16 February 2015

So, this has been an eventful week. First of all, I got all the mail and packages that have been sent!!! In total, I've received 2 packages and I think 3 separate letters... It's flippin awesome!! haha So yeah, on P-day last week, after we finished all our P-day activities, we all went out to dinner at this place called Moxie's. I'm not entirely happy about it, but I had no choice. It's basically a sports bar with TVs everywhere playing different games on them, and skanky dressed waitresses working there. We went there because they have a wing deal on Monday where it's only like 29 cents a wing. They were really good, but that's not exactly the kind of place a bunch of missionaries should be hanging out. we're apparently going there again tonight, which is pretty frustrating, and I told my comp that I don't want to go there, and he said, "well we are, and you don't get to decide because I am the senior companion... yeah, I'm pulling that card." Like wow, I don't even get to decide whether or not I go to a bar for dinner... I feel like I'm the only one who wants to follow the stinkin rules around here, and it freakin SUCKS!!​ ​ Tuesday was zone training. They talked about serving The Lord more fully. In one segment, they asked for comments, and I raised my hand, and I said how we have two years to serve The Lord, out of our whole life's, and we aren't here to make friends and find girls to marry and whatever, but to serve Him and give it our all. When i was done, she asked me how long I had been in the mission. I was like ummm 4 weeks..? haha There were a couple people I heard, including her, who sorta chuckled or something, and she just said "wow, I wish that I had had someone teach me that at the beginning of my mission. So Elder Windham, will you consecrate yourself as a full time missionary to The Lord?" I said yes of course. But what I think is kinda funny, is no one had to teach me that. That's just the entire reason we're all out here is to serve The Lord and bring people unto him. Wednesday, I made myself some eggs for breakfast for the first time, and I used some Tony's!!! Also, i used some on dinner last night :P But we did some stop-bys but didn't have much success. I'm pretty sure only one house had the right person. But we gave 2 english BOMs and one in Tagalog (pronounced Tuh-gaw-lig). But it was super windy and cold, so after a little bit, we went to Tim Hortons (this candian restaurant with good hot chocolate and coffee) for my first time. The hot chocolate was flippin good!! We also met a member from out of town who was like "so elders, where are you guys from?" he was pretty cool. we only talked for a couple of minutes though because we had to go. Then we stopped by a couple more houses without much more success. After that, we went to dinner. It was just us 2 and the guy feeding us. his wife and daughter went somewhere (idk where exactly). We had hash browns and eggs, and i flippin forgot my Tony's!!! D: hah But after that i went with him and Keck went with soemone else in the elders' quarum on splits. I visited this "perspective elder", and he had the CUTEST white husky puppy!!! But we just talked with him and got to know him a little bit. Thursday didn't have much until service at the food bank. Although I have memorized like 150 words on flashcards.. After service, I got to take home a few more cans of beans, some all natural peanut butter (no sugar or any kind of additives), some pop tarts and apple juice. Then we did some studies and dropped by some who had said on Wednesday that we should try Thursday, but they weren't there. Then at dinner, I remembered my Tony's and put them on the potatoes!! The husband tried some too and said he liked them... haha I actually also found out that the only known place to sell Tony's up here, is the Bass Pro Shop in Calgary... So now I know where to get some when I run out haha. Then we went to scouts after (we were invited by a member. You can't say no to an invitation, right? haha) and played dodge ball and basketball. That was pretty fun. Friday we had to leave super early to go to Lethbridge for a training meeting for my comp since he's a district leader. They talked a lot about how even though you're in a position of authority, doesn't mean you don't have to work and serve the people you're in authority over, and they used the example of King Benjamin (I think) and how if anything, we should do more to serve the people than they serve us. Also, I got the rest of the mail that was sent!! So that makes 2 packages and 3 Letters :P that made me feel pretty loved haha. Then once we got back, I read and finished the Book of Mormon!!!! I felt pretty proud that I finished, and kinda wish it was longer, just like any good book haha. Then we did some more stop-bys and stopped by Jen again (I talked a bit about her a couple weeks ago) and she actually answered, but said she wasn't really interested. Saturday was almost a complete waste of time, like literally. We didn't do really anything all morning (like usual) until we went to got lunch. Then once Elder Keck was done eating (like 1:30) he goes "we still need to do 12 week". I was like bro, we need to be flippin missionaries and get out there and do something. Then he was like well you're the one who said you want to try and do all the things we're supposed to do... Wow, I guess you only care what I want to do if it lets you be lazy for longer than usual. So we went to the chapel to do the online portion of this week's 12 week thing. Once i finished (and I'm not saying I'm perfect), we just stayed and I'm pretty sure he went on youtube to download more music, which you're definitely not supposed to do. But no one will ever know because I can't see his computer in the family history center, and he deletes all his browsing history or uses a private browser, either one. THEN he also deletes all his application history on the computer so you don't even know what he used. Like could you be any more suspicious? But later on we went to dinner with Elizabeth (the recent Spanish convert in Rosemary) and had real homemade Mexican food for dinner and taught her the Plan of Salvation since you have to re-receive all the lessons after you're baptized. Then we exchanged with the Rosemary Elders and I got Elder Johnson!!! That dude is like my favorite person out here right now haha. Yesterday (Sunday) church was just normal church. After church, we came back and I had a quick lunch and then we left to exchange back. It was really nice to have that chance to be with someone other thean Keck. It was nice to have someone not so lazy and nerdy and lucky at pool and funny and fun to talk to. We and Keck's personalities are just so different. I'm already getting sick of him honestly. (I'm quoting my journal now) "He's fetching lazy and does some very questionable things. Like freakin every time he uses the computers, he goes onto "private mode" so there's no search history, and he deletes any app history on the computer so you don't know what he used, I'm pretty sure he was on youtube to download more songs yesterday, he freakin texts like everyone all the time, he like calls other missionaries in different zones and suff just to talk to them like all the time, and again, he's freakin lazy as fetch. Like once we got back from exchanges, it was like 2:45. Dinner was at 5:30, so we still had a little bit of time for proselyting or something. But no, he wants to do personal study, then comp study, and basically nothing.. I'm like dude, Sunday is supposed to be the best day for proselyting. We need to get out there. Because seriously, we haven't done Sunday proselyting once!!! And he goes "well what if I read something in my personal study that could mean something to someone we meet?" [And he isn't serious when he says that. It's more like a joking thing when he says it] Like holy crap, quit being lazy and let's freakin go. So we did some studies and i read 3 chapter in the BOM in spanish and then we did some comp study, and I basically just read/translated the first page in the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Then at likw 3:45, we finally left to do some tracting. Tracting wasn't too bad. We stopped by the houses where they placed BOMs at, and one answered and said we could come back laer this week. Then I placed one with this older lady who said we can come back later. One guy though like came to the door and goes "yeah I don't want anything to do with *steps out and looks at our tags* any Jesus S---". But not much success after that.So yeah, I'm gonna talk with Keck about my feelings about this all, and we'll see how that goes." (That was pretty much my journal entry yesterday) I haven't talked with him yet, but I will Thursday during companionship inventory. Last time I didn't really say much, but this time I'm actually gonna let him know, because i don't want another transfer to go by feeling as wasted as this one has. These 2 years are too important to start off this lousy... But so yeah, thank you everyone for all the letters. I loved reading them, and getting them haha. I love you guys!! Sincerely, Elder Levi Windham P.S. You are able to buy U.S. to Canada stamps instead of international. I'm pretty sure they're cheaper, you just have to find them :)

9 February 2015

okey dokey, sooo i forgot my journal at the house.... this week will be a little smaller, but i can still remember a lot of the big points!! on Tuesday we went on exchanges with the ZLs and i went to Med Hat with Elder Alpentista. We did some tracting and had money given to us for dinner. but what super cool about tracting, is that toward the end, we found this older guy. we told him who we were and that we wanted to share a message about Jesus Christ. he was like "well i have to go pretty soon, but you guys can come in and talk for a bit." it was the first time anyone's ever let me in!! so we went in and talked with him a bunch. he is a super christian and friendly guy. he goes to the church of Christ. we talked about the BOM and how we have a latter day prophet, just like in the bible. he said he doesn't really believe in anything other than the bible and he doesn't think there is a prophet on the earth today. we told him and bore testimony about how if he reads the BOM and really wants to know if it is another testament of Jesus Christ and was translated by a prophet of the lord, if he truly wants to know, God will answer him. he also said he has a strong testimony in prayer and that God answers our prayers, so I'm hoping elder Alpentista tells me if they make any progress with that guy because he seemed super solid!! so we gave him a BOM and as we were leaving and still talking a bit about it, his grandson came down and was like "mom already has one of those." and the guy (willie is his name i think) goes "yeah well i want my own.." like seriously, why can't i find someone like that in brooks?? haha and then like 2 houses down, we met a guy who used to hang out with the missionaries all the time, and he like remembered a bunch of their names and we got his number and stuff!! so they'll probably start hanging out with him again, and i hope that goes somewhere good... Also, this week, how i said i wanted to start being more effective and stuff, i started going through the area book in hopes of being able to clean it out, because it's like super full and outdated. but I'm going through calling all the "previous investigators", and seeing who might be interested now or still is maybe. i got a hold of like 2 out of the like 50 numbers i called. one was this black lady named Mercy, and i asked her if she might be interested in picking back up lessons, and she said we could drop by the same time the next day!! we tried and couldn't find her both times we dropped by. we called her a couple times too and she didn't pick up, so we'll try a few more times and if we still don't have any success, we'll just update her sheet and drop it. but one lady we called was an investigator last year, and she owns a local cupcake shop. she answered like immediately, and was super flippin nice!!! we ended up talking for like 20 minutes because she recently went through a divorce with some Muslim guy and she has custody of the 5 kids, and he keeps fighting her for custody, but there's like a bunch of people who will see and approach her and tell her how lousy her ex is and they hope she wins and they can get stuff on him, but she said how she doesn't want to get dirt on him and make him look bad, which is what he's doing. she just wants the truth to be known and win fairly. she also talked about how the kids will call her when they're with him for the week or whatever, and they're like crying or upset and miss her or something, and he's trying to make it so the kids can't call because it's supposed to be his time. but we talked a lot and it went really well and i was able to relate in a lot of ways since i went through kinda the same thing. but she said how she doesn't understand how she can be so calm when all this is happening. and she can really feel God helping her out and comforting her trough all this and she can feel people's prayers helping her in her life. but she was really sweet and super nice, and seems like she would honestly get baptized easily because she already has such a strong testimony in God's love for us and stuff. we won't be able to meet her this week because it's Valentines week and she'll be busy, but she said definitely next week, so I'm really looking forward to meeting her in person. and apparently, like everyone at church knows her, and when we brought her up in ward council, they all knew who she was and said how she was just super busy, so that's why she had to be dropped as an investigator. Not much else happened this week that is too exciting, but yesterday i got to have breakfast for dinner with the Blummels!!! haha they're like the flippin coolest family I've met in the mission!! which is pretty cray, considering that like this entire ward is so cool and inviting and super duper friendly and stuff. i really am blessed to have been put in such an awesome ward, even if it means i don't speak very much Spanish... at all haha. but i know the Lord is looking out for me, and if we strive to follow his example in our everyday lives, he will bless us all. i love you guys and hope you're all doing great! enjoy y'all's week and I'll write you again next Monday!! Un Brazo. Elder Levi Windham this is the huge mound of snow piled up in the church parking lot. someone dug a hole in the side of it and it was flippin cool!! haha when we were playing pool with the ZLs before exchanges, i had a stick and was standing it up and just like let it go and it didn't even move!! it was pretty legit :P then that's all the food we got from the food bank thursday when we worked there!!!

2 February 2015

​okey dokey guys, IT FINALLY GOT COLD!!!!! we got fresh snow for the first time since i've been here, and it dropped to -22 C (-5 F)!!! i have some pictures of the coldness and my awesome toque i got and how i dress for the cold :P and i've also been writing in my journal every day this week, so i'll be going off what i put in there, that way i don't miss much and i can see my feelings throughout the week.... not too awesome every time haha. so Tuesday morning, i was feeling super bummed about the mission. my comp is pretty dang lazy still, although he isn't quite as bad as it was in the beginning of this transfer. this week, i tried to get us out of the house more and tract or something, because we don't really have any real investigators besides ​Francisco and Amanda, but unfortunately, Francisco is moving to Calgary within the next couple weeks, so we'll be losing him. But Amanda, the first time we met with her, she set a baptismal date for the 28th of this month!! So yeah, we haven't had much success finding people yet, but i have faith that we will at some point in the future... later in the day though (i had all that written in the morning), the rosemary elders came over again for a district meeting. we went to the church for that. it was pretty lame because there was only 4 of us in total, but we did some role play, and we played as missionaries. i was with "Peter Parker" (Elder Johnson) and he had the question: why can't i feel the spirit, or how can i tell if i have the spirit? it was pretty cool because i talked about how sometimes it's hard to recognize the spirit, even though it's there. like maybe like in a lesson, when we are speaking the truth, and baring testimony about it, we may not know the spirit is with us, but because we know it to be true, and it is true, the spirit will carry that knowledge unto the heart of the person we're teaching, and it's their job to accept or reject the knowledge and that testimony the spirit is giving them, so the best thing we can do, when in doubt, is to bare testimony. later that day, me and my comp went tracting after our mornng studies and stuff, and we ran into a guy who was working in his yard. we talked a bit about the different churches, and he warned us about the muslims in the area, and whatever else. he was a really cool guy and seemed kinda religious, but more solid in his belief than like a holy holy guy looking for salvation and stuff. we talked a bit about like how people should do their best in this life so they can be prepared to meet God at the last day. he totally agreed with like everything we talked about too! but we we left after a bit, and tried to come back later to give him a BOM, but he wasn't there. so hopefully we run into him again at some point. on wednesday, we went tracting again, and ran into some true characters haha. in one of the first few houses we knocked, there was this roman catholic dude from Hungary!!! the rest of the time, people either didn't answer, were uninterested, or just looked at us and closed the door in our faces haha. but then, one of the last few houses we knocked, this guy, when he answered the door, just looked at us... then he goes "don't tell me you guys are with the LDS church..." to which i sheepishly replied "yes." and he just got SO angry at us, and started yelling and cussing at us, and telling us how we just keep coming back, and keep trying to talk to him, and he's not a Mormon, and never will be, and on and on. so we're just like ok, we're sorry, we'll go. and he yells, "no, don't say sorry. just get the **** off my property!" so yeah, he'll be apologizing some day haha. on thursdays we do service at the food bank, which is always pretty fun. we worker from about 1:30 to like 3, and after that, we talked a bit with one of the emplyee people who works there all the time. then, when we were getting ready to leave, they said we can take ANYTHING we want. from milk, to cereal, to cans of whatever, etc. so we grabbed a carton of milk, some life cereal (best cereal ever fyi), i got some beans and soups, and my comp got a whole flat of cranberry juice!! also they had like a whole box of reese's, so we each gott 2 little packs. but, like usual, after that, we really didn't do anything else for the rest of the day :/ on friday we did exchanges in the afternoon. i went to rosemary and my comp stayed her. i got to go with peter parker and the other elder came here. when we got there, we went to a lesson in a neighboring small town (Rosemary actually only has 500 people in it), and taught this old lady who was investigating. i bore my testimony after the lesson about how she can know that our message is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God, if she really wants to and has the desire and prays for an answer. of course i almost got emotional, but i held it together haha. then after we tracted a bit in rosemary, we went to dinner with a pretty cool family and had pizza, then (probably not the best thing for missionaries to do) went to the high school basketball game. it was pretty funny because of how small the hym and team was and how much sloppier it was than texas basketball, but it was still a little fun activity thing. oh yeah, and that family has a son named Levi!!! saturday it finally snowed and dropped to -15 C!!! instead of tracting, we shoveled snow for like 3 hours, going around doing random people's driveways. it was pretty fun! i also bought my amazing toque because my beanie (also called a toque) unfortunately wasn't cutting it. one of the peope while we were doing their driveway came out and offered us 20 dollars, and we said no and he was just like"...... you guys sure you don't want to be payed.....?" we told him we were just doing it as service, he was super amazed, thanked us a bunch, and went back inside. it made me feel pretty good we were doing that service for people who may not have done it otherwise. suday we went to the rosemary ward to translate for the recent convert over there. i kinda just sat there the whole time because i wouldn't have been much help in that haha. but we went to relief society with her, and it was super weird because of how different it was from priesthood haha. OH YEAH!! and after sacrament meeting, no one stood up until the bishop did... it was super awkward and way different haha. but after church, we went to a member's house with Elizabeth (the spanish convert), had lunch, taught her a lesson, and went home. later that day, we went to dinner a little early and helped cook the food!! the mom by the way is SUPER cool and super funny and like flippin awesome haha. she had to go early though, so we taught the lesson to the kids only, because the dad had a migrane and the mom left. but we tried to do an object lesson and totally failed!! haha but i bore my testimony about the importance of family and a strong bond between siblings, and how it can hel p make life a lot easier. and then i talked with the daughter a bunch about Once Upon a Time, and i can't wait to watch it when i get back!!!! haha anyways, that's been my week up to this point. it snowed again last night and was like -14 this morning (i'm gonna be talking in celsius because that's what everything is up here). but i hope you guys are all doing great back there. if you guys want, along with the emails you send, you can also write letters :) it's nice to have something i can look at even though it's not p-day. sorry for the huge email thought, i'll try to shorten them next time. i miss you guys!! Love, Elder Levi Windham Show message history