A FFLA of Epic Proportions!

Well everybody, it's been quite the week! This transfer has started off strong! We've had some really solid days, some rough days, but overall, the week turned out super great. We started off by heading out to Canada for a couple days! Elder Beacham stayed back in Fredericton, and I had to go over to Truro, Nova Scotia for a leadership meeting. It was such a good meeting, and I learned so much about how I can improve as a leader, and what things I really need to focus on to become a better missionary in general. Plus I got to see my MTC friends Elder Hansen, Elder Astle, and Elder Heimonen! It was so neat, since it had been a solid 6 months since I had seen any of them :) It was a nice little reunion.

A happy reunion with my MTC friends!

After we had that meeting, all of us missionaries were really tired. Five of us got into a car and we were heading back to Amherst to drop two of them off, then to Fredericton, and eventually I would get back to Caribou. So we started driving for a solid 2 hours, and we made it...to Dartmouth, NS, which is right by Halifax! So we drove 2 hours in the WRONG direction! Oh man! We all just kind of laughed about it, but a couple of us got frustrated...it was what we called a FFLA (f-flah) which stands for Fun Filled Learning Adventure. And it was a learning adventure, how none of us bothered to look at street signs, notice we typed in the wrong city for the address, or notice we were going south is beyond me, but hey, we made it to Amherst and stayed the night. Afterwards, we went to Fredericton and I did my first District Meeting via Skype with two districts being involved! Talk about intense! However, it went really well, and I loved being able to teach about missionary work. 

When Elder Beacham and I got home on Wednesday night, we worked so hard. We ended up finding about 5 referrals, contacted 3 of them, and one of them became an investigator! We asked this older man if he knew anybody who was interested in learning about God, and he said: "My neighbor John Smith might now," pointing to his house. I kind of wasn't sure if it was going to be a real person, but we went to the door, and knocked. He wasn't home, but we turned around, and he was pulling into the driveway. He let us right in and talked with us for a moment. Then I realized that he was a former investigator that the sisters had been teaching for about a month, but he dropped off of the face of the planet! He was really nice, and he said that he would want to learn more about God and the Book of Mormon! It was so cool!

We also had a similar experience later in the week. We received another neighbor referral, and the guy we contacted said that he would love for us to stop by on Sunday so that we could talk. After Stake Conference this week, we went to the man's house, and his whole family was there! The kids really enjoyed having us over, and the parent's seemed interested in the gospel. The kids had even been to our church before with some of the youth of our church! It was super sweet! We asked if we could come by later and they decided that they wanted to visit our church next week! We are doing a church tour with them! It was so cool! :)

One thing that I've really learned this week is opposition in all things. One thing we must all realize is that without trials, there would be no way for us to grow stronger. Without trials, we wouldn't be able to grow taller and strive to become the best we can be. I have really seen the impact that opposition has made on me through my missionary work. It's been so neat to really see how I can grow and change into what God wants me to become!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Wanlass

Here is a view overlooking Caribou.

Lobsters!