June 2

This week was pretty crazy. Monday we quickly e-mailed and went to "I Love Sushi" for lunch which was pretty good. Following that, we went to the Golf Tournament and sat at a Hole-in-one prize hole from 1:00-6:00 to see if anyone got a hole in one. No one ever even got close but everyone who came up that talked with us thought they were really funny and that we should tell the organizers that they got a hole in one and if they did they would let us borrow the truck for a month (the prize for getting a hole-in-one was a 2014 GMC Sierra, or so we thought until later we realized that the prize was actually pretty upsetting as it was only a free 1 year lease.... which only upset the people more. So really we sat there for 5 hours straight getting sun burnt and attacked by mosquitoes while everyone told us we could take off our ties and some were nice and knew who we were and others were jerks and wanted to argue with us later but were too afraid to confront us later or something so they didn't. But yeah it was not too bad. Got a lot of people to know who we were and heard from some members that their friends at the tournament saw us there and thought it was really nice what we did. So that was really good. After that we ate dinner with everyone else at the clubhouse and had a few people try to buy us some shots. But it was a good service activity overall! After that we got taken out for ice cream by a member family and shared a message with them as they said their farewells to Elder B.

Tuesday we picked up Elder B's PMG and had District meeting then we went to Boston Pizza with Brother F one last time. Visited C, and did a bunch of other stuff, then we got stuck in traffic for an hour so we were late for our dinner appointment with the M's but got there. ate, and then went and had another dinner at the Burgess' which was super spiritually uplifting. President Burgess is in the Temple Presidency so every time we go there he uplifts us way more than we do him. Following that said a few goodbyes to a few others.

Wednesday we had District meeting and then Sister T took all the missionaries in our District to Costco for lunch and then took us shopping and tried to make me let her buy my GPS. Then we went on Facebook, and then visited with C one last time.  We couldn't make it to Tony Roma's that night with Sister C because we already had an appointment with the S's. After that we went to the temple and had an endowment session with 49 missionaries who were all in the city for transfers and the temple has a max of 40, so that was pretty packed, but it was a super great experience. After that we set up billets for everyone else for the night.

Thursday was transfers. We sent some Elders on their way, stopped by to say bye to the T's and she ended up feeding us. Then we saw the W's and then had dinner at the M's again and shared a message with them. Then we moved a lady. Then we went to the church and assigned other billets for people that got back.

Friday Elder B left and we finished up the rest of Transfers in Regina. Elder P and I went on our way and took care of a few things and some luggage and then we planned our portion we had to give in Stake Priesthood Leadership meeting the next day, took care of some more logistical things, and then had dinner, went back to the Temple and did ward baptisms.

Saturday we had a baptism from Yorkton district which went well, so that was all morning, We then had lunch and had to mow the Sister missionaries lawn, if you could even call it that. It was more like a dandelion patch. Then we rushed home, changed, and went to the Priesthood leadership session, which was good, and gave our portion which went alright. Then we went for dinner and came back for the Adult session which went pretty good. C came.

Sunday we had breakfast and missionary coordination meeting at Bro S's home, then went to Stake Conference and C was there, which was great. He enjoyed it.  Then we took stuff down and helped clean up then we planned a bit,  had dinner with the M's, and then came home, planned some more, had to take indicators and month end K's...

Long week, super stressful and disappointing as not much actual missionary work was done.

But I love you, you take care!

-Love Elder Shane Dola

May 26

This week was pretty good. Sorry I don't have too much time to write this week, as we will be busy all day with a service project at a golf tournament.

Monday was p-day. We saw President and Sister Thomas. We had a district meeting on Tuesday and helped a lady move her daughter and some other stuff all day. Wednesday we took the truck in because there was a nail in one of the tires. We had another district meeting and stopped by a few people. Thursday we helped a lady move her stuff into a storage unit, had lunch with Ali'i and his brother and his daughter at a buffet and he made us keep eating unil we almost died but it was really good so it was alright. He is a great guy! We had another meal appointment later that night. Friday we went to breakfast with Kendall and some of his friends from work and then weekly planned. We were at the archives with Bishop Dilts and were busy doing other stuff all day! Saturday we were at an EQ service project all day and helped destroy a shed, build a shed and a little bit of a fence. They fed us lunch and we saw some other people afterwards. Then we had two meal appointments back to back. Sunday we had church and a baptismal interview and met F and J in the park and had some guy come and try to bible bash with us. He got all up in our face and started swearing and saying that we deny the Deity of Jesus and then quoted a scripture to try and make his point but then he messed up the reference and Elder Beacham corrected him and then we ignored him but he kept getting in our face and swearing and getting all mad but I thought it was funny because of how crazy he was. Then we had two meal appointments back to back and saw S and T. We had like 5 other dinner appointments throughout the week too. So yeah, a pretty good week. Elder Beacham got transferred to Meadow Lake and this will be a really busy week!

I love you and hope that your week goes well!

-Love Elder Shane Dola

May 19

Our week was pretty good.

Monday was P-day and we just took it easy.

Tuesday we went to Yorkton and went on exchanges with the Elders there, which was pretty good.

Wednesday we came back from Yorkton and we went to a district meeting and went to Pizza Hut and had our district goal setting. We then stopped by a few people and helped out the T's who then fed us dinner. We then were able to contact two people.

Thursday we went on Facebook and searched for some less active members who we couldn't get a hold of, had lunch, saw a few other people, including C and watched a video with him. Sister C took us out to Tony Romas for the second week in a row so that was pretty rough... then we stopped by J and N and went out to the H's and took a large load of garbage from their yard, and roasted smores, and had a good time with the young men out in Gray. Then the Assistants arrived.

Friday we weekly planned and exchanged with the Assistants, taught this one guy on the street. Did some Facebook and visited C before we went out to Pense and had a good Dinner appointment with the T's and helped them move some of their patio furniture.

Saturday was crazy. We had a teaching assessment with the sisters and the Assistants and then the 3 wards in Regina all got together and we cleaned the whole parking lot and everything else around the chapel. I spent most of the time pruning trees and bushes with Brother H. Then we had a BBQ and I almost burnt off my hand but didn't so it was all good. Then it was 1:00 and I walked by the Relief Society room and realized that I didn't hear any water flowing and our ward mission leader forgot to start filling the font so we did that. C was there for his baptism half an hour early and it started over an hour late, but we had a good turnout and the Baptism went very well. After that the T's took our district out to a Buffet for dinner, which was good, and then we went and worked on our service project doing some yard work.

Sunday was crazy. The people we were contacting had wrong numbers but eventually it worked out. Kendall and his friend showed up randomly, which was great. C was late 10 minutes to church but it was all good. He still was able to get confirmed and asked me to do it and it all went smoothly. We had a good gospel principles class and we taught the young men's class, then we went and visited Sister B in the Hospital and Bishop D came later and we were able to administer the sacrament to her and had a mini sacrament meeting with them. Then we went out to Gray again and had dinner with the H family and shared a home teaching message/ discussion. Then we came home and took indicators.

-Love Elder Dola 

May 12

Elder Dola did not write much this week as we got to Skype with him yesterday for about 2 hours.  Here are some pictures he sent.

My dog friend.

Qu'appelle Valley in the background.

First mosquito of the season!

Hills in Saskatchewan!

Horses.

May 5

Our week was all right. We were really busy moving other missionaries to their new apartments and what not, but still had some good experiences.

This week was pretty busy we had spring cleaning and p-day. 

Monday we had dinner at the C's followed by us giving  a priesthood blessing and then we went to the FHE held by the YSA aged members and played basketball.

Tuesday we had our district meeting and then we spent the rest of the day moving the 2 Sunrise Companionships from their old apartments into their new ones followed by us having a dinner and HT appointment with the F's and then we helped finish moving the other Elders.

Wednesday we went to the other districts in Regina's District meetings and then went on exchanges and visited a LA member and then went to Swiss Chalet for lunch with some ladies that I had met in Weyburn, followed by us going to our online training meeting and then we stopped by and visited with a LA member who is dying of cancer before we went to East Side Mario's for dinner, compliments of Sister and Dr C.

Thursday we went on Facebook and went to Ranch Ehrlo where we are going to volunteer. Following that we had lunch and stopped by some referrals and prospective Elders, visited a Less active member in the hospital and gave him a blessing, and had a ward missionary coordination meeting and dinner with our ward mission leader and his family. Then we went to the C family and picked up the package you sent; they wanted it out of their house so the kids wouldn't eat it and we got invited to the temple. 

Friday we had Missionary Leadership Conference over Skype and then we had lunch with the S's at some restaurant called Bocados and spent the rest of the day helping a member family take some stuff of theirs, including a swing set, to the dump and then we set up a trampoline and had dinner with them and finished the trampoline and then we went and had a Home teaching message with the W family, then we went to the Temple and helped with a sealing session.

Saturday we went on facebook and then we visited D in the hospital again. Then we had lunch and had to take the truck in to get the tire fixed. Then we visited with C and he set a Baptismal date for the 10^th. Then we left and the tire was even worse so we filled it up and contacted a bunch of prospective Elders and filled the tire again and then went to a member’s house and her husband helped us change our tire because we had no tools and then she insisted on feeding us dinner.

Sunday we planned a lot for going out to the reserves and had church. C was the only one who actually came and he didn't tell anyone he wanted to be baptised so we are postponing the date. We planned more for the reserves and then we had dinner at the T's and then we had the highlight of the week; we went and visited with our Spanish investigators and brought our ward mission leader with us to translate which was good. We couldn't understand what was being said but the spirit was so strong that it didn't matter.

Today and tomorrow we are going out to some surrounding areas and reserves.

But it's good hearing from you! Hope that all is well! Love you too! Take care

-Love Elder Shane Dola 

April 28

My week was pretty good! Was pretty hectic but good, I'm very settled in, it is good here except we live in an apartment with almost all Indian people (People from India) and so they make really nasty smelling food which leaks into our apartment so sometimes we come home and find it smelling like rotten fish and sometimes it smells like B.O. mixed with rotten fish or curry or tacos. It's pretty gross but I can't complain. I just got word that right when I left they made some major changes to the trailer in  Weyburn so I am happy for the Elders living there! 

There are 18 missionaries in Regina and four out in Yorkton and Melville (that's our Zone) 

This week was pretty crazy. I don't have too much time or too many things to tell. Basically we spent a lot of the week planning out the coming transfer and had to take care of some other things and make sure that things start running smoothly and back to normal now that everyone is back in their areas. Some things were left behind here in Regina and we had to get everything back to places all around the mission.

Monday was P-day and we helped some members move a fridge and other kitchen appliances and had a lunch appointment and dinner appointment.

Tuesday we had district meeting and met with the Stake President and had lunch with him and discussed some stake business and other things pertaining to us going out onto some reserves and had dinner with The Burgess' who is in the temple presidency, and then met with a less-active member.

Wednesday we went to some of the other district meetings and sent some stuff off in the mail, visited with C, had dinner with the H family and home taught them, met the S's, one of our home teaching families. (in our ward the recent initiative is for members to have only one home teaching family so they can focus more on the one family so the missionaries are the home teachers for the active families so we have 7 Home teaching families).

Thursday we focused a lot on prospective Elders and other things and Sister C and Dr C took us out to dinner.

Friday we planned for the transfer and for our week and met with R and a few other people.

Saturday we had a pancake breakfast put on by the ward mission leader who we helped out and were able to bring quite a few people out to that. We contacted some referrals and other Less Active members and had dinner and went on Facebook.

Sunday we had church and C and C came, which was good. We saw a few other people, gave a priesthood blessing, and stopped by some more LA and prospective Elders and had an appointment with the Spanish speaking guys but that fell through. We had dinner with the Stake President and went to another of our home teaching families.

I got the package with the cookies from Grandma and Grandpa last night! Tell them thanks and that I love them! You are right, I don't think that there would be much point to freezing them...

Some missionaries burn ties on their 6 month mark, some burn shirts on their year mark, some burn a pair of pants on their 18 month mark and then some burn an entire suit on their 2 year mark. But I don't think I will do any of that because I personally think that it is stupid to do that, and also as you know I am super stingy and cheap so I don't know if I could bring myself do do that....

For my year mark I just happen to be going out for lunch with Ali'i Lafontaine so I guess that is what I will do for my anniversary!?

But I love you you take care and take it easy!

-Love Elder Shane Dola

April 21

This week Monday we took the car in and found out that the recall on the Cruze's affected our car and that it has a hairline fracture in it so it will have to be fixed soon. We then e-mailed and went bowling with a recent convert from Saskatoon and her boyfriend who is a return missionary. 

Tuesday we went and visited D one last time before I left and then we went out to Carievale and said bye to C and K and helped put up his new garage door only to take it down, had a good message shared with them and then came back to Weyburn to have basketball night, which got cancelled because the church scheduled something else that night.

Wednesday we were pretty busy and later saw K and helped them put together some book shelves and talked a bit more about the experience he had with his father the other day. Then we went out to Francis and said good bye to the L's and K's and had a great dinner and lesson on mormon.org with the L's. Then we visited G at A&W and had a good chat with him; he can always feel the spirit stronger when we are around he always says.

Thursday we spent most of the day packing and preparing to go into Regina for the mission conference and picked up my suit from the dry cleaners (got it dry cleaned for the first time) then G took us out for dinner and Brother Morrissette was there so we ate with them (Brother Morrissette's wife is out of town in Calgary watching her grand-kids for like a month and ever since she has been gone he just eats out at least two sometimes three times a day! It's pretty funny, reminds me of what Grandpa Schultz would probably do :) ) Then we visited the J's and had a good meeting with them following a good lesson with P and A.

Friday was crazy day. We left and drove up with Estevan elders to Regina and went to Subway and right after that, since almost all of the members in the entire mission were in Regina this weekend because of the Priesthood leadership training, or because there was a huge Winnipeg Stake temple trip, so one of the members who elder Dillon and Elder McGregor knew insisted that we all meet them at East Side Mario's and we ate another meal.... Then we went to the church and it was crazy. I saw so many missionaries there that I had never before seen in my life. Around 4:30 all of the missionaries in the whole mission showed up and then we ate again and then we had a good conference together to prepare for the visit from the Apostle. Then we drove around all night taking luggage places and different missionaries to their billets.

Saturday morning we left the 6 elders in our apartment and had a breakfast appointment with a member family and got a call from a lady who had a card form Elder Beacham a few months ago and asked us to help her so that was good. We then went to the church and waited and studied our scriptures until Elder Christofferson arrived. When he did you could just feel his presence as he walked in the Chapel, it was amazing. He had us all sit down and then everyone in the entire mission got to go up and introduce ourselves and tell him where we were from, then we got to shake his hand along with Elder Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Spackman, the area seventy who lives in Calgary. It was a super great experience. We then heard from Sister and President Thomas and then Elder Spackman and Elder Soares followed by Elder Christofferson speaking and then he opened up about an hour and a half for the missionaries to ask questions. The talks were super good. Elder Christofferson is super funny too. It's really interesting to see General authorities when they aren't at general conference. They are completely different. I remember when I saw some at the MTC they are different than when you see them at general conference. They are super funny yet extremely dignified and can go right back to powerful doctrine just like that.  Too many things to choose from to talk about. The thing that stood out the most was what Elder Christofferson said. How he considers us his companions and that he would hope that he and the Brethren would never do anything to disappoint us and he hoped that we would do the same. He was super humble about everything, that definitely was one great attribute you could see in him. You could just feel their true and deep love that they had for us the entire time. The spirit was so strong the entire time. Definitely a superb experience! He is such a great scriptorian as well. Every question that anyone would ask him he would only have to think for a few seconds and would through out a scripture or a few relating to the topic. He bore the most powerful testimony I have ever heard before. His simple yet very powerful testimony of Christ and that he lives was so powerful, you could literally imagine and see and know that Christ was a person and that he lives. I can't use words to describe how powerful it truly was. After that the mission dispersed and all headed back to their areas and we made sure that everything was taken care of then Elder Christofferson had a four hour meeting with all of the Priesthood leadership in the Winnipeg and Saskatchewan stakes. Wish that we could have sat in on that but we weren't allowed. We then went to lunch with the Assistants before they headed back to Winnipeg and then met a few members and then we went to meet some potential investigators and later had dinner and met C, our 73 old man who is going to be baptized soon, I can just feel it. He wants to, just has to get a few things sorted out with himself.

Sunday was pretty crazy. We studied and went to church early to welcome people. We are in the Wascana Ward; there are three wards in Regina. But the first person I saw when I walked in the Chapel was Ali'i Lafontaine, but he is in the new ward, Sunrise. We had a good sacrament meeting and two people were confirmed, a child of record and a man who just got baptized on Friday. C came and went to all three meetings which was super good. He is such a great guy. It was weird being in such a big ward, even though there were only like 125-150 members it was the biggest I had been to in a year, and it was weird going back to 3 hour blocks because in Weyburn they only had 2 hours of Church.

But yeah, so after that we had lunch and stopped by a few other people, and we also had a lesson with two guys that speak almost 0 English and only speak French and Spanish. They are from Colombia and were working in Quebec before they came to Saskatchewan, so that's why they speak French. We brought a Recent Convert  with us and he is from Cuba so he translated for us. It was super funny because he kept forgetting to change languages and would sometimes speak to the other guys in English and then us in Spanish. But it was super good we gave them all copies of the book of Mormon and the pamphlets in English and Spanish and had a prayer with them and A translated that and it was super powerful, you could totally tell that they felt the spirit. We then had a dinner appointment with the C family, who used to live in Medicine Hat 1st or 2nd ward, I cannot remember but I recognized their faces and they did mine and had a good conversation of things back home.  So yeah anyways I literally have slowly been moving closer and closer to home, saw tons of people from Medicine Hat. After that we had some other appointments but they fell through so we stopped by a few other people before going home and collecting indicators.

Was a pretty crazy week but I loved it, looking forward to serve here!

-Love Elder Shane Dola

P.S. We don't have a car to drive anymore....all we have is a 2014 brand new Chevrolet Silverado with 2400Km's on it to drive around