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