Well, I'm a Black Guy in Newfoundland!

Hey Everybody! Elder Wanlass here! Good things are happening here in Grand Falls. We had a pretty good week, and we found a new investigator. :) A., who I believe I mentioned last week, is her name. She is super cool, and is sincerely desiring to find truth! We taught her the restoration, and she was super sincere and wanted to know everything we taught. I have high hopes for her! 

Anyway, this week went by pretty quick. Not too much eventful stuff happened, but it was just a very well rounded and fun week.

We had a pretty good family home evening on Monday night with Sister King and Sister Borden. We played trouble and watched a few videos on lds.org. It was a fun activity.

Tuesday was an alright day. We worked hard and talked with a lot of people! :)

Wednesday We had District Meeting and found a couple of referrals that Sister Borden and Sister King had given to us. It was a lot of fun! :)

Thursday we had an exchange with the Paradise Elders. It was pretty good! I went with a newer missionary: Elder Julian, and Elder Kelley went with Elder Dudley. Elder Julian is a funny guy. He is from Ontario, and is a visa missionary who is leaving next week to go to Anaheim, California, as in Disneyland! So that's pretty neat. He is loving it out here in Newfoundland. We were able to talk to quite a few people who were interested. I felt like we should walk down a particular street when we were together. Tucker Ave. Tucker is considered to be "Sketch Row" by past missionaries because of some of the people who live there. As we walked through, a guy yelled: "Are you the men who give the free money?" then when we said no, he said: "Oh! You're giving out salvation!" His name was Orin, and he was a black guy. The conversation led to God and how he had helped him in his life and his answer was priceless: "Well, I'm a Black Guy in Newfoundland! That's how he's blessed me." For those who don't know, I've seen like 5 black people since I've been to Newfoundland, so it's not very common. :)

Otherwise, Elder Julian and I taught A., which went well.

Friday was an interesting day, not much happened, but it was a good day.

Saturday was a pretty dramatic day with members, but it's all been sorted out, so that's good. Being the two Priesthood holders in an area is tough sometimes!!

Sunday we had a smaller day at church today. Only 11 people were there due to sickness, but hopefully this next week we will be able to see success. :)

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Wanlass

Throwback Thursday with Elder Dooley

Hey everybody! Elder Wanlass here, nothing too crazy happened this week. We haven't been able to teach anybody in a while. But we continue to work. This week we started out by having family home evening, as any other Monday.

Tuesday we didn't have anything super fantastic happen. We knocked, and took Sister B. to ARP. She's doing well and hasn't had a pill since last Sunday! :) Progress!!

Wednesday we had District Meeting which was pretty good. Nothing else to say there.

Thursday was a fun day. We had exchanges here in Grand Falls, and the Corner Brook Elders came up for the day. Elder Dooley and I were working together the whole day, which is fun, because we were companions together last spring. Elder Dooley and I were able to find 6 people who were potentially interested in learning about the church, which is really exciting. :) One of them we had a pretty cool experience with. We were knocking, and the very last door that we came to was a young single mom with a couple boys. It was pretty windy, so she said that we could come in and she had two chairs prepared for us. We sat down, and she said: "I'm just looking for truth. I was baptized as a baby, and I didn't feel right about that. I have a couple of friends who are 7th Day Adventists, and they want me to join their church. But I don't feel like they're right." We asked her why she was asking about baptism, and she said that she needed to find God more in her life. What the heck?! This stuff happens very rarely!! :) We left her a Book of Mormon, and are teaching her next week, so that was AWESOME!! :D It gets even crazier though, because Elder Kelley and Elder Balle were at Sister King's house, and she gave the same girl as a referral! But we didn't know about that until that night as we were planning! The Lord definitely works in mysterious ways. :) I have a testimony that he can and will help us in our work! :)

Friday and Saturday and Sunday we had a huge storm hit, so church was cancelled here... too bad!!!

Anyway, That's my week in a nutshell. Sorry there aren't many pictures, there wasn't anything really to take a picture of.

Love you all!

Elder Wanlass

The Brown Ave Talk n 'Walk n' Knock

Hello everybody. This is Elder Wanlass. Things have been slow going up here in Grand Falls-Windsor. We didn't end up getting to teach a lesson this week. Our investigator got headlice, so that's not fun :/ 

We are slowly seeing miracles happen here though. We had 13 people at sacrament this week, which is very good! But next week, we should be able to have 20 people come out, which is amazing! :) Considering when I first got here 11 people was amazing, this is simply astounding. If we can consistently get 20 people coming to church, we won't be using an apartment building at all! President wants us to expand so we can get a bigger space with more presence in the town. So that will be pretty sweet.

This last week was decent though. We ended up seeing decent success in finding potentials, but we just need to sit down and teach them!

One day I decided that we needed to just walk down Brown Avenue (which is one of the major streets in Grand Falls, notorious for the government housing) and talk with people who walk around. We decided to do it, and when we started, nobody was out because the wind was so bad. However, as we kept walking, a guy pulled over and talked with us. He said that he and his wife were interested in our church, and it turns out that we had knocked on their door before, and they said to come back, but they were busy a lot.

The next day we went to the house, and the lady answered the door and she was so excited because her boyfriend is in the hospital in Gander and he is doing better now after she prayed to God. It made her think of us, and now she and her daughter want to learn. However, it was the same lady, but the guy who stopped us was not her husband...weird, but they're interested! Miracle! :)

Anyway, thanks everybody for all your support. I wanted to close by testifying that I do know that this gospel is true. Jesus Christ is my Savior, and I love him. I love the prophets and apostles that have testified of Him in our day! I know that as we continue to serve and look for ways that we can improve, He will guide us and enlighten our understanding! I've come so far in my testimony!!

Love you all!

Elder Wanlass

Stephenville-The USA of Newfoundland

Hello everybody! This is Elder Wanlass! :) It's been a pretty good week here in Grand Falls, we've had some good times, and it's been fun. This week we were traveling all over the place. It was so crazy! On Monday we started off by having a good P day here in Grand Falls. Nice and relaxing. 

Tuesday we went all the way up to Corner Brook and spent some time with Elder Balle and my former companion Elder Dooley. It was pretty fun. Elder Kelley went with Elder Dooley and they worked in Corner Brook for the whole day. Elder Balle and I then hopped in the car and traveled another hour to a town called Stephenville. Stephenville is a pretty neat place, when I first had heard about it I thought it was going to be a small Newfoundland community of like 300 people, but it turns out that it is nearly 10,000 people. It felt like it was busier than Grand Falls, which was pretty cool. Elder Balle and I tried to contact some of the members who were out there, and we also were able to talk with quite a few people who were walking around town. Because missionaries don't go there very often, we were able to meet with several people who were interested in learning more about the church! How neat! After a while, the snow was getting pretty bad, so we hopped in our shiny white van and headed back to Corner Brook. We then knocked a little around town. Choncho, (our van) had a difficult time getting up some of the steep slopes in Corner Brook, so we got stuck a couple of times. As we slid down one hill, we were able to turn onto a different street, and this older man came over to talk with us. As it turns out, he was from Ontario and he had recently moved up to Newfoundland. He had met with missionaries down there before, so that was really neat. We were able to get his contact information, and hopefully the missionaries will be able to teach him! :D

Wednesday we had to drive back to Grand Falls and we worked for the rest of the day. 

Thursday we spent all day with the Assistants in Grand Falls. We were able to talk about the area and learn what we can do to better improve our work here.

Friday we had zone training, and we had a training we were asked to do. :) It went decently well overall, and I loved the chance to be able to offer what I know to other missionaries.

Saturday we had to catch up on planning. So that was fun. We also got to meet with several less actives to see if they would be able to come to church. We also knocked into a seventh Day Adventist Bible Study, where they gladly invited us in to learn with them. They were nice people, and apparently the Seventh Day Adventist Church is even smaller here than ours is, which I guess is reassuring?

Not sure :) haha! Such nice people though.

Sunday was a pretty good day! We had two less active members come and a former investigator who wants to start coming back, so that's really exciting. We had 12 people at church, but soon enough we will be able to start getting 20 coming consistently each week. Wahoo!!!

Anyway, that is the general synopsis of what we did this week, I hope that you all have a great week! :D

Elder Wanlass 

We All Need a Lil' Christian-anity

Hello Everybody! Unfortunately, this week was pretty uneventful...We didn't have too much going on, but we had quite a few funny moments with members, and some tragic ones.

Transfers happened too, but me and Elder Kelley are both staying, so there were just a bunch of changes made to the zone, but we stayed the same. :) It's always weird when that happens. 

Anyway, aside from that, we had a good day on Wednesday, we knocked around Botwood, which is a little town pretty far outside of Grand Falls, but we ended up finding several people there who were interested in learning about the church! So exciting :) We should be teaching them more next week.

Sadly, some of our members' health hasn't been the best here, so we had a few people to visit in the hospital as well.

It's a cold week this week.

To explain the title of the email, Sister King and Sister Tobin (two of our local Grand Falls members) were talking with us at FHE. We talked to Sister Tobin about coming to church more actively, and she agreed. Sister King told us that Sister Tobin needed more Christian-anity in her life, and that we could give it to her. That was so funny! :)

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of my week this week. I know, it was pretty short.. :( This week will be pretty insane too, we are doing all sorts of stuff. Anyway, thanks so much! :)

Love 

Elder Windloss

We Will Not Lead You Astray! Except when we go to Breakfast....

Hello everybody! Elder Wanlass here, it was a pretty crazy week this week! For us especially, because for 4 days, I wasn't even in Grand Falls to work! In order to get to Halifax, we have to take an 1 1/2 hour plane ride, so traveling is a little different than other areas that I've been to. The Transfer Table was also unveiled this morning, and I found out I'll be staying in Grand Falls with Elder Kelley for another transfer! So that's cool. :) I love Grand Falls.

Anyhow, on Monday it was P Day, and we had family home evening as per usual. Sister Powell and Sister Hull both came too, which was fun, this is there last week in Grand Falls, since they are both being transferred away. Sister Powell is going to Saint John, New Brunswick, which is close to Hampton, my old area, and Sister Hull is going to my birthplace Caribou! So that's neat. :) The two new sisters I've been district leader over before. Gander and Grand Falls are going to have so many miracles happen this coming transfer :)

Aside from that, Tuesday we worked in Grand Falls, so that was fun. We tried finding people left and right, and it went okay, we have a lot to build off with this next week.

Wednesday we prepared our district meeting and headed out immediately! :) We barely made our flight in Gander and us and the sisters headed out to Halifax! The next two days we had amazing and fun meetings where we learned the essence of being a Christlike leader.

Because the apartment was empty, we needed to go get food! :) So one morning, we and the Fredericton Elders went to Cora's, a really good breakfast place, and ate food instead of staying at the apartment. It was so worth it.

Friday we also couldn't head out to Gander because of weather, so we got to go to Halifax and talk with people at a nursing home. It was a lot of fun. :)

Saturday we got back to our area around 3 pm. We had to plan out our next week and then we worked in our area a little bit. We got to meet with a less active member named Sister R. She has read 10 chapters of the Book of Mormon in the last week, so she is doing amazingly well! :) I'm so happy that we got to teach her. :)

I love you all! that's pretty much the entirety of my week

Elder Wadless! :)

Newfoundland is getting hit with major storms right now.

Leadership Training in Halifax with the Pres. Pratt

Halifax, Nova Scotia Temple

The Goofballs on Campus

Hello everybody! Elder Wanlass here in Grand Falls! It's been a pretty fun week this week, we saw a few cool things happen and got to go on a faraway journey to Paradise/St. John's Newfoundland! 

Monday was a pretty good P Day. It was pretty relaxed and we got to clean the van and all sorts of "fun things" like that. :) We also got to watch Meet the Mormons with some of the members, so that is cool.

Tuesday we had some meetings in the morning, and then we went out to Botwood for the day! :) Botwood is a small town a little closer to the shore. We knocked out there a little bit, and we were decently received. We still haven't found any new investigators as of this week... but we are working on it. After we had knocked the street, we actually got a media referral from somebody who lives there who wants a Book of Mormon, so that's really cool! :) We will hopefully be able to meet them today, but we won't have much time to since we will be in Halifax on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. 

Wednesday we had District Meeting where I trained on how we need to prepare our hearts for the work. I feel like the training was well received. After that we made the 4.5 hour long drive to St. John's. We had a chance to work with the elders there. I went with the District Leader, who was my former zone leader when I was a District Leader: Elder Dudley, and Elder Kelley went with the other two companions: Elder Hogg and Elder Julian. Elder Dudley and I had a pretty successful night! The first door we knocked on let us in. His name was Eti, and he's from Nigeria. We taught him the Restoration and the spirit was so strong throughout that whole experience. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he wanted to read it. His girlfriend was on the phone with him and she was in Nigeria at the time! That's so neat! After that we stopped by several other people who were interested and one guy who was not at all.

Thursday we were still in St. John's and split off into our respective groups. :) Elder Dudley and I went to MUN University and contacted people there. It was so cool to see how diverse people were and how many young people were interested in learning more about the gospel. After that we toured some of the sights, like Signal Hill, a cool lookout point where you can oversee the city, and then we went street contacting and stopped by some less active members as well. The day was very successful.

Friday and Saturday were just working days, we are really trying to build up our area.

That was pretty much our week. We had a smaller group on Sunday due to some people being sick and others being tired, so that's where we are at right now. Hopefully this next week we will be able to see some excitement in our own area. :)

Love you all!

Elder Wanda

Signal Hill in St. Johns, Newfoundland

With the beauty comes the snow! (Grand Falls)