May 17, 2010

OK! Wow I'm going nuts, this is the first time we have wrote emails at our zone building in the family history center! It sucks, I can not focus whatsoever when people are talking and Elder England can't stop talking to the Sisters! Well I hope I can get my point across and share with you what I wanted to share without sounding all scatter brained.

Sounds like you guys had a good week, I always think about our yard its weird miss it big time. That's awesome that Barry and Marsha are staying the week, hopefully they enjoy the house. So here are a couple cool stories.

Sister Roosendaal was down in Lehi (thats inside the Provo mission) last Monday at the grocery store and ran into some Elders. She of course ran up to them and started to chat and asked where they are from. One of them answered Edmonton, Sis. Roosendaal went nuts! And said no no no no WAY, do you know Elder Pizzey! And guess who it was Elder Boyd! She flipped out and told him how her mother just got baptized and I was the Elder to teach her all the lessons! It was weird feeling, felt like personally saw Tyler.

Second cool story. We were tracting and saw a Alberta license plate on the other side of the road, so we jumped across and knocked on the door. Long story short the man was raised in Lethbridge and same with his wife. I asked if he knew any Pizzey's (he hadn't seen my tag yet) and he quickly said you bet! I asked who and I guess he used to play ball with Larry Pizzey! I flipped out and so did he and I told him about Grandpa and we chatted for quite a few minutes. BUT he him and his wife has gone less active in the last few years and we tried to get him to come back out this week but he just shrugged it off. I didn't dislike the church or didn't even have a reason he wasn't going, I think he just got lazy. It was another really weird feeling, felt like I was connected to him in a way. I got his contact info so Larry can reconnect with him sometime or maybe Nana knows who he is?

OK for some stories from my week. This week was unreal, each day have had a number of experiences I wish I could share with you. I guess you will just have to wait until I get home and you can read my very detailed journal/scrapbook!! I'll just share with you my day yesterday which was Sunday, as it was the best of the week. First of all we got to speak in the Bright Branch! This was unreal, the drive up there was so epic and totally reminded me of the summers in Alberta and BC. So after the lovely 30 minute drive which I enjoyed pulled up to the church building! It is literally on the ski hill of Brighton! In the foyer of the church building there is a fireplace! The chapel has huge windows behind the pulpit that overlook the whole ski hill, I mean you can see the chairlift! If it was ski season you could see all the DISO's braking the sabbath! So we gave our short little talk, more like a five minute testimony and we even sang in the choir of the Branch! It's so isolated up there and has this little village feel. The whole time I couldn't stop thinking about taking my future family up there one day and attending the Branch, telling my little boys I spoke up there one day! So that was the start to a great day, got some wonderful pictures that you will have to wait till next time I send pictures home to get.

And here is the greatest moment of my mission to this point. I forget if I told you about the Vigil's last email, I'll give you a quick update. We got there name (a PMF) the first week me and Elder England were here. We tried to contact them for weeks and weeks but we could never find Ruthan Vigil there and man, we were so close to giving up. We debated throwing them off our potential list so many times but we both just had a feeling we shouldn't get rid of them. Finally we got in their and had dinner them and shared a spiritual thought. It turns out Bro. Vigil is totally active but he just wasn't at church for awhile because he had serious surgery and his 19 year old daughter was killed in a car accident in December. He's part Indian and she's part Mexican. He's super smart and well off AND he has a deep knowledge in the doctrine. OK ENOUGH BACKGROUND. So we had a few lessons with her and she accepted a date the first lesson for June 6 (of course on the condition the Lord answers her prayers). So this was about the third lesson and it was the best lesson we (as a threesome) have ever taught. We all taught feeding off each other and working together. I remember three different times in the lesson bearing testimony and man the questions we were asking were so deep and helped them open them up. Bro. Vigil's son was there (a RM) and we had him involved, some missionary's just have the member present sit there and say nothing, NOT GOOD. Anyways we asked how her prayers were going. She shared with us that the as she was praying she felt a strong answer. She described perfectly the Holy Ghost touching her. It was unreal. This is at the end of the lesson and the spirit was so strong, I personally was prompted so many times to ask certain questions that just had the lesson flowing! At the end I bore my testimony about how this is all because of her and her faith, how her heart is open and God loves her and he wants her to know the truth. Bro. Vigil started tearing up and he put his hand on her lap. It was intense, I was so close to cracking up but I held it together! I told her the spirit is present at this moment and the Holy Ghost is what she feels right now. OK this will be so long if I keep going this way, but really quickly. The date of June 6 was moved up to the 29Th so Elder England could be here, because she wanted him to be here. She also said she's getting baptized for sure and we can make it public. Bro. Vigil went nuts! He yelled like Tommy Dehod used to, more like a yelp and I threw him a high five! It was the greatest moment of yet! Tears all around.

OK not enough time to share everything else. But right after that we flew over to the stake center of Willow Creek to catch the last session new missionary training (about 20-30 young men preparing, some with calls). At the very end they had us three share a experience and our testimony. Elder Wehrli, me then England. I shared the very experienced I described, but of course better. I told them there is no other place I would rather be than here on my mission, I told them I left the cutest girl in the world the perfect convert but told them the Lord has a plan for everything, and if we are obedient it will all be taken care off. It was great I talked about the joy you find in the work and how they MUST prepare hahaha. OK I must run this has taken me forever but I hope I was able to describe how great this moment was. This day was a four pager in my journal so look forward to it in two years!

I got two letters from Nana, and two from Lindsay I can't wait to read them! Love all of you. This week was unreal, and flew by big time. I have a talk next week I got to prepare. Must go think I took more than an hour, love you family. Take care.