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

Letter #28

23 February 2015 @ 10:45 a.m.

So we had a pretty crazy week this week.

We are preparing Patrick, one of the recent converts, to receive the priesthood. He's pretty solid, he just has a few feelings of inadequacy. But hey, don't we all? (I do, definitely. But I'm getting better) Tuesday night we started a split with the Zone Leaders. It was way fun. I was in Champlain area with Elder Anderson on Wednesday and we had a full day. We got smurfed by a potential investigator (she was not home at the time we set the appointment) so we were able to teach a less-active member. After that, we had an appointment with a couple of ladies from Burma. It was an odd lesson because only 1 of them understood English well enough so she was translating the whole time. At first they seemed pretty open, but then they started closing off when we started explaining modern revelation. They were very Bible centered. And then, at the very end, we found out the lady who could speak English was their preacher. . . Which explained the great memorization of the Bible. But we had an amazing DA after. It was a less-active family that the ward had been trying to contact for years, and the Champlain Elders were able to set up a Dinner Appointment. They are both in the Canadian version of the FBI, aka the RCMP, and the father was even a body guard for the Prime Minister. We had an amazing little lesson (is was short because their 3 boys who were all over the place) and we shared Ether 12:27, which the mother really liked. We had some great conversations and as we were leaving the oldest boy asked if we could come back! 

Then, on Thursday, we took Elder Artica to the bus stop and he left to Trois Riviere and then that night we picked up Elder Hernandez. He's way cool. He's from Mexico and his a cool accent.

Friday was Zone Conference (yay!). We had some good trainings on how we can better work with our ward leaders. One thing that was emphasized was keeping the vision of strengthening our wards spiritually, and how some specific plans on how we can do that. Our stake goals are to 1. Strengthen individual and family spirituality 2. Learn to make and keep covenants 3. Love and serve God's children and 4. Rise out of obscurity and and shine truth and light. 

Later that night we played soccer again and the Spanish Elders even got some good contacts.

Sunday they announced some pretty big changes. The Ottawa stake is moving boundaries AND they reorganized our bishopric. So, some big changes are heading our way. And it is supposedly -19 degrees outside right now, not including windchill. And the snow has been coming down, which is nice because sunny days are colder than snowy days. But it's sunny right now. 

Yay freezing!

Elder Perkes

Funny postcard at the Zone Leader's apartment

"Arise and Shine Forth..." Ha, they have a different idea.

Shopping at Kanata

Some pants that Elder Aritca left me

Letter2 #26 & #27

16 February 2015

Happy Family Day everybody! It's a civic holiday where everything is closed so our pday is tomorrow, but it's better to email today. Anyways, last Monday we went to Winterlude. Unfortunately, all the stores and booths were closed, so we just looked at the ice statues. They were pretty cool, though.

Tuesday we watched the Hastening the Work of Salvation broadcast as a district. It's such a great broadcast and it is so helpful in explaining the role of Missionaries and Members. After that we went to Caeri Sled's house to give her a blessing. She's a recent convert and she had some medical procedures that she was going to be going through, so she wanted to us to give her a blessing. I was the one who offered it and it was great. She was so happy and thankful for it. Hopefully all will go well. That night we were invited to go ice skating with the youth! President said we could go!. . . Just not skate. . . We were disappointed. But then we had to go to English class.

On Friday we helped out with another ward Chinese New Year celebration (because my companion knew them from his first transfers and he speaks Chinese). We made a TON of dumplings, which were pretty good. Then on Saturday we were doing some planning at the church and there was a Valentines day dance, and a live band that was made up of a bunch of guys from our ward! It was super funny and we found out that our bishop could sing! and we have lots of other talented people in our ward. Right after that we were about to leave when Sister Adams (one of the senior couples) walked up to Elder Mataoa and said, "Elder Adams is going to buy you some new shoes right now." and off we went. Elder Mataoa only has 1 pair of shoes which he changes every few months. I accidentally flat-tired his shoes one day and the sole came off. He continued to wear them for a week until Elder Adams bought him some new ones. And then that night the Spanish Elders received a call saying that Elder Artica was being emergency transferred, which came to a surprise to all of us. He will being leaving Wednesday to Trois Riviere and Elder Hernandes (an old roommate of Elder Gonazalez). The reason being is that a new Spanish missionary is coming in 2 weeks early for some reason. So that's exciting.

So exciting stuff. Hope all is well! 

Elder Perkes

Our district

My favorite ice sculpture

9 February 2015

Couple of things that have been happening this week:

We were able to do some service for one of the Sister's investigators. She had a lot of stuff that she needed moved around and it would have taken her weeks to do it by herself. But she was very nice and we did what we could. After that, we went to the hospital where an elderly member had been staying for a couple of weeks. She had just moved from Nova Scotia but then had a hard attack. When we all walked in she was so happy. She could not talk very fast, but you could tell how much she appreciated the visit. I gave her a blessing and it was wonderful. She was so thankful and was on the verge of tears. She was so nice. Later, we visited Xander, who is now baptized along with his family. We helped him make some goals for Primary. Now we are working with Patrick, his dad, to get the Aaronic Priesthood, so that should be fun. We also did an english class on Tuesday. It was super... odd. One part-member family from our ward showed up, and only the mom sat in. She is from Ethiopia and her english is very beginner. So we tried our best to teach a little bit. I taught a little, but it wasn't awesome. The Spanish Elders say that they will be bring a few more people next week. We had a good lesson with Eric later in the week and we got a baptismal date set for him! He's cool and wants to do what is right, he just has some troubles with his work schedule and his girlfriend. But we will work it all out. We then played soccer on friday night and it was soooo fun! we had 11 people show up who all were non-members and they all had different backgrounds. We had a Spaniard, a Bulgarian, an Italian, a German, a Korean, a Mexican, and a few more. A few even started asking questions about the church! We do our best to have fun and keep it safe. I even played barefoot halfway through. It was fun.

Elder Perkes

Some new photos...

After cleaning the church

Frozen eye lashes

Self explanatory...

Dressing up with stuff they found at the church while clearning

Ketchup Doritos...only in Canada

Tanner is learning the Ukelele

Letters #23 & #24

19 January 2015

So, not much happened until the end of this week. I went on splits with Elder Hurtado on Friday. Elder Hurtado is going home Wednesday. He was our zone leader and I learned so much from the split. We had lunch appointment where I ate half a chicken, which was way too much, and tried my first sugar pie! It was delicious. After we went to the Ottawa mission, a charity where we served food to people who were under-privileged. We met some crazy people but it was fun. I felt like I was going to explode from lunch, so I didn't eat any leftovers. After, we went to go contact some referrals that he had gotten (we were in the Champlain area). We got lost, but we asked a nice lady who showed us on her phone. The first... wasn't there. The second was there though. He was a little confused and we did our best to explain the Book of Mormon, but he seemed pretty interested. He wanted some dvds and pamphlets, so we gave him some pamphlets and said we'd come back with dvds. Then we had a lesson with Jerry, an investigator who wants to be baptized and is super solid, he just needs to straighten a few things out in his life. But it was a good lesson.

Saturday, not much happened. Until transfers. That was pretty crazy. So all of us are staying... Except Elder Bybee. He will be district leader in Quebec. So that was pretty exciting. And my new companion will be Elder Mataoa, which is pretty known throughout the mission. Apparently he's a cool guy. I'll find out soon enough. 

But Sunday was awesome! Right after sacrament this guy came up to me and asked if we could give him a blessing. He had super thick British accent and has been taking lessons from missionaries in Sydney (is there one in England? because my first thought was Australia, but I'm not sure). His wife is a member and will be joining him here in Canada sometime soon but he has a baptismal date for the 30! He wanted a blessing because he had noticed an increase of trials and stress as his date has gotten closer, so he wanted a blessing of comfort. It was super great. Then, later that night, we had our own baptism! Caerie, Patrick, and Xander all got baptized! It was super great and we all had a super fun time and it was just a wonderful experience for everybody. Elder Bybee baptized Caerie and Xander and Elder Artica baptized Patrick. So, good times were had by all.

Elder Perkes

12 January 2015 (sorry this is so late)

Well, this week went by pretty well. It started off with me buying a ukulele. It's pretty great. Tuesday we had President Interviews which was great. He gave me some good advice. The best way to overcome fears is just by doing them. Unfortunately I was getting gradually sick. On wednesday I went with Elder Gonzales to one of the Spanish less-actives. It was fun, but I only understood Jesuscristo and amigo. We had some DAs with a couple of members and new years was... uneventful. I was able to write a few things in my journal and Elder Bybee yelled to me from the other room "Hey, Happy New Year!" The next day I was dead. Not really, but I was sore, sick, coughing, and gross. I've been sleeping mostly since then. But we were able to get a few lessons with different people. We visited Eric, which we will hopefully be setting a date by the next visit. Saturday we had a big snowstorm and got a few inches, then that night we had freezing rain. It looks really cool, and it was fun to smash through the layer of ice to get to the soft snow underneath.

Keep on keepin' on.

Elder Perkes

P.s. Elder Artica is looking good. 

Pictures around Christmas time 2014

Some of the captions are guesses or quite generic.  We're trying to convince /train 

Tanner to include descriptions of the pictures to help us out :-)

Elder Bybee...maybe visiting a live nativity?

 Some cool lit-up building in Ottawa...

Tanner, Elder Bybee, and Elder Gonzalos in front of the cool building

Elder Bybee in front of the cool building again...

Snowball fight!

Christmas in Ottawa!

Tanner has taken advantage of the Legos we send to keep him happy :-)

Tanner's desk

Decorations from Mom

Dinner with other elders and sisters

Cool picture by a river

Food at a member's house

Notice the Lego baby Jesus and Nativity scene

Caroling by the cool building

How they get around Ottawa

Letter #22

29 December 2014 @ 9 something...

Sorry this is so late...

Well, this week has been... different. But fun. Last Monday we went Caroling at the Rideau Center. When we first got there I was terrified. I didn't know if this was a good idea if we were going to sound well if we had too many missionaries. But then we got started and everything went wonderfully. Some of the other Elders made some good contacts and one lady even asked if she could come sing with us! And she even visited the church yesterday with her brother (they weren't able to stay the whole time because they had other plans. Baby steps.)

2 days before Christmas Elder Bybee and I had a snowball fight with one of the sisters' investigators (he's 8 and the parents wanted us to be good friends with him. His name is Xander). Unfortunately I lost my magnetic nametag... I'll be getting a new one soon. Later that day we had a Christmas devotional with our zone. Each district sang a song and President Patrick gave a short talk at the end. He talked about the Christmas story, but the thing I remember the most is what he said right after we watched some Bible videos on the birth of the Savior. He said that he noticed that every time an angel appeared to a person, the angel would say, "Fear not." He said how it was interesting how fear is a natural instinct for man, and how we should find ways to overcome that fear.

Christmas eve we went to dinner at the Heagle's, a very nice older couple. There were 3 investigators there and 2 other members. One of the members from a nearby ward was very British. His name was Derek and he's old, retired, and little... rounder.  But he's got a very thick accent is very proud to be from "The Mother Country". He pretty much bashed on us "Yankees" and quizzed us on popular British songs that are sung everywhere. But he gave some good advice on how to be a little more bold when talking to strangers in a friendly setting.

Christmas was pretty great. I woke up and read about the 3 kings. After, I opened the different gifts that my family had sent me. And yes, I built all the Legos that day. We ate at the Fong Family's and skyped there as well. I skyped in the upstairs bathroom because Elder Bybee was in the den. So that was exciting. We played some fun board games.

We visited Heberwak and Wakoya on the 27. They are an older Ethiopian couple that were baptized just a few years ago. They are super nice and we ate some really good Ethiopian food.

Sunday was great as well. Brother Anthony, a member from India, gave an excellent talk on making room for Christ in our busy lives. He first explained how different Christmas was when he moved to Canada. In India, they didn't really give gifts. When he moved here, it transitioned to an option, then an obligation, and now he feels like it is a complicated puzzle. Good stuff. Later that night we had dinner with the Johnson's. It was fun and we had some crackers. Not like crunchy bread stuff, but little paper tubes that you pull the ends and the go CRACK! But what was cool is that they had little prizes inside. E. Bybee got a tiny deck of cards and I got a Golf Abacus (that's for you Dad).

So, pretty eventful week. Hopefully we'll back to missionary work after the New Years. A great Mormon Message that we've been sharing with families is the "Don't Look Back". It talks about Lot from the Bible and how to move forward. Keep moving forward. We all have regrets and past mistakes, but Jesus atoned for them. With Him, we can be free from that guilt and regret when we properly repent. I'm so thankful for that knowledge.

Happy 2015!

Elder Perkes