I Miss Elder Coe :(

I feel like I have sooooo much to tell you every week! Does anybody get annoyed that I basically just give a stream of consciousness every week? Haha or does this work? Feedback if you please.

This week was an unexpected gong show! Let me start with Monday night.

We had just finished planning for the night, and I had changed into shorts and a hoodie. I decided I would spend my evening laying on the couch and sleep until bed time haha. So I laid down for 5 minutes, and then the phone started buzzing like it normally does at least 17 times every night (not really, but you know what I mean). I look at the Caller ID and it's President Campbell. It then clicks that tonight is the night of the AP call! I answer the phone and my heart leaps for joy when he asks for Elder Coe, who is currently in the washroom. So I call out to him that President's on the phone and he doesn't believe me! So I spend 30 seconds trying to coerce him off of the throne, but he thinks I'm lying! So I tell President that he's in the washroom, put the phone on mute, and then yell at Elder Coe that he had better come out, or I'm coming in. Once again he says no, so I go over, open the door and throw the phone in like a hand grenade. Mission accomplished. So he packed the rest of the night, and then left early Tuesday morning. I then spent the week in a trio with the Strathcona elders, Elder Mann and Elder Hale. It's been fun! This is the second time I've been ina trio because of an AP call (remember in Red Deer with Elder Kember?).

But to be honest I really miss Elder Coe! I've been with him forever we're practically the same person now. I keep wanting to make inside jokes but neither of my comps know what I'm saying haha. I'm so used to the Coester it's been a rough transition. I learned a ton from that guy, it was definitely an inspired companionship. But at least he's close and we'll get to go on exchanges this transfer :)

So we had to cancel our two exchanges this week. But I felt bad canceling on Tofield since Elder Deladurantaye is going home, and I was canceling his last exchange. So I talked to the Assistants and I decided we should drive the hour out to Vegreville where their apartment is and interview them at least. It was good!

It's been crazy cramming two areas into one schedule this week, but it worked pretty well. We met with Andy this week and he's so prepared! We taught the 10 Commandments and decided to include the Law of Chastity with it and it went amazing. We also taught about the Sabbath Day and he said he'd for sure come to church this week and he did! We think he'll be ready for his April 13th baptismal date :)

We also met with Frane and she's solid! We taught the first half of lesson 1 aka Prophets, and she agreed with it! I love Chinese people.

They opened Yellowknife this transfer, which is the most northern point of our mission! I'm super jealous of the missionaries going up there. It's far enough away that they have to drive for two days....Crazy!

I totally didn't even tell you who my new companion is haha. I'm staying in Millcreek and am getting Elder Weber! He's way sweet we've served around each other before, and he's been out for a little over a year. That's pretty much all I know about him! I'm excited though. Our whole zone got rocked this transfer, and almost every area is changing. Pretty crazy! I'm excited to go back to my area though.....and sleep in my own bed :)

That's all for this week! Mom no package yet but it'll probably be there by Wednesday for Transfer Meeting. Thanks for all you do! Have a good week.

Love you guys!

Elder Read

PS here's a picture of me with a Maple Leaf we found downtown! :)

To My Future Posterity

I started my journal off like that the other day and so I decided that I'd try the same for my email home! (Side note: I want to print all the emails off that I've sent home when I get home.....if that makes sense haha. Can I do that when I get home?) anyways, let me tell you about our week!

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were pretty crazy. Monday night we skipped FHE to plan our trainings, but we didn't finish. Then Tuesday was interviews with El Presidente himself, and we were at the church until dinner checking planners and area books and/or planning our trainings. We finally finished them in time to give the first one at the Stake Coordination Meeting that night. It went well! It was a little hard to train with Brother Svenson just because we're so used to teaching together, but it worked out alright.

Zone Conference was sweet. We felt like our training went well and nobody died so it was a success in our book!

So now all of that is done and we're on Cloud Nine! We went on exchanges on Friday with the Strathcona elders and I brought Elder Hale here. He's 6'8" and I'm a humble 5'5" so it was funny street contacting downtown. We got some sweet looks :)

It randomly went from 5 C to -15 C and it's dumped almost 2 feet of snow in the past 3 days. It's crazy! Here we were thinking Spring was coming soon. Not!

We taught Frane this week, and finished the Plan of Salvation. She told us it was amazing and that she didn't believe in Reincarnation anymore! It was a really good lesson she's solid!

Andy is still on date to be baptized on April 13th. We taught him the Word of Wisdom on Friday because he smokes, but he told us that a week ago his girlfriend told him to stop, so he did haha. He's sweet.

This week is the last week of the transfer! Elder Coe and I will almost indefinitely come to an end. 3 transfers is as long as I've ever seen. But I'm bummed because I'm so used to him haha it'll be weird adjusting to someone else. We have two exchanges this week with Forest Heights and Tofield so another busy week! But in a better/less stressful way.

That's all I've got for ya! I'll attach some pictures for you of the Star Wars thing last week. Have a good week :)

Love you guys,

Elder Read

6 Months to Sexy!

Hey everyone!

In case you're wondering, this Thursday is my 18-month mark, which means I have 6 months left! Can you believe it? It's missionary tradition to spend your last 6 months getting back into shape, so let "6 Months to Sexy" begin on Thursday! It's also on Pi Day (3.14) so we'll be celebrating with some pie. Ha. Happy Birthday to me!

So last Monday while we were all at the church playing basketball and such, one of the companionships came in and announced that President had sent out an email saying that the email policy had changed, and that we could now email anybody we wanted! But none of us believed them because it's always been just family and President Campbell. So we called the assistants and they denied it too, because they had already finished emailing. But this companionship had just come from the library and apparently the email from President went out late. So long story short the Assistants called President and he confirmed it! The church changed the email policy for missionaries world wide and now we can email anybody! We were all pretty psyched! So my friends, you can all email me now and I can respond! Unless of course you like letters, either one works for me! Pretty dope.

This week was so sweet! We found two new investigators, and they've all come out of nowhere. We met with Frane, one of the chinese girls this week, and taught lesson 2. We had three members come that spoke Mandarin, which was critical haha it would have been a disaster without them. Frane's awesome though. She grew up in China and always believed in God, but they didn't have any chance to or knowledge of how to worship. So when she got to Canada she began looking for a place to go, and she came to our english class and bada bing bada boom! She's solid.

On Wednesday we got a a call about a handover lesson from the YSA sisters on the north end, and so we met a girl named Kayleigh at the Institute on Thursday. She just moved up from Calgary two months ago and was taking the lessons down there from Elder Nabrotzky's twin brother hahahaha. Small world. But she wants to start over with the lessons now that she's on her own. We're super excited.

Also on Wednesday, the Assistants called to let us know they scheduled an appointment with a potential investigator, but then found out that she's YSA. So we're meeting with a girl named Katelynn on Wednesday night! :)

We drove out to Vermilion on Thursday night, stayed all day Friday, and then drove home Saturday morning it was way fun!

Andy came to church yesterday! Technically. He slept through our ward, so we invited him to the 1pm ward and he came there instead! He promised us profusely that he'll never sleep in again haha he's sweet.

This week we have interviews with President Campbell tomorrow from like 8am-5pm. So we'll be sitting around checking planners and area books all day! Then that night we have a Stake Meeting with all of the Bishops/Branch Presidents, Ward/Branch Mission Leaders, Ward Missionaries, and Full-Time Missionaries. President Campbell and President Mendenhall, the Stake President, will be there too. It'll be a giant coordination meeting basically, and we've been planning it with the High Councilman for about a month so we're excited to get it done tomorrow! We're giving a training with the High Councilman, Brother Svenson on "Being an Effective Member Missionary" so I'm hoping it goes well. Then the next day is Zone Conference and we're combined with the Ed North Zone so I'll get to see all my friends there! Pretty stoked. We have to do a training there too on "Daily Contact with Investigators." It'll be a busy couple of days!

Today we went to the Star Wars Identities Exhibit at the Telus Center (OMSI in Edmonton) it was so cool! They had all of the original costumes from the movies, concept art, and you basically go through it and discover your "true identity" by answering questions and stuff. It was sweet but it took up like our whole Pday! But that's alright it was worth it. I'll attach some pictures next week this computer's USB drive doesn't work very well.

Yeah Daylight Savings time is sweet! I can't wait until it starts getting dark at 11pm again. You never see darkness as missionary in the Summer haha it's so sweet. Right now it gets dark by around 8pm but it's getting later every day. The weather has been super good too, it's been above freezing for about a week now.

Okay I'm done rambling....haha sorry this is long one! I miss you guys and I'll talk to you next week!

Love you guys!

Elder Read

I love China!

Hey friends!

This week I learned how to Index! They announced last Sunday that that's what the Family Home Evening activity would be, and to be honest I wasn't looking forward to it. To be even more honest it wasn't even that exciting! But now I know how to do it so there you go :)

Hey remember how I talked about Target coming to Canada? And how they've started hiring? They've actually started remodeling all of the Zellers (the company they bought out) stores now!
It's so exciting I can't wait to go in there! It'll be like going home....kinda.

Sierra Sukhu was baptized on Saturday which is dope! I couldn't go because of ZLC which was lame but at least she's baptized :) Elder Nabrotzky went and told me it went really well.

Soooo this week the Forest Heights elders got infested with bed bugs! Honestly I didn't even know what those things were until my mission, but they've been popping up everywhere over the past few months. So they've been cleaning, I kid you not, all week. They've had to steam EVERYTHING in their apartment that's made of cloth, and they've had to wipe down every page of every book in their apartment. I don't envy them. They've also had to wash all of their clothes, including dry-cleaning their suits, and then stick them in vacuum-sealed bags. AAAND since they're walking, we got to drive them around to do all of their errands this week :) On top of all of this, I slept in the bed that they found the bed bugs in not once.....but twice! So after finding out Elder Coe promptly came home and ripped our mattresses apart looking for them (figuratively, we didn't actually rip them up) but thankfully we're clean. Pretty crazy! Bed bugs are like cockroaches apparently and they'll sneak off anywhere. They're having the exterminator come in this week to poison the place so we should be good next week.

We also went on exchanges this week with the Clarkdale elders! They're in Sherwood Park which is 15 minutes East of Edmonton. I went to their area with Elder Groskreutz from......I-don't-remember-where, Utah! They were walking that week so we trekked it in the cold. It was good exercise though :)

Zone Leader Council was this week and it was weird not having Elder Penrod around since he got transferred. But it was fun, Sister Campbell made a St. Patrick's Day themed lunch with meatloaf! I never really like meatloaf back home, but it was delicious! Honestly I don't know where the picky-eater Steven went, but sometimes I wish he was back haha. Just kidding.

So last week I talked about one of the members in our ward that had a friend that wanted to be taught, and we met with him yesterday after church! He's not really sure he believes in God yet, but he seems open to it. We taught him lesson 1, but then found out he lives on the south end so he's in a different YSA ward....so we'll probably have to pass him over but that's alright!

Echo, the chinese girl that's been coming to our english class, came to the CES Broadcast last night with Elder Bednar! She didn't understand much of it haha but she enjoyed the parts that she did! She told us that her friend, Frane, who also comes to english class, wants to become a member of the church haha! So we're going to talk to her this week and try to set something up! Things are picking up fast it's been sweet. I swear all of our work is Chinese people. Did I already tell you that we're getting Mandarin-Speaking missionaries some time this year? We don't know when, but with all of the new missionaries coming out we're slotted to get 4 of them! Hopefully I'll be transferred by then haha they'll steal all of our work! :)

Bryan's doing really well too. He told us this week that he's "more open to God" than he was which is fine by me! He'll probably come slowly but he's working like a champ to know if God exists.

Hey tell Gramma Read that I've gotten her letters! Thanks :)

I think that's it.....we're going to go clean our humble abode. Have a good week!


Love you guys,

Elder Read

Week # 72....done! Just kidding that was a guess. How close was I?

This week was another busy one! Transfers were this week and like I mentioned last week, two of our areas split into four missionaries, so it was a straight up gong show getting everything settled. One of the areas was sisters, and I swear they had enough stuff to supply the zone! We helped them move into their four-man apartment on Saturday, and we literally had to pack an apartment up into the mission trailer and van. It was fun though! Saturday mornings are usually pretty dead so it gave us something to do. Their apartment is beautiful! I asked Sister Woodruff (the Housing Coordinator) how many more moves we'd have to do to get one of them. They live right downtown and overlook the river valley, I'm jealous! Things are starting to calm down now that everyone's moved in and they've figured out boundaries and everything. Until next transfer I'm sure! :)

We also helped one of our recent converts, Sophie, move on Friday. She's from mainland China and was baptized just before I got here. She lived in the dorms on campus, but a dude moved in with her roommate so she decided it was time to leave. She moved in with one of the houses of girls in our ward. It was a pretty easy move though, she lived on the 5th floor of her building, but she didn't have a ton of stuff so it wasn't too bad. It was good to get her out of there.

We actually got a 19-year-old sister in our zone! We're also getting a Tongan sister in the next two weeks. She didn't make it out of the MTC because her appendix burst, so she should be out soon. Maybe she'll know Elder Fifita!

We sat down and planned our transfer, and it was a struggle to fit everything into a five week transfer! I don't remember if I talked about that.....but I'll do it again! This transfer is only five weeks to match back up with the MTC since they just cut down time in there by a third, so two weeks for english speakers. Anyways we have like two exchanges a week and we have zone conference this transfer, which will be interesting because Elder Coe and I haven't had a zone conference as zone leaders haha. We're excited though!

The Tofield elders randomly texted us on Thursday and asked us to come out and do baptismal interview since Elder Williams is the District Leader there. So Friday night we drove the hour out there, and I interview the guy. His name is Terry Roncin and he's sweet. Interviewing people is so fun. They're always so ready!

Yeah they made the Oregon Salem Mission! That's so sweet. Do you know what the boundaries will be? They also called our new mission president. His name is Larry G. Manion......and that's about all we know! Haha. He'll send me home though, which is lame because he'll only be here for 12 weeks before I leave. Oh well!

So earlier this week the temperatures went down again and we saw -15 for like two days, and then over the past couple of days it's been around 2 C. It's funny to hear people pray and say things like "We're grateful for the beautiful weather we've been having." Haha meanwhile I'm wearing thermals and a sweater.

Hey this week we got a text from one of our members saying her mom and then a friend of hers want to meet with us! So we're meeting with the friend on Thursday and then the mom we'll hopefully be able to set up a lesson later next week. We'll end up passing the mom to the family ward but it's still sweet! Hopefully that goes well.

That's pretty much the week! We have ZLC this Saturday, so that'll be sweet! Have yourselves a good week and I'll talk to you next Monday!


Love you guys,

Elder Read

Happy Family Day

Heyyooooo

Today is history in the making! I am beginning my 3rd transfer with Elder Coe, which is my longest companion (and generally the longest they leave anyone together, for that matter). We pretty well expected it though so it wasn't a surprise. They started dividing areas, and out of the 6 in our mission that split in half, two are in our zone, and they're all training! So we'll have a bunch of newbies, including the 19 year old sisters which will be weird ha.

Today is Family Day which means everywhere is mostly shut down.....except the libraries for some reason. It's also Reading Week. Is that just a Canadian thing? I don't really know much about it except that everyone (including University students) gets the week off. So naturally, considering 99% of our ward is from Southern Alberta, we're a ghost town again! Church was pretty scarce, and the only reason we're being fed every day this week is because some people signed up twice. So I'm not complaining :) Our ward is sweet.

We went on exchanges with the Nottingham elders out in Sherwood Park, and I brought Elder Boatman to Millcreek it was long! We spent 2 hours out street contacting because we had no set appointments. It was like 6 C outside though so it wasn't too bad. People actually talk when it's above freezing :)

Speaking of, it's been a warm winter up here. I've only been in -20 C a few times, and outside of that it's pretty well stayed around freezing. No complaints! It's just strange. Global warming! :)

We taught Bryan again this week and taught about Our Life on Earth, and focused it around prayer. It was a super good lesson! We're trying to help him pray on his own. He's been reading the Book of Mormon though which is solid!

Dad that sign still looks good! Thanks for the pictures. I can't believe that was 3 and half years ago.

Yeah Dad for Quidditch you have 6 people out at once - One keeper, two beaters, a seeker, and three chasers. The "Quaffle" is a volleyball, and you run around and throw it through hoops hanging from chairs and basketball hoop. The beaters run around and throw foam dodge balls at the chasers and if they're hit they have to drop the volleyball. The keeper protects the hoops, and the seeker chases the snitch, who is someone wearing a yellow jersey, and tries to pull one of his flags from his waistline. Pretty sweet!

Hey my plants are doing well, in case you're wondering. Leonardo (the money tree) has been looking a little under the weather lately, but I think he's still adjusting to my desk. Mahonri on the other hand is blossoming no pun intended! I brought him into the apartment and I swear I heard him "shudder", and then he promptly dropped his leaves in the days following. But now he's growing again. I love plants!

I forgot my planner with everything on it that I wanted to right about.....and I can't remember for the life of me anything else that we did.....so more next week! :)

Love you guys!

Elder Read

I'm a Wizard!

Sorry I don't even remember if I told you about the temple today, but Pday was moved to today so we could go!

Yesterday for Family Home Evening we played Quidditch it was so legit! Basically you're on brooms and instead of flying, you run! It was difficult in a suit, but we made it work. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get my inner Harry on. YSA is where it's at!

My birthday went really well! I remember last year it was just a gong show since I got transferred to Spruce, but this year it was way better. I actually knew people around me! Haha at Zone Training Meeting they surprised me with a cake and apple pie, and then Elder Coe made me pancakes, and then everyone in the zone wrote on a card! It was sweet. Then dinner at Shawna's was super good. Mom that was the exact cheesecake I was talking about! It was delicious. She asked me what I wanted for dinner that night and I told her......chicken enchiladas! Remember how I hated those? Old news I eat everything now!


Lloydminster was sweet! I've now been to Saskatchewan! It's a lot like Alberta, at least on the border. Weird I know! We stayed all day Tuesday and then went straight from there to zone training meeting in St. Paul on Wednesday. Then we drove home! I missed my bed.


Transfers are next week, and Elder Coe and I think we'll stay together. But who knows! Assistant calls go out tonight so we're hoping that Elder Coe gets a call....then I can say I produced an AP! They told us we might be moving this transfer....and we think it'll be because they'll move us into a four man apartment, which would be a party! We're crossing our fingers.

We had a Chinese New Year fireside on Saturday it was sweet. They showed the Restoration in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English in different rooms, and then one of the guys in the Mission Presidency spoke. Then they fed us a bunch of Chinese food! It was delicious. One of the girls in our english class who isn't a member came and really enjoyed it. She has some questions so hopefully we'll be able to meet this week and answer them :)

Other than that it was a normal week! Glad to hear you're all doing well, have a good week :)


Love you guys,

Elder Read