You had one job.

 [Title references this common phrase.]

19 August 2024

Wowwwwww.  Great News, I fumbled the email. I sold. I done messed up. Here's what happened, Spark Notes edition.

Taught a random lady 2 hours south over the phone, she's now on date for baptism.

Went on a great exchange and learned a lot about being more bold. Also saw some deranged gal in the streets in blackface??? Don't know for sure, very strange moment.

Found some new friends.

Here's the one part I didn't fail at completely! One of the other Elders shared a really cool message the other day! This was a “Hear Him” video from President Jeffery R. Holland, and he extends a great invitation: start your evening prayers earlier and be more earnest in prayer. I'd invite you all to try this with me this week and try praying a little earlier each night than you usually would. I'll get back to you with some blessings next week, but just know that God always wants to talk with you.

Prayers up for Sam, we don't know much about how he's doing right now.

Feel free to reach out - if you want somewhere to vent, I'm happy to listen

Stay cool! 爱你们！
-熊长老

照片：https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6

 Calgary in the rain

Duck dinner

The Vanishing Man

12 August 2024

大家好！Hey Everyone!

This whole mission thing is really one of the strangest things ever. Each week feels quicker than the last, and each week I also feel more exhausted than the last. 

Here's a funny/not-so-funny story about a pattern we've noticed. There's a retired couple couple occasionally invites us and the friends we're teaching over for dinner. We always have to leave early for another appointment, and then the friends stick around after dinner. . . And we never see them again… aka they often avoid contact with us…. isn't that spooky! 

This happened to our friend Fred back in February, and it happened again this week to a guy the other Elders were teaching who got so mad about the idea of paying tithes that he told the missionaries he didn't want to talk to them again (yikes). It almost happened to our friend Sam!! He came to dinner with us, and then after we left the dinner, he didn't respond with much to our texts! We were SOOO worried about him! And then yesterday we saw a HUGE tender mercy! 

Sam answered our call, and we had a short conversation about his week, and then he sent us a voice memo saying he was concerned about his son who came to Canada and won't get off his phone! He asked if there were church activities that could help! We're so relieved he still has some interest in church! We have to take him off date for baptism for a bit, because he's not ready to make big commitments yet, so we're going to keep prepping him for sometime later to be determined. Prayers for Sam and his son! I'm pretty confident he's going to pull through soon!

The rest of this week was weird. Elder McAffee kicked the bucket and left for his home in Ohio, so Elder Pace got to hang out with us for a couple days before he got kicked out of Mandarin [district] to be a Zone Leader! Wild. It was a good week of humble tomfoolery and what not.

….okay, I really don't know what else to tell you besides some thought I wrote down in my study notes this week:

“I am the light of the world.”

One of the great discoveries of the 20th century was the dual nature of light over several finds by Einstein and others. It has been determined that light is both a particle and a wave—a paradox in a way, two different states that somehow coexist. Christ then is the same. He is the “Son of God” and the “Son of Man,” He is the “Father and the Son,” the “Alpha and Omega” the one being without sin and the one being who endured every sin. To each individual he brings Justice and he grants Mercy. Christ is dual in nature, that is why he is the light of the world. That may why he can, through his atonement, change us from one state to another if we are willing, from carnal to saintly.

This week I'd invite you to find some trait or some thing about yourself that you really want to improve, and then talk to God through prayer and ask him to help you change it. I'm gonna pray for God to help change my nature more towards tidying up my dishes (oops). If we are willing, God will change our hearts and our natures for greater capacity for joy!

Take care everyone! Stay Cool! Love you all! 爱你们！

-熊长老

照片：https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6

 

Elder Bang leaving the area

 

Elder McAffee and us at Denny's

 

Some Devious Burgers we cooked up today

 

Didn't expect this here

 

 

 

 

 

Intermission and Poetry

[The title is a cool/terrible dad joke about being halfway through the mission.]

5 August 2024

大家好！Hey Everyone!

Not gonna lie. . . this week was kinda *gulp* boring. Maybe a little ungrateful of me to say, but there just didn’t seem to be a lot happening for most of the week. Here are some small highlights though:

Sam has had a hard time keeping some commitments as well as he’d like. He has a hard time saying no to his landlord and friends when they’re together and passing around a bottle of beer. Any advice? We changed his baptismal date back a week, but I think we oughta make sure he’s really committed first.
Remember the family that came to church last time? Maybe you do? We taught them a lesson on Tuesday, and when I say we taught them a lesson it was more like they told us all about Joseph Smith’s first vision and the Book of Mormon, and also all about baptism and how they want to become more familiar with the church before being baptized. They showed up with their daughter to Mandarin church this time *oooh, aaaah* and texted us afterward saying they will come next week as well! Super cool!

JOHN GOT BAPTIZED!!!! Y’all don’t really know John and that’s because I never taught him, but basically John is this 16 year old kid who’s been showing up to church for about two years but hasn’t been baptized because his parents haven’t let him. Elder McAffee somehow knew him really well throughout his whole mission, and this July he and Elder Pace both went to visit John every week and help out with random stuff. His Mom then miraculously gave the okay for a baptism for August 4th, and so Elder McAffee got to baptize John on his last Sunday in Calgary!

So now that I’ve written all that, the week looks a lot less boring. Weird.

As of this Tuesday or Wednesday, I’ll have been a missionary for a year. Also weird. The great poet Bon Jovi truly said it it best when he uttered the timeless words, "Wooaaaaaahhh we're halfway there!"

This week I tried to be more open and honest with God in my prayers, and it was actually really good! I received a lot of interesting insights and a lot more emotional help from God. This week I’d invite you all to be really open and honest with God in your prayers; tell Him how you feel, how the day is going. I promise that God will be able to help you better the more you communicate with him. (Then you too can say, as the great poet said, "Oooaaaaaaooooooooohhhhhhh! Livin' on a Prayer!")

Stay cool everyone! Love you all! 爱你们！

-熊长老


照片：https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6

good food

John's Baptism

"Had us in the first half, not gonna lie."

[Title references this meme.]

29 July 2024

大家好！Hey Everyone!

So basically this week was long and dry and boring as all get-out until the last two days! Prepare yourselves for a couple f a t paragraphs about some willy-nilly silliness that somehow always works out well and swell which we like to call “missionary work.”

As mentioned Tuesday–Friday were mostly uneventful. There were a lot of miscellaneous finding activities plus a lesson with Sam where we talked once more about the commitment not to drink alcohol.

Saturday was a good day. We did a chapel tour by the temple, and so we got to show a family around the inside of the chapel, as well as around the outside temple grounds. They said they wanted to come to the nearby English ward the next day. We then left that meeting to go play some music for a severely autistic kid named Louie, which was really neat. He had a bad fever and was unhappy, which was less neat, but we got to know the family a little bit and they are really amazing! We're going over again next week.

Sunday was a truly miraculous sequence of tender mercies. We traveled 15 minutes up to the church by the temple to meet THE SQUAD that pulled up! Our friend who was given a church tour brought his wife, his two kids, and three friends?!?! As we walked in with them, we noticed an acute tactical error which we had made by showing up to what was apparently the Young Single Adult meeting with a big family (oops). They all said they didn't understand the meeting (go figure), and so we're hoping to see them in the Mandarin Ward next week. As we said goodbye to the squad, we recognized Leon, a YSA friend from China we recently met, who said he wanted to attend the Mandarin Ward but didn't have a way to get there. We met him just in time to call our bishop, who lived down the street from the building, to give him a ride! As we arrived at church, we bumped into Sam! We worried he wouldn't be coming to church, since he never responded to our invite, so it was a good surprise, and we were able to teach him a short lesson before the meeting. Just as the meeting started, we were given a bag of hot dog buns leftover from a children's Primary activity. After the meeting, we talked to a member of the ward, who told us he has not been paid by his employer for over two months!! (Mega-yikes!) We were able to give him a priesthood blessing, and we also blessed him up with the hot dog buns, which he was really excited about. “I can make a lot of stuff with these!” The day ended off well with all the Mandarin missionaries going to dinner with a member of the Stake Presidency and good friend Brother Hill.

This week's reading for me included some cool ideas, like the idea that we don't need to wait anxiously to see if we can enter God's Kingdom after this life, but we can actually “Build the Kingdom of God” on the earth right now! The two greatest commandments God has given involve improving our relationships, both divine and mortal. The whole reason for Christ's sacrifice of the Atonement is to reconcile the relationship of all mankind back to God. We can truly bring more of heaven on earth by treating others the way Christ would. The Prophet’s invitation still stands, to reach out to the one. This week let's find one thing we can do to improve our relationships with others! I know the more we help others, the more joy we ourselves experience.

Stay cool everyone! Love you all! 爱你们！

-熊长老


照片

Elder Horsley jamming to songs out of season

smoke

don't know where this came from but it's funny to me

Food! (Costco Souvlaki and Chinese cuisine)

games after Sunday dinner

POV you're Louie