Happy Australia Day!

Hey Homies,

I bought a bonzai tree! It was only $15! Haha I was at the assistant's apartment the other day and they had some crazy plant where you can braid it and I got jealous. So I went out today and bought my own plant. I'm pretty stoked :)

This week was good! On Tuesday we had interviews with President and they went really well. It's nice to be able to talk with him in person. Like I said last week, we had to be there for the whole thing, and we just checked planners and area books and wrote little notes in them. Pretty easy, and it was good to see everyone I actually enjoyed it! Sister Campbell always brings a bunch of snacks for everyone to eat.....so we partook! It was good.

After interviews, Tofield, was the last one, and right after we went on exchanges. I brought Elder Williams to Millcreek and it went really well! Then on Friday we exchanged with Strathcona and I went to their area with Elder Mann. I always learn a ton from exchanges it's super good for me. You'll never guess who we ate dinner with though! It was the Williams family and Bro. Williams trained Michael Boswell in Riverside! Haha small world. He had a lot of good things to say about Michael which didn't surprise me! So that was pretty nifty.

We met with Bryan again this week and officially started the lessons it was awesome. He's really engaged during lessons and he comprehends it like nobody's business! He asks a lot of questions it's great. We're going back over on Wednesday to finish the other half of Lessons 1 aka Joseph Smith. Which will be really good for him because that's where a lot of his questions and concerns stem from.

On Saturday we had a missionary fireside at the institute building called "A Night with Christ." One of the other YSA wards organized it, but each ward had a room to run. Basically it was a walk-through type activity, where each room has a different aspect of Christ or his life. It was really good! We ran the first room which had a couple of musical numbers and the "For God so Loved the World" Bible Video. We even got a referral from it for one of the areas in our zone so it was worth it! :)

Tonight we're going to Vermillion again to blitz! So after FHE we'll drive up and hopefully get there before 11pm this time :) We'll spend all day Tuesday there and then drive home Wednesday morning. Party!

Our area's doing super well. Just in the past week we've had a ton of people talk to us about people they're working with. So now we just have to get people to identify and take the next step! We've got a lot of potential I'm excited to see what happens.

I think that's all the exciting stuff I have to talk about. Besides that I got Gramma Read's letter so tell her thanks! :) I love hearing from her. We're going 5-pin bowling again today with some of the other missionaries so we gotta go home and clean. Have a good week!

Love you guys!

Elder Read

I'm always cold!

Hey O!

It's cold outside. Right now it's like -15 C and yesterday it got down to -25 C. Plus I'm not even wearing thermals! I'll never learn. I just keep telling myself I'll never have to deal with this again in 3 months!


Hey I got mail! :) Man alive was I excited. I never get mail anymore! Just kidding I occasionally do and I'm definitely not ungrateful (that was a double negative) but I got a whole 3 letters! I was ridin' Cloud Nine! I got a letter from Geoff, Gramma Read and the Sukhus! They were sweet. I love mail. Speaking of the Sukhus, their 9-year-old daughter, Sierra, is on date to be baptized on March 2nd! If you think back with me to Spruce Grove, Tony, Danielle, and Shelby were all baptized, and Brooke was too young, but they wanted to wait with Sierra because she didn't see the importance of it. But wait no longer! I was so excited when I saw it on the reports the other day. I'm trying to get permission to go. That would be sick! PLUS they all got their Patriarchal Blessings! Man oh man missionary work is sweet. Like I said, Cloud Nine.

So this week was pretty exciting! We had Zone Training Meeting in St. Paul on Wednesday. So we drove out there in the morning, had the meeting at 1pm, and then drove home just in time for dinner at 6pm! Except we were super late so more like 6:30. Anywho, that was fun I got some good letters written!

Thursday was ZTM for the city areas. That went pretty well too! Most of the time they'll just start talking and we just have to lead a discussion it's pretty sweet. We have a talkative zone!

Friday we had exchanges with the Assistantes it went well! We went to Red Robin for dinner and I felt like Nicole should have been there! Seriously every time I go there I just think of Nicole. I love that place though. Remember the week before I got diagnosed with the Betes I drank like 10 Freckled Lemonades!? Crazy! I had a water on exchanges.

Tomorrow is interviews with President Campbell. Which means our day is essentially gone-zo! We go there at like 8:30am and don't leave until 4pm! We sit there while everyone gets interviewed and check their planners, area books, take their pictures, etc etc.... It'll be fun though to see everyone! We then go straight to exchanges with Tofield, and then Friday we have exchanges with Strathcona, another city area. So two exchanges and interviews! Life is busy.

Hey we found a new investigator this week! We've been praying a lot for people to teach and WABOOM! The Lord provides. Brian is dating a member in our ward, and he lives with another member. So we went over for dinner and talked with him and he's sweet I like him a lot. He agreed to take the discussions and so we're going to meet on Wednesday. We're pretty stoked.

We officially passed Cal over to the missionaries on the west end. It was sad to hand him over because he was sweet! But it'll be better for him so he doesn't have to pioneer-trek it across Edmonton every time.

Guess what I learned how to juggle! Our Bishop gave us some Canadian juggling balls for Christmas, and I finally pulled them out during Weekly Planning, because Weekly Planning is English for "do random stuff time." Haha just kidding....but seriously I learned how! I just picked them up and started practicing and an hour later I could do it! I now juggle after nightly planning, lunch, and any other time we aren't doing anything! I'm so excited, let me tell you. I've decided your mission is the perfect time to pick up random talents like ukulele because you have all the time in the world! So if you're wondering if you should serve, I hope this paragraph turns the tables....the right way haha.

For my birthday.....I don't know haha I don't need anything! But since you're persistent I liked that Sudoku book :)

Hey tell Geoff Happy Early Birthday for me! :) He even sent me a letter for his birthday I'm touched :)

Okay that's all for today. One of the companionships suggested we play Minute to Win It for Pday.....so we'll see how that goes! You're all the best and I appreciate your letters....whoever you are!

Love you guys!

Elder Read

PS I attached random pictures from our dinner appointment the other day. Enjoy!

Another Cold Week Down!

Family and friends of me,

Your letters this week were pretty funny, I laughed out loud on a couple of occasions. Mom that's hilarious that you forgot your talk! Speaking on goals too that's not very easy. Haha I especially liked when you said, "Joan reminded me that I had made a few goals to clean off my sewing table and clean off my dresser and go to the temple." I laughed pretty hard. love Sister Little she's the funniest lady I know :) You've officially done what I haven't! I've thankfully never had to speak at the last minute on my mission, which is fine by me! But as far as teaching Gospel Principles last minute, I'm a pro!

This week was pretty solid, I enjoyed it! We spent some time on Tuesday planning out the transfer and things like exchanges, and we have another busy transfer! I'm excited though.

Thursday was our monthly Institute Coordination Meeting, where we meet with the Institute Director, President and Sister Campbell, and then all of the YSA missionaries in Edmonton. There's 6 YSA wards so 12 missionaries total. It was a good meeting they mostly talk about the upcoming events, and getting investigators to Institute. It was pretty sweet.

Saturday was ZLC and that was pretty sweet. We talked about the new year, set a baptismal goal for the year, etc. President and the Assistants gave some good trainings, and Sister Campbell made a BOMB lunch as usual :)

After ZLC Elder Coe and I drove home and almost immediately we had a lesson with Cal, the guy we met street contacting a few weeks ago. He's moved out of our area but we wanted to see where he was at. President Campbell came too! I'm always super nervous going into lessons with him but he's a super good teacher and helps a lot, so it was good. Cal is solid, it's too bad we'll have to pass him to the other missionaries but that's life!

Last night we got to go to the CES broadcast by President Uchtdorf :) One of the many advantages to being YSA missionaries! We could only go if we brought an investigator, so Sam, a guy in our ward who isn't a member yet but lives the member life, came with us! It was sweet President Uchtdorf talked about truth and what it really is. Go read it!

Other than that not too much to report on. This week we have Zone Training Meeting since ZLC was last week, so we'll spend a lot of Tuesday planning that training, and then Wednesday we'll drive out to St. Paul and do the meeting for the outlying areas, and then Thursday we'll do the city meeting. We also have exchanges with the assistants this week so that'll be fun! I'm going with Elder Paulson who was my zone leader in Red Deer.

Mom I just bought shoes, no boots. I'm determined to go through my mission without boots. Ya know, just to say that I did. Honestly we don't do a lot of trudging through wide open prairies so the snow isn't deep where I actually walk in it haha :)

Alright we're headed out, enjoy your lives for the next week!


Love you guys,

Elder Read

Happy 2013! Officially.

My family and friends!

This week was pretty cool. We went on another two exchanges so that kept us busy, New Years Eve, etc. Allow me to expound further!

So New Years Eve was totally boring haha. Sad but true. As a missionary it just isn't the same! Unless I can go outside and bang pots and pans like we did at the Johnson's every year, I just don't feel the same. Plus we can't really do that as missionaries :) So I caught up in my journal, wrote letters, and looked for Waldo! I'll explain in a second. But yeah I made it until like 11:15pm and then crashed. But I set an alarm on the phone to wake me up at 11:59! So I rung in the new year and then fell back asleep haha. So we pass around a dinner calendar every week in church, and we had a Chuck Norris one last year that was a pretty big hit, so we knew we had to one up that. While we walked through the mall on Monday we found a "Where's Waldo" calendar! I can't tell you how excited we both were! So anyways we of course bought it immediately and I've been spending a good chunk of time every night looking for Waldo and all his little friends on the calendar. I'm pretty psyched. We're worried it'll be more of a distraction at church though. So far so good! I just spent a paragraph talking about my dinner calendar haha.

Hey yeah I got Gramma's package! That thing was legit. I especially enjoyed the newspaper articles! I was in heaven haha Gramma you know me too well!

So this warm weather thing has stuck around another week. I haven't seen colder that -9 really, and right now it's right around freezing. It's crazy! But it's supposed to drop back down this week. But I'd be okay if that was a lie.

Transfers were today, and Elder Coe and I are safe! We'll be together another 6 weeks at least. I'm really trying to push for him to be the next Assistant to El Presidente, so if that works he'll be gone by next transfer :) Elder Coe's sweet though we get along really well.

We went on exchanges with the Fort Saskatchewan elders, and I went with Elder Hunsaker in Fort Skat. We had a lot of fun he's sweet! On Saturday we went with this member out to Thorhild, a random little town in the middle of nowhere, where he'd bought a ton of wood. The guy he'd bought it from told him he'd have to mob across his huge field to get to it, and there was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground. It was a 2-wheel drive F150, and he just put chains on the back and then attached a trailer too. We got like 10 feet and stopped haha. So Elder Hunsaker and I got out and stood on the tailpipe, which gave him a little bit more weight on the back tires, and we spent about an hour and a half gunning it forward, backing up, gunning it forward, backing up, etc. Finally we threw in the towel haha and drove the 30 minutes back to Fort Skat. It was fun! Haha.

We also went on exchanges in Sherwood Park and I brought Elder Taylor to Millcreek. It was the first time in 6 months I stayed in my area for an exchange! I've always been the new guy in an area so I always left. But not this time! It was a good test of my knowledge haha. We didn't do anything too exciting though, but things are finally starting to pick up in the area again! Most of the members are back in town so we've been able to set up a bunch of appointments which is awesome. I've never really seen the ward at full strength so it'll be a fun transfer!

Well I think that about wraps up my week.... You guys enjoy your week and I'll talk to you next week!


Love you guys!

Elder Read