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.)