UNO Madnesss and New Beginnings

Oh boy this is gonna be a big email! I apologize about that guys, I missed my P-day at the MTC so we got a few extra days to account for.

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.”