Elder Bennett and the Newfie Subway Card

Hello everybody! It's only been five days since the last emailing session due to last week being transfer week, but quite a bit has happened in the past few days, so I suppose I'll be able to share all of it!

First of all, on Wednesday, it was a pretty fun day. We went bowling with the Sister missionaries, ate lunch, and relaxed. It was a long P Day, but it was a good one. That Wednesday night we had a few area meetings on what we needed to do for our area, which was quite a lot of fun. :) Good things are happening here in New Glasgow!

On Thursday, we worked hard. We knocked quite a bit in Northern New Glasgow (Trenton) which was a lot of fun! Elder Hunt and I decided to knock a street that had been knocked within the last six months, and as it turns out, we picked up four potentials of all young families! It was amazing to see that the Lord puts people in our paths that are interested. We have an appointment tonight with one of those people! It'll be sweet! Other than that, we prepared ourselves for Friday. Elder Randall K. Bennett of the Seventy is planning on doing a mission tour this week, but before he did that, he wanted to meet with the Mission Leadership Council (Zone leaders and STL's and the Assistants) and talk to us all.

Friday we spent the morning in Dartmouth with Elder Bennett. Elder Kelley, one of my previous companions in Grand Falls, gave me a Subway Card from Sister Borden! It was so nice!! Anyway, on to Elder Bennett. He talked about a LOT of things. I learned MANY things. One thing that stuck out to me was that He felt like our mission didn't love the people as much as we could in our mission. There is a feeling of hard work, but without charity, or the pure love of Christ, we wouldn't be able to be as successful as God intends for us. It caused all of us to reflect on what we needed to do better, and I admit, that sometimes I am not as sincere as I should be in our missionary work. That night, Elder Hunt and I decided that we were going to focus on loving the people. We went to Pictou, Nova Scotia where we had a lesson with a potential investigator named Sara. We talked with her for a while about the church, and began teaching her the Restoration. In the middle of it, her younger sister named Tina came out. Tina was going to smoke, but when she saw us, she put out her cigarette and listened to the lesson. They both have been reading the Book of Mormon. I have a testimony that sincere love is what will make a difference in the work.

Saturday was a very rainy day. It just so happens that the one hour that we decided to knock was the rainiest hour of the day. Aside from that, we also helped one of our GatorAid families move some stuff from their basement. We also watched Stake Conference. :)

Sunday was a nice day, we were able to have a good correlation with Brother Mackinnon and the Sister missionaries. We sang for the people in one of the homes here in town. It was a good time. 

Well, thank all of you for reading this far. :)

I love you! (and I do mean it!)

Elder Wanlass

A Well Deserved P Day

Hello everybody! It's been two or six days since I last emailed! It's transfer week, so P Day is on Wednesday instead of Monday, so I'm glad nobody was super alarmed at the lack of writing.

This week was quite fulfilling. Elder Hunt and I have been working hard. We've found 3 new investigators in the last week and a half. The work has been moving so amazingly in this area. Even though it's not a big town, it's got so much potential, and it continues to amaze me how the Lord blesses us as His servants here with people to teach.

With the success of finding people comes the chance to teach, and Elder Hunt and I have been working really well together to make these things happen. We taught two lessons yesterday - and both of the investigators we taught are now both on date for baptism, which is amazing to see. Jonathan is continuing to do well, and he's planning on coming to church this Sunday to see for himself if this church is true. 

I don't really know what to say. It's been fun, the work has been paying off, and we continue to work hard. Last night Elder Hunt and I went knocking in Trenton, the northern part of the New Glasgow Metro. Unbeknownst to us, the street had been knocked not too long ago, but we went for it. We talked with four families that wanted us to come back and teach them more about the gospel! It was so cool. I definitely know that the Lord is putting people in our path to find them. 

We went on exchange with the Truro Elders on Monday. We went to their area, and it was a lot of fun! I went with Elder Alger, who is a great missionary! He has served in Caribou and in Grand Falls, so we talked a bunch about those areas. Truro is a fun area. It is very similar to New Glasgow, however, people in Truro are a little bit more city kind of people. It is called the "Hub of Nova Scotia" so a lot of traffic goes in and out. It's the same size as New Glasgow, but New Glasgow is more spread out, so it doesn't feel like it is the same size.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and we had a good exchange!

I love you all, it's been a great week! I'll email you next Monday!

Love,

Elder Wanlass

My Days in the Metro

Hey friends, family, and acquaintances reading this right now!!! It's good to hear from all of you! (Not enough of you write me, sadly.)  :( But things are going well here in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, because me and Elder Hunt had to go on two exchanges in the city this week, we didn't really get to work as much in New Glasgow as we would have liked, but it was fun all the same.

We started this week by going to Halifax on Monday night. We didn't do much else on that day.

Tuesday though was great! We had an exchange with the assistants and I spent the whole day in Halifax. ACTUAL Halifax. It was pretty neat. Halifax in actuality isn't really THAT big compared to other places, but for our mission, it is definitely the biggest area to serve in for sure. There are so many people just walking around. We street contacted for three hours straight, which was a lot of fun, but it was a little insane to me how many people we had talked to. I was with Elder Argyle, who was my zone leader when I was in St. Stephen. He is from Kaysville, and went to Davis High, so that was kind of cool. After the street contacting, we went to see a recent convert named Wayne. He was baptized a month ago, and I met him the day before his baptism. He is super strong in the church and he fed us spaghetti with carrots in it! (It was really good.) The whole day we had a member with us named Brandon, and he is a really nice guy and wants to do good things. He street contacted people with us! That was neat!

Wednesday we then went across the bridge to Dartmouth, which is part of the Halifax Metro, and is the section that is in our zone, and we did an exchange with the Dartmouth Elders. It went...interestingly. I liked it actually. :) The Dartmouth Elders don't have a car, but we do. Elder Hunt and Elder Hovey took our car and went around town contacting former investigators in the area book. Elder Marcelino and I talked to a TON of people it wasn't even funny. We went street contacting, we went trail contacting, and we even bus contacted! It was neat being able to take a bus around the city. I was getting the hang of it. Elder Marcelino and I taught a lesson in the sketchy area of town, which was funny because for me, I didn't realize it was going to be sketchy until we got off of the bus. The lesson went really well. We taught a mom and her two kids, and we all said a kneeling prayer in a circle. It was amazing. After we got out of the lesson, it was nigh around 8 in the scariest part of town. There were plenty of hooded men walking around, but we ignored them and walked to the Bus Terminal. :)

The rest of the week was kind of a blur, mainly because a lot of our lessons we've set up have fallen through, but things have been really solid otherwise. Elder Hunt and I are doing well together, and I'm loving the missionary work. :) I can't say that enough!

Love you all!

Elder Wanlass

Halifax City

Elder Hunt

Moncton Once Again!

Hello everyone! This email might be a little shorter than my other normal length ones, but we'll see. :) I personally have had a really quick week. It's been scarily quick. Anyway, we have been doing pretty well here in New Glasgow. Unfortunately, we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators this week, and we didn't find anybody to teach. But a lot of that Elder Hunt and I attribute to the fact that we weren't able to work in our area for 3 days! So that was interesting.

Monday was just a regular P Day. We started out by knocking a fairly long street as well as contacting a few people who are interested in learning. We set up some appointments for this upcoming week, so that's something to look forward to! :)

Tuesday was an Antigonish day. It was a little slower, but we street contacted and knocked, so that was a lot of fun. :) Many of the young people are starting to move out west for the summertime, which is disappointing...but there are still a lot living here still. :)

Wednesday was funny. After District Meeting, we had a really good opportunity to serve a nonmember named Donald. He wanted help with his wood cutting, so Elder Hunt was able to use the chainsaw and I split some wood. It was a good time. We aren't even close to finishing, and we probably won't help him much after this for the sake of time, but we are trying to get the Priesthood to help out with it. We shall see.

Thursday was our trip to Moncton, which lasted the entire day.

The rest of the week was simply working! We did our best to try and find new investigators, and we are set up for a strong week this next week. :)

I loved Jeffrey R. Holland's talk from this recent General Conference. It really rang true to me. We must continue to look forward and God will always bless us. I know that this is true. I love this gospel, it's helped me out so much!

I love you all as well!

Elder Wanlass

Happy Spri-Are You Serious?! It Snowed Again!

Hellllllloooo everybody! :) It's been a great week here in New Glasgow! Things are happening, people are listening to us, and we are having a good time. :) I've very much enjoyed Nova Scotia since I've been here. We found 3 new investigators this week and taught 8 lessons, which is a fantastic week for us! :) I've sincerely enjoyed my mission. It's meant so much to me to be able to serve my Father in Heaven in this marvelous work. I love Him.

On Monday we had a decent day. We went to an appointment that we had with a man named David. He was a member referral, but we weren't able to contact him. His house is so big and we can't knock on the inner door because his outer door is always locked...so we are going to try again this week. It could be pretty promising. He wants to come to church! :)

Tuesday was a great day as well, we had exchanges with the Truro Elders, and they came here to New Glasgow. I went with Elder Smith for the day, and Elder Hunt with Elder Alger. Elder Smith is awesome. He is a new missionary who just came from the MTC a few weeks ago, and he is a great missionary and ready to work. We had a blast going to Antigonish, (one of my favorite places) and teaching people. We ended up teaching two lessons while we were up there. We found a young couple who are really promising. They are getting married in June, and both agreed to be baptized two weeks after their wedding if they know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is very promising! We've just had very solid lessons this week, and we were able to hit most of our goals. After we taught them, we taught Fred, the native investigator, once again. We read 2 Nephi 31 and taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He seemed to understand that baptism is important.

Wednesday we had our District Meeting, and it turned out to be kind of a weird day. We had a lot of plans fall through, which was pretty disappointing, but we still had a blast, and it was a lot of fun to find.

Thursday we went out to Antigonish again. It is always so fun. We taught another lesson to the young couple, and tried to teach a lady who wanted me and Elder Smith back, but she lied to us twice about moving to two different imaginary addresses..so we decided not to worry about her at the moment. :) We then drove to Pictou for another lesson with a new investigator. She is an older woman who loves the Elders. When we invited her to be baptized she said: "Well....Probably!" and then she said yes. :) So that's good.

Aside from that, the rest of the week was snowy, cold, and not as fulfilling. People shut down when the weather is bad, I'm convinced of it. 

Anyway, that was a general synopsis of my week. Things have been pretty solid. It's been fun. :) I've enjoyed this week, and I love the work of the Lord! Have a fanTASTic day everyone! I love you all!

Elder Wanlass

Different pins for the different areas served.

Antigonish.....The Dream

Hello Everybody! It's been quite an amazing week, if I do say so myself. We started out with a pretty strong P Day. We made some bold goals and set some plans on how we would achieve the goals we had set. We also cleaned the apartment and got prepared for the rest of the week (how fitting, I suppose).

We had made a personal goal for ourselves as the Zone leaders that we would try and make our area hit the gold standard this week. The Gold Standard is a model example of what we should be aiming for in our key indicators.

Tuesday was a pretty good day. We went out to a university town that is in our area called Antigonish. (the T is silent). Antigonish is home to St. Francis Xavier's University, and it is a nice mix of old and young people, and you get people from different locations as well. It's a Catholic school, and a religious community. I like it there. The only downside is that it takes about 45 minutes to get there. In any other area I would consider that a long drive, but after serving in Grand Falls, driving feels so short. And it's worth it to go this town. :) We had one investigator named F. He is native and is interested in the gospel. We had a pretty good lesson with him on the plan of salvation. He just needs to come to church, but it's been hard for him. We are going to try and help him understand what makes our church so unique. Other than that, we street contacted (I LOVE IT) and knocked and found a few people who were interested.

Wednesday was a fun day too. We had our Zone Conference in Dartmouth (Halifax). We received some great training from Bro. Cartier, an institute teacher who is impeccable. He taught us about what Faith really is. One thing that I found in myself that was lacking, was that I set goals for myself that I felt we could achieve, but didn't ever consider specifically asking the Lord what He wanted me to do. To make up for that, I've been thinking consistently about what I can do to do what Christ would do in EVERY situation. It changed the course of our week quite dramatically.

Thursday we had another Antigonish day. We had the opportunity of knocking to start. We don't have a wall map of Antigonish quite yet, so we didn't choose where we would knock until later. We drove past a few streets, and ultimately, we decided to knock Hillside. We knocked the whole thing, and found some success, but we decided to knock a small connecting street as well, and two young couples answered the door and said that they'd be very open to meeting with us. We are going to try to see them this coming week, and I'll let you all know how it goes.

After that, we had a lesson with our new investigator D. She is sweet, and very prepared. Within the past few months she has had some family members pass away and wants to become more spiritual. We were able to teach her about what we do as missionaries and shared the restoration with her. She liked what we shared, and we are teaching her this Tuesday! She is great! :D

Friday was another interesting day. The sister missionaries had found this Nigerian man who recently moved into all of our apartment building. His name is J., and he told the sisters that he would be willing to meet with us. So we decided that we would go upstairs and see if we could set up a lesson with him, and it went very well. He is a strong Christian, and he wants to follow Christ. We were able to discuss baptism, but he said he wanted to first read the Book of Mormon, but sounded very optimistic about it all! :D

Saturday was quite the week. We ended up finding for 8 hours. It was a lot of fun though, and I didn't feel like there was anything else we needed to do. We got several potentials who seem open to having us come by! I feel very good about this coming week! :D

and Sunday we didn't have church due to a snowstorm, so I still don't know very many members, but we've been stopping by and introducing them to me, so that's been good. It's just been strange not knowing anybody, really. :) 

This week, all in all, went really well. And this was only my first week in New Glasgow! I can't wait for the weeks to come! :D

Love you all!

Elder Wanlass

 My new companion Elder Hunt from Spanish Fork, UT.

 Donairs!!

My new space!

I'm New in New Glasgow!

Hellloooooo everyone! I'm back, after a relatively shorter letter five days ago, it is nice to be able to have a little more time to send out emails. Things have been fanTASTic so far with Elder Hunt. We are both excited to be working in New Glasgow, and even though things haven't been the ideal the past couple of weeks, we are going to change everything!

Nova Scotia is a lot of fun. :) The church is a lot bigger here than in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, so everything feels a lot closer. I'm still not quite used to it. :) But I'm still a zone leader, and we are over the Nova Scotia North Zone, which covers the island of Cape Breton, the peninsula (Truro and New Glasgow), and the part of Halifax where the temple is located. (Dartmouth/Cole Harbour) So that's neat. The zone is pretty solid. We have some amazing District Leaders and missionaries in our zone are a good balance between skilled and new, so that is definitely refreshing from Newfoundland where everybody was ending their missions.

This week was pretty quick. I mean, it's only been five days since I last emailed, so it was a little quicker. I was able to see some pretty cool sights in St. John's before I left for the mainland, like Cape Spear, the most Eastern point in North America, as well as some lighthouses. It was really windy, but quite a sight!

The work here in New Glasgow has been pretty fun. :) We are both hard working and we both want to exercise more faith and find people to teach. It's going to happen. We've already found some pretty solid potentials, so it's been amazing! :)

Anyway, other than that, General Conference was amazing! One theme that really stuck out to me this time around was a sense of hope. I'm trying to avoid negative and discouraging emotions by looking at what God can do and surrendering myself to his will. I feel that I will be able to do that even more so. :D

I loved Jeffrey R. Holland's talk. The most fundamental principle truth of the gospel is that God will always love us!!! So amazing! :D

Anyway, I love you all! I promise there will be more stories this next week!

Elder Wanlass

Pictures from Cape Spear before I left Newfoundland.  This area is the most Eastern part of North America.