大家好！Hey Everyone!
Big news from this week:
MICHAEL WAS BAPTIZED YESTERDAY!!!
It was a super special day; he told me afterward that he
felt very peaceful and somewhat relieved. This is the first baptism out here
I’ve seen/participated in where things seemed to go relatively smoothly. There
was a miraculous number of people who are being taught that attended too! It’s
usually extremely hard to get other friends to attend a baptism.
Elder Labrum and I also felt a bit of opposition leading up to Sunday, which was interesting. After Zone Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, we both felt super poop*d and tired, and on Friday Elder Labrum got super sick and nauseous so we did a lot of online proselyting and studying. By Saturday we were feeling better and actually had a cool experience in the morning by stopping by someone previously taught by missionaries. We were welcomed into their house and had a nice 20 minute chat with a guy named Richard. We have high hopes for future visits!
All of the challenges from this week paled in difficulty to
Sunday morning when I tried to stitch up a hole in my pants. It was a fantastic
learning experience. I learned that sewing has got to be the most aggravating
thing a body can do. Huge respect to everyone out there who can sew.
Tuesday brought a fun surprise with the visit of some neighbors [from home]! I’m always amazed at the familiar faces that pass through Calgary!
I had a cool epiphany during personal study this week. I was thinking about the concept of “Kingdoms of Glory” or degrees of heaven while looking at a few resources referencing revelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants that bring this doctrine to restored light. It occurred to me that the word “Kingdom” also applies to animals as a classifier in order to differentiate between them. Likewise a “Celestial Kingdom” of heaven may be more of a class of people—the kind of person we’ve chosen to become—as opposed to an exclusive gated community only for those who've deposited enough good works to enter. Dallin H. Oaks reminds us too, “In contrast to other preaching, which teaches us to know something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something.”
This week I'd invite you to think a little bit about who
you'd like to become, and identify one aspect or one thing you can do to help
you get there. Joy truly does come through growth and achievement, and through
the Christ who enables us to do that
Have a great week and stay cool! . . .Actually though it's h*cka hot outside so stay cool for real!
Love you all! 爱你们！
-熊长老
[Side note for all email recipients: I'm gonna start putting all my photos in a shared album in the attempt to help everyone's email storage, some earlier photos are kinda scrambled.]
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6
照片
Dinner with Neighbors!
Elder Chapman's Last Zone Conference
Leaf? [Can you find the moth?]
Baptism (featuring 7 year-old Chase)
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