Merry Christmas!!! A Week of Wonder!

Hello everybody! :) It's been a good week. We've seen so many miracles in our trio it's not even funny. Christmas was amazing, and even though we couldn't proselyte for a full three days, we still managed to have an amazing, fun, and successful week. As a zone, we had what I called the Week of Wonder, which is essentially a week where we look for the tender mercies God has sent us everywhere. For us here in Grand Falls it worked amazingly.

We had three different instances where people came up to us and asked us to meet with them. We also were able to put two people on date for baptism, which was our strenuous, but possible goal. :)

Miracles happened all throughout the zone, and I feel like it went pretty well. :)

Christmas was also fun, I got to Skype home, so that was cool.  :) 

Grand Falls is definitely one of my favorite areas I've served in. It's so fun, the members are unpredictably silly, and we have a good time and work hard. 

That's all that I have this week! Also there are sisters going to Gander, which is part of our area! Crazy!!

Love ya,

Elder Windloss!

From his mom:

His emails have been very short the last couple of weeks because of his added responsibilities.  I will add a little of what he shared with me.

Hey Mom!

Thanks for the Skype call, it was good to see you. I feel like this work has blessed my life forever. I have been able to see a great change in me since the beginning of my mission, and I'm so happy for what I've been able to become. 

Basically we just kind of hung out on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. We were asked not to do missionary work, so it's been pretty boring. :) But I have enjoyed pondering about the Savior and what he means to me. I got the bear (Elder Biscuit) from the Christmas Zone Conference for a White Elephant Gift. A Sister gave it to me. 

Yeah, Elder Kelley is awesome. I was his district leader in Hampton when we was in Saint John, and he actually went to Syracuse High! He likes running and is pretty fun. :) Looking forward to it! I loved the package.

I love you mom! Hope to hear from you soon! :)

Elder Wanlass

Christmas morning!  

With a trio together there is bound to be a lot of presents under the tree.

The very middle of Newfoundland.

Playing with the selfie stick. 

(Elder Siepert and Elder Sortomme)

O Christmas Tree-O

Hello Everybody! It's been a pretty crazy week! My companion at the beginning of the week was sick for three days, so I just stayed in the apartment and called people. It wasn't the most exciting, but I did my best to make things happen. I got a couple of referrals, and I was able to set up a couple lessons, so that was really good. :)

On Thursday we made the road trip over to St. John's, which is 5 hours straight of driving! St. John's is a pretty cool city. It's about the size of Halifax, and it's just a nice branch! 

We had a fun time at Christmas Zone Conference, we got to sing hymns, focus on the Savior, and have some fun. I got to MC at the talent show, which was so fun! :)

After that, we took pictures. It's weird, because Sister Pierce, Elder Craig, and I all started out in the same District, and we were all at Newfoundland conference, so we took a picture of that! :)

I also said Goodbye to Elder Hardesty. I'm really going to miss him. But I know that he will be able to help people out in Dartmouth.

The trio is doing well! Elder Siepert and Elder Sortomme and I are having a good time, and we are seeing miracles happen. We had a lesson on Saturday and it went really well and we were all pretty unified. The spirit was strong. :) We are going to have a fun week next week!

Anyway, I love you All! :D

Sincerely,

Sister Swarenson?! (yes a member called me this.) :)

An Unexpected Baptism

Hello everybody! Things have been pretty interesting here in Grand Falls. This week we had two people with baptismal dates drop us. :( We also just didn't have much time to work in our area overall. The highlight of the week for me was probably going to Corner Brook for an exchange. I got to work with Elder Sortomme. He was a lot of fun, and we learned a lot from the time we had together. 

Corner Brook is a very rocky, mountainous city. Much different than any area I've seen in the mission. Most areas don't have mountains, so I thought that was pretty cool. :) It is a lot bigger than Grand Falls! We got to do some street contacting (which, because of my areas, I haven't done too much.) and we got to teach a couple more people about the church. We also got to meet the sister's investigator Aleena.

So...Elder Sortomme and I had just gotten back from a knocking spree where we found 4 potential investigators! (doesn't happen too often) As we got in the car, we get a call from Elder Hardesty and Elder Siepert telling us to go fill the font. Something was going to happen. We were super confused...but President Pratt wanted us to do it. So naturally, even though we were told by other people not to do it, we followed President's instruction. Apparently Aleena was flying out to Kazahkstan (her home country), and was confused with the troubles in her life. President wanted us to get her baptized. That night! So, we set into action. We filled the font and invited members of the branch to the baptism, the elders in Grand Falls instructed us on what to do, and the sisters found Aleena and got her ready. In a miraculous way, everything aligned up perfectly for her to be baptized. :) It was a crazy experience, but that night she became the newest member of the church.

So with that, we were all exhausted. Such a neat experience to be a part of (though not in the moment.)

Anyway, after that, we also got some interesting news. There is a midtransfer happening, and Elder Hardesty won't be here in Grand Falls. I will be with Elder Siepert and Elder Sortomme for the next two weeks working in Grand Falls. 

What a change...

I know that the Lord inspires our leaders. We need to follow the prophet and other men and women who are called by him. What a blessing it is to live in this day.

I love you alll!

Elder Wonderless

Blitz Week Bop!

Good day everybody! :) This is Elder WAN! I hope that you all had a fanTASTic week this week. We did here in Grand Falls :) I literally love this place so much. The Newfies are just my people. They are so funny, giving, and kind to everybody. (except when they aren't) but I digress. :) 

Speaking of digressing, one cool thing about Grand Falls is that it is the Cola Fountain of Newfoundland! Everybody drinks pepsi here. Like...everybody! And it is super cheap. Today I saw at the grocery store somebody buy an 8 pack of 2 liter sodas. (I didn't know that that was possible!)

We had quite an adventurous week this time around. We had a special challenge week called Blitz Week! We all had to contact over 300 people and find for over 30 hours. It was a good challenge for everybody, and I think it really stretched some of the missionaries who weren't sure if it was possible to get that many contacts and hours.

We didn't quite reach 300 here in Grand Falls, but we also had 18 lessons with investigators and less actives. But we did find quite a few people who said they'd be interested in learning the gospel. :) So neat to see how the Lord blesses us as we put out the effort. 

One of our investigators we found is named Lennea. She is pretty cool. :) She is a paramedic and is from Ontario! She moved to Grand Falls a few weeks ago and was very willing to listen to the message of the Restoration.

We also taught Darren and his daughter Erica. They are doing alright. They still need to keep coming to church, but other than that things are all good. 

We met with another investigator named Crystal, she came to church this week and enjoyed it! :) So that's good. :) 

On Wednesday a member of our church had her birthday. We decided to throw a branch activity and have her party at the church. It was a lot of fun, and she was so grateful. It was her first birthday party she had ever had, so it meant a lot to her. (she's in her 70's).

I've been doing a lot of pondering this week. December is already here, and that means the year is coming to a close. I've thought a lot about how I've changed on my mission, as well as how I've stayed the same. I'm so grateful for my Father in Heaven for getting me to where I am now. I love him so much. I know that the way I work on my mission shows how I love God. The way that I work after my mission, and the person I continue to become will show my love for God. I know that none of us are ever lost. That we aren't perfect. Not even close. But that Christ can perfect our imperfections and make us stronger, better, and happier.

I thank him for this week, and for the many weeks in the future!

I love you all!

Elder Walrus

Zone Conference, Bai!

Good day everyone! :) It is good to hear from ye! Elder Warless here! I'm excited to tell you about our crazy busy week! :) To start, we had an adventurous P Day and saw some pretty cool sights! Grand Falls is such a beautiful area. This week I got to see more of the island. We went to the other major city in our area, which is called Gander. 

Gander isn't super big, but they people have the biggest hearts I've ever seen. There is a story about Gander, that during 9/11, some of the flights to New York had to be changed, so tons of them flew into Gander for the emergency. The people of Gander apparently fed and entertained those who were staying there. Many people in Gander talk about it. Pretty interesting. :) 

We taught several lessons this week as well. We taught 8 this week, and met some other less actives. We've been really busy here in Grand Falls. It's so cool! :) 

We are teaching Darren. He is the son of a member here in Grand Falls. He likes church and he comes every week, but he just needs some more time before he can get baptized. We also tried to teach our investigator Derek, but when we went over he was a little intoxicated, and he started preaching to us. Interesting, to say the least, but he still wants to meet with us, and he does have very real intent in finding out if this is Christ's church.

We also had Zone Conference this week! That was pretty exciting. It was my first time conducting at a zone conference, and I think that I did pretty well. I was a little nervous, but things were good. :) As a mission we are making some changes to go along with the 2016. This week we are having a Blitz Week! We are going to be trying to achieve 30 hours of finding and contact 300 people. We are also having mini challenges against the Sister Missionaries. :) We are probably going to win though ;)

We as a mission are aiming for 135 baptisms this next year. We are going to do it! It'll take some effort, but we can! :) 

It's been an interesting couple of weeks...I'm definitely still adjusting to the fact that I'm a zone leader now. It's a little different, but I will get used to it. :) 

I've been studying a lot on Faith and Miracles lately. (It's probably one of my favorite things to study.) I definitely know that as long as we have faith in Christ, we can accomplish all things and he can make weak things become strong.

I love you all. Have a great week! :)

Elder Worthiness

Scenery of Grand Falls

From Elder Wilderness and Elder Hard-to-See

Hello everybody, this is Elder Wanlass :)

It's been quite a long week! With packing, driving, and learning about the area being most of my activities for the last little while,  I'm definitely going to miss St. Stephen and the people there. 

I'll especially miss Sandra Beaumaster. She is the first convert who I've had to leave on my mission. She's an amazing member of the church. She was the first person I met in St. Stephen, and one of the last ones I said goodbye to. It was pretty hard... she said "Thanks for all ya did!". A bittersweet moment to be sure.

 I had a great three months there. I'm super excited for my new area though! Grand Falls here I come! :)

Grand Falls is a pretty neat city. It's about 20,000 people which is my biggest area by far. :) (It's still not very big though.) It's in the dead center of Newfoundland, which is pretty cool. The members here are very funny. They give us nicknames, come to lessons with us, and they gives us snacks. (I said gives on purpose...newfie talk) The names on the title of this email are things we were called this week. :)

We only have about 13 members that come to church in an apartment building that's been converted into a church. Pretty cool. :) 

We had one really cool experience this week. We weren't really sure if we were going to be able to find a new investigator due to how much time we weren't in our area, but a miracle happened! We were walking to a recent converts apartment building, when a guy outside stopped us and asked what church we were from and where our church was. It was literally right across the street from the apartment building, so we pointed it out to him and he said that we could meet with him! He was so cool. His name is Derek and he wants to quit smoking. We put him on date for January 23, and he really liked the member we had with us. so that was neat.

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic week! love you!

Elder Wanted-List

Saying Goodbye to all my St. Stephen's Family.  (All the above pictures.)

Transfer day with Elder Astle and  Elder Edge!

More of the great people I serve with!

Here is our church that is located at an apartment.  (With Elder Hardesty)

Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland

I'm Going to NEWFOUNDLAND!

Hey everybody! Elder Wanlass here. :) It's been a pretty good week, but even more exciting is that it is transfer week! 

President Pratt came to my district meeting this week, which was nice. I loved having him there! He is an awesome Mission President. :)

I'm going to Grand Falls, Newfoundland! It's pretty crazy, and was unexpected since I had only been in St. Stephen for a short time. I'm pretty excited though! I've heard a lot of cool things about my area, and it should be a lot of fun. :) I'm the only one in St. Stephen who is leaving, so it will be sad.

I've had a lot of good times in the area, but I'm pretty excited to serve in a new province. :) It's going to be so much fun! :D

Some fun facts about Grand Falls:

There are only 6 people who attend church (including us)

Our church is an apartment building :)

I'm four hours from the nearest missionaries.

It is the zone leader area in Newfoundland.

I'm super excited :) We are going to see a lot of success. It's going to be so much fun. I've got to go, but thanks for reading this short entry.

 Grand Falls, Newfoundland...I will be flying over.

 President and Sister Pratt came to visit our District this past week.

The McAteer's are the best!  I will miss them.

Sister McAteer made me sign a contract before she cut my hair.

Elder Gardner has been a great companion.

Brother Murphy is a carver.

Sister Beaumaster

Hey everybody! This week has been quite the amazing experience! We had a baptism! My first convert, Sandra Beaumaster, did amazing at her baptism. She was pretty nervous throughout the week, but when the day finally came and she was at the church, she was completely still and calm. She knew she needed to be baptized, and she was going to do it! :) I'm so proud of her and how far she has come in her life. 

On Sunday when she got confirmed, she looked just like a regular member. I can't wait for missionaries down the road to come to this ward and see her not as a convert, but as a member who has been there forever. Sister Beaumaster will be a blessing to the St. Stephen Ward. 

This week otherwise went decent, we met with a new investigator named Daniel the other day. We store contacted him and he said that he wanted to meet with us. He is a really nice soft spoken man who wants to come closer to Christ. We extended a baptismal invitation and he said that he wanted to be baptized and come to church. So cool! He should be coming this week. He also showed us his pipe collection... so that was cool!

Anyway, this week we ran into a lot of people who were really nice. We are seeing a lot of people's hearts softened towards us and the gospel. I know that this church is true and I've seen a lot of success here in St. Stephen!

This week for District Meeting President Pratt is visiting me. GULP :D I'm doing it on testimony and how are testimonies can bless the lives of others. Surely it can :)

I love you all!

Elder Wanlass

Sister Beaumaster was baptized November 6.

A Zombie Apocalypse Style Halloween

Hey everybody, this is Elder Wanlass! It's been a busy week this week! We had a good time preparing Sandra for baptism! She is doing so well, and she loved gospel principles this week. :)

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders so that they could interview her. It was a good interview, from what I understand, and she was definitely ready for baptism. Elder Edge interviewed her, and he said: "I was going to ask her to bear her testimony at the end, but she kind of did through the whole interview, so I just thought she was ready." Sandra is such a gr

I had some weird experiences knocking with Elder Edge too. We ran into a guy who told us he worshiped Hitler, a man who said he was already a part of a cult in his past and that he didn't want to join another one, a girl answer the door in a robe, and an old lady who screamed at us through her door. So that was strange... We had an adventure I suppose. :)

We had a few appointments fall through again, unfortunately, which happens. Oh well.

Craig is doing well, we had a really spiritual restoration lesson with him and he accepted a baptismal date, so that was fantastic!

On Halloween night, we went to our apartment, boarded up all the doors, turned off all the lights, and looked outside at all the people dressed in costumes. We are kind of in a sketchier place in St. Stephen, so....that could have been interesting. Luckily nobody came to the apartment. We also watched Meet the Mormons and made some calls. Hence the Zombie Apocalypse :)

Anyway, the rest of this week was fairly slow, and we didn't have much else happen. We are trying to find people to teach. :) It's a slow but rewarding process. I'll let you all know how the baptismal service goes next week. :)

Our awesome investigator Sandra. 

Here is our updated District picture!!  

The PreBaptism Week

Hello everybody! This week was all over the place! We've had an insane amount of lessons fall through and quite a few that have happened. 'Tis the life of a missionary, I suppose. :) Anyway, we've had quite a bit of success as a district, this week we had 4 people come to sacrament! :) Sandra included! Sandra is doing so awesome right now, and she is progressing towards baptism. She only has a week and a half! AH! 

Aside from that, we've had a few other teaching experiences, one of them cool and the other kind of funny. The first one is member's boyfriend named Craig. We are teaching them the missionary lessons and they both were interested in doing that. It was pretty neat because we met at a ward activity, and now he is interested! :)

Anyway, the other teaching situation was supposed to be a guy in his 40's, but it turned into us teaching an 80 year old woman the Restoration. Our potential Brian wasn't around, but his mom was, so we taught her with Seb Sanford, one the Priests in our ward. It was a hard lesson for my voice, because every single time I spoke, she could barely hear me. After what was quite possibly the least spiritual recitation of the First Vision, we told her we would come back when her son was around. :) It was quite funny, but she was interested, she knew who we were and our purpose. 

Anyway, I love you all!

I'll have more to say next week I think. Also, one of the members here read their talk off of a Nintendo 3DS because they left there iPad at home.... so that was EPIC.

Have a fanTASTic Week Everybody! You better believe that I will!

Elder Wanlass

 A "Maine" party!  This included Moxie soda, Whoopie pies, ketchup chips and red hot dogs.  All things Maine.

 Elder Gardner

My parents sent me some new shoes!

A Baptism is Coming!

Hey all!  It's been a pretty good week up here in St. Stephen, we continue to work hard to find more of God's children who are interested. We've been meeting a lot of different people, now we just need to sit down in lessons with them. We have a few good ones set up for this coming week, so we will update you on how that goes :)

The main thing I wanted to talk about this week was Sandra! She is doing so well! She has been reading "Our Search for Happiness" by M. Russell Ballard to help her with understanding of the doctrine we teach, and it's worked for her. We've been teaching her very directly, and she's taken it very well. She's come to church 2 times in a row now, and she is working towards her baptismal date on November 6! She is planning on getting baptized, so there is no issue there :) I just can't wait! It'll be fun!

The rest of this week we had some pretty fun experiences. We got let in and we taught the restoration to this older couple, they were both super interested and willing to learn about the church... they even wanted to come to church this Sunday. So we gave them the church address and set up another meeting the following day. We called them the next day, and they didn't even remember who we were, and they told us they had their own church... It was pretty weird. :) You get all kinds of things like that up here in the Maritimes. It's nothing new.

We talked with a few people just in passing who seemed pretty interested in learning about the church! A few of them we set up times with, and one lady I called sounded like she was crying and told us we needed to talk to her son. We set up an appointment with them next week too :)

Work is happening here in St. Stephen. It's a fun place to be, that's for sure :) 

My Ponderizing scripture is D&C 50:24
"That which is of God is light, and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light, and that light groweth brighter and brigher until the perfect day."

I hope you have a fantastic week :)

Love Elder Wanlass

 Busy working!

 Elder Gardner!

 Check out the beautiful fall leaves!

 We are seeing a few frosty mornings!

Harvesting Souls with Elder Gardner! (and Sebastian)

Good day everyone! It's been a pretty interesting week this week! :) We had transfers, so that was pretty eventful, my new companion Elder Gardner is with me now. :) We had a lot of fun this week, and we talked to a lot of interesting people. Not much happened at the beginning of the week, but now things are all good. I really enjoyed this week overall, but I'm super tired. :) Today is actually Canadian Thanksgiving, so we are eating tonight, and then next month as well! Benefits of Maine I suppose :)

Anyway, this week we taught Sandra, and we had a really spiritual lesson with her on Hope and the Restoration. She wants to make it to baptism. The Elders before didn't really commit her to do too much, so we are building from the ground up. This will be good. She is committed to be baptized and she came to church this Sunday and LOVED it! It was so good! After one of our lessons she even took us out for a lobster dinner! It was delicious. She's going to get baptized!

This week we also had the opportunity to go on splits with some of the members here in St. Stephen. After Church we split off and Elder Gardner went with the Senior couple and I went with a Priest in the ward. We went out and talked with so many people and got 8 potentials. We also got a neighbor referral, and we walked over and the guy let us right in. We taught him about God and the Book of Mormon, and he wanted to have us come back! It was such a neat experience. Most people that we talked to initially weren't interested, but as we started to speak with them, their hearts were softened and they invited us back. It was so cool. :) I love the gospel.

My ponderizing scripture for this week is Helaman 10:4-5

"Blessed art thou Nephi, for those things which thou hast done. For I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but has sought my will, and to keep my commandments. And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee FOREVER, and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, and in faith and in works, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will."

I love this scripture, I must give it all I've got! :)

Love you!

Elder Wanlass

 Elder Gardner

 Look at the fall leaves!

 Sebastian serving with me for the day.

I love the McAteer's!  

A General Conference Transfer Week....That doesn't happen too Often!

Hello my friends and family! It's been an amazing week, and an even better weekend, nothing can beat listening to our modern day prophets and apostles, and this conference really touched my heart so much. Some of my favorite talks were from President Nelson, Elder Ballard, Elder Cook, and President Monson's, and many more. I think that this was one of my most memorable conferences I've had on my mission.

Aside from conference, we've been really eventful because of transfers! As it turns out, Elder Bate is leaving to be with one of my previous companions in Truro, Nova Scotia, Elder Dooley. I am getting a new companion: Elder Gardner! Elder Gardner is from Idaho, and I've served around him quite a bit before. I'm really looking forward to working alongside him. :) He is such a fun guy and we'll have a good time and work hard.

We had the opportunity to teach a new investigator this week. Most of our investigators have been sick or busy, so we haven't really gotten to contact some of them. But we met with this lady named Celeste in Eastport, Maine. (The place with the lobster pizza.) She was a Catholic, but she wasn't really ever solid in a particular belief, so she believed in reincarnation....it was an interesting lesson, but when she understood the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation, she understood things much clearer.

I am so excited to be staying in St. Stephen, it is such a beautiful place and a great area! I'm going to have a blast!

Love you all!

Elder Wanlass

I Am Your Host- Elder Wanlass! (and the lamest email ever.)

Hello everybody! This week not much happened to be honest. Just finding and talking with People. This quite possibly might be one of the shortest letters I will ever write, to be honest. 

1. One of our recent converts named Al is a taxi driver and he talks to a lot of people about the gospel who need it. He came to us last Monday and gave us literally 40 names of people to go and stop by who might be interested! It was a neat experience! :) 

2. We had a google translate door conversation -  We had one pretty cool story. We were knocking and we found this one guy who couldn't speak any English. He was really friendly with us though. He didn't know who we were, so he ran over to his phone and got google translate. I had to type in what I wanted to say, and it translated into Romanian for him to read. Once he found out we taught about Jesus Christ, he let us right in and pointed to pictures of Jesus. He invited us back later. We are now friends on Facebook. :D

3. We had really good interviews with President Pratt and we talked about Charlottetown and things. :)

4. We got blue suits that we wore for a ward activity. They were donated to us by a member.  :) it was a lot of fun!

Thanks everybody, I promise this is going to be the shortest email I ever do!

Elder Wanlass

 Ward Party!!

 Elder McAteer and his wife are the Senior Missionary couple serving in our ward.  We love them!!