Happy Victoria Day!

Hey!

Sorry we didn't email yesterday, I forgot about Victoria Day yesterday so all of the libraries were closed. Was Memorial Day yesterday? I'm so disoriented with holidays haha. They're all the same to me!

So let me begin by telling you about my sweet experience at Target! For those of you who were not aware, Target just opened in Canada! None of the ones in Edmonton were open while I was there, but lo and behold we went to Grande Prairie on Thursday and there it was! Open and functional. Walking in there was like coming home haha all of them are the same! I spent a good 20 minutes cruising through it observing everything and it's like the Church, true and the same no matter where you go! Now for the best part! As missionaries we get mistaken for employees everywhere, so people always come up and ask us where something is,and we politely tell them we have no clue, we're missionaries. But not this time! You could have slapped a nametag on me and paid me, I had quite a few people come up to me and ask me where stuff was and I actually knew! I probably looked ridiculous and if I worked at Target and saw me I would've been a little confused. Elder Thompson thought I was crazy. But I was reliving the glory days so I didn't even care haha.

Anyways, my week. So this week was a little more structured but still a little more scattered than I cared for. We had District Meeting in Peace River on Wednesday, so we drove the hour there and back. It was exciting, that's the furthest north that I've been.

On Thursday we drove two hours out to Grande Prairie for Zone Training Meeting. It was interesting to hear the trainings regurgitated in a different way than the first time I heard them. Elder Cone is in the zone too so it was good to see him again :)

Mom I'm a leper!! I'm 99% sure I have Athlete's Foot. I thought you'd like to know that. My pinky toe is pretty well living under my 4th toe (I don't know what you call that one, or any of them besides the big and pinky toes for that matter). So it just chills under there and obviously doesn't get any breathing room. This is all a guess by the way, I've spent many a minute pondering the possible reasons why I got this. It's all red and peeling and it itches like you wouldn't believe! Anyways we cleaned our shower, I bought all of the stupid cream and stuff and now I'm determined to kill it. Sorry if that was gross haha I was just dying to share it!

We got to speak in church on Sunday! One of many opportunities I'm sure haha. My topic was "What does it mean to bear testimony?" It was a pretty easy topic to prepare for, and like always I prepared way more than I needed! Elder Thompson finished speaking at around 10:35 which gave me a solid 25 minutes to talk everyone's ears off! Which I did, and I even went over the hour by 5 minutes. I felt like a prophet because everyone knows only prophets can speak for that long.

Today the Peace River elders are coming down to blitz our area since Elder Hunsaker is the District Leader. I've done a lot of blitzing over the past few transfers, but I've never actually had to prepare for it. So last night's planning session took forever! It'll be good for our area though, we need the extra manpower. So they'll come down this afternoon and stay until tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday we had a cool experience. We went out walking after dinner since High Prairie is so small and we don't wanna waste clicks driving around. We were contacting some potential and former investgators from the area book, and decided to go try a lady named Diane. As we walked up to her apartment building this lady was smoking on one of the balconies. She started yelling at us sarcastically to keep walking and was being pretty rude in general! So we just ignored her and went into the building and tried the room number, only to find out that Diane didn't live there. So we turned around and walked out of there, and once again this lady starts yelling at us, and by this point I'm done listening to her haha. She finally says "what's that you're holding?" (I had a paperback Book of Mormon). I ignored her, but Elder Thompson being the humble man that he is, turned around and told her what it was, and she asked for one. I was still pretty apprehensive, but she told us to come up to her place and give it to her. She had a few friends over and they were all smoking on the balcony. So up we went and gave her and her friends a Book of Mormon. Come to find out that she was Diane! She had just moved to a different room. So we talked for awhile and they seemed genuinely interested in what we were talking about, so we set up an appointment for Thursday! It was sweet. It just goes to show that you never do know.

That's sweet that you guys are Ward Missionaries together! They make a huge difference.

Hey I've been doing lots of Sudoku's! Yesterday was Pday and there's only so much you can do in the apartment haha and there isn't much to do around town. So I went on a Sudoku spree! Thanks for sending that book it's saving my sanity haha.

Well....I can't think of anything else to ramble on about. Hope you guys have a good week!


Love you guys,

Elder Read

Happy Monday!

Hello my friends!

It was really good to talk to you guys too! This week has been so crazy haha I can't believe I was in Edmonton less than a week ago.

The library doesn't open until 1pm on Mondays and when we tried to come earlier all of the computers were taken!

Tuesday Elder Weber and I were super busy while we (okay mostly he, I was pretty checked out haha) planned Zone Training Meeting, I packed, and I said goodbye to people.

Wednesday I went to trainers meeting and met Elder Thompson! He's from Payson, Utah which is where a few people in this mission are from. He's sweet I like him a lot! He's not 18 either, in case any of you are wondering :) I feel bad that he's starting his mission opening an area in the middle of nowhere though, that would have been hard for me. He's taking it like a champ though!

Anyways we drove to Valleyview and stayed there Wednesday night, and then Thursday morning we drove into High Prairie and met the Branch President and his wife. They had already moved all of our furniture and stuff in, we just had to move our stuff in and organized everything. We're still missing a lot of little things but the members have been really good about getting that stuff for us.

So for the rest of the week we've just been trying to get organized. The elders that were here 3 years ago kept a really good area book which is so nice when you open an area. There's a lot of former and potential investigators to work with which is awesome. They also made a good impression on the land lady (we live in the same room that they did 3 years ago) because our first day she came up and gave us money for laundry and said that was her donation to the missionaries! Pretty sweet.

Church was interesting haha there were a total of 12 people including 3 kids and 4 Priesthood holders. So we said the prayers, blessed the Sacrament, and we're both speaking next week for 20 minutes each! :) It's definitely different getting used to such a small branch in a small little town (2800 people), especially coming from a big YSA ward in downtown Edmonton where people roam the streets like ants! But I'm excited to be here, the few members that are here are awesome. We've been fed by all of the active ones that we've stopped by, and we even got a lunch on Sunday! They're excited to have missionaries again it's great.

We went to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, it's Canada's federal police force) Station today and talked to the Staff Sergeant about service opportunities in High Prairie and he gave us quite a few phone numbers for people to call so we'll try that this week. To be honest this week has been super stressful trying to figure out what to do, I'm ready for things to just figure themselves out :) Give it a couple of weeks and I'm sure we'll have a nice rhythm going. I hope :)

We're in a 6-man district with the Elders in Valleyview and Peace River, both around an hour away. On Thursday we're going out to Peace River for District Meeting, and then Thursday we have Zone Training Meeting in Grande Prairie which is where the Zone Leaders are. I was at MLC when the trainings were given so it'll be fun getting them again! Haha

Other than that not much else to report on! Hope you guys have a good week and I'll talk to you next week!

Love you guys,

Elder Read

I'm being exiled!

Hey everyone!

Transfer calls were this morning and I'm getting transferred! It's been a good run. I'm going to open up a little town called High Prairie, which is somewhere north haha it's near Grand Prairie aka the middle of nowhere haha! I have no idea what it's like because it hasn't been open to missionaries in a few years, but I'm assuming it's tiny. I'm also training again! So that'll be cool. It's funny because I trained Elder Nabrotzky exactly a year ago! I'm like an animal, I only breed once a year. This week will be a gong show though with moving into an apartment, meeting the branch (I'm assuming that's what it is), and getting situated in general. I'll leave on Wednesday I'm stoked!

So Mothers Day calls....haha I have no idea what the deal is. I'm guessing we'll get ahold of the Branch President when we get up there or something and then figure something out? I'll probably email again before Sunday to let you know.

This week was pretty busy. I'll explain what happened out of order like usual :)

We had Mission Leadership Council on Saturday, and the Sister Training Leaders were there. Other than the fact that they were there, Sister Campbell was there, and they both gave trainings, it was the exact same as Zone Leader Council.

We had exchanges with Stathcona, and I went to their area with Elder Hale, who I was in the trio with when Elder Coe went AP. It was good to go back to my home of 1 week! It's gonna be so weird to go back to 2 exchanges a transfer!

We went to the CES devotional yesterday it was sweet! William R. Walker (who came and visited our mission last May) spoke about President Monson haha it was actually really good!

Yeah it's so hot here! It's like 25 C! I don't know what that is in F though. Heat>Cold. I was actually sweating in the car yesterday!

Mom I'm glad to hear you're feeling better! Just don't die or anything.

Okay that's pretty much it for this week's edition, have yourselves a good week and pray for me! Haha

Love you guys,

Elder Read