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published January 24, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies!

[Title possibly refers to this joke.]

January 22, 2024

 

大家好！Hi Everyone! 

Great news, I have efficiently procrastinated my email until the end of P-day. Hooray me.

Highlights from this week include:

• A lot of people who joined our English class; we don’t know how many are actually interested in learning the gospel because we’re struggling to make return appointments
• We helped the same member as last week move his stuff to a storage unit
• Two people invited us to come into their homes!!!!!! One of them was a recent convert who we didn’t know very well, and the other was someone who had met the missionaries before; we tried to share a scripture with her but we couldn’t understand her, and she couldn’t understand us, and her dog was barking at 80 decibels in the background. Super chaotic, very funny time.
• First time trying Dairy Queen ever???. . . I’ve had the Blizzards before but I think this was my first DQ burger. Not too shabby, had some chonkin’ onion and tomato which is pretty cool. We also found a Vietnamese Sub sandwich place that was pretty cool.
• Our friend Roda brought two friends to church yesterday. I’ll be shocked if I find another person learning about the church who progresses the Lord’s work like she does–she is somehow doing a lot of missionary work.
• Cool songs on the radio this week:
  

• Oskar Wilhelmovitch Boheme [Unclear if this should be the trumpet concerto or the brass sextet, by Oskar Bohme.]
  

• Pejacevic Quartet Op. 58 mvt 3 (Reeeally good)

• Godfrey Ridout: Ballade n.1

I've been thinking a lot lately about the element of Mystery that the future holds. We never really know exactly what tomorrow will look like, and that can often be very frightening. However that can be kind of exciting and fun, too. I've been trying to enjoy more of the mysteries of the future and viewing each day as a day of pleasant surprises rather than unexpected dangers. Elder Gary Sabin says it pretty well: "When nothing is expected and everything is appreciated, life becomes magical"

Thanks for tuning into the fun chaos of this week! It’s still getting a little warmer here, and hopefully the skies will clear up as well. Stay warm everyone! And if you can't stay warm, stay cool!

 爱你们

-熊长老

 

Photos:

 Vietnamese Sub

 

Me attempting to smile next to "The Great L Log of Calgary" -- 10/10 recommend  [we recommend viewing Photos AND Google Reviews, right side of screen!]

 

 Elder Bigler Master Chef in the making

 

 I don't know who took this but they are a real artist

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Himalayas!

[Title references this clip from Monsters, Inc.]

January 15, 2024

 大家好！Yes Everyone! I’M STILL ALIVE!

Temperatures have been brutal this week but even that unhallowed hand cannot stop the good work! Not gonna lie though, there were some close calls this week. We tried putting some fliers on people’s windshields when it was between -25 and -28 Fahrenheit. The job was about 7 minutes. I made the grave mistake of wearing fingerless gloves ‘cause I thought I would grip the fliers better. Within two minutes my fingers were numb. Within six minutes the very tips of my fingers started turning a slight shade of white, at which point I said, “hmm, that ain’t right” and jumped back in the car. Luckily I didn’t contract frostbite and my fingers warmed up just in time to get beat up at basketball on Friday :] Still better than Elder Scoresby, who got his tongue stuck on a pole yesterday. Classic.

We taught a kinda sloppy prayer lesson last week to our friend Yinli, and we couldn’t tell if he really understood prayer. We followed up with him about that in our lesson this week, and he said he’s been praying before dinner EVERY DAY!! What a guy! Good things are ahead!

Transfers were this week! We lost Elder Labrum, who is now serving English-speaking (in the exact same area). I’m staying in the Northwest, and I got out of training just in time to train Elder Bigler. The last couple days have been a little difficult adjusting to new ways of missionary-ing, and I’ve been told a lot of my imperfections. However I think we’ll adjust well in the next week or two. I’m excited to see how this transfer goes.

In other news, we helped a member move a bunch of random stuff from his house to a storage unit. There’s been some messy stuff with changing houses and he’s somewhat homeless for the moment, but we’re pretty sure things will work out in another week or two.

On Sunday we were encouraged by the mission president to stay home from church because of the terrible weather. Thus we had an opportunity to watch sacrament meeting from home, where we saw the rest of the district there *d'oh*

A fun miracle happened with my mission card! I lost it about 10 days ago and this last week after I put it on hold I was looking for it. I was praying and looking in a lot of places. We looked at Walmart since that was the last purchase I made, and I said a little prayer before pulling in and kinda had an inkling that if it was anywhere it would be here. We went to customer service and they didn’t find anything. Bummer. My inkling might’ve been wrong. We went home and I searched the car some more, and then 10 minutes later Walmart called and said they found it!!! God does answer prayers everyone! Never really in the ways we expect, but they are always answered. It’s also nice that God gives us some common sense and some agency, to help answer our prayers and our questions.

That’s mostly it guys. This week is warming up, so Hopefully we get to see a lot more people! Either way, stay warm everyone!

爱你门!

–熊长老

照片：

Me making the “how do I take a selfie” face while helping a member move

 Arrabiata :)  [try the recipe! video demo]

 

turkey club from Tim's

 

yikes. Just yikes.

 

 

 

 

"There Is Now a Level Zero"

 [Title references this line from Kung Fu Panda.]

 

January 8, 2024

 

大家好！Hey Everyone!

Canada really made a comeback this week with the cold. About an hour ago it was -19°C/-5°F and it’s only gonna go downhill this week. The tropical December weather was nice while it lasted, but now the Great White North seems to have changed its attitude saying, “No more Mr. Nice Guy, eh?”

We got a new missionary this week!!! Elder Bigler came on Thursday, a week earlier than transfers. He’s joining our companionship for this week until we hear about what’s actually happening to him, but that meant we got to go to lunch with the APs and the Mission President when he came in! Elder Bigler is really cool; he’s very nice and very quiet. We’ve been throwing him into a bunch of missionary situations, so he's getting a trial by fire right now -- pretty epic.  I’m excited to see the “dragon warrior” he develops into with us over the next several months.

This week consisted of a lot of handing out English class fliers and a little more door-knocking than usual. We started putting some fliers on people’s dashboards by grocery stores or restaurants where we think the Euro-Canadians wouldn’t go as much. We went knocking on doors for an hour on Friday because we didn’t have anything better to do at that time. It didn’t go so well until we had looped back around to where our car was parked and we knocked on a door. . . and we had a REAL CONVERSATION with a guy!! He stepped outside for a minute and made a somewhat cynical joke, and then we just talked for about 5 minutes about work, neighborhoods, weather, all of that stuff. He said he had met with missionaries before and had friends who were Latter-day Saints. I tried to ask him more about his experience but couldn’t actually get the full question out, and he seemed a little hesitant to talk about it. I was glad I could talk to him though! If he has good friends like he said, then he’ll be in good hands when he really wants to find more truth.

Yesterday we had a very cool, Spirit-led lesson with an old man who signed up for English class and agreed to meet with him again. During the prior English Evaluation, he said he did a road trip in the States and was really impressed by the temples in Utah and Montana. He was curious about what made the Church different from others. On Sunday we made a big plan to teach the Restoration and we prepped some scriptures, but when the time came we found that we needed to talk more about temples and God’s plan. He seemed very interested and eager in learning about eternal families, and we set up a chapel tour with him. We look forward to sharing more with him (and maybe some friends that he brings as well!) That’s now one of my new favorite ways to approach lessons—prepare well beforehand, then improvise in the moment.

Concerning some of our friends:

• Roda is perhaps more active than a lot of our members, and she asks really good questions. She said she wanted to read the entire Book of Mormon before receiving baptism, but lately she said she’s not so sure if she should wait anymore. One of her best friends has been telling her bad stuff about the church, but she seems pretty well grounded, so hopefully there will be some more understanding there.

   

• John (or Johnson?) hasn’t met with us for a bit since hearing about the Restoration, but he’s very responsive to our texts, which is nice. He starts a new job today requiring some heavy machinery, which he’s a little nervous about, so we’ve been trying to send some encouragement his way.

I learned some cool things this week include the following:

1. A “French Vanilla” is in fact a type of coffee, not a hot chocolate (huge bummer).
2. There are few things that make me feel more racist than doing a role play with a companion, exemplifying a Chinese person trying to learn English.
3.  I've had a hard time appreciating a lot of songs on the Church music app. However in exploring a little bit, I found an occasional gem, such as a cover of "I Stand All Amazed" on an album called Praise! Such a banger. It also had another fairly decent track of "I Need Thee." The USU choirs singing "As Shepherds Watched" is always a favorite, too.

 I had a little moment this week when reading something about the gospel and lasting happiness, and I thought, “wait a minute. . . What does lasting happiness actually look like on Earth?  There are so many ups and downs every week, how do you make happiness something that lasts?” While stewing over that this week, I found a Gospel Topics entry on the subject that had some interesting concepts, like how “even the opportunity to experience adversity” can be considered a blessing for our lasting happiness. My paradigm is shifting somewhat from viewing happiness as an object we can’t quite acquire for long enough, to a cycle of good and bad moments that build us up to be better people. The scriptures are full of verses explaining how miserable moments have potential to bring great joy: “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22); “because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy” (Moses 5:10)' “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so… righteousness could not be brought to pass” (2 Nephi 2:11).… Soooo if you’re having a rough minute, there’s good news! Good moments are ahead, and Jesus’ grace will help you when you open up to him. That’s my mini testimony for the day, enjoy the cycle.

Stay warm everyone! Have a grand ol’ week.

爱你们！

-熊长老

Epic personal study of Lehi's dream

 

Dumplings we made with a member on New Year's Day

 

 

 

What are you doin' New Year?

 [Title may reference this song.  Hard to tell.]

January 1, 2024

 

新年快乐！Happy New Year Everyone! Yet another year in the bag! Which bag? I don't know. (The Krampus bag, perhaps?)

Does anyone have any cool traditions? In talking to a lot of people here, it seems like Canada celebrates the New Year strictly at the pub. I suppose that would be a good place for the other two common traditions I can think of—watching a flat screen TV late at night and setting fanciful wishes to forget the next morning. Vienna might have my favorite celebration so far with their Philharmonic Concert.

Fun Fact, missionary work takes a little while to kick back into gear after a three day holiday. So, while we were doing stuff this week, it felt a little slow and unproductive. . . here’s a little update on some friends though.

• Rhoda invited our whole district to lunch on Wednesday as well as two of her friends. It was a really powerful discussion and it seemed like everyone went home a little better. Her friends also attended church for the first time this Sunday.

• Our friend John, who we took to the nativity, met with us online this week. We made an attempt to explain the plan of salvation to him in Chinese, and it sure was an attempt! He’s been reading the Book of Mormon a lot which is really cool! He says the stories are really interesting.

   

We met a guy at a train station Saturday night who my companion said could’ve been Joe Rogan. I don’t know about that one, but he seemed like an interesting guy—a traveling comedian who was a huge fan of Larry Bird (noice!) and who had a degree or two in theology. He said he was a little angry at God for some tragic stuff that happened to his family. I couldn’t find a good response or a good moment to respond, but I hope at least talking basketball was somewhat helpful for him.

Interviews with the Mission President were on Thursday. It went well, he had some good pointers for feeling inadequate early in the mission. I’m always surprised at how aware he is about the missionaries and their well-being. I’m really lucky he’s our Mission Leader.

Aight, here’s the idea I’ve had regardless of how much I’ve been mocking resolutions. The Lord made an earth for us that is full of change. Seasons change, leaf-colors change, the position of the sun changes throughout a day and throughout a year, animals change, MOUNTAINS change. If all of these can change, then think of what that means for you and me. We too can change, and Jesus Christ has offered the way for us the quickest, most lasting change. I hope you are as excited as I am for this year, to see how we can become better through the experiences God allows us to have as well as the choices we make.

That’s about all there was from this week. Hope the holidays treated you well! Happy 2024! And Enjoy the Christmastide!!

爱你们！

-熊长老

(I sure was slacking this week with the camera, soory)

 

Boxing Day at the mall.