One of the most surprising lessons I've experienced happened on Wednesday evening. We were surprised to see someone unexpected on our phone screen, and it turns out that during the 10 minutes prior, I wasn’t texting the person I thought I was. I was surprised again when in the middle of testifying of God’s blessings in my life, the woman we were teaching blurted out, “That's great…but you don't look all that happy about it."
And that really got me thinking. A lot of times I approach people here saying that I am “sharing a message of joy and happiness” in their area, but there are some days when I really don’t feel it as much. But I think the gospel of Jesus Christ offers something else constant and deep:
Love
It's real cheeky of me to write about that this week, I know. But after all is said and done, after the box of chocolates is mostly empty and your stomach ache has passed, the pure love of Christ is really one of the biggest blessings that we can receive! The Love of God can bring joy, and it is what will endure all hardships. I can't confidently say I've felt joy every day in this mission, but make no mistake, I really have felt God's love every day out here. Your Heavenly Father loves you so much! If you're not sure, then ask Him! He won't hesitate to show His love for you, I can promise you that.
A story by Elder Baer. You're welcome!
Other miracles from this week include:
I found my winter coat! I had lost it at the church a week prior, and then some members helped me find it!
Our friend prayed about her daughter obtaining a student permit, and she got a response back that said she was definitely eligible! She said she was so grateful for prayer.
[Title references this scene from Veggie Tales' "Josh and the Big Wall."]
10 February 2025
大家好！Hello Friends
I don't think anything went according to plan this week. It was Epic! We woke up to a few surprises several days this week including, but not limited to - Sudden schedule of interviews with the mission president - Someone trying to meet us online to join our English class at 8:30 … that's actually about it, I suppose it is pretty limited. Weird that our schedule changed 2 days in a row before we even got to planning.
I'm continually impressed with God's mercy and miraculous work, even when His children don't see it! Here's the story: We got a call from some sister missionaries expressing that they needed to do a pass off lesson with us. All of us met with a lady named Xiuyan for the very first time. Xiuyan had been going to a Chinese Baptist church for a long time, but she has experienced some family troubles and was looking for guidance, so she actually walked in to a chapel in Calgary and said she felt overwhelmed by peace. There also JUST HAPPENED to be a Mandarin Book of Mormon in the foyer that she took with her! Our pass-off lesson happened 6 days after that on Saturday, and she seemed eager to make a goal for baptism! …and then she texted the Sisters the next day and said she "researched” the Book of Mormon and said she should stick to reading the Bible and go back to the Baptist church. *yet another facepalm* The good news is that if God is able to pull miracles like that, He won't stop anytime soon. I now have a lot more sympathy for Moses and the Israelites who were very quick to forget God and very quick to remember Egypt.
We also got to help push some cars up a freeway exit! It was a fun time. Calgary's negligence regarding road conditions makes for great service opportunities!
After 19 years of my life I finally understood the first sentence of Ether 12:27 "And if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness." That is to say the more we follow God the more pain we may experience from our imperfections. This is especially evident in the exchange between Jesus Christ and the "rich young ruler." We may experience more pain as we see how slowly our weaknesses become strong, but the process is real and it does happen! If you feel crippled by many weaknesses, don't stress! Ask God to help you strengthen one of them this week (I'm focusing on being more clean and organized with my belongings). If you don't know where to start, ask God! Like the young ruler he will show you your weakness, but he will also help in healing.
新年快乐！恭喜发财！How has the Year of the Snake treated everyone? We woke up this morning to a nice -26°C/-15°F, so we definitely know more what it's like to be cold blooded. Hope everyone's temperatures are warmer, but let me know if you reach a new high score!
Some of our friends seemed really agitated in our meetings with them, which was strange and difficult. After reading Joseph Smith's account of his vision, Cancan erupted into saying she didn't care about the visions or what scriptures were true since all of the religions are similar anyway…, and then Wong Lei brought up a question about who picks the Prophet, which was really a way to express that he now thinks the Church is evil because we believe in living prophets. We did meet with a couple other friends that are doing alright!
Our Chinese New Year party was on Saturday! The turnout was really good this year and they had a live Kung Fu demonstration! We also saw a friend named Yan show up! We met him on Wednesday at while handing out fliers, and we got to talk to him for a few minutes after he asked why we don't drink coffee. He was thrilled to hear we had a New Year activity.
I had a kind of epiphany phrase come to mind this week during my personal study, and I'm sure it's come from some other podcast or talk, but I was thinking about the application of the atonement, and realized, “applying Christ's Atonement in our lives allows us to practice ‘At-one-ment’ with other people.” Think about some ways you can be better “At one” with other people or with God this week! The unity made possible by Jesus Christ can truly bring lasting joy!
Some lessons brought an opportunity to put faith in God’s ability to change people’s hearts. We saw a glimpse of this as our friend came to church on Sunday and then told us with a kind of dazed look, “I need to think about a lot of things; I no longer know what religions are true or not.”
I learned how my happiness really does depend on my focus, no matter what the circumstances are or what has been said.
Agency is key in God’s work, and we pray more to align our will with God’s instead of just the things we want.
I learned the importance of teaching simply, something that I can practice now that I understand it.
I think this is part of what our Prophet meant by his phrase “Think Celestial.” As we have a higher perspective on our lives, we will notice many beautiful things that we wouldn’t notice otherwise. We can have the perspective that enables us to “make those doors easier to get through” that may stump us in our path. If you have a chance, review the words of the Prophet, and find an issue that you could “Think Celestial” about.
I’m gonna be a little bold and straight up for a minute. Do you want to see power beyond all earthly comprehension? Serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I gained a testimony this week of the reality that God is in relentless pursuit of his children. We met with our friend Jing two weeks ago, and he was in awe of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then he stopped communicating with us, and we were worrying. On Tuesday another companionship in our district met him downtown and told him about the opposition to the church that he’d discovered. Jing said that interaction was directed by God. We later heard from the one member he knew that he met Jing on Saturday!
Our other friends are doing well! We had a few people come to church for the first time! One lady said she had actually been to church once near BYU Hawaii several years ago, and another guy said he had attended a hike with the ward a year and a half ago!
Everyone go read the Sacrament entry on the church’s “Topics and Questions”! I looked at this yesterday and I was impacted by the clarity with which this article explained the ordinance of the sacrament, what it means, and why it is important. The ideas of preparing for the sacrament especially left an impression on me. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about what I should do to prepare for the sacrament, I’ve just showed up to church and been there. I’ve tried to focus my thoughts on the Savior, but I can see that good preparation will help that go even smoother.
Also, please pray for Wong Lei! He’s on date for baptism this Sunday, and his life has been CRAZY! We’re really hoping he can meet with us this week to prepare things in time for his baptism.
Greater news! God is doing a “marvelous work and a wonder!” Here are a few wonderful moments this week, when I marveled at the things that God was doing.
Wong Lei met previously with missionaries and would always bring up some weird concern right before his baptism date. We have him on date for the end of January, and when we reviewed the baptismal questions, he didn’t have any problems! Plus, his 10-year-old son has been telling him that they should be going to church more. What a big miracle!
Cancan has been keeping commitments! When we followed up with her on Friday about her prayers, she told us, “It was exactly like you said! I asked God for something, and he didn’t give it to me, but later he gave me something that was even better!” She also surprised us by reading several chapters in the Book of Mormon -- another big miracle!
I went on an exchange with Elder Wells in an English area, and he managed to get the numbers of 5-6 interested people within 25 minutes! They were also all about 15 years old, which made me marvel as well lol.
Side notes: I had a cool realization in bridging English and Chinese writing. An online Chinese dictionary that I use has an entry about an influential Tang dynasty poet named Du Fu (杜甫) and includes some samples of his writing. In these samples, there was a very common pattern of 5 syllable phrases, or 7 syllable phrases. Then I later recited the Chinese translation of Joseph Smith’s first vision, and realized the syntax patterns were very similar:
我看见一道光柱 [I saw a beam of light]
正在我头上 [on my head]
比太阳的光还亮 [brighter than the sun's light]
缓缓降下来 [lower slowly]
直到落在我身上 [until it falls on me.]
光停在我身上时 [When the light stops on me]
我看见两位人物 [I saw two people]
Anyway ... I don’t know what you’ll do with that info, but I think it’s interesting.
Speaking of language, this week I’d invite you all to give three intentional compliments. I’m trying to focus on giving more compliments this week, since I feel like there’s often some good stuff I think about other people, but I’m not always that articulate about it. So I figure I’m going to rope you all into this as well. Words do matter. They have a “more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else” (Alma 31:5). As we use our words to see others the way that God sees them, and see the potential that God sees, we will feel a divine love that will bless us and our neighbors plentifully.
We have P-day on New Year's Day apparently, and it's been a phat minute since I've given you any sort of sneak peak into Calgary. So here's some highlights from the last few weeks:
Concert!!! On the 21st we had the most epic opportunity for all of the missionaries in Calgary to go to see Jenny Oaks Baker perform! They had a great singer from Ireland named Alex Sharpe perform as well! It turned out to be a really uplifting experience and some great messages about Christ's ministry. Man…I've really missed being in a concert hall.
Christmas Christmas was surprisingly busy. Elder Bigler and I went street contacting on Christmas Eve, and I learned that the Christmas holidays are perhaps, somehow, the most difficult days to share the gospel. Everyone is WAY too busy celebrating Christ’s birth to hear about his enabling power. I think this kind of irony is common, though. I mean, even the Jews were celebrating the feast of Christ’s Atonement on the very evening He was crucified. Anywho. We had some cool meals with families in our ward that took up most of Christmas day, and then we had a district finding activity on Boxing Day ... finding the best deal at the mall! I got a good scarf out of it.
Friends: The friends we’ve started teaching are SO AWESOME! Lemme tell you about them!
Shawn - I met Shawn on an exchange with Elder Pace, and he didn’t want to talk until I asked the classic “你会讲中文吗,” [Do you speak Chinese?] and then we’ve had a lesson and a chapel tour, and he’s got a ton of copies of the Book of Mormon that he’s studying! Super epic.
Quinn was referred also by Elder Pace, but he’s been going to Christian churches for 20 years, and he said he had a good experience in the Mandarin Ward (also a miracle), and said he’s thinking about being baptized somewhere.
Cancan - This girl has got to be one of my favorite people I’ve ever taught on the mission. She’s going to school for her master’s in science right now. We found Cancan near the mall, and she was really enthralled by whatever Elder Bigler and I were saying. So she took a Book of Mormon on the spot, set up a church tour, and came to church. She asks the most profound, deep questions and isn’t afraid to challenge an idea we teach for a few moments, but so far things have been going well.
Church was so awesome this Sunday! We strayed from the 5th-Sunday lesson about seminary and got all of the new friends in the district together in a classroom to teach about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ! It was a super good discussion.
I heard this great idea for New Years that I want to pass on! Goals can be exhausting and frustrating at times, but consider writing down 10 things you already do well and think about how you can do a little better at each of those! This can be much less daunting than finding new goals entirely.
That’s it for this week! Stay warm everyone! Love you all! Elder Baer 熊长老
照片：(photos Might be mixed up a little) https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6
Jenny Oaks Baker Concert!
Christmas Mahjong (Shout out to district 04-H for getting me hooked, miss you boys)
I am pretty surprised by how few quiet moments I've had over the Christmas "break" to write an email, some of which may or may not be due to my poor time management *gulp* but I've got a second right now to bust out an email. The week has been pretty good.
The pattern of purging my apartment continues! I don't know what the high score is for the mission, but I'd be interested to see how mine would compare by the end of the mission. Elder Kim and I were both exiled from Cardston and sent back to Calgary to our respective language areas. Yay for Mandarin again!
The kicker, though, is that God has a fabulous sense of humor, because he put me back with Elder Bigler, my trainee, for the 3rd transfer or more. This might be an exciting transfer and a very transformative one at that. That said, the past couple days have been going pretty well, and it’s cool because I’ve already seen quite a bit of difference from the experiences last winter with all sorts of criticism and what not. I also got a couple cool encouraging messages, which came in with incredibly inspired timing, and that deserves a huge thank you! You truly capture the charge this season to “Be Someone’s Angel,” and you can count me in as a witness of that! I’ve got the greatest family, the best friends, and the coolest neighbors!
. . . I really don’t have a lot of memories of what happened this week, tho. We said a bunch of goodbyes to people in Cardston. I’ll just list out a few memorable people out there for you to imagine me meeting in Cardston:
Bishop Nish: very successful, and you would never guess it. We told him we were leaving, and he replied with a text saying, “Well, that’s not good.”
Marty: used to be an office missionary in the Calgary mission, had a lot of funny space doctrine that he would tell us very seriously.
Pat: a very old lady that was kind of crazy and intimidating, but also super generous in inviting a homeless native couple to live at her home.
Dave: an absolute stud, who was super actively working with people on the reserve
I’ve been thinking about the wise men as recorded in the New Testament, who looked for signs of Christ, and after seeing them traveled to give Christ gifts. We too can look for the symbols of Christ in the Christmas season, and we can offer something of ourselves to God and to others this Christmas. As you think of gifts to give one another, think of something you’re willing to offer the Lord! He will give you great blessings for every good thing that you offer him.
Five years before the birth of our Lord, a Native American named Samuel boldly proclaimed a message of angels to the opposing tribe:
"And behold, there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you." "...then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall believe on his name."
Several centuries later, the descendants of Samuel's own tribe learned of the same angelic message from a foreign missionary, adapted to the language of the indigenous people. This message was named the Huron Carol, and is the oldest known Canadian Christmas Carol! But whether from the tongue of Angels, Natives, or Europeans, the message is the same to whole world - from the "true north" to the far eastern orient.
"The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
Tishya ton tayeson, ahatonhia!
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria!"
Helaman 14:2-8 #GloriaInExcelsisDeo #huron
How will you share the message of Christmas this year?
It’s been forever! [Editor's note: last week's P-day was supplanted by a mission temple day.] Does everyone now have an extra two generations added to their family tree? I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’ve been so selfish, and I haven’t even bothered to tell you about our friends here in Cardston. . .mostly because we have a really difficult time meeting with any of them, which is probably an indication that we should move on. But here are some updates:
Cody has cut off some bad influences in his life and is developing a better relationship with his son & stepson. He is patiently and cheerfully waiting for a group in Standoff, and he calls us when we forget to contact him. We still haven’t taught him in person for a while.
Chauncey is. . .there. He has a habit of cancelling lessons several days in a row.
We met a new friend named Sherry! She asked us to come pray with her, because she has one niece to call family, and she’s trying to escape some evil dudes on the reserve. We had a great opportunity to pray with her and her niece at their house (complete with dark red wallpaper, elk skulls, and cthulhu statues). They seemed really excited about the Book of Mormon and coming to church! They weren’t able to come because of health complications, so we’re praying we can see them next week!
Cara picked up the phone once and listened to a message about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! When we asked who else could hear this message, she said “Well I think everyone ought to hear this!"
WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE! The Cardston Temple is SOO cool! It really felt a lot like a stark place of worship in ancient civilization, while also having the atmosphere of being in someone's home. Seriously, PLEASE do everything you can to be ready to go to the temple and your life will be so much better!
Other silly and pointless moments from this week
Saw some really cool native hoop dances at a thanksgiving dinner!
Elder Kim pointed out that our neighbor very well could be Jack Black…or Karl Marx
Saw firsthand a bunch of dogs chase a big black cat right up a telephone pole
“King Noah was kind of a chubby biscuit” –Cardston Seminary Teacher
🚨GOT THE COPS CALLED ON US!?!?🚨
….Alright, this one ^ needs some explanation. So there we were in Glenwood and we thought we’d stop by a non-member family. We walked up to the door seeing that the lights were on and the TV was going, so we knocked, rang, knocked once more and left. When we got in the car Elder Kim asked, “Did you see the little girl at the window that sprinted away? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the only one home, and we scared her.” I hadn’t noticed, so we went on our way to visit their relatives down the street. By the time they came to the door, a pickup truck careened into the driveway, steered by a bewildered driver that said “Our granddaughter’s scared half to death! She phoned the police and told them there were two crazy drunk guys trying to break in!” The truck immediately peeled out, and while I stood there probably a little shaky and white as a ghost, the woman at the door just laughed and said, “She can get quite an imagination worked up, alright.” The good news is I don’t think the cops ever really showed up, but I’m sure we sufficiently ruined someone’s date night. *gulp*
I’ve been memorizing a few verses of scripture this week, and it’s been very helpful and strengthening this week, especially now that I'm starting to realize the time I've had here in Cardston has been a more difficult than I've been telling myself. Memorized scriptures have helped a lot! Here’s one I’ve been working on: “For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.” This verse [Isaiah 54:10] about God’s everlasting love has been really foundational for me this week! I’d challenge all of you to find a new verse of scripture and memorize it this week! If you do this you will truly gain a new friend that will stand with you in the dark moments of the week! The word of God is powerful!
We'll see where I'll be next week after transfers! Stay warm everyone! Love you all!
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