June 24

This week was pretty good, it has been really humid some days and has rained a few days too, and yeah, the mosquitoes are still on their rise to power however they aren't quite as bad as long as you are not near the river.

It's too bad to hear about the flooding though; that really does not sound fun quite at all. I feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of people who had to evacuate their homes and especially those who have lost their homes. It looks like I left at the perfect time though, not having to do any sandbags at home and not having to do any sandbags here either. Kind of ironic how "High" River got flooded though eh? It would be kind of fun to go canoeing downtown though!

  

That doesn't make much sense that you still have to go to work but it really doesn't surprise me.

Highlights of the Week:

This week we went fishing with T again and Elder McRitchie was the only one who caught a little fish.  After that we had a good lesson with T, still trying to strengthen his faith so he can grow his testimony.

Tuesday we had a good lesson with A again and he has really been progressing quite a lot. We read 1 Nephi 8 with him and explained the tree of life, and we later had a really good dinner with a recent convert Spanish family from our ward who are going to get sealed in the temple soon. They are a great family and we had a really good visit with them and shared an interesting object lesson with them.

Wednesday we met with a part member, less active family, and had a very interesting discussion with them. The one guy had tons of questions and the lesson was all over the place but it was still not too bad. They are really nice and wanted to come to church and had us for supper on Friday, which really nice.

Thursday we went to the soup kitchen and food bank again and had a really good lesson with A again and Friday we did quite a bit of tracting.  Saturday we tracted a lot and had YSA again and played basketball.

Sunday was great. We had T, our less active member, pick up A and bring him to church, which was fantastic. A loved it and could really tell how strong he felt the spirit. I'm really sure we can baptize him soon. After church we decided we would tract in the very rich neighborhood where all the huge houses in Brandon were and it was raining so we got our suits soaked and had a good time. Barely anyone was interested except for one, possibly two, potentials that we might go back and follow up with, but after that we had a dinner appointment with a family and T came too.  We were able to watch the Works of Salvation Broadcast, which was soo good and talked about member missionary work. If you haven't already watched it, you definitely need to, and show it to all the other members.

But that was mostly what we were up to last week.  We had transfer calls on Friday and I am staying here. Over all it was a pretty good week.

Love you all

-Love Elder Shane Dola

June 17

Over night last Sunday the wrath of the Mosquitoes came upon us as all of the hordes and massive swarms of mosquitoes awoke from their hibernation, biting, destroying and terrorizing as they went their way. Monday I killed over 100 mosquitoes.  The fight is on. The humidity has come out and it is really humid. This week we got caught in two thunderstorms and it has been raining and pouring all week.

But yeah it was a really good week. We had p-day Monday and for FHE and we went fishing with one of our less actives. He doesn't have any family here and there is not a very big group of YSA so we have become his friend and he has been progressing really, really well since I have known him.  It’s really great to see.

Tuesday we went on exchanges for the first time which was really good and President Thomas and Sister Thomas were making their way back to Winnipeg.  They stopped in Brandon and took all 6 of us out for lunch and had a good talk with them which was great. After that Elder Mohlman and I went and we found a guy on the street and gave him a Book of Mormon and We found our media referral on the street riding his bike while we were walking down the street having tried his door 10 minutes ago with no reply. He saw us and recognized us by our clothing. We met him and taught the restoration to him on his front lawn and found out that he had recently had the discussions back in the 90's. He said he has really been wanting to change his life around and stop drinking and other stuff and one day he found a pass along card on the side of the road and picked it up and called the number. It was crazy how we received him. He is very prepared already. He asked if he could be baptized before we even had the chance to invite him.

Then on Wednesday we still hadn't been in contact with our other baptismal date because his phone got canceled so we hadn't seen him in like 5 days so we prayed that we would be able to find him. And so we did find him. He is going to the University and lives in the residences there on the top floor where the doors require a key-card to get in and out of the building and there is no door bells or anything. But anyways we were walking by his building and he said he just randomly felt inspired to look out the window right when we were walking by and we went up and were able to talk to him and teach him twice with in the next two days, which was great.

Thursday we went to the soup kitchen again which is always a good experience; getting to serve the people even if some of them are rude and unappreciative. Saturday we had our ward picnic and had a pretty good turnout and there were a bunch of random people (didn't speak any English) that came and no one could understand them but two of them came to church the next day. That night we had YSA activity and had a bunch of water balloon fights and games and what not and when we came home one of the members of our ward send the 4 Elders pizza and wings to our house; it was great. Sunday, no one we invited that said that they were going to come, came, but that's okay. We still had an okay day.

But yeah not much else is new.

I think there are 48 companionships here and 19 more missionaries (16 elders and 3 sisters) coming in at the start of the next transfers.

Love,

Elder Dola

June 10

This week was pretty good; we had two lessons with our baptismal date investigator, but we haven't been able to get in contact with him since Saturday night because his cell phone got disconnected but I'm sure that we will find them. We taught a few other lessons this week to some less-actives and practiced some teaching with members and what not. We had a record of three meal appointments planned this week and we got a surprise invite to the Bishops house on Friday and there was also a potluck at church yesterday after ward conference which we had forgot about so we had 5 total meals this week.  It was great!!

We help out at the soup kitchen again and got called down to the food bank where we got to move stuff around in the freezer and packaged meat and other stuff. This week was kind of tough meeting with our investigators and less-actives because the fair/carnival was here this week and pretty well everyone was either working there or had a part in it or were just there. 

Saturday was pretty interesting we went to the parade and walked around the route/path of the parade so basically the whole city was able to see us and know who we were and we were able to talk to a few people. Which was really good and really effective since nearly the whole city was out at the parade. But after that it was horrible. Elder M and I were told by Elder Mc that we were close to home and that we could probably walk home so we were tired and wanted to go home after they were going to go pick up the truck which was really far away from where we were. But once we turned the corner we realized that we weren't nearly as close to home as we thought.   They had deceived us and picked on  us (the new missionaries while they had been out in Brandon for 4 months now) and we had to walk a treacherous journey across the city for almost an hour almost 5km through forests on the side of the road infested with ticks and other ravenous beasts such as squirrels in the scorching humid heat of Manitoba, it was rough but we made it only after being scammed out of 50cents each from one of the members whose kids were selling lemonade. But yeah...

We also had YSA again and played soccer not as many people came because of the fair again but over all it was a good week!

But yeah not too much else is new. I love you all hope you have a great week

Love Elder Shane Dola

P.S. Just a normal day in Brandon and a picture of our mission vehicle

June 3

It was a bit slower this week, we didn't have too much success but that's alright. My knee is doing quite a bit better but still gets sore sometimes when we walk a lot. I donated blood the other day; it was great; you should all do it.  They make donor cards and I had mine sent to my home address because I don't know our address here and don't know how long it would be until it got here so please send it to me when it arrives so I can use it again!

That's great to hear about Ryan! I'm sure that he's happy to finally be able to leave, it's been so long I feel sorry for him but tell him I said congrats and wish him luck! What are all the dates that everyone is leaving?

  

This week was really slow but  it's alright. Lots of our appointments didn't show up or cancelled but the ones we were able to teach were really good. We had our FHE last week with our one friend/less-active and he took us out to Wendy's before which was great! He's a really great guy who is like 23 and just since I've been here he has progressed a ton and he even fasted yesterday. Which is great, he's a really good guy. We had a really good lesson with one of our really less active and gave him a priesthood blessing at the end of it. We also had a really good lesson with our Baptismal Date investigator on the Gospel of Christ, he is really funny and is a great guy. It was kind of funny when we were done teaching him he was going to jump on the bus with us and go to the store and a few days this week it poured rain and was really windy and not even a minute after we left his residence he took out his umbrella and the wind picked it up and it got destroyed, basically snapped in half. 

We went home teaching with the high priest group leader and practiced lessons on the members which was realty effective and good experience. Yesterday we (six missionaries from Brandon) went out to a small town called Delaraine (not sure about the spelling) about 120Km outside of Brandon and we had a dinner appointment out there. (2nd dinner appointment! it was so exciting!!) The man of the couple's house we were at, got back from his mission about 7 years ago and his friend was also there who also got back from his mission around the same time so we taught them a lesson for practice and they gave us lots of good feedback and talked about their missions and experiences and teaching strategies that worked best for them. They were all really great people and we were able to learn quite a bit so it was also very effective.

Wednesday we went to the blood bank and donated blood which was really really great.  I really liked it for some reason. We met some really nice people and talked to them and we are thinking about going back; could be potential investigators.

Thursday we worked at the soup kitchen again which was really good and we then went and made some hampers at the food bank.  We did some other service this week too like picking weeds and what not.

On Saturday we had our YSA activity which was also really good. So many people came out. There was enough for two full teams with extras. Lots of less-actives, non-members, and a few investigators came out and we played beach volleyball and played for like two hours straight and everyone had a lot of fun. Since I have been here that was the most people that came out!

Today we got a referral texted to us from the Temple Square visitor’s center which was really interesting. Elder McRitchie said that that it was the first one he's received from there in like 5 months and only the second one he has had since he has been out on his mission so we'll try to contact that person tomorrow or some other time this week!

But that's what we did for the most part of the week besides walking around trying to find people but I wish you luck with all your endeavors this week!

-Love Elder Dola