Nov 20, 2011

Hey

Sounds pretty awesome. I think at the end of these two years I might need a vacation... we will have to do a Mexico trip like that when I get back. Who was it that caught the 30 pounder? Daran actually emailed me last week, I think he was missing you and I didn't realize he was going to be in Mexico with you guys, that is really great though. The biking sounds sweet, but I can't believe you haven't gone surfing yet.

We are so excited that they are getting married on the 17th! And also really cool, they are getting baptized the day after! If I get transfered right before all of this (the transfer date is Dec. 8) I will just be devastated. However, I get along really well with the bishop, and there are quite a few problems in the ward at the moment and he doesn't want to bring anyone new in. So last night he called Pres. Shamo, and also had the Stake Pres. call Pres. Shamo, and he told me he is pretty sure I will be here for at least one more transfer. So I'm really happy about that. I want to spend Christmas here so bad, I have such good friends here and having it here would probably be the next best thing to a normal Christmas with you guys. I would hate to move to a new area and then two weeks later have Christmas with total strangers.

Oh, the Christmas package you guys sent arrived. However, they keep bringing it by at 1130, and because we are never home at that time, I am never here to sign for it. The tax on it was like 20.63 or something. Next year we will have to remember to send it to the mission office.

I am no longer upset about the fact I am in an English speaking mission. It would have been so tough to learn a language. I struggle enough as it is teaching people in English, if I was trying to do so in another language I would be a total mess. I think I have realized this is exactly the place I need to be in, and I honestly love being here in Helston.

We will get the chat thing going one of these weeks. I think I'll always be on about 130 your time.

We have the best p-day ever planned today! We are going up to Plymouth (Helston has about 10,000 people in it, and Plymouth has a couple million) with Ken and Toni in a couple hours, and meeting Elder White and Simmons there (it is about a 1.5 hour drive). Ken is driving us up in his beamer to save us from using our cars miles. We are going to an indoor ice rink and going ice skating! I am really glad I am going to get a chance to ice skate this winter after all, although everyone else says they don't really even know how to skate. If only we could play some hockey... but after skating we are doing some shopping for matching onesies for christmas and then we are going out to eat at a really good resturant called Nandos. It is going to be an awesome day!

Enjoy your time in Mexico,

Love Elder Steed

You didn't let me know about Sean or anything like that I asked about last week... he has just stopped emailing me and I was wondering what his plans were.

Nov 20, 2011

Good Morning,

I hope you guys have fun today with the whole gang! Tell everyone I miss em!

I actually just bought a new hoody last week, but I wouldn't mind some thermal underwear. And a scarf and/or a sweater would really be nice. But I know you just sent the Christmas package, and I can wait till it gets really cold if you want to wait a couple of months to send anything else. Or I could just buy stuff on my card.

Okay, that homework assignment you are doing sounds awesome. It sounds like you picked four amazing books, and I think you could really write an amazing paper based on that. I'm really impressed.

I miss scone fridays. I'm gonna miss about 100 of them in a row, so we will have to be making up for lost time when I get back and have scones everyday. I even miss the drop in center. I didn't use to like doing service projects like that very much... but now I love it.

Have you heard anything about Mike Cooper? How is he doing? What happened with him?

The Steed Christmas' are always so much fun. I am really sad I am going to miss it, but I will at least get a taste of the big skating party today. I don't know if you can read the email I sent to dad, but we are going ice skating today. Actually a really crazy thing happened yesterday. I was eating dinner at a members house and we had one of her friends, and investigator, over as well. I mentioned where in Canada I was from, and she asked me if I knew any Bauldries. I said ya, and she asked if I knew a mark Bauldrie. I said no, but I did know a Ryan and a Nathan. So it turns out, Nathans dad, Mark, served here in Penzance in like 1978. Sis Maddern, or Mo as we call her, was really good friends with him. Mo had a picture from Nathan and Whitneys wedding! I thought it was so cool, such a small world.

I actually havent even got your Christmas package yet. They keep trying to deliver it but keep missing me. It will be like 20 quid. I'm excited to set up a tree! That is too bad about Riley... especially the saturday night hockey. I think it is pretty sweet that he is still keeping that tradition alive, but lame that he isn't making everyone pay. I did sometimes feel guilty about always bugging people who never payed for the money, but I think you just have to do it. I miss hockey... no one here knows anything about it.

So how come Lolo (lauren) is coming back? And I just realized, you never seem to answer any of the questions I ask in my emails. Like last week I asked why you were worried about me when I first left, and also I asked how Tyler Skinner is doing because you said Janae is worried about him. I think I asked a few more things as well...

I had two pieces of toast with nutella for breakfast. Thats what I have everyday now.

It is really going to be so fun at the end of my mission when you guys come pick me up and we can go tour around all the places I've been in. Especially Helston. You will love to meet all these people.

This has been a really good week for us. A crazy week even. The work here in Helston is lighting on fire. In my four months, we haven't had much success outside of Ken and Toni. But the last two weeks, we have picked up 5 new investigators and we have like maybe 3 or 4 more that will probably be investigators this week. We had 6 people at church yesterday! We are getting lots of chances to serve people, things just seem to be looking up right now. Early in the week, we were asked by our High Priest group leader (Eric, one of my really good friends, he is the one who bought me my cornish tie) to go help a less active lady who is REALLY struggling. So we helped her clean her garage, and we are going back this week. She is still amazingly vibrant, and happy and full of life, and really mobile and witty for a 90 year old. I really did just enjoy chatting with her afterwards, we were able to have some good laughs even in this rough time in her life. Other than that, everything has been really good. We managed to teach a refferal we got from the bishop, and it went amazing! We taught him about the restoration and BoM, and he was really receptive to it and open to finding out the truth for himself. He even offered a kneeling prayer with us at the end. We are going back wednesday to show him the joseph smith movie. His wife is currently investigating the j-dubs (jehovas witnesses) but we will see what we can do about that. We also are starting this week to teach a grand-daughter of a less active lady. I think I might have mentioned her before, but she is only 17 and kind of a rebellious kid, and had a crush on a previous missionary. So I don't really know her motives yet, but she claims she wants to take the discussions and be baptized. She told me the only reason she didn't when she last took the discussions is because she had a boyfriend who was opposed to it all. But now that is over. So we will see.

On saturday we had like an hour to kill before some teaching appointments, so we just went and knocked a road me and Simmons had felt good about like a month ago. It was incredible! It seemed like everyone was really receptive and just nice, we gave out a bunch of Boms and pamphlets, and we booked four return appointments for this week, and all 4 of them were families! I don't know if that even sounds amazing to you, but I have never had anywhere close to that much sucess in knocking doors before.

Then at church yesterday, a lady just walked in. She was a tall, young african lady, and because one of our less actives is a tall young african lady, I figured it was probably just her and so I just introduced myself and didn't really talk with her when she first came in. Then as I am up on the stage after Elder's quorum, the relief society president comes flying out of the hallway and grabs me and tells me I need to get my butt over to the front doors. Turns out this african lady has never been to our church before. Her friend who usually goes to the Redruth ward was going to meet her here for church, but for whatever reason her friend never came. So this lady just ended up at our church all by herself. So we grabbed a couple members and went and taught her about the restoration in gospel principles. Actually we also had Chris in there, our 10 year investigator, and he was even helping to teach the restoration story, which was really weird. This lady, whose name is Friskani, was really cool. She normally goes to a born again church in Truro. And, as it turns out, the same church Ken and Toni used to go to! So when Ken and Toni rolled in for sacrament meeting, they were all like What the heck? They apparently knew each other from that church, and started talking. Friskani has a 4 year uni degree in buisness administration, but can't seem to get ajob with that so she just does some part time modelling jobs. She is really smart, and knows the bible really well. But she loved the idea of the restoration, and the priesthood, and stayed for all three hours. The ward really made her feel welcome. It was just crazy. She said she will come back to our church, and we are going to teach her again on Wednesday. She has some serious marriage problems though... some really weird stuff, but has two young kids.

Then after church and eating with Mo, we went and stopped by a refferal we got. We got the refferal from the less active grandma of the 17 year old I mentioned earlier. Apparently this lady who cuts her hair every week has shown a lot of interest in the church. I guess they just talk about it as she cuts her hair. And the hairdresser, whose name is Paige, is going to New Zealand in a month to live with her sister, who is lds, and whose husband is in the bishopric there, and wants to learn more about the church before she goes. So we knock on the door of the house, and this big, tough looking bald guy opens it. He just eyes us down looking angry for an awkward amount of time, then just smiles and says; Come in! I was really taken aback, we hadn't even spoken to him. So we went in and introduced ourselves. Turns out Paige, the daughter, is 18 and lives with her parents. Her mom used to be a member, but got exed when she moved in with her non-member husband like 30 years ago before they were married. So they were really cool and nice, and knew a lot about the church. Although Paige knew like literally nothing. She didn't even know who Moses was. But we had such a good time with them, we just seemed to hit it off with them right away and were having a good conversation and laughs. They invited us back next sunday, we shared a really great verse from the BoM with them, and they aren't opposed in anyway to the church. We are going to try to teach Paige about the church, and hopefully dunk her before she leaves. But there really isn't much time to.. so we will see what happens.

It has been a crazy week. Sorry I wrote so much.

Thanks for everything, enjoy this precious time without Joel,

Love Elder Steed

Nov 13, 2011

Ya we can skype on Christmas day. I also am going to see if we can skype when Riley gets his mission call. How is that going by the way?

I also just wanted to mention that Toni made us Mom's parmesan chicken this week. Me and Simmons did an exchange, and went to teach Ken and Toni and have dinner with them, but we didn't tell them it would be simmons coming. They were really suprised and excited and we had an awesome night. Ken had a really tough night at work the night before, he got spat on and a couple of guys jumped him and he is just really sick of his job.

I also just remembered that in the Christmas spirit, and as a service project, we are going to be putting up Christmas lights for an older lady in the ward. I'm really excited about that, she is really cool.

Oh, and we had a really good meeting in Reading this week. The area 70, a general authority, came to Reading on thursday so we did the 7 hour drive down to hear him speak. Actually, just a side note, on the way down one of the sisters we were travelling got really sick and I had the chance to give her a blessing. It still scares me half to death to be asked to give blessings, but that was my second one now and I am always amazed to see the power of priesthood blessings. But Elder Wright was amazing. He was a great speaker, and I gained a lot from this one. We had another q and a session with him, like we did with Bednar, and everyone was asking really lame questions that I could have answered. So I got sick of it, and near the end I asked one about the role of the spirit in goal setting and he spent like 20 minutes answering it and really just answered all my questions about it. So I really enjoyed being able to have some of my concerns about that get resolved. I was in the front row and he was just like standing beside me talking to me. It was pretty cool.

I should be on the same time next week, ifyou get a chance to be up to chat.

Love Elder Steed

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Tanner Steed <tanner.steed@myldsmail.net> wrote:

I might as well respond to your other email while I wait. As you mentioned seabiscuit, I just though about a movie I get to watch soon. We are having a ward fireside where we will be watching the movie called 17 miracles. Its about the handcart companies crossing the plains. I'm so excited to watch a proper movie! Also, we might be allowed to watch Its a wonderful life on Christmas day. I've never seen it, but everyone says it is really good.

You should totally knit me a toque for christams. Although no one here or even any of my companions have heard the word toque. They all call them beanies.

Actually mom didn't tell me about Riley... that is really too bad. He is doing design at SAIT? That kind of sounds lame to be honest. What is Hayden and Dan doing? And why did he decide to come back? I guess he must not be enjoying it that much... It's probably hard to fit into a YSA ward like that when you are pre-mission.

That is really cool to hear about what you are doing with Sean. Mom said you took him to a flames game as well, has he talked with you at all about plans for a mission? And I'm sure him and Jordan will love doing floor hockey. Haha you need to get one of thost big girls? When I get back I better still have my spot on the team though! I'm gonna come home and you are going to be better friends with sean than I am.

Teaching gospel principles is pretty good usually. I'm actually kind of bad, I just go in a wing it every week. But we get really good members to come in the class with us and they help a lot.

I'll let you know about the VAT for the Christmas package. Also, I might need to get some dry cleaning done this week, which costs maybe 15 pounds. Elder Oscarson I think would enjoy anything really, even if it is small just so that he has something nice to open on Christmas. I am learning a lot from him. He really likes old stuff, like any sort of old church films or music or talks or any MOTAB stuff he just loves.

Just thinking about what you said about that Cooper bloke, I think that is a realization I am coming to as well. The first few weeks or even months of my mission I was really uptight about everything, and just stiff and even a little bit awkward. I just wasn't being myself. I think it also makes it tough when you are with your trainer who has a really dominant personality (as do I...). But as I've gone on, I've tried to find the balance between being serious and still having fun. I think I am doing a lot better with that now. I have a lot of fun with the members and investigators, but I know when the time is to be serious as well. I think I just realized a missionary doesn't have to be stiff all the time, and that if you don't have some fun on your mission you won't enjoy it and you will go crazy. So things are starting to get easier and easier, I am enjoying serving here pretty much every day now. And even though time still seems to be passing really slowly, I don't really mind.

Have fun in Mexico! I actually still have the scar on my lip from that impromptu surgery,

Love Elder Steed

Nov 13, 2011

Sounds like a good weekend. I miss those rolls Grandma phillips makes. She actually sent me a letter this week in the mail. If you talk to her, tell her I really appreciated the letter and the 20 quid! Tell her I used it to buy some much needed new clothing. They actually also do remembrance day here, but we didn't go to a service or anything for it. I really wanted to though.

Ethnic novels and literature? That sounds like a ridiculous assignement. The only novel that popped into my head is Island of the blue dolphins. Oh, and 'Keeper of the isis (or maybe iris??) light' or something like that. Both of those probably fight into that category.

That sounds like the perfect calling for you. In our last ward, I remember all the yw loved you, and so I'm sure it will be the same here. You're a great teacher, and you are great with the girls. The added bonus of keeping an eye on Alyssa is always nice as well.
I loved Christmas as Uncle Mikes! Im sad I'll miss that, and I don't think we are going to have any decorations or even a tree to set up. Maybe I'll see if I can find someone who will let me borrow some, because we need those things for it to be proper christmas. I did just buy the Michael Buble Christmas album, and Oscarson bought some other oldies Christmas collection, so I am pretty excited to start listening to that music. Ya I didn't know about the 50 pound VAT or anything like that until today when I got on my emails. Hopefully they don't charge me too much.

I'm really excited to SKype all you guys, and to see Noahs suprise! You will have to make sure to get me all the right numbers and stuff.

Ya a lot of missionaries who leave with girlfriends get dear john'ed. Actually, pretty much all of them do. And it just destroys some of them. They go out of commission for like weeks or months. And even if they keep working, their heart just isn't in it for a while. So yes, it may have not been my own wisdom, but it is good that no girls would date me before my mission.

What is Aunt Janae worried about Tyler for?

And what is all this about you being worried about me the first month? Worried about what?

Thats awesome to hear about Jackson and his wrestling. Keep me posted on how that is going. He needs to find that fire. Tell him to think of Iginla and how good Iggy plays when he gets mad. I think Jack could be really good at wrestling. A missionary here who I am pretty good friends with won his state univesity wrestling championship just before he left on his mission. He said he would go to school 2 hours early and stay one hour late every day to train.

It was a great week for miracles, but the thing with Kathy may not pan out. I don't want to say too much about it though, because there is still hope things will work out.

Remember that I love you guys as well,

I'm excited to hear about your missionary expereinces you are going to have soon...

Love Elder Steed

Nov 6, 2011

Hello my mom,

It has been a good week. It seemed to just fly by, whereas most weeks seem to pass by really slowly. Thanks for sending the package! I hope you didn't spend too much on it... I don't know if I will be able to resist the temptation! I am going to try not to even read the label on the side of the box, so I have a good suprise on Christmas. My companion actually said he isn't really expecting anything.

Elder Oscarson is great. He is a lot different than Elder Simmons though. We get along really well, and we both like to work hard so things are really good so far. He loves movies, especially the old classics. So we talk a lot about his favorite movies and music. Back home we wouldn't have had like anything in common, but over here we are really good friends. I think that is like what dad was saying, about having a common interest. Elder Simmons is coming back to do an exchange on Tuesday though! We are going to go teach Ken and Toni, and suprise them!

That sounds like a great trip in Montana. It was really cool to hear about your weekend then about Dad and the boy's weekend, sounds like you both had a lot of fun. And actually it does usually snow like once a year here, and when it does the whole country just shuts down. Buses stop running, no one drives their cars, schools close, people here just have no idea how to drive on snowy/icy roads. They would all think you are crazy driving through a mountain pass with the road just covered in snow and ice. Actually, even I think it is a little bit crazy.

You bought yourself a camera like mine for Christmas, and you are already using it? Pretty early Christmas present...

Of course I am using my camera! I have taken like over 300 photos. The problem is that I don't have a cord for it to connect it to the computer, so to send photos I have to take my memory card out and put it in Elder Oscarsons camera and then use his cord. But I'll make sure to do that and send some photos today.

I'm glad school is still going good. Keep up the hard work! Stats is actually pretty tough.. it starts out really easy but the end is tricky. At least my stats class was.
I actually love the Old Testament. If I am really tired one morning during personal study, I will sometimes go to the Old Testament for a treat. I love just reading all the crazy stories in there, especially about David and Saul and all around that time.

Even if Riley doesn't figure out stuyding before his mission, he will on his mission for sure. What does he do with all his free time? Hopefully he doesn't just game all the time. He didn't feel like filling out the paper work of a police check? It is really easy, and a lifeguard is a WAY better job than a grocery store. Hopefully he figures things out soon enough. Is he starting on his papers any time soon?

I love the church in Eureka. And I really do love the ward here as well... but it is way different than anything I have ever known before. They call this church a worldwide church, they say it is the same everywhere you go, but that might not apply to Cornwall. Everyone is this ward is just a character, and there is always some crazy things going on in the ward. The ward is actually going through some really tough times. I met with the Bishop this week to discuss some things going on in the ward, and I realized one of the main reasons I think that we are here is to help strengthen this ward. Bishop has been talking to Pres. Shamo and said he will try to make sure we are here into the new year.

Ken and Toni getting baptized will be such a boost to this ward. The ward is helping them so much with their marriage. They are going over for dinner, or just to hang out, with members of the ward at least once a week. Some of their best friends are in the ward now. We have set a tentative date of Dec. 3 for their wedding, and then Dec. 4 for their baptism. We keep having to push it back, but we hope this will be the one. There is just so much you don't anticipate when you plan for a wedding, and it seems something always is coming up that causes delays. We are trying to just stay out of it as much as we can, and let them do their wedding when and how they want to. There is nothing I want more than to push them towards baptism, but I realized it isn't really my place to be trying to tell them how to do their wedding.

We also have a new lady with a baptism date, but I'll mention that more in Dad's email.
I love you guys, thanks for everything,

Elder Steed

Nov 6, 2011

Hey,

We ended up doing a bunch of street contacting last night and were walking around town for 2 hours, between potential investigators houses and along the high street and stuff. I was exhausted after just that, but I've started to exercise more in the mornings now.
Haha you forgot it was fast sunday? Sounds like quite the Sunday adventure. We fasted yesterday, and broke the fast with the Joliffes. The Joliffes and the Morris' are like my best friends here. We had a huge sunday dinner, and maybe the best dinner I have had here. I had thirds it was so good. Brett Joliffe is an RM and comes on teaches with us all the time. He actually is helping Ken and Toni a lot financially with their wedding, and I promised I would buy their family chinese food (to show how grateful i am for all his help). So that will be on the VISA if thats alright? Oh, and another really cool thing is both Ken and Toni fasted this week.

I'm so glad Jackson is doing so well. That kid is going to be ripped when I get back if he keeps up that lifestyle. Good for him, I need to follow his example. And Noah is a whiz. I love getting his emails, I am amazed he can type and spell so well. Those SDS's were brutal. Hopefully doing the AP english will count towards a university class if she does it in grade 12. I'm sure Alyssa will make the bball team. She just needs to start talking to Zelez and let him know she is a Steed. I think he really liked me and Riley.
We had a pretty crazy week this week.

Me and Brett Joliffe and Paul Morris did a little bit of an initiation thing for Oscarson this week. We had an Elder's quorum presidency meeting, and Paul offered the opening prayer and in the middle started talking in Irish instead of English. Brett told him he was talking in tounges again, and I said it sounded like English to me. We told Oscarson it happens quite a bit, and he was just so confused. Then we started singing primary songs and doing all the actions becasue we said it helps us relax after a hard day of work. He was going along with it, but is just a really guillible guy I think.

We also got to go eat at our Landlords house this week. We have a great realationship with him, and because his wife just had surgery on her wrist we went over there an hour before dinner to help them prepare dinner. Oscarson peeled a bunch of apples and I cooked the whole meal. It was a lot of fun, it was this really nice fish and egg rice dish.

We had a few miracles this week... do you remember me talking about Chris Thomas? He is the guy who has been investigating the church for 10 years and the only reason he won't get baptized is that he can't quit smoking. Although Elder Oscarson is all fired up, and is convinced we are going to be able to help him quit smoking and baptize him this transfer. I had the same faith when I first got to this area. It is kind of sad that I have given up on ever baptizing him. Hopefully Oscarsons faith will be enough to carry us. But anyways, the miracle is that we went to teach him on wednesday and he brought along this guy named Luke. Luke was baptized a year ago, but then had some family opposition and stopped coming to church. He didn't tell anyone, or give anyone his number or address, so he was just completely lost. But it turns out Chris is friends with him, and Christ wants to get him active in the church again. So he invited him over when we went and we were able to get him number and address, and teach him and invite him back to church. It was the first contact he had with the church in almost a year. Chris was literally the only link that he had. We are meeting with him again next week. It was amazing to see Chris, an investigator, doing missionary work. His problem is he already sees himself as a member of the church. And he pretty much is, we just need to dunk him. I just wish more members would be as active in doing missionary work as he is.

The big miracle of the week though is that we have another person who has accepted a baptismal date! This is a pretty crazy story... About a month ago when it was me and Simmons, we were cleaning the flat. I found this old folded up scrap piece of paper, and opened it up and there were like 6 or 7 names on it. I was about to throw it away, but 2 of the names, which had a phone number and the word 'seeker' beside them, stuck out to me so I wrote them down in my daily planner. About 5 days ago, we were doing some finding and I was leafing through my planner and saw one of the peoples names, Kathy. I felt like we should call her, so Oscarson called her and she didn't really sound happy or interested but she said we could come over on saturday if we wanted to. So we did. She let us in, she was a really nice lady, and we started talking about her. Turns out she met Elder Tanner over a year ago on a bus. He talked with her, and she gave him his number but Elder Tanner was never able to go see her because they didn't have a car here back then and she lives in this small village by Penzance that is really tough to get to without a car. She told us she has a drinking problem, and that her whole life is just a mess right now. She said the last week she had been praying everyday that Jesus would help her, that he would be able to show her a way to make a huge change in her life and get her life back on track. And she said that as soon as we called she knew we were the answer to that prayer. At this point we were just blown away. We told her about how we ended up finding her number, and started to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure to the end). We told her how through baptism we recieve a remission of sins, and that we get a clean slate. She told us immediatly she knew what we were saying was true, and that she wanted to be baptized, that this was the big change she had been praying for. We extended the date of Dec. 17, and she said she will be baptized then! It was such a miracle. We talked to our ward mission leader, and he said he will give her a lift to church next week. We have been trying to hard to find new people to teach and more baptism dates, and the Lord provided a way!

I just wanted to share that with you guys, Thanks for all your prayers and support,

Love Elder Steed