Monday, August 27, 2012

Happy Anniversary Parents!

Happy 31st Anniversary Mom and Dad! I honestly don't remember which day it is/was, but I know it's sometime in the 20's of August! I'm guessing the 28th or 27th am I right? Man that means Chris will be 30 this year! You guys are old :) In celebration let me share a scripture in the good book of Proverbs 20:29.
"The glory of young men (and women) is their strength: and the beauty of old men (and women) is the gray head." Love you Mom and Dad! :)

Anyways hello dear family of mine!

Man oh man has it been a crazy week! Our numbers were in the toilet to tell you the truth haha. I say "haha" only to keep from crying. Haha in all seriousness though it was kind of a garbage week. Health-wise and in terms of the work. I've been sick all this week which is totally weird because I never get sick. Honestly I don't remember the last time I had a fever, cold, etc. I just like getting the big stuff like Diabetes! Go big or go home :) Last Sunday we went over to the sister's house (they live with an old member lady and she was present don't worry haha) and gave Sister Bunker a blessing because she was sick. In the process, I think I caught it from her, because I woke up the next day with a super sore throat. Over the next couple days my nose started running a straight up MARATHON and I'm coughing. I've been loading up on Mucinex though which is working wonders! My throat is fine but my nose hasn't finished the race yet. But I feel okay.

Elder Cone and I are still on the hunt for investigators, and it's not looking good. We sure do love tracting though! It POURED rain on Thursday or Wednesday, one of the two, and we were out tracting on our bikes without jackets. So we just kept on tracting haha. Finally I decided I was done and I felt like junk so we came back home and I took a nap. It was glorious and much-needed. So Ray, who was supposed to be a sweet investigator and was super interested at his door, called us on Tuesday and hour before the meeting and told us he's not interested. Sweet! We haven't had any contact with Lillie this week, and so hopefully this week we'll find her home. Other than that we're actually having a lot of fun. Elder Cone is the biggest goofball on the planet and he keeps things interesting and we laugh a lot which is good :) Things will move forward just like they did in Spruce. My testimony of Prayer and Fasting is going to grow a ton!

It's the last week of the transfer! I can't believe how fast it's gone by. I think Elder Cone will stay another transfer but he's thoroughly convinced he's out next week. We'll see what happens.

So on Saturday we stopped by a garage sale and they had this sweet old road bike for $25. The bike i'm using now has a bent back wheel and it scrapes the outside metal all the time it's super annoying. So we used our bottle money that we've been saving up and bought it! After we bought it we realized the tires were flat, and so we threw it in the back of our Malibu because who knew that it was against the rules? Honestly we had no idea haha. Anyways so we got it about halfway in and it wouldn't go any further, so I just sat in the back seat and held the door closed, and we drove about a kilometer down the road to our apartment. Once we got there, we realized the bike was caught in the seat belt, and the seat belt had locked. So we had a bike hanging halfway out of our car that couldn't go in our out because it was entangled by a locked seat belt. So we called around for 15 minutes trying to find someone that might have tools, because all we had was a dinky pair of pliers. Nobody could help us, and so we started trying to take the front tire off with the pliers. That didn't work, so we went over to the handlebars and took those off, and finally after almost an hour of pushing and pulling, it came out of the car :) So that night I took it apart and today we have to go buy new tubes for it and grease it up and she'll be good as new! It's bringing me back to the Target days! I actually really enjoyed working on bikes that was a sweet job.

Hey I wanna vote in this election! All the Canadians are telling me I can get some absentee ballot or something like that? Is that the truth or are they lying to me?

What the heck is Bryant really doing marching band and cross country AND he's center snare? Man that kid is in for a ride of a lifetime! What a stud :) Tell him to email me and update me on his life!

Hey tell Lorena thanks for the picture of my Eagle Project! Looks like she's still standing! It expertly crafted so of course it is :) Anyways that's all for this week. Thanks for all you guys do and I'll talk to you next week!

Love you guys,

Elder Read

Monday, August 20, 2012

Now Hiring Investigators

Hello!

This week we decided to give up on the Family History Center because everyone and their mom seems to be going there lately. So we're back to the library now. But an Elder from my last area gave me his old library card, and the guy I replaced here gave Elder Cone his library card, so we both have two which means two hours of emailing again! It's so much less stressful. Plus there's not much else to do before 1pm when we all go to the church.

This morning I cleaned the bathroom like I do every week. I don't know what it is with clean bathrooms, but I really have a problem when they're dirty haha. Random I know, but I thought you might like to know :)

Hey mother of mine I went and got an A1C today and it was $125. 125! I can't even believe that. I guess since we're in a different health district they charge more down here. That's what I get though for coming to a country with free health care! I'll be getting my A1C's in Edmonton from now on. They'll let me know sometime later this week or the next what the results are. I feel great though!

So this week we met with Lillie, the chinese lady that came to church last week. We went with two sisters from the Relief Society and it went really well. She said she believes there must be a true church out there, and she's willing to look for it. Golden! She really liked the Restoration. We're hoping to meet with her next week because she has family in town this week.

Ray, who was that potential we contacted last Sunday, didn't want us to meet in his house and was under the impression we'd be having lessons on his doorstep haha. We brought a member, so we decided that wouldn't do. So we scheduled another appointment for tomorrow at the church. Hopefully he shows up :)

Despite the fact that we have zero progressing investigators we still keep pretty busy. We've been trying to contact all of the "unknowns" in the ward. Aka the people nobody's heard from or seen in years, OR the people we've never met. It's been keeping us pretty busy, and since we're on bikes it takes a little longer. I love bikes! It's such good exercise and I love being active so it's a win win! We have to take advantage of them before everything turns white for the next 8 months! Honestly I'm really not looking forward to winter. It got down to a whopping 12 degrees the other day and I had my peacoat on all day, no joke haha. My body gets acclimatized pretty easily, but when it gets cold it's gonna be rough until it does.

Man it sounds like you guys had a way busy week! The beach is always fun though, you have no idea how much I miss it! When I get home that's the first place I'm going. Haha when you guys talked about Sister Little at Bryant's Eagel Project I laughed so hard. I love that lady she's one of a kind! Hey send me pictures of Bryant's project I want to see it.

That's crazy that Skylar's back. I wish I could've been there at his Homecoming! Somebody tell him hello for me :)

Okay we're going shopping, have yourselves a great week!

Love you guys,

Elder Read

Monday, August 13, 2012

Happy 11 Months!

Hello dear family and all other listeners!

Tuesday I hit 11 months! Man it's flying by. This time next year it'll have been a year. Crazy. So we had a nifty little week! We started it off by dropping every single investigator we have haha. Very productive. None of them were progressing or willing to do anything, so we started off Tuesday with 3 investigators and by the end of the day we had zero. We met with them all and told them though, we didn't just stop talking to them haha. So we spent quite a bit of time finding this week. It paid off too! Yesterday at church this lady from China walked in and said she had just moved from Vancouver and was looking for a church, so she walked down the street to ours! She wants to know more about the church and what we believe in, so we're going over to her house tomorrow afternoon and hopefully teaching her the first lesson. THEN we were out contacting potentials yesterday night and we decided to go try Ray, a potential from about a year ago. He answered the door and we started talking, and actually ended up talking on his doorstep for about 45 minutes it was sweet! We shared the first vision and Moroni 10:3-5 and talked about the Book of Mormon and he started tearing up and told us we could definitely come back. So we're going back tomorrow night :) Way cool! It was a super good day yesterday.

We've been biking this week too it's soo sweet! I love it. Let me tell you, I've never felt like a missionary until I started riding bikes! We only have 150 clicks in this area so we try and bike as much as often. Plus it's good exercise :)

Hey Mom before I forget, we went to get an A1C this week.....but we got there and I realized I forgot my wallet.....so I rescheduled for next week haha. I'll get there I promise! Also, so Jessica Sellers was in the MTC at the same time as I was, and she stayed in the same room as the sisters in my MTC district. So Sister West, who was in that room with her, is now in my district here, so she wants to know how Jessica is doing. Do you know? Haha random I know.

Sunday we broke into a car! One of the girls in the YSA ward came to church early, just as we were leaving, and told us she had locked her keys in her trunk....so Elder Cone used his expertise to sneak a hanger down adn pull up the lock. It was very impressive. I've never actually witnessed someone using a hanger so it was quite interesting to see.

So today the Sukhu's were driving to Calgary, and so they drove through Red Deer and called me up and we went out to lunch! It was awesome to see them. Tony just got ordained a Priest, and they've got Hometeaching and Visiting Teaching routes they're way excited. It's cool to see they're still doing well :) Hopefully I'll be near Edmonton when they go through the temple! Woo!

The other day I was thinking how sweet it is to see all of the different people in Canada and where they're from. Our Ward Mission Leader is from South Africa, yesterday we ate dinner with an older couple from Zimbabwe, the day before that we ate dinner at a lady's house that was from Switzerland, etc. It's awesome I actually really enjoy seeing people around here and where they're from.

This week we'll finally get mail! I've been waiting for what seems like an eternity for mail to get here, and finally the Zone Leaders drove up to Edmonton this week! So we'll get mail today!

I'm trying to think of what else happened....and I'm drawing a blank haha. I'm doing really well though, and I'm still learning the area slowly haha. I still refuse to drive and don't see that changing any time soon! Elder Cone loves to drive though so it's all good. Anywho, we're going to shop. Glad to hear you're all alive!

Love you guys,

Elder Read

Monday, August 6, 2012

Thunderstorms!

Hey team!

Libraries are closed this week because of some random Canadian holiday. I'm not really sure what exactly it is though haha. So we're in the Family History Center at the church! They let us come in here it's way sweet. So no hour time limit like at the library!

This week was another crazy one! But a little less than last week. I'm starting to get the hang of the area, and another week at church helped too. We visited a lot of members this week trying to get to know more people, and we taught 19 member lessons it was crazy! Every mission is so different, because I don't remember the missionaries ever calling us to come by and share a message with our family, but honestly that's how we spend 70% of our time. I love it! Members are so good to us :)

I did baptismal interview for a little 9-year-old girl, and it was way cool! It's amazing to me to see young people like that, who honestly probably have stronger testimonies than I do. I was amazed at the knowledge she had, because I definitely didn't have it when I was that age. Children are amazing!

I'm still boycotting driving! It's beautiful just being able to relax, enjoy the scenery, save money, etc. I'll drive again when I'm in the land of sensible speed limits again :) Think of the money we'll save!

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Friday, it was awesome. I love exchanges. We drove out to Sylvan Lake, which is a little town about 20 minutes outside of Red Deer, and spent most of the day out there. I was with Elder Morely, who was also my Zone Leader in Spruce Grove for a little while, so it was cool to see him again.

We've had some crazy weather lately! Alberta gets some wild thunder storms, and Saturday night we had the biggest one I've ever witnessed. We had just gotten into bed and all of the sudden we heard this super loud thunder and lightning illuminated our room. So we got up and went out on the deck and I saw the most lightning I've ever seen in my life! It was honestly like the movies, where there's no pause between each lightning strike, and the rain's coming down in buckets, etc. It was so cool! So we stayed up for about an hour and watched it. I didn't even think to get pictures though....

The other night we went to a members house and she made us sushi! I was in heaven. I honestly think it's one of my favorite foods without a doubt. She even gave us all of the extras to take home! It didn't last very long.

Hey the Trek sounds like it was way sweet! I'm glad you guys had fun. Yeah Mom I heard about Sam! That's crazy about his appendicitis, now he's part of the club! It's all the rage to get appendicitis on vacation :) I'm glad he's doing alright. So this area is pretty much dead hahahaha so I wish I had more to tell you.....but I don't :) This isn't the first dead area that I've come into though, so hopefully things will pick up like all of the other ones. Time's flying though, so that's good! Anywyas, that's all I've got for you this week. I appreciate all you guys do for me!

Love you guys,

Elder Read