Hey, I am doing pretty good. It was +1 yesterday
and 0 the day before but now it is -10 and will probably start to cool down
again! How is the weather there?
Today I have a lot more time to write you than
usual, which is nice for once. We always end up being busy doing something on
P-days!
So on Monday we had P-day and were done all of
our shopping and cleaning and gassing up and whatnot and were at the Church
when we got a call from our Elders Quorum President who said he needed all four
of us Elders to come and help him chip off the ice from his chimney so that the
smoke can get out of his house, so we all went over there and he handed Elder
E a hatchet and sent him up the ladder up to the chimney. President H climbed up the ladder and said that he didn't
need anyone else to come up because he didn't want any
more added weight on the roof. So Elder G, Elder S and I stood back
and watched as Elder E hacked away at 4 feet of ice frozen to the top of
the chimney with a hatchet as shards and shrapnel of ice went flying everywhere. All I did was hold the
ladder against the house while they went up, and while they went down they ended
up kicking the 4 feet of snow that was on the roof off and it went down the
back of my coat and I couldn't do anything about it since I had to hold the
ladder in the -30, so at that point my coat served no purpose. But after that
we went in and Sister H surprised us by making us a nice dinner so that
was great! After that we went to J's because she called us earlier in the
day and told us she wanted to see us, (she rarely calls so we were pretty
excited to see what she needed.) She told us how happy she was to
have us always come over and see her and for how much she has been able to
learn and the changes she has seen in her life. After that we rushed
back to the church and Elder S and I had a skype meeting with our Zone
Leaders and all the other District Leaders in our Zone because our Zone
Training Meeting was canceled because the roads for us to take would have been
treacherous to take and had we gone another way it was have meant that we would
be driving in the dark which is against mission rules. During this time the
other Elders ran the FHE here at the church so after that we went home, after
receiving tons of groceries from sister H again, and it was great
because Elder S and I decided not buy any groceries that day and now we
didn't have to buy any the next week either! After that we came home, planned
for the next day, and went to bed.
Tuesday we had district meeting, which went
really well, and we had a bunch of great practices. After that, we went to
Subway and had lunch, and since all the Elders in my district had subway gift
cards and since they all love me, they bought me my sub! After that, we went and stopped by a few referrals
which didn't work out, then went to the Dryden Mission and helped put
away some of the Christmas stuff and got another service referral to a
lady who needed her roof shoveled off, so we took his only "roof
rake" and headed over and started to rake off the 4 feet of snow, and it
was taking forever so we walked over to President MacDonald’s home and borrowed
his "Roof rake" and went back to work. Then we went back to President
and sister MacDonald's house because they had invited us for dinner prior. Then we ended up at the Church on
Facebook looking for some potentials and other proselyting opportunities, and
then came home after about 45 minutes, planned, and went to bed.
Wednesday, we went on exchanges and all went
downtown (the other Elders were going to go to a bible study at another church
but it was canceled while Elder G and I went and helped out at the food
bank) but we all ended up at the food bank for a while and it was a good that
we all were there because we had a lot to do since the food bank had been
closed for almost 3 weeks for the holidays. After that Elder G and I
went back to the ice roof top and shoveled all
of the snow off and Elder G almost slid off and died like 4 times, but
that took us quite a while. She was super
appreciative and told us she had gone by the Dryden Mission and dropped off
some money for us (which we just donated to the mission) and was super happy
that we did it for her and we got to talking and she said we could come by and
start to teach her next week, which is great! After that we came home and had a
quick dinner and then went and had a great lesson with one of our less-active
members, and had a great Scripture study with him. After that we went and
had our Bible Study which went well. We then went out and had a good discussion with another investigator couple on Church, Praying, and reading. We asked
them what expectations they had for us coming over and they said "To invite
Christ into their lives more," and they really committed to come to church
this week. It was a great lesson. After that we came home, planned, and went to
sleep.
Thursday was pretty busy too. We taught a new
investigator, who we found in our former investigators list, and he basically
told us his whole life story and how he has seen the Lord’s hand in his life
many times. He is super great, and loved the Restoration and committed to read the Book of
Mormon despite his bad eye-sight. After that we went and volunteered and had lunch
at the DNFC and waited for the other Elders to get back from Vermillion Bay
(they were there on a service project) and we went
over to Sister Turner’s where we were taught a ton about Family History Work
and how to do it more effectively, even though most of it went over my head. We
then saw J and she surprised us with dinner so we had dinner and then had
another discussion with her and she is starting to understand more of what the
Holy Ghost does and who he is. It was really good and she finally finished
reading the Book of Mormon! We then went and taught a great lady and her son (9
years old and a religious protégé; he asked his mom what we do and said that he
would like to do that one day) and the lesson went great. She seems super solid
and I see some pretty good potential with them! After that we came home,
planned, and went to bed.
Friday was pretty interesting. We had a special
appointment at the Mission where a guy from the Diabetes foundation was coming
to pick up some donations and he had requested we be there to help, but when we
got there and texted him to find out where he was, he was over 3 hours away
in Red Lake at his other job and said, "Sorry but my work comes first."
It was frustrating, but there is always stuff to do there so we
helped for a bit and then dropped the Elders off at a meeting with a pastor who is really
interested in the Mormon religion and just wants to learn more because he said
that he believes a lot of what he has heard of it, so we will have to see how
that works out! While the other Elder's did that, we went and tracted for a bit
and we didn't have too much success but we handed out quite a few cards and it
was funny because every time I would knock and start the door approach, I would
receive a nice friendly lady, and every time someone would answer the door when
Elder S would start the door approach, it would just be a rude giant man or a teenage kid who when opened the door said, "What do you guys want?!
Going around wearing that Jesus Christ name! You here just to throw your bible
at our face?!" to which we explained what we were doing, and he then
responded by yelling ," You guys just need to leave," and slammed the
door in our faces. But after that we came home, had lunch, and stopped by some more
potentials who had told us to come back later, but none of them worked out. One
lady told us to come back in the new-year, back in November, and then we saw her
she was confused, then remembered, but said she is too busy now so to come back
in the Spring now... After that
we did our weekly planning and stopped by some other potentials and came back,
planned, and went to sleep.
Saturday was great. We had another Elder’s
Quorum Breakfast at President MacDonald's. It was a great
time and great fellowshipping! Then we went and had our studies, after President MacDonald
showed us some of the videos he has that we might be able to share with our investigators. We then received 3 more service referrals and shoveled
more snow off of roofs. We then went to a lady who was at the Mission
and shoveled her roof a bit and then she said she would love for us to come
over and teach her some time! After that we went and had a great lesson with
D and he expressed that he really wanted to come to church
tomorrow which was great!. We then came to the church and took the branch
Directory and found as many members, and less-actives, and former investigators,
and potentials, and looked for them on Facebook. It was pretty successful. We have a few potential return
appointments now! Crazy eh! After that we came home, planned, and went to bed
after eating the gigantic Reese Cup.
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| 1/2 pound Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! |
Sunday we all got up and shoveled all the snow
at the church, which wasn't that much, and it was so warm that I didn't even have
to wear gloves. After Church we went and stopped by
P, but he wasn't home so we went over and set up an appointment with R who we will "Maybe" meet later on in the week. We then had a lesson
with a guy we met on the street who asked us to stop by sometime and so the
fourth time we stopped by he answered in his underwear but let us into his lair
and put on some pants. He told us he is possessed by demons all the time. He
told us some crazy experiences he's had and I asked him what drugs he was on at
the time and he said just Crystal meth and others but he doesn't do it anymore.
He also told us he is Schizophrenic but doesn't do any heavy drugs anymore,
just weed once in a while but it has been like 4 weeks. But yeah, I don't think we will go back there any time soon unless
he contacts us. Mostly because he is completely fried from all of the drugs he
has done! After that we went out and tracted Thiel street and the first house
there was this lady who has apparently been stuck in her house for who knows
how long, and even though she pulled with all her might, she could not open her
door to her house because it was "Frozen Shut" in +1 degree weather,
so she turned around and walked away, even though we could hear her clearly
through the door. But we did find a few potentials we will have to follow up
with. One was a lady who sounded super excited to see us but couldn't at the
time because her entire household was on their deathbeds with the flu, but
when they get better she would love to. This other guy we met put his daughter on hold so he could talk to us and sounds super excited to
meet with us when he gets back from work next weekend. There was also this
vicious dog which would bark at us then run away if we walked towards it so we
had to be super careful. After that we came home and broke our fast, and saw M and taught the 10 commandments with hand signals, which he loved. He told us how his friends
discriminate against him and make fun of him a bit because they always see his
truck at church or whatever, but he says he feels bad for them because they're
"missing out." He has such a strong testimony and is such a great
member who is not actually a member! After that we went and had a first lesson
with a family referral we received. We taught her and her two teenage
children the Restoration and watched the Restoration video and were so enthralled
that the daughter burnt her banana bread. Then at
the end, when we invited them to read and pray about our message and committed
them to read the Book of Mormon, the boy accepted and asked for 2 so he could
give one to his friend, and the daughter loves reading so she is going to read
it too! It
This week went kind of slow at some points but
overall it was really good, definitely saw the Lord’s hand in our work all
throughout the week! Fasting truly does bring blessings!
But it is great to hear that you and everyone
else is doing well and is great to hear the missionary work you're doing!
Keep it up! Love you and wish you and everyone else a great week!
-Love Elder Shane Dola
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| Our groceries :) |
