I Saw Canada Eh Mate!

To explain the whole Canada thing we went on trade-offs in Bad Axe and while we were there we helped someone move to Harbor Beach.  If you hold up your trusty dusty map, Harbor Beach is on the far right side of the thumb.  I was hoping we would see Canada, but we didn't.  But while we were out there we helped a lady move and we filled a U-Haul truck completely full of stuff!  It was fun though getting to go out in the country of Michigan.  It is completely different from the rest of the state.  Detroit and Flint are basically their own state Lansing and all the surrounding towns are basically one state and then north of Bay City is basically another state the main reason being how different the culture is!

On Sunday I was talking to bro Martinez and he had a really cool tie that had captain Moroni with the Title of liberty.  And without thinking I asked if he wanted to trade and he said yes!   What I didn't realize was his tie must have been 20 years old and beat to death so I traded him my 100 percent silk floral Tommy Hilfiger tie for a beet up 100 percent polyester Johnson brothers tie.  But on the upside, I can say that I got a tie from Bro Martinez!

On Tuesday someone we were teaching a long time ago reached out to us and asked us to come over and bless his house.  It was awesome because in the past we have had a really hard time meeting with him.  He would set appointments then he would shine us and this time he cancelled on the first appointment but rescheduled.  He wants to meet every Tuesday at 1!  We are really excited for him! 

We were going to put Cody on date this week but he ended up getting sick and we weren't able to.  He was able to make it to church and when he was at church he was telling members how he was converting to be a Latter-Day Saint!

We had an awesome lesson with the Shaydiks this week.  We went over the plan of Salvation and before we left we kneeled with their family and prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true.  It was pretty powerful!  It wasn't anything crazy, but it just felt good and it makes you feel whole.  There have been many things that make me feel good, but there's nothing quite like feeling the spirit that makes me feel like a child of God!

pictures
-The Martinez's dog
-My 100 percent silk tie that is no longer mine
-The moving truck
-The country out by bad axe
-Dollar Taco Wednesday!

Cold and Snowy!

Not much happened this week.  On Tuesday we went to Saginaw and we had trade-offs with the ZLs.  We didn't have too much crazy happen but I got to do another baptismal interview for a lady by the name of Alexa.  Those are always a lot of fun to do!

On Wednesday we had trade-offs with Bad Axe and when we went to the church for companionship exchange our bishop ran us down and gave us a referral for a part member family and the wife wants to take the missionary lessons so we scored big time!

pictures
- Me and Elder Davis

Hey Ya'll

Not much exciting happened this week.  We found a really cool guy by the name of David and he let us right in when we knocked on his door!  We had a walk-in Restoration lesson and he even agreed for us to come back!  We also met with Cody again this week and when we followed up on Moroni's promise.  He said it had worked!  It was really exciting.  It's not often that our friends keep their commitments the first time we commit them to do something.  It was even more exciting though that he got an answer to his prayer.  That is like music to a missionary's ears!  Before we left he was asking us about baptism so we were pretty excited about that!  Besides that we met with the Shaydiks again and we were able to discuss from Alma 14 why we go through hard times and it went really well.

On Sunday we had church canceled so we ended up going out with our snow shovels and we shoveled some snow!  We shoveled 5 driveways 3 of our friends' driveways and 2 members driveways.  Long story short when we got home on Sunday night I changed crawled into bed and fell asleep.  Although I did wake up and to go brush my teeth at midnight!

Saturday night we had a crazy snow/ice storm.  We ended up having all our appointments fall through so we headed out and did some good old knocking!  People thought we were insane.  I didn't think it was bad.  It was kind of fun, to be honest!  It was crazy though because the snow was so wet there was one street that was lower than the rest that was completely flooded.  We thought the Saginaw river had overflowed for a little bit!

New Years!

Well believe it or not we ended up not getting the day off early new years so me and Elder Eccles ended up knocking til 9 o'clock!  Besides that, we had some amazing miracles this week!  We started teaching the Shaydik family and we had an awesome lesson on the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Something we have been doing recently that I've really liked is rather than just talk about what the atonement is, we also talk about how to access it.  We usually talk about the Book of Mormon and how as we read it and follow God's commandments he can bless us through his Son's atonement!

Last night we had a once in a missionary lifetime experience!  We literally had all of our plans fall through so we went out to do some knocking and before we went knocking we gave a blessing to a member.  On our way out of the hospital, we got a text from a member in Utah and she wanted us to visit her friend and teach him the gospel!  We didn't have anything better to do so we stopped by and we met Cody!  We ended up having an awesome restoration lesson with him.  He had some insights that I have never before heard!  Before we left he was telling us all about his Jeep and how he goes mudding in it!  Not gonna lie it was pretty cool.  I was in heaven! 

Pictures
-uss benson
-out in the snow!

Christmas!

Christmas Eve, we ran around stopping by all the people we could think of to stop by, but eventually, we ran out of people to stop by.  We gave in and did some knocking.  I couldn't believe the miracles we saw!  We found 3 solid potentials one of them by the name of Paul practically gave us his phone number without us even asking.  They were all impressed we were out tracting on Christmas eve!  After that, we visited Adam and Melinda and we were able to have a good chat with them!  The crowning event though was when we went to the Martinez's and we had some tamales!  Basically the whole ward and then some were at their house singing songs and having fun!  It was nice we actually knew some people so we were able to strike up some conversations.  When I got seconds on the tamales I made the grave mistake of letting Sister Martinez serve my plate up for me.  I was rolling out of there by the time we left! 

Christmas day we went around and we dropped off brownies to all of our friends and some of the members.  At five we went to the Jaimes and we called home and had dinner we had planned to go caroling at a nursing home, but we got out to late and they weren't open to visitors anymore.  After that, we dropped off our last two plates of brownies and headed home.  It was a super fun Christmas and even though we were away from home we were able to get into the Christmas spirit!

We were able to pick up a couple of awesome friends to teach this week!  We got a referral from the sister missionaries here in Bay City to a Cole.  We visited him on the scheduled day and he was out back playing basketball with some friends.  We invited them to come to join us and one of them actually did his name was Spencer and he ended up being Cole's brother.  They both were excited and happy to start learning more about our message.  We also visited with Ian.  We knocked into Ian about a month ago and we finally were able to sit down with him.  We had a botched very rough Plan of Salvation lesson, but he still agreed for us to come back.  I'm pretty sure the spirit made up for that one!

This last week I was able to finish the Book of Mormon for about the third time and I was able to give Moroni's promise another try.  It always works if you haven't tried Moroni's promise yet you need to! Moroni 10:3-5 pg 525.

pictures
-Adam and Melinda
-a bunch of pictures at the Martinez's
-The great lakes!
-out knocking Christmas eve