Eleven Months!

April 21, 2014
Companion: Elder Pauli
Area: Coaldale
District Leader

{his reply to the Easter photos that I sent to him}
Love the pictures! Ha, and Easter egg hunting was probably a lot shorter this year, because I always seemed to be missing a couple eggs and everyone would have to find them for me!! Haha! Looks like a fun time though :)

I received this photo, below, via Franny (middle) on facebook. Here is his reply to me about it:

Yea I was on splits with Elder Engstrom! He's from Draper, Utah. Great guy, great missionary. Franny had called him up, and we went out for smoothies! It was neat to see him again! Have a good time in France, and... no worries! Have an adventure! I love you mom!

His letter to me this week:

Hello to my mom who is in France!!

This will probably be just about the only time I email you in France! Crazy that you are so far away! But it makes me grateful for emails! 

Ok, question time:

So how has your week been??

Great!! I've actually really enjoyed this week. Lots of good experiences!!

Did you get the peanut butter cookies we ordered for you? And the cho chip cookies for Elder Pauli?? Thank goodness that Stephanie helped me out and picked them up and delivered them!!!

Yes!! Thank you so much! I probably ate my whole bag in two days! Ha, I loved your idea to order them and have Sister Smylski pick them up. You are a genius!! Thank you :)

How was Easter? Did you have an Easter dinner at a members home?

Easter was great! We spent Easter dinner at the Vadnais home. Pork chops and potatoes! Then we went to another members home and had some deviled eggs and some snacks :) 

Best part of your week?

Feeling the Spirit! And we had some pretty neat experiences this week. I'll send them here in a minute!

How are you feeling? Spiritually, mentally, physically? No sugar-coating things here!!!

I am really doing pretty great! Certainly enjoying my time here and I feel like I am getting better all the time!

How are your lessons and investigators going?

We finally met with Marla this week and she came to church! We also had a lesson with another girl, whose mom is a less active, dad a non-member. But she is interested! We're going to meet with her this week too, so we'll see how that goes!

I am having a great time here in Coaldale. Ups and downs are part of it, but its nice to know that we can have the Spirit through all of it. I hope that you have an adventure in France! Glad that you and dad get to have some time to spend with each other! Have fun and keep sending pictures! I'll let you know more about my week and all the good and crazy experiences that I had! Tell Ryan congrats for me! Crazy to think that Elder Spencer has been out for over a year, and that I am almost there too! I'm definitely excited to talk with all of you here pretty quick! I love you mom and I thank you for everything you do for me! Thanks for your prayers and your love! Please know that you are in my prayers! I love you!

Love,

Elder Call

And the letter to everyone....

Oh, where do I begin?? 

So, I'll start off with a silly story. So, Elder Engstrom and I were on exchanges this week. We were walking to someone's home when this guy yelled over to us, "hey, you're missionaries!" Well, we went over to talk with him and it didn't take long to figure out he was intoxicated. Well, we had a good chat, and he invited us to play some croquet. So he through a couple balls on the ground and Elder Engstrom and I proceeded to hit them as he went over to get himself another beer. He comes back and asks where his ball is, and we tell him that we hit it. Well, he then gets out three golf balls and says he'll just use those. And he drills these golf balls right into his shed and fence as if he were in a driving range. Well, by this time Elder Engstrom and I were in defense mode, and were grabbing our scriptures and heading out. Well, this guy keeps talking, introduces himself as Edwin, and not Edlose, and tells us we should come back over to visit. Haha, it was quite the experience! We'll probably just send another set of missionaries over... :)

But on a more spiritual note, we were able to find a new investigator this week. One of the young women in the ward brought one of her friends to church, and they told us to swing by her house! So we did, and the family is super open. The dad was in the middle of a hockey game, so he just sent his daughter out on the porch to talk with us. Well, she took a Book of Mormon and said that she would read it! Yippeee! We are meeting again with her on Wednesday!

So, back to exchanges with Elder Engstrom. So we went to the park to go talk and visit with people, and it was great! We met these two girls, had a good talk with them, and one even took a Book of Mormon! It was awesome! Well, we see this one guy come up after to them and talk with them, then he comes and talks to us. He goes on and on about how we are wrong and how we shouldn't be doing what we are doing. We tried to explain things to him, but he obviously he wasn't very open. So, as he continues to bicker we just walk away, wishing him a Happy Easter. Well, we see the other two girls that we talked with before, and they told us the bad he had said about us and asked how our experience with him was. Well, we were really positive about it, had good things to say about the guy, and talked about how if he wasn't interested we weren't going to force him. We then wished them a happy Easter. Afterwards, I heard one of them talking (the one that actually wasn't too interested the first time around) and she said something along the lines of, "That is true religion right there! Being kind and happy, that is what it is about!" It was awesome!! So hopefully we can send some missionaries over to them! 

I wish I had time to tell you everything! But, on a short note, Marla came to church this week and we were finally able to meet with her again, which was great! We are meeting with the dog owner, Natasha, this week and she is super nice and happy and open! And I had a great Easter!

Christ lives and loves us so much. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is His church. I believe that the fullness of the gospel is contained in it, and that as we live it we can find lasting happiness.

Love,

Elder Call