Charity & Miracles

So, weirdest thing happened this past Saturday... I realized that I have been out in the field for a month! Such a crazy thought! I can’t believe that I have been away from home for about a month and a half now! I have seriously lost all concept of time! This is honestly the weirdest thing ever!

Elder Stock & Elder McCown ~ EFY Friends

This past week has been pretty good though. But it was super slow. A lot of our appointments fell through, and going out and tracting really didn’t have a lot of promise either sadly.  It wasn’t until this past Friday when things started to get a lot better. Friday we did a ton of service for the Householders. They have a big bed and breakfast that needs cleaning up and I don’t think I have ever seen so many leaves in my life! No wonder why the Canadian flag has a maple leaf on it! But that in itself was fun because service is just awesome. It’s by far my favorite thing to do! And not to mention it got us out of our proselyting clothes! We got tacos which is fantastic by the way. Tortillas are super expensive up here! After we had finished service, I realized that we had left the phone in the car and we had a couple voicemails to check. One of them was from one of the stake high council, who was asking if one of us could give a talk because his other speaker had gotten sick. So guess who got to speak in sacrament meeting. Of course that would be me! I knew I was going to end up there somehow! So in total, I only had 30-45 minutes to prepare this talk. Something I chose was charity. I really love this topic! It is something that we all can use a little bit more in our lives! And it is simply stated in Moroni 7:45-48 that we are basically nothing without charity, and that charity is the root of all of our christlike attributes! It’s so true! The christlike attribute section in preach my gospel is truly amazing just to let ya’ll know. I highly suggest studying it if you are seeking to make yourself more like Christ. And who isn’t?!? So the talk went off without a hitch which was awesome!

Elder Webb

There was an awesome miracle that happened on Sunday though. Right before church started, Sister
 Sexton and her granddaughter Gracie came up to us. Before we were able to say anything, she said "Gracie would love to be baptized" I was kind of dumbfounded and I had this dumb look on my face with my jaw dropped. Kind of cool eh? Such amazing miracles!  After sacrament meeting though I was asked if I could play the piano for the kids who were preparing for the primary program. That was awesome even though I messed up terribly ha-ha! It was so funny seeing the guy in charge of teaching the kids to sing (brother Johannesson) jumping up and down and helping them! He was jumping up and down and getting all into the little fun songs like "Do As I’m doing" and "Once There Was A Snowman". He was sweating because he was getting into it so much!

After church we went over to the Bishops house and helped him move a piano. And man! That thing was heavy! This thing was a beasty grand piano! It was so hard to carry even with 8 men crowded around thing carrying it. The wheel even broke on one of the dollies! It was awesome though because
we got fed afterwards. It’s amazing what you will eat when you are starving and how much you will eat. I was never a fan of egg salad sandwiches, but, now I really don’t mind them as a missionary. As a missionary, I think our taste buds are automatically dulled when we are set apart so that we can eat almost anything that the people give us.
After that, we went walking/tracting to our next appointment. It took us an hour to get there on foot, but it was sooooo worth it! We ran into this guy named Daun on our way there! He seemed very interested. We got his number, gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed excited! The lesson went great, but what was even better, was when we ran into two more people that seemed very interested in the gospel! One of them had actually come up to us, recognized us, and literally asked "what is the difference between Mormons and Jehovah witnesses?" Before we could even say hello. So cool! The other person that was semi interested was this native lady named batina!

The mission is going great so far! Pday has been very relaxing. We went and dropped off our laundry at the householders, and they told us to come back for lunch which is something us missionaries are always excited about! We went out and went thrift shopping for ties! I got around 4 ties needless to say. Then we got all of our groceries and came back to the householders for lunch, and I was very surprised to see what she had made! She made green chili enchiladas again! No I wasn’t as homesick when I was eating them, but they were still awesome!

Yes, it's an orange tie!!

It may have been a rough week, but I have come to realize that the rough weeks, are preparations for the awesome but most of the time sparse moments of exhilarating happiness! I am so happy that I am out here even though it is hard sometimes, or even very hard sometimes. But it is so much fun! I love the ward here and I don’t want to leave! I might be getting a new companion soon. Transfers are next week. That is so weird thinking that I will be here in Port Alberni for 6 weeks next Monday! So weird, but so awesome! I love this work and I know it is so true! I hope everything is going great at home and I love you all!

Love,

Elder McCown