Letters #31

16 March 2015 @ 10:50 a.m.

This week started with some haircuts. There is this awesome family who used to be in our ward (boundary changes) named the Wilsteds. The mom is a pro hair stylist person so she cut all our hair. So that was super nice of her. After, I went with Elder Gonzalez again and we visited one of their investigators. We were only able to stay for a little bit, but they are super fun. The 2 kids speak English and Spanish and French but the mom only speaks Spanish and French, but it was fun.

This week, because of all the changes, we did a few pass-off lessons and meetings, mostly with the Zone Leaders. We actually did splits with the ZLs one day, but Elder Mataoa got sick and all of the appointments that Elder Anderson and I had fell through. And there was freezing rain, which is never fun. A major contributing factor of Elder Mataoa getting sick was that we are now teaching all the Chinese members. . . Ok, so not the Chinese are getting him sick. What happened was on Wednesday we were invited by one the Chinese members to go have lunch. So we were all ready to go, but he lives all the way down in Barhaven, which is an hour bus ride. But that was no problem. What happened was when we got off the bus we had no idea where to go. . . So we wandered around for an hour until we finally called him and he met up with us. The problem with wandering around for an hour was that even though the sun was shining and it looked like a beautiful day, Elder Mataoa did not bring his coat and it was very windy. But he is getting better now, and the delicious Chinese food was worth it. Another Chinese story (we had a lot this week): We were at church and we were going to Priesthood and we met this Chinese man who just came on his own. He's a non-member and his name is Bruce and he really likes our church, from what I could tell. So we will be seeing him tomorrow and we are pretty happy to have some Chinese investigators. You could call it a little miracle if you would like.

Elder Perkes

p.s. That is the Google Translate of Welcome in the subject, so it should be ok. 

Pi Day at the Zone Leaders' Apartment - Strawberry Rhubarb

Letters #29 & #30

2 March 2015

This week was pretty great. We were able to visit some less-actives and we played Volleyball with the youth on Tuesday. Wednesday Elder Mataoa woke up and forgot he was District Leader, so he made a few last minute assignments and pretty much improvised the meeting. Actually, it is more missionary like to describe it as he followed the promptings of the spirit. It turned out to be a pretty good District Meeting in the end. We talked about wow we were on a mission and why we were STILL on a mission and what we can do to become better. Later that night we went to one of the sisters' part-member families that they have been teaching and gave them a blessing. Then on Thursday we gave a blessing to a less-active in the YSA, a blessing to a less-active in our own ward who was in the hospital, and a blessing to the Sisters' investigator that just had surgery. We were very busy that day and after all that we went to the Booths, an older couple in our ward. They fed us some delicious spaghetti, and after we had some fried doctrine. The way Brother Booth explained it was that fried food is really good food, therefore fried doctrine is really good doctrine. We talked about how important it is to not only gain the trust of the people around you, but also of Heavenly Father. How you do that is keep your promises, aka, your covenants.

Saturday we had uneventful transfer calls (pretty much everyone is staying the same). I did hear that my trainer, Elder Hunter, is now a Zone Leader, which is pretty exciting for him. 

Sunday was pretty great. It was the last testimony meeting before the big boundary changes of the stake. But we met this man named Chiddi. He's from Nigeria and was invited to come to church by his supervisor at work. He even asked for a Book of Mormon after the Gospel Principles class! So we will be following up with him sometime this week. 

So it was a pretty good week.

Elder Perkes

2 Degrees outside so Elder Mataoa decided to bring out the flip flops :-)

Canadian Pizza Pride

9 March 2015

So this week started with doing Splits with the Spanish Elders. We were able to visit the Paredes family. They are from Peru and I helped Hermana Paredes with her English homework, and she really appreciated it because she was able to practice more effectively with me.

One of the guys in our ward, Jaden Wilsted, just got his mission call and he leaves in June! It's pretty cool. We were able to have some great lessons this week and we helped the new senior couple, the Paynes (from Sandy, Utah), move in and the Adams move out. It was kind of sad to see them go. On Friday we had an Elder Quorum Activity and all our regular non-member soccer players showed up. I didn't play soccer, but Elder Mataoa said it was fun. I was playing some card games with our members. Saturday morning we helped move the mother of a member and she gave us some pretty good pizza.

On Sunday we had a big Stake meeting where they changed our boundaries and added a new ward! Our area is now a lot smaller, which is better for the buses. After that we visited some part-member/less-active familes with Brother Heagle, an older guy in our ward. He's pretty cool.

Not too too much, but it was a good week.

Elder Perkes