Feb 5, 2012

Wow, you guys had a crazy week it sounds like. I can't wait to see Alyssa play some ball when she is in grade 12, sounds like some pretty exciting games. And like always, no one seems to be able to beat those southern alberta teams. I would love some sushi. It isn't a big thing at all here, most people haven't even tried it. All those historical details about the world at the time of the Bible and Book of Mormon are fascinating to me as well. If you find any really cool things out you should tell me. Coming into London a lot more people know the Bible and will try to use the Bible to prove our church is false (we call this bashing). I try to never bash, or get in arguments, but knowing your bible and especially the context of the bible seems to help a lot. Those guys all got their mission calls!! That is so sweet, they sound like they are all going to awesome places. I would have loved to go to Montreal. And Connor might not even be coming back alive from Nicaragua. I guess Riley and Landon are next. Tell Riley to get his started, because if he gets his call when Pres. Shamo is in office, there might be a chance I could skype home while you guys open it. But that isn't guaranteed even with him. It really is a colorful week. All of these African people are really nice, but they seem to have no concept of time. We set an appointment, and we show up on time, and no one is in. We call them, and they are like an hour away or in another city or something. So we call people like everyday for 3 days leading up to the appointment to make sure they know about it. It snowed here two days ago! It was actually quite a snowstorm, and it left about 2 inches of snow on the ground. If that. The whole city just ground to a halt. They have no way of clearing the snow other than salting it. So 2 of the Elders in this district had their church meetings cancelled, and ours was just a two hour service with less than half the usual attendance. It was so crazy to see the whole country just fall apart because of a little snow. We did manage to get Jay out though, and he really enjoyed testimony meeting. He really wanted to go up and talk as well, but he chickened out in the end. We also had this guy Eric at church, a Ghanian who I literally cannot understand a word he says but I know he is speaking English. He was supposed to be baptized last week but always cancels when he have appointments. Ernest didn't make it to church, because of the snow. Same with Cherise and her mom Lileth. Another of our investigators Spencer is just too lazy to come I think. He always cancells saturday night. Another lady Victoria was busy with work or something. Amit had to study for exams. Patrick was busy with something. We have a lot of investigators, but it is proving difficult to get them out to church. The ward here is really great. We are finding a few really solid members that are willing to come on lots of teaches with us. We had 9 teaches this week with members present! That probably means like nothing to you, but that really shows that this ward is on board with the missionary effort. We usually get like 3 member present teaches and the most I ever had before this week was 7 and that was my first week in the mission. Ernest is the most prepared investigator ever. We taught him on Saturday and the first thing he said to me when he finally got home an hour later than we planned, was 'Steed, I am eager to be a Mormon.' He also said he wants to be '100% mormon and then go back to Ghana and be the prophet.' Haha.... we should probably clear that up one of these days. He is always telling us about how the BoM clarifies the Bible and helps him to understand it, but he has only read like the first few chapters. This is also the barber shop guy. He can always get us laughing when we teach him, and he is an amazing guy. I don't know if I've mentioned Cherise and Lileth, but they are a Jamaican mother and daughter that we have the craziest teaches with. Every time we ask Lilieth a question, she manages to turn it around and relate it to how when we are faced with temptation, we must yell 'The Blood of Jesus!' And she does this repeatedly in every teach, and shakes first fist in the air and everything. So we have stopped asking her questions. Cherise is solid though. She is just trying to find the true church she says and she said that these teaches have opened her eyes. After we taught Cherise last, we had some free time so we knocked some of the flats in her building. One of them had a no cold callers sign on the door, so we skipped it. Not long after, Elder Curran went back and felt like he should put a card through the mail slot, and put our number on it. The next day, I got a phone call from Shivonne. It took me a while on the phone to figure out who she was, but then I realzied it was the lady with the no cold calling sign on her door! She called us back! She said she wanted us to come over and teach her more about Jesus Christ. We felt this was such a miracle, and we got over there as quickly as we could. Turns out she has family issues and struggles with depression, and she really says she just is unhappy and hopeless. We taught her a bit about the Atonement, and we are going back on Tuesday. She really needs the gospel, and she is really open to it. Oh ya just a heads up, Jay menitoned that he wanted to come to Canada one day. I said if he did, he could come stay at our house. He immediatly took me up on that offer, and has made plans to come next summer. He is seriously already making travel plans, so that is seeming like it is definintely happening. He has a step daughter in Calgary as well. He is 44, but a really cool guy and I think it would actually be fun to have him over. He is getting baptized on the 25th if all goes well. Same day as Ernest. Well, we have a zone pday today at Windsor castle. because of the snow, it is going to be tough to play any football, but we might have a snowball fight. The zone leaders can be pretty lame sometimes, so they didn't feel like having a zone pday and in the end I had to organize it. But it should be really fun. One of my best friends from the MTC is the other district leader here, and so it will be nice to get to see him again. Have you guys still be emailing Ken and or Toni? I think they are doing great, and me and Ken have started this tradition of always talking to each other on Sunday nights before I go to bed. It is nice just to talk with him and be reminded of those great Helston days. I can't wait until they get to Canada or America or you guys come here and get to meet them. Well I better go. Thanks for writing, I loved hearing about your guys' week and I hope you enjoyed hearing about mine as well. 'Be obedient and wise.' I like how every week you end your email with a little nugget of wisdom. I try to do both of those things, but I still am always trying to do better. Love Elder Steed