So! This has honestly been one of the best weeks ever! SURREY IS THE COOLEST PLACE EVER!!! So, to kickstart the first day with Elder Slack, we literally drove EVERYWHERE... We had to drive Elders everywhere because one of the zone leaders was puking and stuff....yeah, not good...anyway! After driving everywhere, we managed to squeeze in a lesson at the very tail end of the day... So.... Thursday was fun...weekly planning....kind of rough considering that we really don’t know the area that well....Friday was HOT! man, we were sweating so much! My farmers tan is getting even better!!
Saturday has to be the best day ever though! We had so many lessons Saturday! We even had stake conference that night and we got to see President Burt which is always exciting! So, I take that back, Sunday was the best day! So, Sunday morning, we get a call from some elders in Langley, saying that there is this investigator from White Horse that just moved to Surrey, and that he was wanting to come to church! So, it’s like 9am, and stake conference starts in about an hour. So, we call him, figure out his name is Ram, and we somehow were able to get a ride for this guy to come to church! Man, that was fun! It was so hard for us to be able to get a ride for church... such a struggle for some reason...anyway....we got him to church, and we didn’t get to meet him until after the meeting. Turns out, he is the coolest guy ever! He was excited that he was able to make it to church, and that he was already talking about how he was going to get to church the following week! Crazy eh? Tell me about it...it gets even better...so we set up an appointment for that night and we meet him at Subway. Music is going on in the background and so many distractions, but still, it was such a good lesson! Turns out that he had been with the missionaries up in White Horse for quite a while, and that he wanted to move down to be able to go to school. We pulled out the pamphlets that we had and he immediately recognized the restoration pamphlet! So we went over that with him, and he said that he already knew that all of that was true, and that the Book of Mormon was true which was so cool! SO! We then start talking about baptism, and he said that he wanted to get baptized, but before, he had just wanted to make sure that it was true! So, we set a date for him on July 19th! So cool! We will be handing him off to the Langley YSA Elders though :(...Kind of sad to give up though...He’s so cool!
So yea, Surrey is full of miracles though! Dad, you are so right...it’s in the most evil of places that people are looking for the light the most...SO TRUE!! I haven’t had as much success in this area as in other areas!
So the coolest thing though, is that we hit standards too which is my first time! What’s even better is that we hit standards in a total of 4 days because Monday-Wednesday was full of driving/packing/P-Day...
So, to hit standards, we have to do 4 of 5 of these things: Teach 8 member present lessons, have 2 baptismal dates, have 2 people come to church, get 4 new investigators, or have 140 quality gospel conversations. And guess what?!?! Ram made it all possible! By coming to church and having a lesson that night, he made is possible for us to hit standards in 4 days!! SO AWESOME!!
So yeah, we also went to the soup kitchen this past week...we volunteer once a week...There was almost a fight while we were there....I may or may not have wanted it to actually happen... but it got broken up....We also got 3 tubs of ice cream out of it! YUMMY!!!
Another investigator that is so flippin solid is Gus! Man, this guy was found by the sisters and he is so dedicated to coming to church and is so determined to be baptized! He has been trying to quit smoking, and when we met with him, I felt the spirit which brought to mind to ask him to set a date to quit smoking, and to start with baby steps, and that he should prayerfully ponder a day to quit, and that we would give him a blessing that night when we would go to scripture study class. So, we met up later that night and the spirit was so strong. Before we gave the blessing, he told us, that before we had even brought it up, that he had been praying about a day to quit smoking. The day that came to mind was July 1st! Soon after, we gave him a blessing, and the spirit was so powerful as we were in the little tiny room. So powerful. After giving him the blessing, I saw him crying, and straightway, I gave him a hug. He is such a humble man. He tries so hard, and he is so strong!
So this honestly has to be one of the most successful weeks of my mission! It’s been so awesome! I love Surrey and I feel really confident that being here is where I am meant to be...I even felt that before I got here which was awesome!!!
I sure love and miss all of you! I may live in the heart of Whalley, which is probably one of the most scary places in the mission, and I may or may not have to bar my door every night, but I love it here!
Love you guys so much!
Love
Elder McCown
