now, and I’m the other one! Which is kinda cool cause I gotta meet him just before he left to Terrace. When I was on an exchange with Elder Livingston we drove him to the airport. I’m pretty excited for this new assignment! We talked to the social media sisers some more about the referral video project. They made some changes and we are going about it a different way. We’ve come to the conclusion that we are no longer making a video, there’s going to be information sent out by the stake to each ward regarding the instructions. Which is totally cool and honestly works better for our whole busy schedule. Not too much happened today, just lots of contacts and district council.

Buncha Lessons 👍

We almost had a groundbreaking four lessons today! But that’s okay, one of them fell through and we had our other three. The first one we gave someone who reached out to us through Facebook, a Book of Mormon. He was super nice and interested in expanding his religious knowledge through reading it. We’ll probably meet with him again sometime so that’ll be great! There was also another person there, I believe it was his brother. Idk, he was pretty nice as well, he’s part of the Sikh faith but he was chatting with us so that was cool. We met with Thilak again today. He’s awesome! Just a super nice guy that’s going through a lot of hardship. But I’m super grateful for the opportunity to assist in helping him spiritually. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was pretty good. I’ve felt like my teaching ability has definitely improved a bit, I still got so far to go but I’m glad that I am getting closer. He also makes really good Indian food so we are very grateful for that. He’s working on his resume right now cause currently he is working two jobs which gets really busy for him. He’s hoping that he can find one job that pays well enough. Fingers crossed his new resume will help him find a better job. We ended off the night with another lesson with the Davis’s. Paul was working on fixing the Christmas lights. Cause they got the epic ones that are wired in series so when one of the LEDs on the strip go out, all go out with it. Anyways we shared a quick lesson about Jesus’ early years in Luke 2. It was really good! Usually Sister Davis has to find the scriptures or bug Paul to pull them up but he just got them pulled up on his phone and was ready to go. He seems like he’s a lot more engaged with the lessons which is so good! After the lesson Sister Davis was so sweet, she expressed her gratitude and appreciation for the lessons that we prepare. She said that she really knows that we take the time to prepare each and every single lesson and make sure that it’s for them. She was super duper sweet, and I think she’s seeing spiritual growth in Paul which is wonderful!

Ward Christmas Party 🎄

It’s fast and testimony Sunday everyone! It was pretty cool, our friend Ishan that came to church last Sunday, came again! We also got him his Persian Book of Mormon. Another one of ourur referrals also came to church. They were really nice, they stayed for second hour too! We just pointed him in the direction of the Hindi class. We also had the ward Christmas party today! It was so good! Brother Prasad got Sherry a ride, so she was there too! We are super glad that Sherry was able to connect with the members more. She was having dinner with them, it was awesome! The food was so good, especially right after the fast. The bishop informed us that one of the youth’s friends, that was coming to church and activities with them, was asking how they could join the church. Which is absolutely awesome, we are going to have to hunt them down and chat with them some more sometime. Anyways, we watched the Christmas devotional by the first presidency. We finished off the night by meeting with the James family again. We shared a little lesson about fasting with them. We learned that they have to take the cab to church each Sunday. Which really puts into perspective how much they sacrifice to come to church. They both work all week to support their family. But they make sure to take Sunday off and pay even more money to get to and from church. That’s gotta be a real test of faith.

Dry Cleaner & Canadian Cash 🇨🇦

Most of our day was spent in the apartment and contacting our big list of people that are interested. So not really too much happened. I finally got around to converting my U.S. freedom units to Canadian dollars. So that was pretty cool! The conversion rate is 1.38 so my $196 U.S. dollars turned into $270 Canadian dollars. Also the dollars are made of plastic so that’s pretty neat. We also picked up our stuff from the dry cleaner. It was only $20 to clean a suit, which is cheaper than I expected.

Spiritual Thought 🙏

Spiritual gifts are special blessings to worthy people for either their benefit, or to use them in the blessing of others. Spiritual gifts are so powerful, and I believe they are something we don’t speak about enough in the church. Everyone is given a gift by the Spirit of God. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained that “spiritual gifts are endless in number and infinite in variety.” Some examples of spiritual gifts include, charity, organization, patience, optimism, courage, peacemaker, healing, faith, discernment of spirits, tongues, knowledge, and working of miracles. Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the seventy taught: “I sometimes visualize a large storehouse up in heaven, completely filled with spiritual gifts, available to all Saints who have the faith to ask for them. Unfortunately, not too many are asking, so the storehouse is always overstocked.” With this Christmas season coming up I invite you to seek Spiritual gifts. These gifts will not just be given to you, all nice and wrapped underneath a Christmas tree. But will come as you faithfully seek them. I can testify that these truly are the best gifts. I mean we all give pretty great gifts to each other, but just imagine how eternally great the gifts are that come from Heavenly Father.

Adding Gifts of the Spirit to your Christmas List

Our last P-day was temple trip day!! So it’s automatically the highlight of the week! We did an endowment session and they had just updated the video! If you haven’t done endowments recently, I definitely invite you to do so. The covenants we make in the temple are so powerful and are such a great blessing that we have in this life. I was kinda nervous cause I just so happened to end up to be right next to President Gill for the whole temple experience. But it was so awesome to see him at the temple with us. He really shows that he really loves each and every single one of the missionaries.

The Post Temple Experience 🥤

Just after the awesomeness of the temple, the unthinkable happened. It all began when we were getting our lunch with the district. I initiated the filling process of my root beer, in great excitement for my food. I then began sealing the plastic lid on top of the cup. As I was pressing the edges of the lid to the roof of the cup… boom disaster struck!! Before I knew it there was root beer pouring everywhere. I have not once in all my experience with fast food ever seen a cup do something like this before. The entire side of the plastic cup ripped in half upon the pressure of the lid. One of the Elders, Elder Sachadina rushed to help me. He grabbed some napkins and assisted me in cleanup. What an absolute legend, thank you so much Elder Sachadina! That was some pure Christ-like love right there. We got everything cleaned up and honestly the whole temple experience overshadows this one. Massive thanks to Elder Sachadina for being a great friend!

Interviews

Alright, alright, alright, we had interviews with the one and only, legend himself, President Gill. The interview that I had with him went pretty well. Let’s just say that the Lord is unraveling his work for me. It’s kinda crazy actually, cause while I was away from my trainer at the temple, President Gill started to chat with him about what’s going to happen in the future and what he needs to do to prepare me. So yeah, lot’s of crazy stuff! I want to be the best missionary I can, I want to be able to fill the great responsibility I have as a missionary, I want to be what God needs me to be. I want to live up to my expectations, my trainer’s expectations, my family’s expectations, the expectations of my ancestors, and everyone back at home who strengthened and supported me. But most of all I want to live up to the expectations of my Heavenly Father. Anyways, I’m excited for the future, I’m excited to be apart of the greatest work on the earth today.

Tons of Traffic & District Council 🚗

We were late to district council, there was so much traffic. Everytime it’s 3pm and we are going to Richmond they close off like half the lanes and have them merge. So yeah that was super duper fun! But it’s okay we made it! Our poor district leader and his companion got stuck behind a train and ended up having to drive almost two hours. So it was quite the interesting district council. We just ended up doing a video call with them, so we made it work. They eventually got their at the end. But that was probably the wackiest district council I’ve had haha! Elder Evans, one of the zone leader’s had a quick chat with us afterwards. He’s super nice, he was just telling us that we are doing a great job with all the referrals and work that we have. He told us that President Gill assigned Elder Nelson and me here because he knows that we are more than capable of doing this tremendous amount of work. Anyways, that was super nice to hear. We’ll keep grinding through trying to teach 100 people haha.

The Referral Video Project 🎥

Today was actually Black Friday, we mistakenly thought last Friday was Black Friday haha. So we hit up some more game stores. I’m not exactly ready to take the plunge to buy some expensive Magic cards but they were cool to look at. Also we had Elder Evans and one of the APs, Elder Martin call us. They were just giving us a little project that we can do to help lighten the massive load of referrals that we need to message. I think President is trying to tap into my video production skills a bit. The idea is that we’ll make a quick video that will help teach members how to contact referrals. Then we can push some of our load onto the members and have them assist in those efforts. I’m looking forward in helping create that. We don’t really know too much in regards to the project, we were just informed that we’ll be working with the social media leaders on it. More details will be shared soon but right now we are just thinking about it. Honestly I have no idea how we are going to make this work in our schedule, but we’re going to try to do our best! On top of that we also just got assigned to be interaction missionaries. That means that we are going to be messaging people that interact with our mission’s Facebook page. We will pray to each person that we respond to and be led and guided by the Spirit asking them something in regards to what they interacted with. Our list of things just keeps expanding! But we’re gonna do our best to keep up this great work!

Spirit Guided Lesson

We’ve been meeting with a member lately and he’s been going through some stuff so we are trying to help him spiritually. He’s a super nice guy, he made us some really yummy chicken and rice! We were teaching him the Plan of Salvation and I made the dumbest mistake and jumped over covering Adam and Eve, but my companion got me covered; so it’s all good. I’m just glad that the Spirit was there during the lesson and helped guide us in teaching him. My companion just pulled up a scripture that came to his mind. Even though we didn’t have it planned for the lesson, which was great.

Epic Car Radio Project 🖥

We also met with the Davis’ again and that was great. Paul was showing us his epic car radio media player project! He put a Raspberry Pi 3 in a car radio and he has an Arduino that communicates with the display and the Pi. He has a bunch of music loaded on the Pi with all sorts of playlists that you can control with the radio. The metadata for each song shows up on the display as well, which is super awesome! He showed us his setup with MPD and his Python script that receives inputs through the Serial ports. Man, computer projects like this make me so excited haha!

The Sabbath Day 🙏

It’s Sunday everyone, and it was amazing! Everything just happened all at once today. Where do I even start? One referral that we just received was interested in attending church came today. It was great seeing him, he seems like a super nice guy. He definitely seems like he wants to continue going to church which is great! I’m excited to get to know him some more in the future! He also wanted to sit through second hour so he was at Elders Quorum with us too. My companion was giving further explanation on the things that were being taught so that he wasn’t completely in the dark; which was great! Paul was also at Elder’s Quorum!! This is the first time I’ve seen him stay for second hour. Which is so good, we are excited to see that he is progressing. I also got to chat with him a bit more about his car radio project, so that was pretty cool! The Elders Quorum was looking for some extra volunteers to pass along church tour fliers with us. And the absolute legend himself Paul said that he could help out! Wow, I’m happy that he’s willing to come to Elders Quorum and get involved! Also one of our friends that’s been coming to church almost every week now just informed some of the members that she wants to get baptized! That’s crazy, we’ve only had one lesson with her so far, so now we are trying to meet with her more! We are so happy that she wants to make her first covenant with Heavenly Father. Now we just gotta make sure we cover all the lessons with her and make sure that she’s ready. I’m looking forward to meeting with her more!

Epic Fireside 🔥

We finished off this Sunday with a bang with the “This I Believe Fireside!” These fireside’s consist of new members sharing their conversion stories and their testimonies on Jesus Christ. This one was led by the Spanish missionaries, so the whole meeting was in Spanish, luckily they had translators and translation equipment. We invited our friend Sherry and she came!! It was so great, she was very excited to come. The fireside was phenomenal, there were so many great thoughts! Anyways it’s crazy, the work just keeps getting busier. All of a sudden we had so many people messaging us back and our referral list just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Especially with the Christmas season coming up, it’s a great time to be apart of the Lord’s work.

Alrighty ladies and gentleman, this is the big day!! The time was 7:59am, every missionary in British Columbia was hitting refresh on the Google Drive. Time was ticking, and the anticipation is growing… And boom! The new transfer board was up!! After a bit of analysis the news was out. This transfer I’m staying in my assignment Surrey 3rd ward with my trainer Elder Nelson. Honestly that’s about what we expected and I’m pretty cool with that. There actually wasn’t too many changes this transfer.

Translations

We met with the Prasad family, it was really awesome. Their son is deaf and the grandparents didn’t know English too well. They are more experienced with the Fiji language. Anyways it was kinda cool cause as we were giving the message brother Prasad was using sign language and communicating with the grandparents in Fijian. So there was all sorts of crazy translation happening!

Quite a different teaching experience

We had a pretty interesting lesson today. We met with Arnold and had a lesson with him and Sister Swetlikof in their garage. Arnold is struggling with addiction in smoking and weed. Teaching a lesson in a situation where the Spirit isn’t being invited is so difficult. It’s interesting cause he wants to be baptized but he can’t cause of his smoking. It’s difficult cause we want to help him but there’s not very much that we can do for him. At the end of the experience I learned more about promised blessings. We have the authority to give people promised blessings but we can’t unless directed by the Spirit. We can promise blessings without the Spirit, but without the Spirit we are basically giving them blessings that might happen. The Spirit is the only one that can truly promise blessings.

Birthdays! 🎉

It was my trainer’s birthday!! Happy birthday Elder Nelson! You’ve taught me so much, I’m glad to have you as my trainer even through all the tough times. We actually had district council on that day and the senior missionaries made cupcakes! It was also another sister’s birthday a couple days ago too, so we celebrated them both.

Institute dinner & Driving Privileges 🚗

We attended a institute dinner and we gotta meet quite a few missionaries post transfer. Also I apparently can use my U.S. driving license here in Canada for 6 months. Sister Chang informed me that they have my Tiwi (driver) card. So that’s pretty cool!

Black Friday Finding 💸

Today was Black Friday so we decided to do some store finding! We first stopped by a trading card store called Zephyr Epic. Too bad it was closed for some tournament in Langley but we did manage to chat with a guy that showed up and realized they were closed too. He just wanted to buy the brand new magic pack but it just so happened to be closed the day it came out. Bummer, but he was nice, had a good chat with my comp about magic. We then stopped by Best Buy and had a look around. Honestly our in store finding efforts are mediocore so we gotta keep working on that, but browsing through Best Buy was still cool.

Volleyball 🏐

We had an epic volleyball night with the youth. Each team was assigned a country… we were with team Italy!! We had a super close game with team U.S.A, but that tie breaker didn’t go in our favor. But that’s all good we did end up winning against Argentina, so that’s pretty sweet! The youth did a fantastic job. We were basically just there to make sure the youth mingle and rotate as a team.

The Priesthood Blessing

Today we had a record breaking 3 lessons… well kind of. We met with a member and it was our first time meeting with them. They’re having a bit of a rough time being but it was good to meet with them. It was also my first time being apart of a Priesthood blessing on the mission, so that was a great experience! Anyways he seems really awesome, he’s definitely on the right track and I’m grateful for the opportunity to help him by sharing the gospel.

Souper Saturday 🍲

After that we helped the relief society take down their stuff for Souper Saturday. They had like 10+ soups there, so that was epic! We also met with the Davis’ again, I’m so grateful for them. It’s always a pleasure sharing messages with them and chatting. Paul was talking about the recent SpaceX launch, he got up at 4am to watch that live! That was pretty awesome to hear about.

Spiritual Thought 🙏

Alma 13:28-29 “But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering; Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the lasst day and enter into his rest.”

Also I’m so sorry I am the worst at taking pictures. I’ll be sure to get some more!

We began our exchanges with the district leader. Currently I am with his companion. So far it’s been a phenomenal experience. There’s something magical that happens during exchanges. It’s like God’s time to really have you learn and grow. This was my first time leading a lesson and it went really well. That was probably the best lesson that I’ve taught thus far. I’m so happy to see that improvement. It killed me cause I knew that I was fully capable of doing it, I just wasn’t there yet. So I’m glad to see that growth and improvement. It was also my first time having some Indian food, so that was a pretty cool experience! I was looking for my fork and spoon and my companion was like, “oh your looking for a fork and spoon… yeahh your not really going to use those.” Yeah you use those fancy tortilla things to eat which is pretty cool.

Leaving the Area & Magic the Gathering 🧙‍♂️

Today was one wacky day. It all began when we left to go finding at the muesum of Surrey. Now don’t let that name deceive you. Most would assume that the museum of Surrey is in Surrey. However that’s not the case. So we might have accidentally left our area… 🤷‍♂️ But it’s totally cool cause on the way back we happened to bump into Elder Bultsma and Elder Sachadina. That’s when we the realization set in that we were outside of our area. We were like wait a minute, why are the other Elders here? Then we were like, oh shoot haha. It’s all good, Elder Bultsma gave us the okay since he’s the district leader. Anyways they were checking out this trading card game store. We stopped by and my comp got some epic Magic the Gathering booster packs. Yeah we got some magic the gathering fans on the mish! I personally haven’t gotten into it yet, but I may in the future.

The Busing 🚍 Experience + Wonderful Weather ☔️

We started exchanges again and now I’m with Elder Bultsma. He doesn’t have driving privileges so we had to take the bus for transportation. You know looking back on this whole busing and walking experience, it really makes me apprieciate the vehicles that we’ve been given even more. I believe the drive to the lesson would’ve been 14 minutes. Taking the bus turned that into an hour. But that’s okay, the busing experience itself was totally good. The difficult part was really the weather. Rain + wind = struggle, but hey we made it to our destination safely!

Door Knocking🚪and the Bathroom Fire 🔥

We had a very memorable door knocking experience. Elder Bultsma was showing me the ropes. The very first door that we knocked the person answered and was interested. The crazy part was that just last night it was super windy. In fact so windy that trees were getting blown on top of powerlines. Needless to say many people had power outages. Apparently the person we were talking to had a candle lit in her bathroom. She had the window up so the wind caused the candle to catch fire to something. Now with the power being out, the fire alarm never went off. She discovered the fire that morning and took percautions to get it out. The fire department was just there before us, so that was crazy. Anyways I believe we were at the right place at the right time and now she wants to learn more, so that’s pretty exciting!

Boiled Eggs + Pancakes = Fire alarm 🚨

I gotta say this morning reserves the top spot for the wackiest morning that we’ve had on the mission. It all started when we began making lunch. My companion was making pancakes and I was making boiled egges. Everything was going great till suddenly beep…beep!! Yeah… the combined forces of the pancakes and the boiled eggs caused the smoke detectore to go nuts! Whoops, before we knew it the entire kitchen and most of the apartment was covered in haze from the cooking. We have a pretty small apartment so I guess that made it a lot easier. Anyways we opened the window and the door and successfully got the alarm to stop.

Spiritual Message of the Day 🙏

With the passing of President M. Russel Ballard I listened to his last general conference talk and I recommend you to do the same. His message is simple yet profound and a deep expression of gratitude and love. He states, “I marvel, and I’m sure that many of you do too, at how blessed we are to know what we know about our purpose in life, why we are here, what we should be trying to do and accomplish in our daily lives.” We are so incredibly blessed to have this gospel. Cherish it, gain spiritual nourishment from it, and share it with others.

On the exchange we had a lesson and the person we are teaching perferred that we would call on Zoom. So we headed over to the church and did our virtual lesson. It went pretty well! Isn’t it amazing that we can feel the Holy Ghost together even though we are in completely different locations! Elder Livingston almost extended a baptismal date, but we think that we should meet in person prior to that. So that’s pretty cool! That’s my first time where we really considered extending that while teaching. On our way back from the church we talked to this guy that was working out in his garage. He was very nice, Elder Livingston was asking about his weights cause he’s looking to buy more. He had like the crazy fancy adjustable dumbells that he was showing us. He didn’t speak too much English, but Google Translate’s got our back! Anyways, super chill guy, he told us we were welcome to use his gym in the evenings.

We had a meeting with all the new missionaries over Zoom. It was great, we talked about our friends and bounced ideas off of each other on how we could more effectively teach them. It was great being able to hear all the new missionaries experiences.

Their was this epic self-reliance fair organized by the stake that we attended. We were invited to participate in that, and it was a great experience. We just had a booth where we shared our culture with people. We had Book of Mormon’s in different languages and even a section of the Book of Mormon in brail! The thing’s huge, and it’s only like 1/8th of the Book of Mormon haha. We even had a raffel! People could put in their names for a change to recieve The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Overall we thought the self-reliance fair was great! Anything from maintaining vehicles to sowing to making an effective resume, and food storage, they had it all.

And before I knew it, it was already fast Sunday again, time flies! We freaked out cause of the time shift. Wew are one hour ahead now, luckily the alarms on our phones are synced with the time. We just got super scared when we looked at the time on the oven cause it was one hour ahead. We thought just for a second that we totally missed our meeting. But everything worked out and we were fine.

We got a bit wet today. We took a bus to go finding and didn’t think to take an umbrella. Needless to say we got pretty wet after we walked to some thrift stores. But it was totally cool cause we got some KFC out of it. A really nice member gave us some giftcards, so we got some sweet deals at KFC.

We had a lesson with some more members where we shared what we like to call the “secret message.” We organized this “secret message” with the Elder’s Quorum President. The secret message is about inviting members to open up their homes and share Christ-like love by inviting friends or other members to the home. It’s about strengthening each other, uplifting each other, sharing the gospel with each other, and becoming unified with each other. Anyways we believe this is a really great message that we all can benefit from.

Anyways I just want to close my thoughts by saying the mission’s been hard. Not for the reasons I expected, it’s been hard because I know that I’m capable. Yet I continue to fall short. Despite my best efforts, I know that I’m capable of so much more. I’m hoping that I can reach that. Because I know that I can. I just need to be patient in my times of trial and continue to learn and grow from these experiences. I need to press forward with faith, and open my mouth even if I didn’t know of the htings I must say beforehand. I need to trust in the Lord and everything will fall into place.

“If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.” -D&C 42:61

We are so blessed to know of these gospel doctrines and truths. I find that those of us that have been in the church for a while often take these truths for granted; for how precious are they to those seeking them out. Questions like what’s our purpose in life, what happens to those that pass away, and how can I find truth and guidance through the confusion in life can all be answered through the words of God. Cherish these truths and doctrines, and discover joy not only in the fruits of the Spirit, but in sharing them with others.

Man, Heavenly Father is such a loving Father, he really does understand our individual desires and needs no matter how small and insignificant they may seem. This week has been nothing but great sun and clear skies. If you read my previous message you may have saw that I wasn’t exactly content with the constant overcast and rainy weather. So it’s been super duper nice to see this sunnier weather. But now I gotta really prepare myself for the season of rain. It’s coming!

Honestly looking back on this week, has been awesome! This is probably one of my most productive weeks as a missionary. Not that it wasn’t productive before, it was just slower, less lessons and stuff. We’ve met with quite a few members now and have been sharing lessons with them. It’s been so good getting to know the members. They put so much effort in contributing to the ward and it really shows.

We went to this super epic store in the mall called Muji! All the missionaries love this store! Muji is like this no-name brand Japanese store. They sell so many things, anything from clothes, hats, pens, notebooks, shredders, containers, tooth brushes, and so much more. The brand’s just super cool cause everything is so simple yet it has this signature Muji look to it. Anyways we stopped by and bought some pens and stuff. My trainer got some pretty sweet slippers from there too!

My trainer and I got to lead the discussion in district council. We discussed the parable of the talents and how it’s important that we recognize and utilize our talents. We then had everyone write on the board a talent they believe they have, one their comp has, and one for another person in the district. It went really well, and it was so great seeing what everyone saw in each other. Often times we fail to see our strengths, our talents, it’s not obvious to us. But when others recognize them, it helps broaden our perspective and be more effective in applying our talents. I recommend looking for talents in others and sharing those with them.

We met with the Davis family again last week. It’s always a pleasure seeing and talking with them. I loved chatting with Sister Davis’s husband. He works as a software engineer and commissinos projects. Which is super cool! We had some good programing talk. We then talked about his single board computer projects, internet of things devices he was programing, local car stereo media streamer, and pinball machine emulation. As well as some Linux server distro discussion. It was super great to talk to someone that shares some of my common interests. It sounds like next time we are going to meet he’s going to show us his epic car stereo!! I’m definitely looking forward to that!

Everyone on the mission got so excited because a new Youth single came out. Basically all the music we listen to on the mission are from the Youth albums. So it’s a bit like Christmas when they release a new song. That was pretty epic!

We met with the Prasad family, Brother Prasad is the president of the Elders Quorum. He had some super awesome insights on what he believes the members including his family can improve on. He emphasized just how important it is as members to invite other members and friends into their homes. After Covid, he expounded that the members tended to keep their doors shut and stopped inviting people over for dinner. We totally agreed and as missionaries we would love to get to know the members more and build connections with them. So we are going to work with the Elders Quorum to spread this message especially over the holiday season. I include this in my message because this is something that I believe we can all improve on. Find someway that you can invite and share with others. Even if it’s small and simple, the lasting effects of doing so can be great.

To end this message I want to share my thoughts on the whole mission experience so far. Going on a mission has been a very humbling experience. Most of the things I did before my mission were in line with my skills and talents. Those things were definitetly still a challenge, I felt more content with the results. But since being on a mission I’ve felt like basically everthing I’m doing I’m not good at. So it’s been very humbling and great growth for those areas of my life. I know that this is exactly where I need to be. God has put me here to learn and grow. And I know I’ll look back on this experience and be happy that I was given those trials.

We had interviews with the mission president today. Which is kinda weird considering how early it is to do it, but it’s all good, it needed to happen. Usually interviews happen closer to the middle or end of transfers. But that’s okay, I got my interview in and everything’s been going great! After all that fun stuff we had district council. Lots of great and helpful things were shared. We’ve been getting a ton of referrals lately so that’s been way awesome! Social media has recently has really been blowing up!

We helped put at a food mesh event and that was pretty good. They do it every week and we have permission from miss pres to go, just cause it’s outside our zone. So that’s sweet, we getta go out of our zone every week. We got there and helped deliever the food to families that need it. So glad to help out! We also helped a lady in the ward move tiles and plants into her house. It was pretty last minute but it was great to meet and help her. After that we did a quick Walmart run. Just had to get more food and stuff. And right before we were ready to check out we ran into a ward member that my trainer knew. Just from his past experience in this area. Anyways, super nice guy, his wife works at Walmart so he had those exclusive insider discount deals. So that was really nice! I got $6 off! After that Krispy Kreme was just right there. So we could’nt resist to get our selves some good old Krispy Kreme. I didn’t write it in the last email, but we did get Krispy Kreme last week too 🤫 We’ve probably had a little too much doughnuts lol, but they’re sooo good!

Today we helped assist in a Youth Conference. It was a huge multistake conference with youth from all over the providence! It was awesome, definitely felt a bit like FSY or EFY. They had workshops teaching the youth about temples, a panel with q&a about the For Strength of Youth, and many other activities. They had many missionaries that were in the area lead the youth in these activities. So that’s what we did. We kinda felt like FSY councilors lol. Once we got our group of youth we led them tonall the workshops and all that fun stuff. After all of that we had the opportunity to take them to the temple. Which is really special for some of them, cause in some of the areas that they live, they don’t have the opportunity to go to the temple. Those that had active recommends were able to perform baptisms for the dead, those that didn’t were able to have a nice chat with us about temples. It was great, glad we had the opportunity to teach and connect with the youth!

Today we had the most teaching visits that I’ve experienced so far. Holy cow two visits, in one day! Absolutey crazy stuff! Anyways today was great! The first person we taught, brother Clearsky was super nice. He was already looking for opportunities to share the gospel with others. Which was so good to hear! We then had a lesson and dinner with sister Davis. She’s very sweet and enthusiastic about the gospel. She works at the temple and her husband isn’t a member but they are both super nice.

Today we went to this supper foresty and wooded park. It’s one of the bigger parks. Apparently last time my trainer was here, him and his comp got lost in the park and ended up taking an extra hour finding their way back! 😂 So we were extra cautious, but spoiler alert we did get a bit lost. We took one wrong turn, but we made it out relatively quick. Anyways we went to the park so we could get some epic photos and stuff for Facebook posts and sharing the gospel online. It was a bit hard to get good looking photos cause it’s been nothing but suuppperr cloudy. Apparently it wasn’t that rainy before I got here, but since I’ve been here it’s been overcast and rainy, every single day. It doesn’t really snow too much in Surrey it just mostly rains. So now we are really getting into rainy season. I’m really starting to miss sunsets, kinda getting tired of the constant Gothem city atmosphere. But it’s okay overcast rainy weather is a vibe too. Now that I’ve ranted about weather for way too long… lets move on. We met the James family and that was wonderful! Except for the part where their address is wrong in the Preach My Gospel app so we ended up having to renavigate. But we made it, so that was good. We were a little late because of it, but they forgave us. We had a great lesson about commandments. And it turned out pretty good. I’m still getting better at contributing more in the teaching so I’m happy to see some progress. I just need to continue to strive to put myself out their more.

Anyways that’s everything I got for this week. Adjusting to missionary life has been good. I’m excited to see what the future holds!

“I marvel, and I’m sure that many of you do too, at how blessed we are to know what we know about our purpose in life, why we are here, what we should be trying to do and accomplish in our daily lives.” - Praise to the Man by President Russel M. Ballard, Oct 2023

Matthew 5:14-16 “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

We played some beach volleyball, pickleball, and endless UNO. Custom UNO rules where we have to keep drawing cards till we can play again. This leads to a single UNO game taking 30 to 40 minutes. UNO goes wild!! We probably shouldn’t have started playing at 9:30pm cause we didn’t finish till 10:10pm. But it was a blast!!

Alrighty this was my first fast Sunday away from home. Only 23 more left while on the mish! It was absolutely crazy, the cafeteria lines were already wack! Now imagine all 3000 of us all at once, running through two doors! Out of our pure skill me and my comp were somehow able to be the first one’s out and at the front. It was crazy! Fast and testimony meeting was so cool!! We just had it with our branch, and hearing everyone’s testimonies was so great! There was so many inspiring words and strong testimonies shared. It’s crazy cuz most of our branch is actually leaving this week, and a lotta of them have actually been here for 3-9 weeks. Super grateful I don’t have to learn a language… well I guess I gotta speak Canadian but I’m totally cool with that!

Today was supper busy. We helped do service for the seniors that were coming into the MTC in the morning. So we helped unpack their luggage and get it to their rooms. That was really awesome, loved getting to know them! We also had service later that night working at the cafeteria. We were zooming away making food.

We had a devotional and a surprise speaker! Drumroll please… it was Elder Gong and Sister Gong that spoke!! Really amazing talks! I liked how he spoke about seeking perfectionism in Jesus Christ and not perfectionism of the world.

This was our last night with the district. The sisters made an award ceremony and that was super fun! It was a sweet way of celebrating each other before we all left. For all those that are wondering which award I got… it was the full send filmer award 😂 That’s pretty accurate haha!!

Today was the big day… travel day!! Woke up at 3am, honestly had no idea how I did it, probably all that stress haha. My comp didn’t get up when I did, so I asked him if he was awake. Apparently he was sleep talking cause he totally was not awake, even though he replied that he was. It’s all good though cause I woke him up 10 mins later. After some bus riding and airport navigation we flew from Salt Lake to Seattle. Which is kinda stupid in all honesty, wish we just went straight to Vancouver. Anyways after a super fun 5 hour layover in Seattle, we arrived at Vancouver Canada. We drove over to the mission home and got to meet lots of amazing people! The mission president Gill and his wife Sister Gill are so awesome!! Each of us got to do interviews with them. Don’t worry guys… I got the job! In all seriousness though, it was super nice to start to get to know them and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

We started off the day with going outside. The architecture and trees are beautiful in British Columbia. We briefly walked around the neighborhood. Then we ran laps around an open field with a track. After that we were given the names of our trainers and area. I was assigned Elder Nelson as my companion in the Surrey area. We got to our apartment and there was absolutely no food. We did have one stain in the fridge for us, so that’s pretty nice! So we did quite a bit of shopping. We got some food and I got a pillow cause apparently there wasn’t a pillow either and a blanket. Yeah so that was super fun!

This was my first real day out on the field. We went to a baptism at the end of the day. The sisters that were previously in the area taught the guy that was getting baptized. It was really great meeting everyone, I gotta meet the bishop, some of the ward members, the sisters, and some Elders at the baptism. Honestly it was a really wacky first day. Our Preach my Gospel app that we use to teach wasn’t syncing everything, so we didn’t have the schedule or the people that we could teach. So now we are just left on our own building out the schedule. Luckily for us the sisters haven’t left the area yet so they were able to give us an information dump about the area. It also helps that my companion was assigned to this area before like a year ago.

Today we went to church. It was pretty cool. They were practicing the primary program, and we were asked to help sing, soooo it’s not gonna be great, but we’ll try our best! 😂 Singing with primary kids is a lotta live up to haha! The bishop announced at the very last minute right before anyone spoke that I was gonna give a talk… yeahhh I was not prepared for that. Anyways I talked about why I’m serving a mission, testimony stuff, it seemed like it wasn’t a train wreck so that’s good. There was a really sweet kid that came up to me and told me he really felt the Spirit during my talk. He has a brother that’s on a mission, and he wants to go on one too! So I’m glad to be an example to him! He was super nice, he’ll be an amazing missionary!

So far the mission’s been going pretty well. I’m still trying to process all the information and learn all the things. But I have a great trainer, Elder Nelson is awesome! He’s been an amazing help and example to me! I’m so grateful to have him.

D&C 58:4 “For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.”

Our district is S tier!! Best district we could ever ask for! Our dorm goes wild, we have so many one liners and inside jokes! Look out for them peepin Wizards from Isaiah! Me and my comp are droppin quotes from Thor Ragnorok, Lego Batman, and the Dark Knight. Just like the famous words of Joker, “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message,” President Nelson declared that paying tithing is “not about the money.” So that’s pretty good!

We are supposed to do teaching appointments. It’s kinda like a mock teaching lesson thingy where we practice teaching somebody the gospel. But the guy we were supposed to teach called in sick while we were at home MTC. And then we had another appointment yesterday… and he didn’t show up. So me and my companion were losing faith that were ever going to get an appointment with this guy. But we had another appointment scheduled for today, and it was also our P-day; so we weren’t too excited to get dressed in our church clothes just to go to this appointment where this guy probably won’t even show up. We got dressed, headed over and we were both shocked that he was already there. So we said a quick prayer and did our lesson. With all things considered I think the lesson went pretty well. We felt the Spirit while teaching, and we’re hoping he did too. However we didn’t ask him very much questions or get to know him as much as we should’ve. But I’m glad we taught with the Spirit, cause that’s the most important thing.

The night before the General Conference Sunday sesh, our dorm had a suuppperr in depth 40 minute discussion about the Kingdoms of Glory. Let’s just say we went way too far in our discussion… However when President Nelson made his surprise appearance, (what!!? The whole MTC was shocked when it was announced) he answered that very question!! Let me preface this by saying that none of us thought it would be answered, it’s such a specific question that at the time seemed like it didn’t matter too much. Our question was that after judgement would it be possible to progress through the Kingdoms of Glory? Again, super duper specific. Buuuut President Nelson came in clutch and dropped some bangers! He talked about how you receive a resurrected body based on the Kingdom’s laws that you live. Bro literally answered our question in one sentence. So that was like the coolest thing.

MTC so far has been pretty good, the first few days were rough, but now we’re in the groove it’s not too bad. My only complaint is the absolutely massive cafeteria lines. Apparently we are the largest group that’s come into the MTC since 2013. So there’s waaayyy more people, after you wait 30 to 40 minutes in line, finding seats is the next nightmare. But other than that, the whole MTC experience has been pretty good. Our amazing teachers and district really make the whole experience so much better.

Elder Coles and Madsen both have harmonicas, and there’s like a whole harmonica crew in the MTC! Super epic stuff! We were talking about instruments that we can play, and my comp said he could play the kazoo. So I made a special request to my parents for kazoos, annnnddd now we got a kazoo harmonica band!! Shout out to my epic parents for all the amazing loot boxes sent to us!! You guys are so awesome! Best family I could ever ask for! Wish I could talk to you guys more.

Anyways, I wasn’t really sure what my talk was on. When I first talked to bishop about it he told me “I don’t know what do you wanna speak on?” Well I don’t know, I had lots of ideas, but none are coming to mind. Life is so full of distractions, I haven’t really had the time to really sit down and figure this whole thing out. Bishop texted me last week and asked what I thought about on the Atonement and forgiveness for my talk. So I started writing the talk about the atonement, but then I felt inspired to take my talk a different direction. Anyways, I hope that’s okay. I made sure to cover the Atonement a bit in my talk as well.

In the conference talk “Remember What Matters Most,” Russel M. Ballard teaches three things that matter most in life.

1. Our relationship with Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ
2. Our families
3. Our neighbors

He teaches that it’s important to allow the Spirit of the Lord to guide us in those relationships so we can testify of the things that matter most.

In Matthew 22 verses 36 through 39: Jesus was asked “whis is the great commandment?” To which he replied “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” He then follows that the “second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

This is so important, and has changed my entire perspective on life. I’m not gonna lie, I used to do most things for myself. And I’m not gonna say that doing things for yourself is necessarily a bad thing. But too much of it can become a bad thing. Everything’s about balance.

Anyways, I didn’t really hange out with friends much. I kept to myself. I worked on my passsions, expanding my knowledge in technology. I didn’t participate in school events, I didn’t go to dances, I didn’t date. I wasn’t really there for those around me other than my family. I basically didn’t do any of these things because it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

However, everything changed for me. I started seeing life differently. I began to understand everything that I did for myself was really just a distraction that takes away from what truly matters in life. One day I found myself lost in thought, I was thinking about Christ’s life. His example he set for everyone. He dedicated his whole life to helping others and service. He showed kindness and love towards everyone around him. And even though some of the things he did for people were small and simple, they meant a lot. Simply just listening to somebody that’s going through a hard time or lending a helping hand goes a long way. ANd I already knew this, but then I started to think about all of this differently. I started to think about how I can change, and make every decision I make to in some way serve others. Cause ultimately that’s the goal right, that’s why we are all here. We all wanna be better, we wanna get closer and become more like Jesus.

This is what changed everything for me. I began to use my passions and interests that I previously used just to serve myself, to instead serve others. I went to school events, I went to dances, I went on dates, I created videos for otehrs, I taught the things I learned to others, I made an effort to be there and support people, ultimately I tried to go out of my way to do more for those around me.

We have an infinite amount of distractions, and materialistic things to constantly think about. This makes it difficult to really focus on what truly matters in life. But after I changed my perspective, I understood that even those things take us away form what matters, we can still use them to bring us closer and serve others.

Technology is one of the greatest distractions, however we can use it as a tool. A tool to serve others and help those around us. It’s as simple as sending a text to someone. It’s truly amazing that we are able to communicate with anyone anywhere almost instantly. We live in the fullness of times. And we are so blessed to be living right here, right now. I believe that’s why we are all here in these times, because we have so many resources to help in the gathering of Israel. It’s important that we use them. President Eyring noted that the Lord “has revealed the technology that enables the Church to take full advantage of these advances,” but added that while technology can and does bless lives, “never forget that while we have computers, cameras, microphones, fiber-optic networks, clouds, and satellites, we have failed if we do not rely on the Holy Ghost.”

I just wanna invite all of us including myself, cause we aren’t perfect, we all mess up, but I think we should all make an effort to be more like Christ. Spread more kindness in the world, be there for others, and spread the light of Christ. Use your talents and passions to better help those around you. Try not to get caught up in all the noise of the world, because it takes you away from the people that need you most.

President Russell M. Ballard taught that Latter-day Saints must be kind not only to each other but also to everyone around us. He observed: “Occasionally I hear of members offending those of other faiths by overlooking them and leaving them out. This can occur especially in communities where our members are the majority. I have heard about narrow-minded parents who tell children that they cannot play with a particular child in the neighborhood simply because his or her family does not belong to our Church. This kind of behavior is not in keeping with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. He then states “I cannot comprehend why any member of our Church would allow these kinds of things to happen. … I have never heard the members of this Church urged to be anything but loving, kind, tolerant, and benevolent to our friends and neighbors of other faiths.” Let each of us, strive to love all.

I just wanted to share his message, because I think it’s important and we all need to remember that we need to show love and kindness to everybody. I think we all tend to put people in groups and judge even without knowing. The Book of Mormon references a time where there wasn’t judgment, groups, or contention. 4th Nephi chapter one talks about a period in which people were unified. It states “There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.” In the General Conference talk “The Greatest Possession,” Jeffrey R. Holland states that the key breakthrough that lead to this peace is all embedded in one sentence, “The love of God … did dwell in the hearts of the people.”

I wanna end this talk with why I chose to go on a mission. I believe that sharing what we learn with others is so important. And I think we take a lot of the things we learn or understand for granted. Many of these things can help others around us. The most important thing that we can share is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to be presented with the gospel and understand its teachings. So that they may have the choice and use their agency to choose to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ. I made the choice to go on a mission because I want to serve others. I wanna spread the love of Christ. I wanna serve God. I’m so blessed to be here right now, where I am, born into the church, with an amazing family, and I wanna give back. I don’t deserve to be here where I am right now, if I don’t make an effort to gather Israel and give back to others. I think about all those that came before us. The pioneers, those that settled into the nation, those that fought for our freedoms and rights, those that have defended the gospel with their lives. Many died serving and getting us to where we are now. And now we are here inheriting all the work done by countless generations. I believe it’s important that we don’t take what we have for granted, and that we go out and give back by doing God’s work.

And this is ultimately the reason why I’m going on a mission. Cause even though it’s going to be really difficult, I know that it’s most important. I know that there’s no better way I could be spending the next two years of my life, than spending it serving the Lord and others in need.

Just before I end my talk I wanna share my testimony:

• I know that the day when Joseph Smith decided to go to the sacred grove and pray for an answer, he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ by his side.
• I know that it was by the power of God and the Holy Ghost that the golden plates were translated to The Book of Mormon.
• I know that this church contains the fullness of the gospel through revelation from God.
• I know that we have a living prophet that teaches and guides us through revelation.
• I know that all the light and life of the world is spread through the pure love of Jesus Christ.
• I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much that he sent his Beloved Son to atone for the sins of the world, so that we may be saved and find everlasting joy.
• I know that Jesus Christ knows each and every single one of us better than we understand.
• I know that God is of miracles and that he does amazing things for each and every single one of us.
• I know that Jesus healed the sick, made the blind see, raised the dead, turned the water to wine, calmed storms, and fed 5,000 with just five loaves of bread and two fish. All through the power of God.
• I know that God has blessed us with a nation with sacred liberties and rights of mankind. A nation where we can experience and enjoy the freedoms given to us. Only possible through the faithful people that dedicated their lives and defended this nation and its rights. And God was by their side as they fought for this nation.
• I know that the Holy Ghost speaks to all of us.
• I know that the Holy Ghost will continue to inspire us to help those that need us the most.
• I know that even though life is full of trials, disappointments, sadness, sickness, and heartache, these things are a blessing from our Heavenly Father to help us grow.
• I know that when we feel like we are alone, like no one understands what we are going through, Jesus Christ is there and knows exactly how you feel.
• I know that no matter how far we stray, no matter how lost we are, no matter what we’ve done, that we can repent and be made clean.
• I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are always there for us, with open arms, waiting for us to come back to them.

I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.