Crazy week!

So the other day I had a pretty eye-opening and unsettling experience.
I was coming in from the field behind our apartment, where I run every
morning. Nabrotzky and I usually run at different paces so we just run
in a big circle to stay within sight. I had seen him go through the
tree line that separates the field from our apartment, so I finished
my last lap and went through the trees as well. As I walked up to our
apartment, something looked off. The blinds in our room were shut, and
so were the blinds in front of our sliding glass door. Normally, we
keep them open because it gets to hot. I figured maybe Nabrotzky had
been changing when he came in, and had closed them for privacy. I
didn't think too much of it. I got to the glass door, and was
surprised to find it was locked. It didn't really make sense, because
normally he leaves it open for me. I decided maybe he had locked it
out of habit, and so I walked over to the window which is ALWAYS open.
I was again surprised to see it was locked. I couldn't see in, and so
I didn't know what was going on. I also couldn't think of a reason
that he'd lock me out. Panic set in, and it finally clicked. He was
leaving, or had left. New missionaries always have thoughts of leaving
and going home, but no one actually does it! I couldn't believe what
was happening. I started pounding on the windows as loud as I could,
and was about to pull the phone out of my pocket and call President
Campbell. But I tried the door handle again. Luckily the door wasn't
quite locked, and with some harder pulls the door popped open. I ran
into the apartment and was shocked at what I saw. The apartment didn't
look familiar to me at all. I didn't recognize the furniture
whatsoever. It was almost like being in a bad dream where nothing
makes sense and you start to panic. I slowly backed out of the
apartment, and looked around. Suddenly I heard a familiar song coming
from the apartment next door. I walked over, and looked through the
window. I can't tell you how relieved I was to see all of our
furniture! I walked in and Nabrotzky was in the shower with music
playing! I poked my head back outside, made sure no one had witnessed
my senior moment, and then went about the rest of my day.

Hahahaha you guys raised a good egg! :) As far as I know the people in
the apartment next door were asleep. We think he's a way older guy and
so he must not have heard my pounding thank goodness :) I wish someone
would have caught it on tape.

Anyways, this week was pretty crazy Zone Conference was a lot of fun.
It was good to see Elder Merrell before he leaves. I'll probably see
him at transfer conference too, but who knows! I could stay another in
Spruce. Barrhead slept over on Tuesday night after interviews. I love
sleepovers! I look forward to them more as a missionary than I did as
a kid haha. Wednesday was zone conference, and we had to leave earlier
than Barrhead because we had to stop at the office to switch out our
car. So we gave them our house key, told them to lock up, and went on
our way. After conference we all went back to our various areas. Elder
Nabrotzky and I had planned on stopping at the apartment afterwards to
change out of suits and into slacks. So we rolled up, got out, went up
to the front door of the lobby, unlocked that door, walked up to our
room, I went for the key, and it wasn't there. Haha ANOTHER classic
steven moment. I forgot to get our key back from Barrhead, and they
had been back in their area for a couple hours now. So we called them,
found out they didn't have the clicks to drive down, so we decided
after dinner we'd drive up there, which we did. We ended up getting
there at round 10pm so we just stayed the night and drove home the
next morning. Hahaha I love missions!

Hey did anybody notice that the front cover of the Ensign was a
picture taken by Christina Smith? They are all over the church
photography! If you look in the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlets that
we use, they're in there giving a blessing, they're in chapter 9 of
Preach My Gospel, etc! I think there's more too but I don't remember
exactly. They're practically famous.

The Sukhus are still doing reall well. They all came to church on
Sunday and loved it. We met with them later that night, and Tony said
that ever since he's been investigating the church, "things have just
been working out." It's awesome. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and it went really well. They're still looking forward to being
baptized on the 21st. They also reminded me yesterday that I owe them
cinnamon rolls because Erika heard from someone that I made them ONCE
back home.....thanks mom! Send me the recipe please :)

This Sunday is Canada Day, which would normally mean "party!" for
missionaries, except it's on Sunday, so it's a normal proselyting day
:( It's their version of July 4th basically. Soooo that kinda sucks
because nobody will be home since they'll all be out partying haha but
oh well! We'll make due.

I forgot Geoff and Nicole went to Cancun! I wanna see pictures tell
them to email me some. Glad to hear they enjoyed it.


Other than that I think that's it! Hope you all had a good week, and
that this week goes well!


Love you guys!

nevetS redlE

PS I got Gramma's letter! She's awesome!

PPS I forgot to send these pictures of last night at 10:15 PM! We don't
see the dark anymore unless we wake up in the middle of the night it's
crazy!

Happy Father's Day!

We had a pretty solid week! Transfers were this week, and Elder Kember
got a greenie, so he decided to have District Meeting this week. So
Elder Nabrotzky and I drove out to Barrhead Thursday morning. I let
Elder Nabrotzky take over driving haha and he loved it! It's about an
hour drive so I took a nap :) So it's a win win situation. Elder
Kember's son is a black guy from the Congo! His name's Elder Kalala
he's sweet. We stayed in Barrhead for quite awhile that day and then
drove back in the afternoon.

I hit 9 months last Thursday! Man is that weird or what? That's right
I could have had a baby on my mission and you guys wouldn't even know
it! I could have two by the time I'm home :)

We did a ton of service this week. On Saturday we went over to a
Part-Member family's house and helped them roof their house! They're
planning on selling it in the next couple weeks and so we went and
helped them get it ready. We went over at 8am and stayed until around
4:30pm it was sweet. I've never done that before and it was pretty fun
actually. The heat sucked though because the tar paper and the
shingles were melting it was gross. But now I can check that off the
bucket list.

Today is interviews with President Campbell, so we're going to drive
into Edmonton after we're done here. Tomorrow is zone conference and
so Barrhead is driving in and they'll spend the night with us. I love
sleepovers!

On Saturday night on our way to dinner, Elder Nabrotzky was backing
out of the parking space, and I, like an obedient missionary, was
backing him out. I was standing directly behind the car, between the
car and the truck behind us, thinking that he'd back out and turn.
Haha but he pressed the gas pedal too hard, panicked, (he's only been
driving a couple of months) and pushed it harder. He also didn't turn.
He was coming straight for me! So I waited for a second to see if he'd
correct himself but he was coming in hot so I punched the hood of the
car twice and then straight up Elf jumped out of the way! Seriously if
you had seen me I would have looked like Legolas himself. Anyways so
Nabrotzky plowed into the truck behind him and left a sweet dent on
our car and nothing on the truck haha. So he's since been removed from
office as designated driver and I have re-assumed that role :) Moral
of the story, I could be crippled right now, but because of my nimble
body and my cat-like reflexes I'm here to tell the tale. We're talking
in the car today after interviews, and they'll give us a rental. So
that was exciting! :)

We had another awesome lesson with the Sukhu's! We decided it was time
to take members over with us when we teach, and so we took Brother and
Sister Wright, our Ward Mission Leader and his wife's a ward
missionary. We went in and taught the Plan of Salvation, and I was
excited for it in the first place, because Danielle (the mom) had been
asking questions for awhile about where we were going after this life.
The lesson was super solid, the Wrights are both converts so they
shared their experiences, and then Elder Nabrotzky invited them to be
baptized and they accepted :) So the 4 of them are on date for July
21st. Tony was especially excited and told us that we had just
answered questions that he'd had his entire life, and nobody could
answer them. So God's plan is perfect! We're super excited though,
they're sweet.

That's all I've got! Thanks for all you guys do and the support that
you give me it's much appreciated. Have yourselves a good week!

Love you guys,

Elder Steven

Somewhere, Over In Jasper

Good afternoon there, eh?

Man has it been a crazy few days! I forgot to tell you guys that I was
going to Jasper this week, but I went yesterday! I'll explain later on
in the email.

So we went on exchanges with the zone leaders last tuesday right after
emails, and it was a lot of fun. We aren't really sure why we went on
exchanges, since neither of us are district leaders, but whatever
haha. I went into the city with Elder Lewis which was sweet because he
was in Stony Plain, the area over, when I came to Spruce, so I know
him really well. I learned a lot on the exchange, and it was just nice
to get away from the usual. Elder Nabrotzky, who was beyond nervous to
be on his own, did really well, so that's good!

I've become really good friends with Elder Livingston, one of the
missionaries in Stony Plain, and so last week we decided we wanted to
use up our Jasper trip this week! So we called the Kozaks (the family
I called home with), and they said they'd take us :) So we went on
exchanges Sunday night, and I spent the night in Stony Plain, and left
yesterday at 6:30am and drove the 3 hours to Jasper. It was a ton of
fun. Their daughter Mary, who's a single mom in our ward, came too. We
saw two bears, big horn sheep, mountain goats, elk, etc. We did a lot
of hiking around, looking at waterfalls, glaciers, all that good
stuff! We went shopping in the little tourist town of Jasper, and I
bought a hoodie, and then we drove back! We got back late so I spent
another night in Stony Plain and then came home this morning. So it's
good to be home. I'll include some pictures!

Sunday night we had a sweet lesson with the Sukhu's. We kept feeling
like we should focus on the importance of family, and go over the
Proclamtion to the World with them. So we did and we talked a lot
about eternal families and they loved it. Tony supports and believes
it 100%, and that really sparked an interest in them, so we committed
them to read the Book of Mormon this week and they said they would! So
that was a good lesson. We put a lot of preparation into it, and look
what happened! The Lord provides :)

So I've been learning to play the Ukelele lately, I don't remember if
I've told you that. But anyways so Elder Livingston got me started on
it, and then one of the members in the Stony Plain ward is an
entertainer/comedian, and he does a musical comedy show every so
often. Last week he asked Elder Livingston to sing "Over the Rainbow"
with his Ukelele, and of course he told Tom (the member) that I play
too. I definitely didn't haha. So Tom was planning on me singing too,
and I didn't find out about it until last Monday. So I spent every
night last week practicing this song I didn't know, on an instrument I
didn't even know how to play! But I got it down and we sang it on
Saturday night it was a lot of fun. So now I can play ukelele! :)

Transfers are this week, and just like I figured, I'm safe. So I'll be
here another transfer to finish training Elder Jablonski, as the
members have come to know him haha. They're sending out 14 new
missionaries this week! Only 7 went home so some new areas are opening
up, but I haven't heard which ones yet. Elder Kember in our district
is training this transfer, which means I still have yet to be in a
district without a new missionary. Crazy! Elder Livingston is getting
transferred to the middle of nowhere, which means all of my friends
when I got in this area are gone. It's quite sad. I'm the last one
standing!

Well that's all for this week. It's 82 degress outside so we're gonna
go do some street contacting and work on our farmer's tan. Hope
everything's going well back home!

Love you guys,

Elder Steven

Isaac is my hero :)

So I think I just sent a blank email. Woops!

Hello my fellow Oregon-dwellers, past, present, and future!

Isaac got his mission call! Isn't Guatemala where his parents went??
That's super crazy haha good for him he'll love it! I mean, it's not
Canada, but we can't all be called to perfect missions :) Just kidding
who wants to freeze? Not me. Tell him congrats for me and I'm writing
him a letter back as we speak.

I didn't even think about today being the anniversary of my surgery!
Probably because there isn't much difference between living with and
appendix and living without one. Maybe that's why I got Diabetes! Your
appendix prevents it! Somebody should probably research that. Haha I
don't miss that week though, other than playing Yahtzee, of course :)

The baptism was a success! Jaime was super excited and her family all
showed up to support her and half of the YSA ward showed up too it was
awesome. She's solid though and it was sweet to see her baptized.
She'll do great. My talk went pretty well! I've realized just how much
I enjoy teaching. Actually to be honest I think I just like to hear
the sound of my voice. Is that prideful? :)

Elder Nabrotzky and I are doing really well. We're always looking for
more investigators, but Canadians as usual are very comfortable with
how they're living haha. We're working hard though it's all good!

The Sukhu family is still comin along. Erika Jones (the lady that
called), went home on Sunday morning so we went over on Saturday night
and said goodbye. I'm really gonna miss them they were awesome. And
they live in northern California so I may have to pay them a visit
some day. Now we have to teach the family without Erika there, which
will be different, but I think it'll work out alright.

Today we're going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I don't know why
they want to exchange with us, but I don't ask questions haha. So
Elder Nabrotzky is staying in Spruce and I'm going to Edmonton.
Nabrotzky is soooooo nervous though haha we had to plan for almost an
hour last night to help him feel confident about it. He'll do alright.
If he makes mistakes, that's how we learn right?

Well I'm glad to hear the trip to Hood River, the land of my
forefathers, was a success! Was it pretty busy? Haha the Starlight
Run! Was that really a year ago??? Man time flies! Kyle's a year out
next week! I thought time was flying at the beginning of my mission,
but it only gets faster, it's gonna be crazy to see how time flies a
year from now.

Well that's all I've got for you this week. Have yourselves a good week!

Love you guys,

Elder Read