Happy Memorial Day!

My dear family,

I totally forgot about Memorial Day! How'd it go this year? They have
Victoria Day up here the week earlier, and it's part of the May Long
Weekend, which is the weekend preceding Victoria Day. Just like in the
States, everybody leaves town for that weekend and the kids get school
off. But not the missionaries! No sir we work through the wind and
hail and the snow and rain!

This week was a good one. It continued to rain up until about three
days ago. Now it's back in the 20's and is beautiful! I learned how to
convert Celsius in my head, so I thought I'd share my knowledge. To go
from Celsius to Fahrenheit you multiply it by two, subtract a tenth,
and add 32! Viola! Pure magic. Normally I have to whip out the cell
phone and use the converter app, but no more!

Jaime is still on date for this Saturday! We're pretty stoked to be
honest. It's a YSA baptism, and so of course there was a Facebook
event created and 250 people were invited.....haha and guess who gets
to give a talk on Baptism? :) I've never spoken at General Conference
before but I'm sure this is what it'll be like. Haha we're excited
though, and Jaime's a perfect example of how a ward should handle a
baptism. Elder Nabrotzky and I have literally taught her the lessons
and that's about all we've done :) the ward has really taken her under
their wing and prepared everything it's awesome.

We're still Ward Mission Leader-less and it's starting to make me
nervous, but Bishop assures us that a new one will be called soon. I'm
a little nervous because I've had good and not so good Ward Mission
Leaders, and they make or break the work in the area a lot of times.
So here's hoping we get someone solid!

Haha I went into my box of insets to change my site, and guess what
was sitting there! A flash drive! I had no idea it was there until
now. Now you'll have to remind me why you sent it.....haha I forget,
was it so I can send pictures home?

We had Stake Conference on Sunday and it was a Canada-Wide broadcast
from Salt Lake. Coincidentally, Elder Walker (who just toured our
mission two weeks ago) conducted the meeting! He even looked the same!
President Packer spoke, along with Sister Steven's from the Relief
Society and Elder Cristopherson. It was a good conference I enjoyed it
a lot!

We had a trainer's meeting last Thursday at the mission home, and it
was weird being there again! I haven't been there since I flew in. But
all of the training companionships were there and the ones that are
out in the boonies called in. It's just a chance for President to see
how the 12-week program is going and to see if anyone has any major
concerns. Pretty basic!

Elder Nabrotzky is coming along pretty well. He's still green and
makes mistakes a lot, but who doesn't, right? He'll get it. It took us
awhile to understand each other, because we've got pretty different
personalities, but we're working hard together and it improves every
day!

Hey has anyone heard about the Wheel of Fortune in Portland? I think
they're calling it Wheel in Portland.....clever. We went to a member's
house and for the 5 seconds before they turned it off I saw it! Crazy!
Is it still going on? Portland is famous among Canadians, for those of
you who didn't know. I've been told a million times after I tell
people I'm from Portland that "If I were to move to the States,
Portland is where I'd go." Boom. Portland wins!

Another random thought. Yesterday we ate dinner at a member's house
and their son and daughter-in-law were there. They asked where I'm
from and I told them Portland, and then the daughter-in-law, Sister
Jensen, got all excited and said she served her mission there! I asked
where she served and she said Forest Grove, Vernonia, and some other
places I don't remember haha. But she was in Vernonia for those crazy
floods! Small world. AND THEN since she served in Vernonia I asked if
she knew the Rice's and she's related to them! It was pretty cool. So
if you see the Rice's, ask them if they know the Jensens in Edmonton.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Have yourselves a good week
and try and stay away from the doctor's office haha I feel like I just
read through a medical history report. You're in my prayers and I miss
you guys a lot!

Love you guys,

Elder ReAd

PS I love mail

It's raining!

Hey fam!

This week was pretty cool. May Long Weekend and Victoria Day ruined
most of our weekend because everyone and their dog went on vacation,
so we did a lot of finding! But as you can imagine, nobody was home.
So now that's over and people are back home, so this week should be a
little better!

On Wednesday we had Mission Tour with Elder Walker of the Seventy. It
was the bomb! I got to see a lot of my MTC buddies which was sweet.
President told me the other day that he's never seen a district come
out of the MTC so unified. Represent! I miss all of those guys, so it
was good to see them. Elder Walker talked, told stories, did
role-plays, trained on Alma 8, etc. It was awesome I loved it. They
fed us lunch too, which is always okay in my book! Afterwards he
answered questions which is always an adventure haha. Some people ask
the weirdest questions.....but there were some good ones too I learned
a lot.

We met with Jaime yesterday and finished off the discussions! So we
scheduled her baptismal interview and told her to start thinking about
who she wants to do what at her baptism. She's super excited and so
are we! Our Bishop was released yesterday and our Ward Mission Leader
was called as the new one, so it'll be really good for Jaime because
Brother (now Bishop) Woloszyn knows her really well and he'll be good
support for her. Now we're just hoping we get another good Ward
Mission Leader.

We did a lot of service this week. We went over to a less-active
lady's house and shoveled dirt haha. Living the dream! We also helped
a Part-Member family roof their house! It was pretty crazy. I don't
know if you've ever roofed a house before, but I sure haven't hahahaha
I had no clue what I was doing! I convinced the Stony Plain
missionaries to come with us, so instead of 2 people running around
with their heads cut off there was a nice group of 4. We stripped the
shingles off, took them to the dump, lifted the plywood up, nailed it
down, and that's all we had time for. I'm assuming they finished it
since then, because it's pouring rain right now.

That's right! It's raining :) I walked outside and trunked myself out
when I smelled the rain coming down, as weird as that sounds haha. It
smells like Oregon outside! It's been raining all day and all night,
so the people here are pretty done with it. They talk about rain here
like we talk about snow haha.

Hey mom thanks for the package! I got it yesterday. The pretzels were
gone before we left the stake center haha. Thanks for the socks too!
The days of "Wow your socks say CTR on them, how cute!" are over! So I
appreciate it. Haha I still laugh for days when I see that picture of
Bryant. Thanks for sending it :)

This week we're going to the mission home on Thursday for a New
Trainer's meeting. Basically it's just an opportunity for President to
follow-up with each of us to see how we're doing. Other than that
it'll be a pretty uneventful week. This weekend is Stake Conference
for all of Canada, and they're having a Canada-wide broadcast from
Salt Lake, so that'll be pretty nifty.

Yeah Erika called! Hahaha she called me Sunday afternoon and asked for
my home number and said she wanted to call my mother and tell her all
about me! She's been awesome. She was baptized last September and is
down with her husband visiting her daughter for her granddaughter's
graduation. So she's down her until the 5th. She got us in the door
with her daughter's family and things have been going really well ever
since. They came to church again last week and loved it. She told us
to take it very slow with them though, so we're not pushing too much,
but they're a great family. I think they'll come along with time.

Elder Nabrotzky is doing pretty well, but still very green haha. I'm
still amazed by his humility though and how much faith he has. He's a
good example for me and if we have any success in the next transfer
and a half it'll be because of him for sure.

Other than that I'm doing really well! Have yourselves a great week!


Love you guys,

Elder Read

Emails after calls home are so boring!

Hey family!

I know we just talked yesterday, so there's not really anything new to
talk about......but I'll do my best to make this original and
interesting! Haha. Sorry about the mix up with the times, I don't know
why I thought that you guys were the ones ahead an hour.....haha oops.

So this week we met with Jaime, our investigator with a baptismal
date, and she's super excited to be baptized on the 2nd. I love
lessons with her because she's 18, her member friend is 19, and then
you have me and Elder Nabrotzky, so it's like hanging out with
friends! Except we definitely teach a lesson don't you worry haha. We
taught tithing and fasting yesterday and it went really well.

Like I said on Sunday, the Sukhu family came to church on Sunday and
loved it! We're excited to teach them this Saturday and hopefully set
a baptismal date. We shall see. Their work schedule is a little crazy
but they said they'd be back next sunday for sure.

Elder Nabrotzky and I are doing really well. He's still green as all
get out haha but I enjoy serving with him. Two hour companionship
study is still a drag, and I can't wait until it goes back to one
hour, but it's good for both of us. I may be the one doing the
training, but I'm still learning a ton from all of the practice. It's
really good for me. Nabrotzky's been getting frustrated at himself for
making a lot of greenie mistakes haha I laugh about it, but he's
starting to get down on himself. So I'm working on helping him
understand that everyone makes them. He's ready to not be new anymore
haha. He's doing really well though.

Tomorrow we have mission tour with Elder Walker of the Seventy.
Barrhead is driving in tonight to stay with us, so it'll be a party!
I'm not really sure what'll happen at this meeting tomorrow, but I'm
sure it'll be good! Haha.

Ummmmm.......I honestly can't think of anything else to tell you
about. I'm sure there will be more next week though. Tell all of your
friends, family, neighbors, etc that I love mail! :) Have yourselves a
good week!

Love you guys,

Elder Reed, Reid, Red or, you know, Read.

Training for two

Hello fans,

    Sorry I'm writing a little late today. They switched Pday to
today so we could go to the temple this morning, so we've been running
around everywhere. It's been busy.

    This week was crazy! Haha training isn't too bad. My new
companion is Elder Nabrotzky from Ontario. The perfect way to describe
him is to compare him to Elder Calhoun from The Best Two Years. He has
enough enthusiasm and energy to serve 3 missions at least haha and
he's as humble as they come! I love the guy haha he's a little too
much sometimes but he's doing great. He's SUPER excited to be out here
and tells me at least every half hour :) But to be honest, at first I
was super disappointed and I thought he would annoy the junk out of
me, but I've really grown to appreciate the enthusiasm. It's a lot
easier to get things done when your companion wants to do the work. Do
I have to pull back on the reins sometimes? Definitely, but he's an
awesome missionary, he's got a big heart and he's happy. I can't
complain. I've also come to realize just how much I don't know hahaha.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm training a new missionary already, but
that's what the Lord wanted me to do! So here I am. Keep us in your
prayers we need it!

    So being the fantastic trainer that I am, I took my young boy to
a hockey game his second day in the field hahaha. I think he was in
shock the entire time. So President Campbell came out about a month
ago and told us we can go to hockey games as long as a member takes us
with an investigator. So our Bishop took us on Thursday to a WHL
(minor league hockey) game it was awesome. Plus it was the Oil Kings
(local team) against the Portland Winterhawks! It was sweet to see my
hometown play in Edmonton. Haha so yeah, I think I gave Elder
Nabrotzky a heart attack because a hockey game might be too much for
the second full day, but it was a good experience for him :)

    This week was also "Treasure Hunt" in Spruce Grove and Stony
Plain. Basically what it is, is throughout the week people put out
things they want to get rid of on their front lawns, and people drive
around and pick out things they want! It's genius! I'm gonna start it
in Aloha when I get home. So we went around and picked up some bikes,
so now we have bikes! We've been using a lot of klicks this month so
we're gonna need to ride bikes to stay under our limit anyway, so
we're excited!

    The weather here is perfect! It's currently a blistering 25
degrees and yesterday it was around 22. So we went out for a walk
yesterday and enjoyed it! \
    Jaime, our current investigator. Was on date for May 19th, but
her parents aren't going to be in town, so we set it instead for June
2nd. She's super excited! I can tell she'll do really well. She has a
lot of support from her friends, and most of them are in the ward, so
that's perfect. It's gonna be sweet!

    We received a referral from a member in California the other day
to come visit her daughter's family living here in Spruce. She's
visiting for a month so she figured now's as good of time as any to
get the missionaries over! So we drove over there and visited with
them for awhile, and then on Sunday they came to church! So we went
over yesterday and taught the first discussion and it went really
well. We're hoping to meet with them again this week and invite them
to be baptized! Things are picking up it's awesome.

    I ripped my pants :( one of the elders jokingly nudged me into
the pew when I was walking past him at transfer meeting, and my pant
leg caught on the hymn holder thing, and it ripped a huge gash in my
pants! So they're shot haha. I took them to multiple members and they
all gave the same diagnosis. So now I'm down to one pair of pants with
this suit..... :( oh well now i have pants to burn at 18 months! :)

    Well I can't think of anything else to report on this week. Enjoy
your week and enjoy the warm weather! I will talk to you guys on
Sunday! Woo!

Love you guys,

Elder Read the 4.5th (for Calista)

April showers bring May greenies!

Hey!

    This week was way good! Elder Fifita and I have been doing really
well together and we've been having a lot of fun this transfer, which
of course means he's out of here. He's getting transfered about 20 km
down the road to the Mission Hill ward in St. Albert. He'll be in the
same stake (so the same zone as well) and so I'll see him every Pday
it'll be cool. President then blindsided me by calling me as a
trainer! I can honestly say that's the last thing I expected haha I'm
pretty young mission wise and I feel like I just came out. But that's
what happened so I'm running with it! I won't know who I get until
transfer meeting tomorrow. They have a trainer's meeting at 8am
tomorrow morning and they'll put us with our new guys and then we'll
go to transfer meeting at 11am. So it'll be cool I'm excited! It means
I have to drive for another 6 weeks because missionaries can't drive
their first transfer. I love driving but I'm ready to sit back and let
someone else do it haha. Oh well!
    We met with Jamie again last night. She's still solid and is more
than ready to be baptized. We set a date for May 26th but then we
realized afterwards that the 27th is Stake Conference so that'll
probably change. Elder Fifita will be close so he'll be able to go to
the baptism he's excited. Scott our other investigator decided he
didn't want to investigate anymore. It sucked to hear but that's
missionary life. He felt the Spirit on numerous occasions so I think
he'll be back some time in the future
    Bryant is my hero! Doing missionary work in High School that's
awesome good for him. I look back on High School and think about all
of the opportunities I missed it's kinda sad to think about. So don't
miss out on them you'll regret it later!
    Yesterday one of the members took us golfing because Fifita's
never been. It was hilarious. Fifita picked it up quick, but you can
imagine a huge tongan trying to putt or swing at a tiny little ball.
It was a lot of fun though. He loved it but he said he's done with
gold haha he'll stick to rugby.
    So Mother's Day. Yeah we can do that Hangout thing or whatever
it's called. We've had a lot of people offer to let us come over so I
need to find out where we're going and when we can do it. When are you
guys going to be free? We have church from 1-4 our time so let me know
when you're free.
    Dad I would love that thumb drive! Send her on over and I'll
throw everything on there. I've been pretty bad about taking pictures
lately but for whatever reason now that the sun's out I'm more
inclined to pull the camera out!
    Today we'll be pretty busy. We have to say goodbyes, clean, and
all that good stuff so we'll be running around all day guaranteed. I'm
glad I'm not getting transfered haha it's so stressful running around
trying to get everything done. All I have to do is sit back and drive
him around :)
    Anyways that's all I've got this week. Have yourselves a good
week and tell Gramma Read she's in my prayers!

Love you guys!

Elder Read the fourth