Transferring to Innisfail

July 4, 2017

Hey y'all! So, transfer calls happened today. I'm leaving good old Leduc and I'm going to Innisfail! That is actually where Elder J. got trained. I'm excited! It's probably as South as I will ever be here, so I'm expecting a really warm Summer. Also, my new companion is going to be Elder S. I don't know who he is, but President Pattison said I might pick up some Spanish while I'm there. He can't drive, so I'll be doing that the whole time.

I really don't know what it'll be like, but I'm super excited.

There were fireworks on Canada Day, though we didn't stay up to watch them because they started at 11:00 at night. They also don't really let people have their own fireworks show like they do back home.

And, speaking of hymns, I can't really decide what my favorite song would be. I have a lot. Some of my favorites include: Battle Hymn of the Republic, I Believe in Christ, If You Could Hie to Kolob, and Come, Come Ye Saints. Also, Nearer My God to Thee and Be Still My Soul are pretty good, too.

I'll update ya more on what's going on next week. I gotta finish packing!

Also, those little plastic things that hold bread bags closed make really awesome ninja stars!

Let's Summer!

June 27, 2017

Well, Summer definitely happened. The sun doesn't really go down, the rainy season is past, it's like 21-23°C every day, and everybody knows how to rollerblade here.

Plus, there is a ton of stuff to go over.
First of all, the BBQ I mentioned last week: it turns out that nobody that we invited showed up. But! We did talk to the guy who made T-shirts for us and now we are going to "practice" teaching him. Which is kind of cheating I guess, but I need to practice teaching anyway.

Second thing, CANADA DAY?! It's on the 1st of July, this Saturday. I'm not too sure what's going to happen, but I'm excited.

Third, transfers are next week! Chances are really, really good that I am going to be booted out of Leduc soon. But with President Pattison, anything can happen.

Fourth! In July, we are going to be the first mission in Canada with smartphones and Facebook. That'll be weird. The smartphones I can handle, but I've never used Facebook before, so we'll see what happens.

Also, I went to the temple today! We only get to go to the temple four times a year, so I can hardly even imagine being in a place without a temple while on my mission. Today, I felt the Spirit stronger than I ever have in the temple before. I can feel myself becoming ever closer to God and the person who He wants me to be.

In reply to a question about languages: I have actually met people here who only speak French, or their first language was French. There are a lot of people here from other parts of Canada or from random places in Europe, so the languages are still fairly diverse. That being said, everything here still has French words next to the English ones.

Though, now that I think about it, I think the most common non-English language I hear would be Mandarin Chinese.

What do you call an alligator in a vest?

June 20, 2017

This was a pretty fun week. Not a huge number of things happened, but we did have zone conference! It pretty much obliterated companionship study, and then put it back together in a big ol' ball of [Insert Noun Here]. It was pretty fun, though. Afterwards, we had pictures and we got the whole Canadian MTC district back together! And also Elder L. was taking the pictures.

On the subject of investigators... well... we weren't actually able to meet with anyone. We almost got D. to church, but we can't actually seem to get into contact with him anymore. And then A. and J. are still pretty flaky, so they keep rescheduling appointments. But, we do have a ward BBQ coming up this Saturday and we invited a billion people to come to it. So, we are excited for this Saturday. 😊 Also, we went on exchanges with the Greenfield elders last Wednesday. Me and Elder T. had some fun in Leduc tearing up some flooring in a house that a member was renting out. It's been a solid week of tracting and service.

Happy birthday to my sister!

I've been thinking a lot about how to study more effectively as well, and I learned this: Earlier in my mission, I heard a story about a guy who was off work for a few days and had nothing to do. He had already read everything he owned, so he went to a friend's house and asked if they had any good books he could borrow. His friend was an awesome person and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He took it home and tried to read it, but he really couldn't get into it. It was a drag to read. So he went back to his friend and tried to give the book back saying that it was too boring. His friend replied saying: Well, did you pray about it? As it turned out, he didn't. So he went home and "popped open a beer" and got on his knees. He asked God to let him know of it was true, then he sat back up and started reading again. He said that as he read the book from that point, he couldn't put it down! He was suddenly engulfed in the story. He cared about Nephi and his tests of faith, he felt bad for King Benjamin having to tell the people about their sins in front of the pure in heart. He could see the battles of Captain Moroni and the courage that they showed, and he saw Mormon's son writing in the record for the last time as his people were being slaughtered.

He read the whole book in three days, only taking breaks for the bathroom and meals. Once he finished, he got on his knees again and thanked God for letting him know that it was true. He got baptized three weeks later.

I heard that story and wanted to have the same experience with reading it. So, I asked God to help me read it as that man did. It didn't come all at once like it did for him, but I am at that point now. The only reason I was able to meet that goal was because I had help from our Father in Heaven.

Simply Divine

June 13, 2017

Hey y'all! What a week. Wow. A lot of stuff happened since I sat in this chair last. Firstly, Elder Ballard from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to every single missionary in the mission! All of them! It was pretty awesome to hear what an apostle of the Lord had to say to us, and also to receive the advice and blessings he bestowed.

We also met with J. and D. again! J. is doing well, though we're still trying to get his wife involved, too, so she doesn't feel excluded. The lesson with D. was probably the second coolest thing we did all week; he is soooo prepared it's crazy. He pretty much taught us the restoration. In detail. And he's really enjoying the Book of Mormon so far.

We also had four other elders stay at our place for the apostle visit, and one of was Elder C. from the MTC. That was fun haha.
It's really awesome to see the amount of improvement there is in our lives while we're here.

Heating Up

June 6, 2017

The weather here is just about killer status. It's so hot here! I never would have thought that I would ever say that, but it is.

Also, we just had transfers, like 2 or 3 weeks ago... sorry, I forgot to tell y'all, but not much changed. I guess our district got a bit bigger, but that's about it. Though, in my last interview with President Pattison, he told me he was probably going to move me somewhere else next transfer. I have heard that, for everyone that has been in Leduc, it has been their favorite area.

We do have Elder L. and some other Mandarin elders in our zone, but we never get to go to zone sports, except for today!  We are still helping out at the retirement home, though it feels like we pretty much just play games with them for a while.

This has been a week of miracles. We had the traveling elders at our place on the weekend and we just did a huge amount of finding in 2 days. We found a bunch of solid people and also learned a ton about how to do finding effectively. Also, on Sunday night, we got a referral from another area, so we stopped by and he wanted to go on a walk. So, we had a walking lesson for about an hour, and throughout the whole lesson he would stop and talk about how grateful he is that he moved here, grateful that he had met his friend who referred him, and how thankful he was that he was able to talk to us. In short: he's the most prepared person we've ever seen! He was super stoked about getting the chance to read the Book of Mormon! We're excited to teach him some more.
Also, while I was writing that, we just got another referral! 😂 So happy.

We also had a lesson with A.! He is still kind of struggling to read, but I think we're slowly making progress. We also haven't had the chance to meet with J. again yet, but we're going back on Thursday.

I have actually been doing pretty good in my teaching skills, I think. I mean, I'm nowhere near perfect, but I'm miles better than what I was. Things are getting busy really fast. Really, really fast, but I love it, and I love y'all.

Elder Lurch and the Mormon Church

May 30, 2017

Hey y'all! We had a pretty awesome week! To explain the subject line above: We went to a member's house for dinner and he showed us a version of "Green Eggs and Ham", but it was in Missionary Mode. It was fun.

On the investigator side of things, not much has changed. We actually didn't have any lessons this last week. But, we are meeting with A. today and J. tomorrow, so wish us luck. 😊

The coolest thing that happened this last week, though, was on Sunday. We were at sacrament meeting and some pretty keen stuff happened. First of all, we had a less active, part member family come for the whole thing! They were really interactive, too. And we also met a friend that one of our members brought to Church with them. They were less active and wanted to come back, so we're going to meet with them. AND we also had some more less active members that we had stopped by the night before show up for church. AND I got to give a talk that day that I think really helped at least one person. Yeah, it was a pretty awesome day.

Also, we have a pretty good potential investigator that we finally got a hold of yesterday. She's busy for now with cleaning up a shed, but she said we might be able to help, and also she seems really interested in what we have to teach her about.

And that's about it. We did finally find some fun activities to do on P-day. We are going to make some T-shirts today with K. (because it didn't happen last week), and we also found a Frisbee golf course really close to our apartment.

Thanks for all of your support! Love y'all!

Snowballin'

May 23, 2017

There have been a lot of things happening recently. Like, a lot...

First of all, we have a new investigator! Woo! He is awesome. We've taught him twice-ish now and we've set up a time to have a lesson every Thursday with him. He's been progressing quite well and I can't wait to see how far he'll come with us.

We also met a guy who's not really interested in taking the missionary lessons, but he is super interested in the missionary program. When we first found him, he talked to us for about an hour, asking us questions, and he even had us over for dinner once! He also has a screen printing for T-shirts company that we've stopped by before. He showed us around and even offered to help us make some shirts on our P-day (today), so we'll see how that goes.

Also, shout out to my Mom who just had a birthday! 😗💨🎂

We have another guy who we've been "teaching" and he doesn't speak hardly any English. So, we've been Skyping with the Spanish Sisters in the city to teach him. He seems to be doing well, but then I have no idea. It's all in Spanish. 😀

We have consistently been teaching A. which is a miracle! We've recently talked about the Plan of Salvation and he's committed to read the Book of Mormon every day (at least when we remind him).

I really liked what Lia said about being brave. Something that I've experienced recently is that talking to random people is hard, especially on the phone (I just have trouble talking on the phone for some reason).

But, there are two things that can really help. One of them is just to "DO IT" and the more that you do it, the easier it is to do it again. The other thing, (which is even more important) is that we can ask Heavenly Father to help. It reminds me of an experience that I had once on a camp out. We were going down a river in boats and such. I was in a 2-person kayak and behind me was one of the leaders. Whenever we came to some rapids, we (me being a weakling) had to paddle as hard as we could to get through the rapids. If we stopped mid-way, we would have tipped over and would have had an amazing time dragging ourselves to shore. Looking back, If I didn't have help from someone stronger than me, I would have gone face first in the water several times. "Isn't that a metaphor for life?" It really is. Sometimes, we are too weak to paddle ourselves through the rapids. But there is someone behind us who can paddle us through anything, and all we have to do is ask.

1 Nephi 3:7 -- God will never give us a commandment that we can't achieve, even if we need help to achieve it.

Brief After Mother's Day Call

May 16, 2017

Hey y'all! I hope your week was great, I know mine was.

To start off: We have a new investigator! Woo! He is really awesome. We've had one lesson with him so far, and he's shown a lot of potential. When we first knocked on his door, we taught him about the Book of Mormon and explained that it was a record of the people who came from Jerusalem before it was destroyed and were led by God to the Americas. After we had talked about it a bit, he said something around the lines of "Yeah, that sounds like something I might believe." Woo!

Other than that, even though it's been kind of rainy, we've been doing a lot of cleaning.

On the subject of food, I do have to "cook" for every lunch but it's usually just like a grilled cheese sandwich or something just as easy. We get fed almost every night by a member so we never really have to worry about that. Elder S. "cooks" too, but we both only really make single person portions... though I am planning on using some of those dessert recipes in my cookbook soon. 😋 Also, I would love to try my mom's lasagna again. Sorry I've been such a picky eater before now.

I came, I conquered, I waddled home.

May 9, 2017

Our new apartment is pretty great. In-suite laundry, dishwasher, they've got it all. Though we don't have WiFi...

As the subject suggests, the Steak Challenge happened when we blinked. And let me tell you, I have never felt so proud of myself. I know that sounds weird. But after defeating such a foe as the 39.3 oz. Steak that was put before me, along with a full plate of mashed potatoes, carrots, corn, and also 1/4 of a Key Lime pie, I feel like a winner. A fat winner, but a winner nonetheless.

In other news, we had zone conference on Thursday! And it was also coincidentally Elder J.'s birthday! We also did a highway clean up with our ward on Saturday, which was interesting. We found some pretty fun stuff on the side of the highway: a cat skeleton, "weed"-infused cotton candy, part of an electric fence, and there were also some cows that followed us for a bit. Canada is fun eh? 😉

Elder S. says that his favorite ice cream is a Butterfinger shake with caramel from Dairy Queen. So, I'm assuming he's not lactose intolerant. I have had some Canadian Butter Tarts, but only once. Walmart has them and some members brought some for a ward party that happened. They were definitely bigger than the ones my dad made, but they tasted about the same. One interesting thing is that there is a lot of maple flavored stuff here. Candy bars, butter, soda probably. It's kinda fun.

When I think of "something I'd only see in Canada" I think of the hockey here. The Edmonton Oilers are getting really far into the season this year, and people are freaking out! When a game is on, we can't even go tracting because people are too busy watching it. We see the Oilers flag 30 times more than the Canadian flag!

On the subject of spiritual thoughts: I heard a talk recently and it confirmed what I was already thinking of, that miracles don't change us and make us want to follow Heavenly Father's plan. When we read the Book of Mormon, we see how Nephi's older brothers' hearts were still hardened after seeing angels, hearing the voice of God, and being shocked by the power of God through Nephi. It is only through the repentance process that we can change to align our will with God's.

"What a Fine Life"

May 2, 2017

So we did it, we conquered winter! Hopefully. It snowed a bit (a lot) earlier in the week, but it's been nicer the last 4-5 days. I don't want to say that spring is around the corner though, because "mother nature" will hear it and will curse the land with an eternal winter. Though, let me tell you guys, it's really warm here. Elder S. was even wearing a short-sleeved white shirt recently! I didn't even think I'd need any of those.

Also Elder S. and I are getting to know each other a little better; we have both been trying to scare each other in our free time. We have some fun videos from it.

It's been a pretty interesting week, too. Most of the week we were either tracting or cleaning, but we did finally have a lesson with A.! We just kind of talked to him and tried to get to know him a bit so we could teach to his needs. But the lesson went well and we're scheduled to come back on Wednesday! We also had a lesson with M. "the heathen" & B. who are former investigators that we tracted into on accident. We knocked on their door and they let us right in, saying something like "There you are, come on in." We were a bit confused, but we weren't complaining. And after about an hour and a half of them telling us all about their other experiences with missionaries (which is quite extensive) and telling us what they thought about our religion, we went on our way. They were really fun, but they didn't seem too interested in hearing the lessons.

Recently we've been spending a ton of time packing, cleaning, and unpacking. We did actually successfully move out of our old apartment and into the new one! It took up our entire day yesterday, but we did it! Now all we've got to do is unpack everything and do a deeper clean of our old apartment before the end of the month. In some cases (at least our case) the place that they send us to is a place where missionaries have lived for like 4-5 years. Just think of how much junk that many missionaries could leave behind (and there is a lot)! We had a crossbow, about 7 coats, a lot of boots, scented cubes(?), 5 lamps, a wolf blanket, a bucket of (recent) Halloween candy, and a questionable box of stuff (and by stuff I mean things that we didn't even know existed).

Someone who is preparing for a mission should go to LDS.org and watch some of the videos on there--Mormon Messages especially. One that we've been using a lot with our dinner appointments is "The Will of God" in the Gospel Library app (at least I think that's what it's called). Or, just explore the Gospel Library app some. There are some really cool things in there.

Burning Rubber

This last week has been fairly slow on the teaching point if view, but that doesn't mean I don't have a story for you.

We had a dinner with a family in our ward, and the Brother is a huge fan of spicy stuff. And, as some of you guys know, I am really bad at spicy stuff. He brought out a bottle of hot sauce called "Possible Side Effects." He then gave us each a toothpick and we got just a tiny bit of it on the said toothpick. We then had to put it in our mouths and endure. And endure we did! At least I think I did pretty good. I may have said some stuff like "This was a bad idea!" or "My tongue is melting!" But all in all I think I took it quite well. I think next week he's gonna bring out the even hotter sauce for us to try, because their kids seemed to enjoy it a lot more than we did.

Also! I left out some details from transfers that are kind of important (to me at least): We can no longer attend zone sports since our area switched zones, and the place where it would be held is too far away for us to drive. They also took away our Rav 4, which was a really nice car, and they gave us a smaller/not as good car from a different area. So, that has been fun to drive with in the snow. Did I mention we're kind of in an outlying area, technically, so we need to drive a lot?

I can't believe it's almost Mothers' Day! I'm pretty excited, though I don't know exactly how that will work. I think we just use Skype on our devices. We did have a member family invite us over for Mother's day so that we can use their Wi-Fi (because we don't have Wi-Fi at our apartment, though we are going to try to get some in our next place). Also, sorry I don't have any more pictures of us together yet. It's getting harder to use Google Drive to send pictures, just because we can't go to zone sports anymore.

Also, those pictures of us in the hats were at the retirement home that we do service at every Wednesday. One of the new staff members was a Church member and took our pictures. I didn't think anything of it until she asked what Mom's phone number was, and by then it was too late.

And now for the weather report from Elder Hill: "Well, it's been an interesting April for Canada this year, as you can see from this chart *points to chart with a pointer thingy*. We've had some warm spring days in the beginning of the month, but *moves pointer to the other side of "chart"* they have been ultimately dwarfed by the amount of snowy, wet, winter days."
The weather is a bit strange... It's still snowing, almost every day, but it should be gone before Mothers' Day, at least.

Although, it hasn't really been that bad, at least, not as bad as it had been.

Also, we're moving apartments on May 1^st. So, next week you'll probably hear all about our adventures with stairs... lots and lots of stairs...

We actually don't have any new contacts. A. is super busy all the time, J. pretty much told us to wait a month or two, and everyone else has dropped us. So, it's been a ton of us going out and knocking on people's doors for the last few weeks, which hasn't brought in many potentials. We have, however, been going through a list of "formers" recently and we're hoping to get someone to teach from some of those, but it's been super slow.

We have been able to clean our apartment more, though.

On the subject of food: We get fed by members almost every day, and it's usually really good, too. I am also very pleased to say that my picky eating is not really a problem anymore. The first day I got here and we had a member meal, they fed us spaghetti with a very chunky sauce with a lot of things in it that you know I wouldn't usually eat. And I looked at it, and knew that I had to deal with it sometime, so I ate it like a fairly normal human being. and ever since then, I haven't had a problem trying new things or eating things that I know that I don't like.

There is one thing here that I would rather not try. It's called "Balut". Balut is a fertilized duck egg that has been partially developed and also fermented... apparently it's a thing for the missionaries to try it at least once before they leave, and it's actually kinda popular. Although I'd rather not eat a fermented baby duck any time soon.

I don't really know a lot about Elder S., but he's pretty fun. He's a little reserved, but has a very subtle humor that goes unnoticed by most people we talk to. It's been fun to have someone to laugh with. He's been here for about 6-ish months (don't quote me on that). He also spent some time with a lot of Chinese-speaking Elders and has some fun stories from those experiences. Oh, yeah, he also likes fly fishing and baseball. I don't know much else, but he is fun to be silly with.

Love ya! Talk to ya next week!

Missionary Commission

I am called of God.

My authority is above that of kings of the earth.

By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is my master and He has chosen me to represent Him–to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me.

My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts.

My doctrine is His doctrine.

My Commission is to do what He wants done, to say what He wants said, to be a living modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work.

How great is my calling! 

-Elder Bruce R. McConkie

Hey y'all! It's been pretty slow up here. We're just trying to find people to teach for now, though Elder S.is a pretty fun guy. He has the most subtle humor I've ever seen and doesn't show a ton of emotion, but we've been getting along great. He is also from Utah. From Centerville I believe.

The above quote is one of the things they have us memorize while we're out here. It has really spoken to me while I've been here. I kind of wanted all of you to read it and to know that I am not the only missionary out here. We, as a mission, at least, have been really focusing on member missionary work. I just want all of you to know that, though not all of you are currently called to be a missionary, that doesn't mean that you can't help bring our lost brothers and sisters back to our eternal family to come.

Spring Cleaning

Happy Easter!!! If you haven't seen the new Church Easter video, you really need to.
This week was super interesting. Transfers are here. I'm staying in Leduc, but Elder J. is leaving to go train another guy in a tri-panionship. My new companion's name is Elder S., I have no idea who he is yet, but it's going to be fun! So, that's going to happen tomorrow, and we get to clean out our apartment to move out at the end of the month! So, yeah, I'll keep you updated on that.

It's great to hear that Utah is also still under the cold iron fist of winter for a bit, though ours stays longer and snows more, I think.

About driving, we do have some maps in our tablets. The fun part was trying to figure out where Elder L. was directing me. I also do have my driver's license (a temporary one waiting for the real one) and the funny part about that was that, when we went to go get them, they had us do a vision test. And of course, that was the one day that I didn't wear glasses or contacts. But I took it anyway, and I passed!!! Somehow, barely, so I may not actually need glasses to drive legally in Alberta, Canada! (But I will, because I'm super blind.)

We haven't played Extreme Croquet yet, nor have I been subject to a S.T.E.A.K. yet. Though that'll probably happen as soon as we're all able.

I also love showing people the Easter Video. My district at the MTC got to see it early when we had a guy who was over the development of it come and give a talk on a Tuesday devotional, so it's super awesome to be able to show it to the members.

One of the coolest things I’ve learned in General Conference is that "we're called to the work, not to the place." It's great that I get to be in Canada and do the work, but I know that if I were anywhere else, I'd still be learning and growing spiritually and helping bring God's children back to Him.
Something that I learned just this last week is "Whom the Lord calls, He qualifies." So even though it's rough here right now, I know that if I don't lean on my own understanding, and if I let God help us, we will be doing everything we need to have the work progress.

We had a guy come to Church and the Priesthood session of General Conference. He also has read the Book of Mormon all the way through, has read every pamphlet that the church owns, and has marked them up till you can't see the words anymore (which is pretty amazing.) And we didn't even ask him to. In fact, we were just barely able to have a lesson with him on Sunday! Aaaannnddd we kinda dropped him. We knew going in that it was going to be a difficult lesson from talking to him before about how he doesn't listen to his feelings at all, so he didn't like how the Holy Ghost testifies, I guess. But we found out in the first few moments of the lesson that he has also been reading a big ol' book of anti-Mormonism... To put it shortly, he was a Bible basher. The whole time, he was telling us what was wrong with the Church and he expected us to pull out historical evidence of pretty much everything that we believed (not knowing that we didn't study for years on how to ARGUE our religion into people's lives.) The only thing that we could do was testify and hope that someday he'll soften his heart to the Gospel. He was really nice, though, and he gave us cookies (because, Canada.)

I know that my life has been changed, and for the better. We, as greenies, have this thing that we do called a “greenie read”. the greenie read is basically us reading through a fresh copy of the Book of Mormon and highlighting every time it talks about Heavenly Father, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost. It's been a HUGE benefit for me to see the ways the Godhead influences the lives of those in the Book of Mormon and in our lives in the latter days. If you haven't done a "greenie read" type of thing, I'd strongly recommend it.

And I guess that's about it. I love y'all, and I'll talk to ya next week!

Canada Loves Us

This last week has been pretty awesome.  We went on another exchange with the Mandarin Elders yesterday, so Elder L. and I got to pretend we knew what we were doing for a bit. (<-- sarcasm) Also, Elder L. can understand/can speak about 15% English so we pretty much just said whatever inspired us and switched conversations rapidly. We actually had quite a bit of success, too. We went tracting and gave away four Books of Mormon in one whole day! And most of the recipients seemed pretty interested, too. We also got a non-member to commit to come to Church in the first lesson we taught on the sidewalk while tracting, so hopefully we'll see something come of that. We also were let in by a very nice and very sad lady. The lesson went great and she said we could come back on Thursday. Elder L. and I also got UBER lost, and I don't use the word "uber" lightly. We thought we knew where we were going, but we were wrong... obviously. We found a golf course, a campsite, the personification of "the boonies", Edmonton, and a really cool looking house. We had a blast.

For those of you who have questions about our use of Facebook and technology and such:
We don't know when the missionaries are getting Facebook, so right now we're working with the members to have them send friendly messages to people they know. When we do get Facebook, it will be us mainly using it for something like a group chat with investigators and members to do lessons or answer questions. We're also going to be using Skype for lessons in the future.

One of the greatest uses of technology here is an app we use called "Area book". Area book is pretty much a digital version of the area book and daily planner. We can record lessons we have with people and have our plan of how we're gonna teach them all on the device. We also have an area book map that has our investigators' addresses from the Area Book app.

One thing that was said about the apps was that they are buggy (of course) and that there were people who were lost in the system that we couldn't find again. Most people weren't really happy with the app until Elder N. told us about how Heavenly Father gave us this technology to help us make the work progress faster, and whoever fell through the cracks would be found again when they are ready to hear the message.  It's pretty cool to see all the ways the Lord is hastening the work.

On another note, though, General Conference!!! Woo! Elder J. and I met up with Elder N. and Elder K. for General Conference at a member family's house. The family there had a lot of fun talking about the famous "STEAK CHALLENGE" and I think everyone in the house ganged up on me, so now I have to do the challenge... I am going to die.

For those of you who do not know about the famous "STEAK CHALLENGE", let me explain. You start off with a small ice-cream sandwich. After that, they throw you straight into the S.T.E.A.K.(I'm sure we could find a fun acronym for that.) The steak is usually from an animal that humans don't eat a lot, like a yak or a moose or something, and it's Huge!  They don't even own plates big enough for the steak. After that, you have another small ice-cream sandwich, and after that they give you a large slice of pie in a swimming pool of whipped cream and you have to eat all of the whipped cream, too. And finally, to finish, they give you a large, thick, hockeypuck-ish, ice-cream sandwich. I am going to die...

Okay, back to Conference! My favorite talk was actually in the priesthood session with Elder Eyring. He talked about Enoch, who was called by God to teach repentance to the people (a.k.a. Missionary.) He was troubled by that call because he thought he wasn't good enough. He talked about how the people hated him and he was slow of speech. He then asked God, "Wherefore am I thy servant?" (That actually might be a direct quote. Not sure though.) God told him to go and do the things which the Lord had commanded. He told him about how his words would be justified and he would bring many people back to Heavenly Father. I looked further in the scriptures and, sure enough, he becomes a totally awesome dude. The talk kind of spoke to me, I guess, because I have kind of been feeling inadequate--not a ton, but enough. We had Sharon drop us and Aaron kind of dropped us, too (he didn't come to conference and such.) We also haven't heard back from Jazelle in forever. But I know a lot of things now that have strengthened me a lot. I can testify to all of you that no matter what trial you have to go through, God will be with you. You just have to let Him.

I love y'all and I'll talk to ya next week.

P.S. We are going to play Extreme Croquet, whatever that is. All we know is that it's played in a big field/forest-y area and that every shot is a chip shot. (They are gonna kill me, haha.)

Zone Conference

We went to the temple this morning and didn't get to do our normal stuff until about noon today. We also had zone conference!!! It was awesome, too. We learned a lot about teaching simply and by the Spirit. "Cuz if they don't learn by the Spirit, then it ain't from God." D&C 50:17-20. Totally a direct quote.^*

Elder J. and I also got to teach Sharon again! I don't remember if I told ya about her yet, but that's pretty much what happened. We also get to watch General Conference with the F.s and we're bringing Aaron with us.
Oh, yeah! We're gonna get Facebook soon! So that'll be weird. I'll update y'all on that one.

Also, I'm also seeing the value of saving money here. Another Elder wasn't thrifty at all, recently, and had to eat Ramen for a week for every meal. I still have about 15 Canadian dollars after buying food for this next week, so I'm gonna work on that too, I guess. Though I have a hard time spending some coins, just because they're awesome. We have one and two dollar coins here. One dollar is a Looney, and two is a Twooney.

I love ya! Talk to ya next week!

^*Editor's Note: Not a direct quote. "Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God."

I'm Older

Elder A. and me!

Hey y'all! The end of Winter is nigh up here! We were driving around (because we have a car) and I noticed that there are actually a ton of lakes in our area. They're everywhere! It's just hard to see them with all the snow that happened. Also, I get my licence this week! We drive a RAV4, but Elder J. is the only one of us allowed to drive right now.  It turns out that International Driving Permits don't actually mean anything up here anymore, so all of us trainees have to wait until the end of the week to get our licenses.

I ate something called "Donair". It's a kind of meat thing that they put in a pita with a special sweet garlic sauce and some lettuce, onions, and such. It was super good. You should look it up. I'm not sure exactly what meat it is, but it's good.

Also, the people who do the steak challenge really want me to try it. I probably won't--I don't think my stomach would ever be able to survive it. But Elder J. did it, so maybe I'll be able to.

We have a service thing that we do every Wednesday. Pretty much we go to a retirement home and help out with the games and serving food and just hanging out with the members there. It's pretty great.  We just get to hang out with a bunch of old people for a couple of hours. We've also helped some people move furniture quite a bit. We tried to help some people with shoveling their snow, but they turned us down.

Also, I did get to do something for my birthday! We went to our dinner that night and they had an ice cream cake with my name on it! They also gave us an air freshener thing as an inside joke. It was awesome. I'll probably get the birthday package today, too.

St. Patrick's Day wasn't really a big thing here, but we did have a St. Patty's day party on Wednesday at the retirement home. We got to wear a bunch of stupid hats and play bingo and such. I got to call out the bingo cards.

I also went on another exchange with an elder. He's actually one of the Mandarin Chinese-speaking missionaries, so we got to do language study in the morning. I'm bad at Chinese.  We mostly went knocking on doors all day but we didn't have a ton of success until after dinner. We decided to do a little more tracting at around 7:30, and at the second door we knocked on, the guy was super interested!  We had a super good lesson with him. He didn't have a ton of time to talk with us, but he said he'd love to have us back later. I won't be there, but I'm excited for him to hear of the awesomeness that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

All of our investigators cancelled at the last minute this last week, so we didn't have any more lessons. But, we did a ton of tracting and studying. Here's hoping for a lesson filled week!

Love y'all! I'll talk to you next week!

Putting the Shoulder to the Wheel

I'd like to take a moment and appreciate all of those loving comments about how great the weather is in Utah. Thanks. 😄 Although, the "winter wonderland" theme is kind of growing on me. In fact, it hasn't actually been that cold, especially today. It was about 4 degrees Celsius this morning! Also, I haven't bought a coat because I haven't needed one yet. As odd as that sounds, it's actually been pretty nice up here. There's a ton of snow, sure, but it's the wind you've got to deal with, I've found.

I did actually meet one of our investigators that I hadn't met before, and he's awesome. He's also a huge Nintendo fan, so we got along pretty great. But the coolest part of it was when we set up a baptism date for him! April 8th! Now all we need to do is help him feel the Spirit in his life, even when we aren't there, so he'll be able to keep that commitment.

Also, a funny story about that one lady we taught while tracting. Right when we were done with the lesson and were walking back to the car, we remembered that we didn't actually get her name! We did get her phone number, though, and later got her name. We haven't met with her again yet, but she seems super open to learning more. One thing she said during the lesson that surprised me was her story about when she asked the pastor/priest of the church that she goes to, why doesn't she know a lot about Jesus? His response was that the reason why she doesn't know was because she goes to that particular church... Does that sound like a red flag to anyone else? Yeah, me too.

One cool thing that happened recently was that we had exchanges! Exchanges are fun, and I got to do two this last week! Pretty much what happens is we drive out to some McDonald's out in the middle of our areas, and either I or Elder J. will switch cars and go with one of them for the day, and the companion that stays gets the other companion. The first time (Wednesday), I stayed in Leduc where I was with Elder A. He was really fun. We got to teach a bit more about the restoration, and he also made me a pancake surprise in the morning! It was a very spicy surprise. Don't put hot sauce in pancakes. Just don't...

The second exchange was with Elder N. He is pretty much the "Sherlock Holmes" of figuring out people. I swear, he knows more about me now than I do.

Every single moment out here seems like a spiritual one, unless you count us going to McDonald's that one time. I guess one thing that stood out was when we were asked by some returned missionaries to go to lunch with them and a recent convert. So we did! They ended up taking us to a small burger joint named Ryan's, which was apparently their favorite place to eat while in Leduc.

But it wasn't the food that was the coolest part (Licorice shake excluded.) Rather, it was listening to the stories of people that had already been here and gone back home again. We learned a ton from them. But, the coolest thing that I saw was how strong their testimonies still were, even though both of them had already been home from a few months to a year.

So, testimonies that we grow can be eternal. I keep hearing about how this is the most spiritual time of my life, and so far that has been right. But, I don't want this to be the peak. I heard a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley. I don't remember exactly how it went, but he talked about how the stronger his testimony grows, the quieter the Holy Ghost gets. So, even the president of the Church at the time had to be continually striving to listen to the prompting of the Spirit.

No matter what happens here, I know that I can always have these spiritual moments in my life. I know that the Book of Mormon is the most true book on the Earth, and that if we continue to read it and invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, then we can all have these spiritual moments throughout our entire lives.

Canada is Awesome!

I made it, and man, is it awesome around here!  Canada is awesome, even though I was a little surprised to see the Canadian maple leaf on almost everything, from the golden arches of McDonald's to the O in IHOP.  It's freakin' everywhere.

My first area here is a town called Leduc (pronounced like Le-Duke) but we also have a few other towns around us that we oversee.  My companion's name is Elder J. and he's awesome.  He is the most stereotypical missionary you'll ever see, but he's been a great trainer.  He's from Rigby, Idaho, has been out almost a year, and he's also the district leader.  The best thing I've learned from Elder J. so far is faith. He has a truck full of the stuff.

Elder J., Elder Hill, and President and Sister Pattison

We live in a "cozy" apartment by ourselves and we mostly knock on people's doors, trying to find investigators.  We have a few investigators, but only one of them is progressing.  I haven't met any of them yet because everyone is getting sick and it's been snowing.  It's pretty freakin' cold.  It's nothing I can't handle, but it still feels like a new ice age around here.  I guess it's called the Great White North for a reason, eh?

We did have a cool experience yesterday.  We were tracting (knocking on doors) and, after about house number 300 of the week, we were getting kind of discouraged.  But, we kept on keeping on and knocked on one last door.  A lady opened the door and we told her about how she can live with her family forever.  She just kind of looked at us and said, "Okay.  Come on in, then."  We couldn't believe it!  So, shaking off our stupor, we gratefully left the freezing outside and taught her and her two babies about the Plan of Salvation.  It was a welcome miracle after our slightly depressing morning.

We also have the best members up here.  One couple, Brother and Sister F. (the ones that most definitely sent my mom a Facebook friend request and some pictures) have helped us out by feeding us a ton of food.  Like a ton!  They are awesome though.  Brother F. has a fun sense of humor.  They gave us some "Kinder" eggs (big chocolate eggs with prizes in them).  Of course Brother F. thought it would be funny to get the pink ones, hoping for a girly prize.  So, sure enough, we've got some Barbies on our desks now.  We also met Brother and Sister T.  Brother T. is the best story teller ever.  He told us many "pearls of wisdom" as he calls them.

The coolest thing I've seen in Canada so far is probably the members of our ward. We've been fed pretty much every day and it's been great to meet so many awesome people.  Also, there are a ton of other Hills here. I haven't met any of them, but everyone keeps asking me if I'm related to like 20 other people.

"Life is too funny to take seriously, unless communing with God." - Brother T.

Final Push to the North

We're at the final push! The final advance! The "final destination"! The final.... something else that sounds final, I guess. Anyway, this is my last P-day before Canada happens. And I can't be more excited. I've been learning a ton, working a ton, eating a ton, sleeping a little, and having way more fun  than I ever thought I would. (And they told me it'd be a sacrifice.) Well, it's been a pretty awesome adventure so far.

Tuesday we had a devotional and we got to see the newest Church message for Easter. It's like that thing they did for Christmas, but we are almost the only ones, other than the apostles, that have seen it. It's awesome. I think it's called #PrinceOfPeace, but don't quote me on that. I guess you'll see it when it's released.

Elder K. from New Zealand prayed for snow... and then it snowed... a lot... but we did get to go to the temple again today. That's always fun.

In case you were wondering:

• All of the guys in my district are going to Canada, except for Elder P. who is going to Florida with the Sisters.
• My MTC companion is from Syracuse, Utah.
• I have consumed more chocolate milk than I am willing to admit.
• It has been awesome to go to the temple together with my district.  We've done endowment sessions twice now, and it's been really fun. There's also a cafeteria in the basement of the temple with really good food. 
• There are four Sisters in our district: Sister S. is the loud one of the group, her companion Sister C. is really excitable and quiet.  Sister C2 (aka Sister Savage--she's so savage) is always late for everything and she's really good at sports and beating people up, apparently.  Her companion is Sister J., the sweetest and most patient person here.

I love y'all and can't wait to get to Canada! See you then.

"A Giant Among Men"

In Training

Family moment while entering MTC

My adventure has been awesome so far.  I have never been in a place with so many like minded people.  My companion is Elder M. He is a really cool guy, and he lived in Utah too, but we are so very different from each other. He just came from doing some stuff in the Air Force, so he's really dedicated to tasks. He's really smart, and he's actually taller than me. In fact, I am only the third tallest in our district, which is super weird. We then have Elder K.  He is the best.  He's from New Zealand, is also taller than me, and he has an awesome personality. It's really fun to see him interact with stuff that is super American, like Twinkies, or the super sugary doughnuts in the MTC (which are amazingly unhealthy and I can't seem to ever finish one.)

We then have our district leader, Elder C., who is probably the smartest of the group. He's a lot more outspoken than he looks at first, but he's also an awesome person. And we have Elder P. who is companions with Elders K. and C.  He's kind of the sports guy of the group, but he always is a good sport about pretty much everything.

I'm really happy with my district and our progress in the first few days.  It's been a blast working with such awesome people. I couldn't have picked a better group I'd like to serve with.

I have learned a ton of amazing and not so amazing stuff here. One of the first things I've learned here is: medicine works.  Not really a fun lesson to learn, but I'd rather learn it now than later right? I got really sick the third day in and was struggling physically and mentally. But after medicine happened, it was like I finally found the cure for world hunger, or something not as dramatic, but just as applicable.

Another thing is: the food here is kinda like the weather. Sometimes it's super! And sometimes it's... not.  You never really know until it happens. Though I do have to say that I'm a huge fan of their fries here. I also had a really good Canadian cheese soup.

This lesson I learned was kind of hard for me. I'm not going to go too in depth, but I have been so blind to the Gospel!  Everything just makes way more sense now!  It's awesome!  We learned that the Holy Ghost can help us learn faster in the MTC, and it's so very true. Just practicing on each other has shown me just how far I've come in such a relatively short amount of time. And I am super excited about going even farther in preparing to serve in the "Great White North".

We taught our first practice investigator. Her name is Yui, and she is awesome. The whole time the Spirit was super strong, and Elder M. and I felt super awesome afterwards. We got her to the point where she said she will pray at the next lesson and pray about faith when reading Alma 32.

On Valentine's Day, we did service cleaning bathrooms, I got a moose and a ton of chocolate, I got to sing in a choir that was broadcast to every single other MTC in the world, and we got to hear a talk from M. Russell Ballard. All in all, it was an awesome day.

MTC District at Provo Temple

Looking back on how few days we've been here, it's crazy how close our district has gotten in just eight days. I got super buff at the gym on Wednesday, and also was super excited to go to the temple on Thursday.

Not counting the first Friday, this whole experience feels more like two days or less. And it's all been pretty much amazing. Thursday we finally got to go inside the temple and do an endowment session. And of course I learned some new stuff. But I think the really cool part is that we ate breakfast afterwards at the temple. Like inside the temple! Who even knew that was a thing? But hey I'm not complaining; it was some of the best bacon I've ever had.

I just want to let y'all know that this has been one of the best experiences of my life. I can hardly wait to get to Canada. YUKON HO!!!

Super Day

Super Smack Down

Saturday, 28 January 2017 - For one of my last days to play with my family before I go, I went with my dad and brother to Thanksgiving Point for their Superhero Day.  My sister was working at the event and we went down to see what she's been working on.  It was designed for younger kids, but we had fun dressing up (I'm the Nuclear Ninja for you Studio C fans) and it was fun seeing the little kids dressed up.  My sister was dressed as Kara/Supergirl, and a little girl thought she looked pretty real.  She followed Lia around for a while until her mom told Lia that Supergirl was her favorite and asked if she could take a picture with her.  It was very cute.

I also made up a super power for myself (I can fly--but only North), a superhero name (Compass Man), and drew a little comic strip about it.  (The bad guys flying a ship ahead of me got away by turning around.)

A Different Kind of Superhero

Last week I gave my farewell talk at church, and an open house reception the day before.  At the open house, we had a french fry bar with toppings for Canadian Poutine, Chilean Corrillana, Chili-Cheese fries, and loaded baked potatoes.  We made Canadian desserts of Butter Tarts and Beaver Tails, and my grandma brought cherry bars and Buckeye candies.  It was super good and we had a super turn out.  Thank you, everyone, who came to celebrate with me and wish me luck!

My sacrament meeting talk was about service, and especially missionary service.  A man who spoke with me quoted James 1:27 which essentially says that pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, which I think means to help and be with those who are lonely, distressed, or variously afflicted.   I'm glad that, as a missionary, not only will I be able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I will also be able to love and serve the Canadian people--to give blessings, to clean or mend or build or feed, or even just give a hug or pat on the back to let a person know that someone cares about them.

Family Heritage

Zempter Grandparents

I started out the new year visiting with family in St. George, Utah.  As I look back on the year just completed, I remember the summer trip we took to San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, western Nevada, and northern California.  With mountain passes, an alpine lake, vineyards, a magic show, the Golden Gate bridge, Chinatown and Star Trek locations, that was one of my favorite activities of the year.

For our New Year activities, we played lots of board games with the Zempters and watched some videos.  My family likes to celebrate low key, and we like to do all kinds of things together.

I began 2017 by attending church with my Hill grandparents.  The speakers were two sister missionaries, one from England who was in her thirties and had joined the church fairly recently.  She talked about how challenging experiences in her life brought her to where she was.  The other sister was from South Carolina, and she was very bubbly and talkative.  She was younger and very anxious to serve others.  They both were close to ending their missions and going home, and I think both were grateful for the chance they've had to serve.

Hill Grandparents

Also on the first day of the year, I watched some of "The District" episodes that are available on the Mormon Channel.  They give a lot of insight into the lives of missionaries and the people they teach and serve.  They are helping me be prepared for the adventure to come.

My goals for the new year (as you would probably expect) are to better learn the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be successful as a missionary, to draw closer to God through the Holy Ghost, and to love and serve others.

This week I'm planning to go to the temple and receive my "endowment".  If you are not already aware, the endowment ordinance is much like baptism or the sacrament in that it uses symbolism, wherein the participant demonstrates that they are making a covenant with God to keep His commandments and receive blessings associated with obedience to their principles.  (Baptism symbolizes death, cleansing, and rebirth.  The sacrament uses symbols of bread and water that we receive as reminders of the bodily sacrifice of Jesus Christ.)