“What has the Book of Mormon done for you?”

I haven’t frozen yet so that’s good...  But besides that it was another great week! Just tracted like crazy!  Well, besides tracting we were able to teach Megan this past week! So awesome! Just taught the whole plan of salvation and she loved it! She listened and things were just awesome!

Oh yeah...so best part of the week, I got to hit cows with giant yellow sticks as hard as I could...yeah, be jelly...  So there is a member in the branch and he this super cool farmer dude. Anyway, missionaries go over and help him every year and we get to herd cows with giant sticks made of pipe while he sprays them down with this tick killer stuff and tags them if he needs to. Pretty cool, eh? Nothing like hitting a cow as hard as you can!

Other than that is been pretty cold...hit -11 the other day.  My studies have been pretty awesome though. I was reading a talk today all about conversion and after finishing it I drew a blank on what to study next, so I sat there for a good 5 minutes and a question popped into my mind on what I should think about. I never thought about this question before, probably because I could easily say how much good it has done for me, but once I thought about an answer to the question, I could not imagine the amount of answers that could be given, but the question was "What has the Book of Mormon done for you?" Think about that. I did not think that such a question could be so hard to answer, because there are so many answers!

Sure love and miss you all! Those who are reading this who have never read the Book of Mormon, read it, those who have read it aimlessly, read it again. I testify of the divinity and power that this sacred book has. God has given us another testament of Jesus Christ. Read it. Pray about it. God will tell you it’s true.

Love

Elder McCown

Ham Sandwhich

SO! It has been the coldest it has ever been in my entire life! We are driving down our drive and its about -6 degrees and we are just driving down our hill and heading out towards the middle of nowhere to find people, and by the time we get to where we are going to start finding, it drops to -11...FREEZING! A Mexican does not belong up here...

Well, besides the bitter cold and the frozen face and toes things have been great! I met a guy who told us his nickname was Wiener, and that’s basically how my week kicks off...

I guess I could be a little more spiritual than that, but it’s so dang hard to narrow it down because there are so many!  I guess we could start off with the McGloclins! So we were planning one night, just praying like a good ole missionary does and we just get this impression that we need to go by this particular family. All we had was a former status for this guy, so we go by and this older lady named Kate answers the door and lets us right in! So we start talking and turns out that she had a near death experience about 40 years ago and met the missionaries shortly after and studied with them for a year. She then sets that aside and then becomes a Jehovah Witness, and then gets disfellowshipped. Pretty rough. So that’s when we come in and just talk about that plan of salvation and the Book of Mormon and she was down for having us come back! What’s even better is that her granddaughter has been taken to church by some of the members! So that’s awesome!   That has to be the spiritual highlight of the week though because while we were there we were talking about faith and I whipped out good ole Alma 22 and the scripture that I shared talked about "exercising a particle of faith". Well she just went ham sandwich on that and just ate it all up! Turns out that she is super into physics and just struck a chord with the word particle. Dont know how it happened but that transformed into teaching about the law of chastity...weird eh?

So that has been great and we cannot wait to see them again this week! We are stoked to be able to meet with them because they have super close ties with some of the members!

God is just so good though! We have been in a bit of a rough spot but the past couple weeks have been full of miracles!

Sure love and miss you all!

Love

Elder McCown

1st White Christmas

So it was my first white Christmas which was the best thing ever! I can’t believe that it went by so fast though!  Christmas day was the best day by far! We stayed over on the Southside at a members home and the branch is just so awesome! We woke up that morning to presents that the branch had gotten us and it was just awesome!

Time does go by way to fast though...Skyping with you guys...holy cow...40 minutes is never enough!  Other than an awesome Christmas with the branch we had some awesome miracles this past week!

To kick it off we got to see President Burt at a specialized training! So good to see him! God just sets up miracles for us along the way though! Especially that day! A member took us the whole way and back to Prince George which saved on out K's! He then had some errands to run while he was in Prince George so we went with him. So while we were in good ole Canadian tire I saw one of the employees and I just felt like I needed to go and talk to him. Well, he actually has one of the coolest names...Blessing...that’s right...I’m a missionary, and I received a blessing by finding Blessing..  Anyway, super cool guy! Turns out he is from Africa and the Prince George elders should be seeing him soon! He gave me his phone number and he was so down to meet!

Another amazing miracle! We have not had a single person at church ever since I got here...so the members get people to church for us!
We showed up to church and there were a ton of people there because family was in town and stuff and we pick out of the crowd 4 people that were not members and we also had a couple less actives there as well! Gods just so good! All because of member work though!

Sure love and miss you all! Gods work is moving forward...and it never going to stop! Love you so much!

Love

Elder McCown

Christmas Miracles

So this past week was awesome! We spent almost all week out of our area but that’s still good!  I was on exchanges with Elder Buchanan and he is so awesome! We taught quite a bit which was a nice change from tracting in the snow for hours! Anyway, there was this one lesson that we had, their names are Mark and Jacqui! So we taught the plan of salvation and they are so interested! The wife had not said a single prayer the whole entire time the missionaries have been meeting with her, but that did not stop us! She is from the Philippines and we asked her to say the prayer in Tagalog. She flat out said no! So, I guess you can say that missionaries are pretty persistent and that’s when I said that I had never heard one in Tagalog and that I won’t ever be back again! She thought about it for a moment and then she just started saying the prayer! It was so awesome! Probably one of the best prayers I have heard even though I could not understand a single word!  So that was awesome!

We then took the nice long drive back to Burns and we found some people along the way that will let us come back after Christmas!

Another miracle we had this past week was Ian! Ian we tracted into a couple weeks ago. Of course his girlfriend was just about to have a baby so we had to wait a couple weeks. Anyway, we dropped by a couple nights ago and he was outside cutting wood and we started talking to him! Had a really good gospel conversation with him and it was just awesome! We talked about families and how we get guilt in this life and that it becomes baggage, and basically how awesome the gospel is! So we talked about that for a little bit and he just opened up and he is just so cool! We then helped him out with splitting and stacking his wood which was fun!

Not much else happened though. Dad, you would be so jealous...WE SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS!!! It was too far off for us to get it on our camera but they were so cool! Just dancing all over the sky in the distance!

God has been so good to us though! It’s been cold, but is been awesome, and I can’t wait for Christmas!

Sure love ya'll and can’t wait to talk to you in a couple days!

Love

Elder McCown

Gospel Is Rolling Forward

So...I’m in the best place ever!  Crazy week! We have been working so hard to get people coming to church! Gah! People are so stubborn though! We have been working with less actives and trying to get them out of the mud pit they are in trying to get them to church. They are so cool though! Just...dont want to come to church :(...

Coolest miracle this week though! There was someone that the missionaries had been teaching about a week before I got here and lost contact with her. So she fell off the grid for a while, but, we decided to drop by and see them and she just let us in! It was awesome! Her husband is less active from Alberta and he is so cool!  We did not get to talk to them much but they invited us to come over today and to go sledding and split wood for them which is awesome! We are just curious how he feels being around missionaries and all...he was less active for quite a while...but he is super chill and they seem to like us!

We were also able to teach this cool old native dude named Ken. He is progressing and he reads the Book of Mormon every night! God is just so good!  Christmas is just terrible here though...the members just huck cookies and desserts at us all day and I dont know if I will be walking out of a members house this month without them stuffing us...I may just be rolling everywhere from now on...

The work is so good though! I just think of Daniel and how he told King Nebuchanezzar of his dream, and how we are the "stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold". The Gospel is rolling forward and we are that stone that will roll forth until it encompasses the whole earth! God is just so good and love each and every single one of us!

I sure love and miss you all!

Love

Elder McCown

Snow Tracting

First off....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! HOPE IT WAS AN AWESOME BIRTHDAY!!!

So I am staying here in Burns Lake...I dont know why it’s called Burns lake though...it’s too cold here for anything to burn...and the lake is frozen...that just doesn’t make any sense..  So besides it being below freezing here almost 24/7, it’s been great! The coldest it got this week was about 6 degrees...sooooo cold...I have never seen those numbers before which is the crazy part! 

So we tracked in snow a lot this week...talked to a lot of people...and we were able to teach this week! We finally have some solid people to teach which is basically the best miracle ever! One of them is Ken Solonas. He is a super cool humble native dude that had been taught by missionaries before and he is coming a long quite well! He loves having us over and before we left one time he asked for a book of Mormon! He ASKED for one! So weird but sooooo cool! 

We also got a text from someone that we had been trying to teach before, and we had never gotten in contact with them for a solid 4-5 weeks. Anyway, she texted us saying that she had been in Vancouver for the past little bit and that she and her family had been sick, and that she wants to meet! We are so going to see them this week though! So stoked!

Everything has been great though! Can’t get any better here! The members are awesome! I can’t wait for Christmas though! 

God has been so good though! We have been finding new people to teach and it can’t get any better than that because it is really really cold outside, and I can only imagine it is going to get colder in the coming weeks! 

Sure love and miss all of ya though!

Love

Elder McCown

B&E (Missionary Style)

Well... I bet you can only imagine how good/interesting this past week has been.  Give or take 20 minutes ago, we are sitting here having a grand ole time emailing and everything, and someone calls us back saying that the appointment we had set up for tonight was still good! Super stoked we text one of the members asking if he can come out with us and he said yes and asked where. So I set the phone down and we head out of the family history center, and I close the door behind me. Welllll...we left the keys inside, so, we were locked out of our car and out of the family history center. So naturally we scramble around for a coat hanger. We broke into every single room but we could not get into the FHC. We then look for a paper clip and cannot find a single one! We tried the windows and they were snapped shut. So we are standing outside of the door and Elder Westergard has a brilliant idea and looked up. We grabbed some chairs and I moved the boards in the ceiling and broke into the FHC on the other side. Soooo that was loads of fun!

Rest of the week has been great! Met some more native people, went tracting in -15C so about 5 degrees. I literally look like a marshmallow.   Best part of the week besides being able to break into the FHC is that we were able to teach this guy named Ken! Super solid native dude that we had called a couple weeks ago and the struggle has just been finding a time to actually sit down and meet with him until this past Tuesday! We taught the whole plan of salvation and it worked well for him because he had a lot of death in his family!

The members are awesome too! The Biglers let us stay the night at their place again and we played pool all this morning and went out to his massive lake that was frozen in some places! It is so gorgeous up here though!

Sure love and miss all of you though! Hope you had a good thanksgiving!

Love

Elder McCown