June 23rd post

Well this week was busy with all that fun Zone Leader stuff.... Monday we went to District meetings then after that we taught Holly commandments, Then Tuesday was Pday, and Wednesday TRANSFERS! We got there at 8:00 and left at 11:00 then went to the Mall ate lunch. shopped for the New greenie, took Elder Eastes with us because he was waiting for his companion to come up from the south, went home got some groceries, went back to transfers at 3 got back at 5:30 ate some dinner real quick then went to a meeting back in Calgary for training on the Ward Mission Leaders and the Idaho Initiative.... Heard of it? all in all it turned out to be an 18 hour day! it was insane.... then Thursday we Weekly planned and that took most of the day because we had to figure out the new zone stuff... Friday we had a Special Leadership training meeting on how to be an effective leader/ know what the missions doing type thing... then we left and got mail, then had to get our oil changed didn't get back to Airdrie till 5 then either.... and Saturday we FINALLY got out to find people, all in about 2 hours we placed 4 Copies of the Book of Mormon and had probably 5-6 good gospel talks with people so that was a sweet day! Then Sunday we had a linger longer after church and now that brings me to my day today! :)

June 17th post

Well once again not a super whole lot of stuff to report on.... Yesterday we met with our gator (investigator) Holly, she is 12 and is a Foster Child living with the Stephenson family right now, taught her the Plan of Salvation and Gospel! shes awesome, and she already has a testimony of fasting! She and her family fasted for her social worker to allow her to take the Missionary Lessons and get Baptized, so that's how were meeting with her! Baptism date on July 5th, that's always fun :)

all of our stop by's, we have been making nobody is home and all of out other gators, we cant catch anymore, but we have Chris who is interested still, who is a friend of the Hudson family, hes 16-17 and tells them he will be coming to church this sunday so thats exciting! hopefully we can meet with him this week. See the problem with the Youth is that school is just getting finished and its Finals and all that so they are really busy..... so its kinda understandable.

Then we had dinner with the Ober Family this week whos an awesome family, really young couple... , then we also ate with this other sweet family the Villas... they are just awesome and fun! but that was my week.... oh and I guess an important thing is that SHAW AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER!!! 

this is Elder Larsen and I sharing a cinnamon bun! haha

Double Rainbow

June 9th Pictures

Car ride to Drumheller With Mandarin Elders

Biggest TREX in the world!

Atop of said TREX

Elder Shaw, Abunawara, Chronis! (the Mandarins!)

The Hoodoos!

The Zone!

ok this is a schwarma

Grass Service Project (before Picture)... he didn't give us a after shot.

Elder Martin email June 2nd

Alrighty well this week was pretty full of events... so i feel like it started on Wednesday when our Zone went to downtown Calgary to do some contacting,  Elder Shaw and I were going to try a new place to eat called "Joeys" is seafood so we looked it up on my GPS and when we got off the Train we headed that way, (totally opposite direction we normally go to eat) so were walking to 5th Ave and we finally come to the building and its not there (I need to update my GPS haha) so were slightly annoyed and decide to start walking to our appointment we have at this Shwarma place were thus dude wanted to know why we have the only "true" religion as he puts it, so we start walking when all of a sudden this man stops us and Points to our name Tags and says I'm one of you. so Elder Shaw and I were puzzled because this was a Black man with a very thick accent... tells us his name is Jean from Tanzania, then he says "I was baptized in 2005" so we start talking to him and he tells us his story, so he was baptized in 2005 and that day was his 1st day in Canada, it was starting to rain and he says "elders can you help me find a place to stay where I can get on my feet, I came here with nothing but my backpack and clothes on my back" SO! I took him to Tim Hortons and got him a hot chocolate (he looked cold and wet) then we called the Mission Office to find the Address to the Drop in Center got that all set up for him and i couldn't help to ask him is he needed any money, he humbly said "Elder like I said I have nothing, anything you can do for me will help" wellllll I thought  mom would do the exact same thing! so I went to the bank withdrew 60$ and handed it to him with our phone number and told him to keep in contact with us. the next day he called us to say he made it to the drop in center ok and got a place to stay, and just yesterday he said he just got a job out in brooks! I dont know about you guys but that was no mere chance we ran across Jean.... for some odd reason we wanted sea food that day.... and I will be honest, Canada doesn't have good sea food haha. BUT it was so awesome!!! 

So Thursday rolls around that was a pretty normal day, nothing super happened, Friday was normal then we went to meet with the new investigator we picked up 2 weeks ago, he didn't let us in and said hes read about 1/4 of the BofM and just talked to us on the front porch, so were like well there has to be someone were suppose to meet on this street so we start knocking doors.... when we get to this one and no answer then 2 kids on bikes ride up and there like 10 and just start talking to us, one asks "are you christian" and were like yea... then hes like "but aren't you guys mormon" haha so we talked with them about their day and such then the house we just knocked and we were standing outside of, garage door opened and then the car pulled in and it was this kid about 17, we start talking to him and ended up picking him up as a new investigator as well! then one of the kids on a bike (who stayed through all this discussion) asks us "do you think we will live again? like get another body, because I asked my mom that and she doesn't know" so we explained that and gave them both our card and they said they would go talk to their parents. Now i don't know if they actually did but hey, everyone gets to hear the gospel no matter how small! :)

Saturday went over well... moved people for like 6 hours! then we went to Adult Conference,  at the end I was talking to Dillon Roush (knew him when i was here last) he is a YSA kid and has been wondering if he should go on a mission, well he finally put in his papers and got his call... annnnnddd hes going to CARLSBAD CALIFORNIA!!!!! I seriously flipped out when I heard that and was so excited for him, so when i get home i'm going to have to take a trip and go bother him up in Carlsbad! 

Now comes Sunday... went to the Canada wide broadcast by President Eyring and Elder Holland that was pretty sweet, threw down on investigators getting baptized and kids at home needing to man up and leave things behind to go serve a mission, that talk was based off of a Family/Son in Taber that i swear i met haha, just cant remember them.... im sure you can find it on LDS.org you should go look up that Conference it was good :) Then we met at the Hudsons to teach one of their kids friends who is interested about the church and where it came from, we taught Lesson 1 and he seemed pretty interested and told us now all he has to do is see if its true for himself, sooo alll in all a geat week! :)

 annnnd now back to normal monday for Pday, were headed out to Drumheller today! :)

Hump Day!!

WELL!!!! for starters last week after P-day we went to the Trims and did some Service, helping them Remodel the kitchen...... that was fun, got to use some jack-hammers and what not!!!! then on Tuesday, was when I emailed and said I picked rock out in the field..... that was some good fun ha ha, then went to downtown on Wednesday ran in to a "basher" who knew nothing.....pretty sad really.  We Had Dinner with the Bunnages, they are sweet... family of just about all boys and 1 girl Ha, we had salsa chicken. The family  also have two bearded dragons, a Iguana and some cave lizard thingy........

And  then THURSDAY!!!! welllll it was HALF WAY Day!! didn't do anything cool ha ha, just did weekly planning and stop by's, and had a lesson with A---- and C------, C------ was an investigator but we dropped her because she has ZERO desire to do anything..... asked her to baptism and church and she laughed and pretty much was like "yea that's funny, probably not going to happen" BUT A----- her boyfriend is super awesome!!! been less active served his mission in San Jose and has desire to come back to church to baptize his kid and get married! :) sooo were still going to work with him on that! then Friday came along and we went to Seminary and made Waffles for Sis. Wenzles class, (I knew her last time I was here, her husband was the WML) then we went to pick up mail, and sadly didn't have any :(  and after that we did a baptism interview well elder Shaw did because this girl was getting baptized into our ward but was taught by other missionaries.... long story haha .......Then we went out to Nate Martins (dude we live with) and burned a shirt for my one year! its missionary tradition hahah that was fun! :) Then Saturday we had that Baptism for Alysha Olson, which we brought our new investigator MARK to (warden burts friend, hes a member) then had a lesson with him afterwards.... talked about what he wants and it was a stellar lesson then put him on Date for June 7th and he said yes! But now we cant because he didn't go to church yesterday lol... but that's OK were still working with him and he said he wants to be baptized, Both of his Parents are passed away, Dad died in a car crash when he was 2 days old and his Mom passed from Cancer when he was 3, and then his older sister was in a major car crash and now suffers from some Brain Damage, and the Kid has an awesome attitude! literally he just glows it seems...... Later we has some more service, worked on a Garage and Installed the Trim and Siding. and after that we had a "guess who's coming to Dessert" ward event so we went to the Obers house... (knew them last year) and Chris is a Game player and his wife plays with him, like W.O.W and Diablo and stuff! sooooo  it was awesome! and then church was Yesterday! so that was my week in a nutshell! :) I am  supper happy, and now on a downhill slide!

Bunnages Family pets

Brother Martins Home for the Shirt burning.

Fire.....

Rock Picking.....

Well today we started off with district meeting then went to an acreage and "picked rock" literally that's what we did ha ha, picked big rocks so that the equipment doesn't get damaged when going through there..... It was for a English lady, pretty good rock picker now.

  SO this week wasn't super busy, just ya know 5 referrals.... then met with a new investigator in the Sierra Springs ward, invited her to Baptism and got rejected ha ha but that's alright, then picked up 2 new investigators... one tracting he's Muslim and name is Makdar were meeting with him this Friday! :) then the other names Mark a friend of Warden Burt (a member) he was at church the past 2 weeks so we decided to see if he wanted to meet.... and he did! :) so hopefully we will be getting him taught soon :) he is way awesome and were already friends because he is always at dinner with the Burt's when we are there. Then 3rd ward passed off an investigator to us who is getting baptized this Saturday..... so its "ours" lol but I'm not taking credit for that :P other than that..... the Tucker Family is doing good.... weren't at church this week they were sick but Conner the oldest son (15) was. he said they are sick but I decided to come.... he is awesome, going to make a stellar missionary! but in all honesty that's pretty much what has happened... we have several appointments this week but that's with some less active families and our new gator that I already told ya about! :) love ya lots! 

Hayley's Baptism .......

I'm sorry to let ya know I don't have a new companion as of yet... and I won't until tomorrow ha ha... as for mothers day haven't scheduled a place yet only because Elder Nelsen has been getting ready to go home..... so it hasn't been on the priority list lets say..... not to worry ha ha.

sooo this week went well, Monday was pday then Tuesday we met with an awesome less active and had a cool lesson with him on the importance of Church attendance, said he would come but then got really ill apparently :(  then on Wednesday we went downtown again and elder Nelsen also met with the Employment office to help him get ready for home, then  Thursday we had Elder Nelsen's last language training meeting seeing how he was a mandarin missionary at one point ha ha, that was odd I felt way left out and didn't understand anything obviously lol, then Friday was mission leadership council, where we talked about how the mission is doing with the new Standards of Excellence.  SATURDAY! started off great, got to go to the Calgary Temple, was beautiful! all the detail in it, Celestial room was pretty small surprisingly, but still gorgeous. (San Diego is still my fave) THEN!!! Hayley Tucker got baptized! :) it was way sweet and awesome. When she got out of the water her uncle picked her up and hugged her and she squealed "yea  I finally did it!" now you have to know that the last 2 times she went to do it she was to shy and nervous and scared to follow through with it.... she is the most timid shy little thing I've ever seen, you ask her a question like who is our prophet today and she breaks down crying because shes to scared to answer. its pretty funny but also tried Elder Nelsen's and my patience when we were teaching her ha ha. Sunday came along and found out we were covering both the new Sierra Springs Ward and Luxstone Ward sooo yea ha ha....I get almost all of the old Airdire 3rd ward back :)

Monday we went back to downtown seeing how we wont be going tomorrow, ran into "down town Joe" some crazy homeless man who was pretty funny, when we left he said "your looking sober and I like that! you two are looking sharp" ha ha he was awesome, other than that not a whole lot of success people are still to busy for the gospel :( but that was my week in a nutshell! :)

This is the Tucker family and Hayley... the dads not a member and now were trying to work with him! :)

 Hayley

 member's home who is an engineer and likes legos, this is an ak74-U he build! it shoots lego bricks!.. pretty cool

had some delicious red curry... got it hot level 4 out of the 5 levels they have! :) it was pretty good needless to say! :D nothing like a good ol fashioned root beer to wash it down...