Monday we had P-day and while e-mailing at the library we were asked if we could help sort some books for a big book sale that they were doing here so we went and helped with that which is good! It at least shows that people are still aware that we are here and that they can turn to us for help.
Tuesday we walked to D's home and
had a good meeting with him and were able to give him a priesthood blessing, We
then walked down to the newspaper office to try and see why they hadn't
published our newspaper article, but the lady wasn't there so we went on and
contacted a few former investigators and a referral that D just
gave us and knocked a few other doors but no luck contacting anyone. We then
went back to the newspaper office and she apologized and set up a new
appointment for us to be interviewed. We then walked up to the church and were there
for a while before we walked over to hill top manor and helped the old
people play their card-bingo game again. Then we went home and had dinner and
then tried stopping by some other formers in town and one told us to come back
later, that she might be interested, just needed to talk with her grandpa.
Wednesday we had district meeting and then Elder
McGregor headed back to Estevan to go on an exchange. We got there and went to
the Humane Society and I said I would go only if they didn't make us scoop
poop. So we got there and they had us clean up garbage in the front yard and
then the backyard where they had the dog run, which was good because there was
no poop involved but then the worker guy comes out with a huge grin on his face, and hands us these pooper scoopers and we ended up cleaning up like 30 pounds
of dog poop, so that was disgusting and I was not too impressed. Then we helped
by playing with a few cats and there were some kittens that looked like
Gremlins. Then we went and had a dinner appointment with Sister L, which was good. Then we went and tried to
contact some other less-active and former investigators but no one was home,
even though they all had their lights on, so we came home.
Thursday was a really good day. We went and
visited with a less-active member in Estevan who is from the Philippines who
really wants to be able to come to church but just can't because he is working
to get his permanent residence here in Canada and if he misses or doesn't keep
his work contract he gets deported back home. He's a super great guy was great
to meet him. Then we left Estevan and travelled out an hour and a half to
Carievale and I got to meet the newest investigators in our District. They are super great people. He works on the Rigs and the last kind of guy you would expect to see from working
there. They were originally contacted because they requested a bible from the mormon.org website and so the week previous Elder Dillon and McGregor went
down to give them the Bible, but he was super open and had them for lunch and
they taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon, and
they said that they wanted to read it even before the Elders could invite them
too. Was super great. Then I got to meet them and he is super nice, felt like
we were best friends even though we had just barely met. She is just as nice
too and is super new to religion and just started getting into it since she met him (hence why they wanted a copy of the Bible) But anyway they cooked us a
great pork-chop,rice, and fries dinner with carrot cake, and then we had a
super good lesson with them. It was probably like no other lesson I had taught
before because we covered so many different things in a strange order (We
started the lesson and they told us how they had been reading the book of
Mormon together and to their kids and that they had watched both Finding Faith
in Christ and The Restoration DVD's and we led into just doing a quick overview
on the restoration but that wasn't really necessary because they had already
understood all of it, we then started talking about temples and all that goes
on in there, then we lead into the Plan of Salvation which went super well and
we touched on our life on Earth and The Gospel of Jesus Christ and lead
to the invitation to be baptised!) But they were super receptive and really
interested the whole time, nothing could distract them and most importantly the
spirit was super strong! and when were talking about baptism she was super
excited and expressed how she hadn't been baptised, and we invited both to be
baptised and they accepted. It was super great, never had seen anyone so prepared
than these two people were. Afterwards we had told them that we would play
Street Hockey with them and their kids and we were playing a card game for a
bit so that the one daughter could have a bit longer of a nap and out of
nowhere he started asking more questions like "What do you guys expect
of us" and other things which lead into more gospel conversations which
was super good. After that we played Street Hockey with them and their kids and
a bunch of other local kids showed up and played for a while which was super
fun. As we were leaving he told us the next time we came back that we should
brings some members of our church, because he wanted to get to know some more
Mormons. Like I said he is the most prepared person I have met on my mission.
After that we travelled back to Estevan and had a quick dinner before we
had a coordination meeting with Brother Johnson.
Friday we got up and went to the Hospital and had the old people play instruments again, even though only 3 or 4 of them
really had any idea what was going on. This one lady in a wheelchair was
shaking Elder McGregor's hand and then pulled herself in towards him and was
trying to get him to kiss him, so that freaked him out a bit and was pretty
funny. After that we came back to Weyburn and had lunch and then finished our
Exchange and Elder Hornberger and I had our interview at the newspaper and we
will have our article published this Friday hopefully. We got a few texts later
on telling us that they heard Elder Hornberger and I on the radio which was
pretty exciting to hear, hopefully something will come up because of that. Link
to the article.
Then we had our quarterly interviews with
President Thomas and had dinner and then Elder Hornberger and I went and helped
out at the senior Center Drop off Center by helping clean up their huge dinner
that they had. Then we met G at KFC, where he was with the other Elders
because he was having a tough time, but we were able to help him through and he
said he could feel with our presence the spirit lift him up and he felt a lot
better.
Saturday we all went out to the A's kids
birthday party and got to eat a ton of food and meet all of their friends and
got to meet Sister A's Parents who just arrived in Canada from the
Philippines the night previous. They didn't know much English and were super
jet-lagged but we were able to meet them and hopefully we will be able to teach
them (that is the goal that the A's have) Later Elder Dillon and I visited
G and helped him out with a few other things.
Sunday we went to Church and had a great fast
and testimony meeting and G came and bore his testimony and also S was
there as well so that was great to see that she came out and seemed to have a
good time. Later we went to the Gospel services and that was more interesting
then the previous times. The preacher ladies kept making subtle attacks in
their sermons towards us so that was kind of funny. Afterwards we met and were
able to fellowship with a bunch of the congregation there and gave the
one preacher lady the first few Books of the Book of Mormon on CD so that she
could listen to them because she has a hard time reading and she accepted
happily (she had requested them) then we had a great dinner appointment at the
Regnier's home which was even better because Brother Regniers non-member mother
was there and we later shared a message with their whole family. We left shortly after and came home, stopped by a
couple the other Elders had met the other day, and gave a few pamphlets and a
copy of the Book of Mormon to them.
But I love you and hope that you have a
good week, and will continue to pray that your back continues to get better!
Take care love you.
-Love Elder Shane Dola
P.S. Please thank grandma and grandpa
Schultz for the cards and packages they continually send me, They are greatly
appreciated, tell them I love them! Thanks!
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| Really packing on the pounds lately! |
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| Gremlin kitty at Humane Society in Estevan. |
