8 February 2016

Hello erbody!! this has been a pretty good week i think!!! some pretty good and also very interesting stories, which is always a blast! haha! so lets get this thing started, shall we? so, as a zone, we have set a goal to contact 3500 people within this month and each companionship set a goal to get a certain number of baptisms, and ours is 1.. but that's goin from us having NO progressing investigators... HOWEVER, the Lord helps those who serve him, and we've already seen some great successes from our efforts :) On Thursday we tracted some apartments that we suspected had at least a couple Spanish people in them. A lot of people actually opened their doors! However, Spanish people..? There was only one. I say again, HOWEVER, that one Spanish person was from Cuba, and she was speaking English the whole time, but as we were about to leave, i asked her where she was from, and she said Cuba, so we told her everything in Spanish and kinda just struck up a little conversation with her. Something interesting to note was that in the beginning, she just kinda stuck her head around and kept the rest of her body behind the door. but by the end of us talking, she had completely come out from behind the door and was talking to us normal, and even told us to come back the next day!! So we came by at the 1 like she said, and she opened and let us right in!! well, this is what i mean by the Lord influences those in need.. She continued to explain that she never answers her door, but for some reason did this time and it happened to be us. well, she also NEVER just lets people into her house, and she did for us for some reason.. THAT'S CRAZY!!! however, we did just have the whole discussion/lesson/chat on her stairs instead of coming up the sit on the furniture.. haha! but that's ok! it was way awesome and she told us like everything about her! She told us about her lack of trust in God because of the things she's seen in her life, and she told us how after we left, she went and google our church and read about us on Wikipedia (lol) and said that she really likes how we focus on families and how important they are, and how we no longer support polygamy (also lol). But she was evangelical before, but she lost her trust in god and stopped going i think about 7 years ago. Anyways, this little explanation about her isn't even half of it. We had ended up just talking to her for like an hour and a half and just getting to know her and stuff and it was so nice!! she seriously opened up a lot and even said "wow, i'm just telling you guys everything." and kept going haha. it was pretty funny, but that just goes to show that people for some reason (ok, not really "some"reason haha) warm up to the missionaries and trust us really fast, and we find out (sometimes) what it is that they truly need in their life :) so with the positive, ya gots to have at least a bit of negative, right? ;) later on, we tracted a bit more in a nearby area,and there was one guy who as soon as he came out, he was just like "didn't i tell you guys to put me down in your book to never come back here?" and me, feeling equally as sarcastic (probably more haha), with a huge smile on my face, told him no, we don't have that. so he's just like well, i told you never to come back here and to leave me alone. you guys are a cult and i'll never think differently. well, he proceded to tell us some other things along those lines, and i just maintained the BIGGEST smile you'll see, and couldn't help but giggle a few times while i responding to something like "your lucky i'm not ripping into you like i have others in the past. you just caught me on a good night." and i (again, probs a little more fun than i should've had) told him "psh, well, i've taken a lot of garbage in my mission, so go ahead and lay it on me. i can take it i'm sure." and he didn't do it!! lame... haha! but the FUNNIEST thing is that during the conversation, i kinda just started commenting on a few things he said about the tabernacle, and he... it was just funny, because i never once got upset, but just kept smiling, and whatever he said, i just kinda took it normal and would respond as if it were a normal conversation, and he would start responding back normal, and by the end, we were just talking about the weather and mosquitoes and the climate in Alberta and just normal stuff, and when i said we had to go, he said "ok boys, you have a great night and good luck. make sure you stay warm!" HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! it was so funny because when i think about it, like my mom used to always say, "It takes TWO to argue." Well, i now have a testimony that if one person does not want to argue, then there won't be an argument, and the tension will die out and we can all be friends in the end :) So that wasn't my whole week by far, but it was just a couple little highlights that i have time to share with you guys :) thank you everyone for your prayers. we can truly feel them in the work and this wouldn't be possible without you all. Thank you everyone, and have a great week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

1 February 2016

Hellooooooooo everybody!! Sorry this is coming a little late today. We had to run some elders to the mission office after they took their car in to the dent clinic and then we got here a little late and there are NO COMPUTERS, so I'm typing this all up on the phone and sending it on the computer after saving the draft.. Ain't that lame?? Whatevas though, it's basically like typing a big text message and we have iPhones so it's not really that bad ;) So this past week has been pretty chill I guess you could say. With transfers Coke another zone goal setting meeting/get to know you. That was a WAY cool meeting. We have some awesome leaders and the things we all talked about really kinda smacked you in the face like hey, stop doing good, and do better... SO DOPE!!! Also, not to mention, there are SO MANY young people in our zone!!! Seriously, I think close to half of the zone has been out for 6 months or less.. What the!! But eese all good, I'm just getting to be an old fart in the mission.... Speaking of which, on Wednesday, it will have been 14 months since the day I flew up to the MTC...... WHERE IS THE TIME GOING??? Ok, on a less depressing note, we taught the Rojas family again!! We only taught brother Rojas though since sis. Rojas was busy tending to other guests. But we talked about the temple, and we told him how we want to set a goal for him and his wife to start trying to prepare themselves to be able to be sealed in the temple as a family, and he liked that idea :) Also, we went by Abdula, but didn't get a chance to really teach him anything, so we left the first three pamphlets for our lessons that we teach and asked the mom who lives there if she could give them to him and she said she would. Well, come Sunday and we talk to the sisters who work in that ward and they told us that apparently he's been reading the pamphlets and and told the mom that it makes his heart feel warm, and kinda did it by putting his hand over his chest and being like "oohhh, that feels good" or something like that.. Haha! He ALSO apparently asked her son to teach him how to play the piano (it's against Muslim law to play instruments or something like that) and the mom asked him about it and he's like "well, it's just like reading these pamphlets. Why should I stop there?" YEAH BUDDY!!!! So hopefully he actually like goes for it and DOESN'T stop there :) haha! This weekend was the stake conference for the Confederation park stake (the one the Spanish ward pertains to) and on the Saturday night adult session, is was ALL about missionary work, and one of the speakers was a girl who had just gotten baptized on FRIDAY!!! Can you imagine? Getting baptized and having to talk the day after in stake conference..? That'd be CRAY!! So with all dis cool stuff goin down, you guys want to hear an even CRAZIER story??? So yesterday we were walking down a street super close to where we live, and as w were walking, a car drove by... Nothing special, just an old dude driving. Well a couple seconds later, I heard what sounded like a tire blowing up, and we turned around and saw the car that JUST drove by us pushing another car down the street, and then hitting another car with that one. We ran down and it was that OLD MAN!!! He apparently had a stroke and just like looked off at nothing, hit the accelerator and smashed into the cars on the side of the street. The grandson in the car with him was unharmed, but the grandpa sounded like he was snoring and wasn't responding to anything. The ambulance came and took him off, and the cops who came said they don't think he'll survive... Isn't that crazy??? But some good came from it!! One of the cops on the scene was a member and I suspect he may be less-active, and just doesn't have the cleanest language... And we helped these people move in while we were waiting to receive the report to fill out, another lady invited us to have some herbal tea and warm up in her house, and the people we helped move in told us to come back by some time... That's so cool!! So as some old folks pass from this life to the next, they can somehow open up people's hearts and create an atmosphere of acceptance and love :) So that was our weeks. Meetings and car crashes. Quite an adventure I'd say :) I hope everyone is doing great and having fantastic missionary opportunities open up for them :) take care, and until next week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham