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