[The title references this episode from Tumbletown Tales - a Canadian classic!]
October 23, 2023
Hey everyone! How are we all doing? How's the good ol' Halloween prep going?
I saw a couple posts here and there about the Solar Eclipse! Did any of you get to see it? I heard it was pretty epic. I don’t think the eclipse path went over Canada, and if it did I wouldn’t have seen it because it was so cloudy last Saturday. We did get 2 or 3 days of blue skies though, and one other day of rain! That was kind of a nice contrast to the overcast that I’ve seen most of my time here so far.
Missionary work looks just slightly different for me than I imagined it. We don’t do a lot of the stereotypical knocking on doors since there aren’t any close communities of Chinese speakers - they’re mostly dispersed throughout all the suburbs. We do a little street contacting here and there, which isn’t very effective. So alternatively we hung up flyers for English class on Tuesday. . . and Wednesday. . . and Thursday… and every day this week and probably every day next week, etc. It’s REEEALLY monotonous but it is (believe it or not) the most effective way of finding people who are interested in the gospel. At least the most effective that we know of. It also brings back a lot of Tumbletown Tales references that are funny to me.
Aight, enough of that depressing banter – Some silly little things from this week include the following:
I’ve seen two pipe organs in Calgary so far, one at our church with the mandarin branch, and one at the Stake Center that I got to play on P-Day. There weren’t a lot of stops, but the sound was really cool (pedals went down to 16').
I had a glimpse of heaven this week, and I am fortunate enough to receive many more. After every Tuesday District Council, we go to a little “Italian” pizzeria for lunch and for $3.00 you can get a FAT slice of - wait for it - DÖNER PIZZA! It sounds wild, I know, especially for all you who are asking yourselves “what’s döner?” but trust me it’s so good! Other food adventures include my first time at Tim Horton’s on Saturday. Not too shabby.
Gettin' Timmie's
There’s a member family that feeds our district pancakes every Wednesday. They are some of the most helpful, most hard working members I know of (perhaps even better missionaries than the missionaries :\ )
There’s a member family that feeds our district pancakes every Wednesday. They are some of the most helpful, most hard working members I know of (perhaps even better missionaries than the missionaries :\ )
The
Zone Leaders live down the street from us and on Wednesday evening they
pulled a grisly prank on my companion. They came into our apartment
and said they were told to do a device-audit of my companion’s phone. He
was really freaking out since he just got his Facebook back, even
despite the hyena chuckling coming from the zone leaders. It was kinda
scary in the moment, but looking back it’s a little more funny.
Now the meat and potatoes of the week include the following:
We found a lady on Tuesday to join our English class! She’s working really hard to raise a family and also learn English and also try and get her husband over here from China. Imma keep her in my prayers for sure.
There’s a lot of classes at the church on Wednesday, and we met a guy named Mohammad after one of them. His family’s Iranian, He’s a scholar at the University, and he’s one of the most sincere truth-seekers I’ve seen! We had an awesome little conversation about eternal truths found in both the Islam faith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What an inspiring guy.
Thursday was So. incredibly. s l o w w w. It had its moments though; we went to the northmost train/bus station in Calgary, and one lady actually accepted a flyer from us!! That’s a huge win in my book, I hope she contacts us soon about it.
All of our 2 lessons we have every week happen on Fridays, where we teach Jun and Winson. Jun is kinda on a plateau where he wants to learn more about the Church, but he’s really hesitant to be baptized - and there’s not a whole lot more to teach him. Winson is really busy studying business at the University, but I think he's slowly opening up to more of our invitations. Both lessons were about the Book of Mormon which was really cool. Big testimony builder for sure.Friday was also cool 'cause we got a lot of service in! We helped an old German lady from Kaiserslautern who's in the process of moving into a new house. We also helped a Taiwanese member with her lawn, and she and her friend treated us with some Popeye's afterward. They were surprisingly witty and fun to talk to.
Taiwanese members at Popeye's
We
got a call on Saturday that a lady in the hospital requested a
priesthood blessing. She was in her 70s and suffered from a stroke in
her home. The hospital had nowhere to park (classic) so we did a good
amount of walking, but eventually we made it to the right room. It was
so interesting that even though the Canadian hospital was sketchy as H*ck,
there was still a really peaceful spirit in the room during the
blessing. It was a really cool experience and she was so grateful.
Enjoy the warm weather while you can everyone! Tomorrow it's about to reach a high of 12°F/-11°C :\
Take care you guys! Love you all!
-熊長老
-熊長老
Photos:
park inside Calgary city
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