called to serve Calgary: June 2, 2010

Hey everyone! How is it going? I hope all is going well and you guys had an awesome week. I had a pretty good one other than the fact that is snowed... yes. It snowed. darn Canada! It snowed or rained pretty much all week until yesterday. It was ridiculous but kind of fun at the same time. So it didn't start out too well weather wise, but we did get the car this week so that is good. Speaking of cars. We had zone conference on Friday and we won the car award so we traded our truck for the Subaru Impreza that was in Baniff. Its a pretty sweet car. It has tectonic shifting which is kind of cool. It's really funny to try to see Elder Reese use it though. He has absolutely no idea what he is doing. But he won't let me try to help him either because he is from southern California and knows everything about anything. I feel pretty bad for the car though. It has to work really hard when he is driving it. haha.

But anyway, zone conference was alright. It was fun to get together with the other missionaries and to feel the Spirit there. But if you asked me what I learned I couldn't really tell you. We really just talked about how the atonement helps us as missionaries fulfill our purpose and role played a lot. It was a good experience but I really didn't learn anything. Anyway, we had Stake Conference on Sunday as well. That was actually really good. I enjoyed it. It was broadcast from Vancouver and was shown all across Canada. President Uchtdorf... (I can never spell that right) and Elder Ballard were there and gave awesome talks! As well as some other Seventy and his wife. They were really good talks though. I really thoroughly enjoyed it, but President Uchtdorf spoke for an hour and the first 30 mins was him telling us how much the brethren love Canada. Which was great to hear, but maybe not for that long. haha.

Those were pretty much the main things that happened this week. We also got in a lot of great lessons with members. We also had a sweet lesson with Mitch and Savanna as well. They are pretty much going to be baptized. It's just a matter of when. And it might have to even be in the Spirit world... but it will happen! haha. And we finally got in contact with Sam too! We stopped by his house on Monday just to see if he was home and he was. So he let us in and talked to us and apologized for being too busy to meet with us the last month or so and said he was excited too see us Tuesday night for our usual lesson. But then on Tuesday morning he canceled on us via text message. He doesn't even call us anymore. So I don't really know what is up with him. Him being baptized I am not too sure about. Maybe in the Spirit world... but he is moving back to Malaysia to be with his mom again at the end of July and he's worried what his mom will say about him meeting with us so... well see if we can ever get in with him again. Hopefully we do. He really is an awesome guy.

Oh and good news! It's JUNE! Which means I don't have to wear a suit coat anymore! But the bad news about that is now I have to lose some weight in order to fit into my slacks again... awkward... haha. But it is still fun. I can at least fit into one of the pairs of slacks. Only because it's the pair that has elastic in the waist though. haha. But don't worry. I'm working on that. haha. Also, I have been finding a lot of weird things out about Canada still. I have noticed that everyone's lawn mower has a cord attached to it... and yesterday I figured out why. Eeveryone has electric lawn mowers! Yes, electric. As in you have to plug them into a wall... it's so weird. But we mowed the lawn for our housing members (the Woodruff's) yesterday and it was pretty ridiculous. It was kind of fun though. It has been something like six years since I've mowed a lawn and it brought back some good memories. We had a lot of fun. But yet again I couldn't help but laugh at my companion. He had the weed whacker (which was also electric and had to be plugged in) and he had no idea what he was doing and he was really just tearing up the grass. But just like before he wouldn't let me give him advice. He knew what he was doing and he was already doing whatever I suggested. Anyway, it was fun though. I enjoyed it. And then Sis Woodruff made us some lemonade. But they don't have any ice ever so it was warm... oh well. Can't complain. It was free. haha. They are an awesome family. It was sweet to see how happy Bro Woodruff was when he came home and saw his lawn mowed. He gets hay fever pretty bad so can't be outside long enough to do it. So he usually only does the front yard. Which meant the back was REALLY long. I had to go over it a couple of times, haha.

Well that is pretty much it from me. I had a pretty good week and I hope you did too. Can't wait to see what the next one has in store. I love and miss you guys so much!

Love
Elder Townsend

This is it snowing.... I even put the date stamp on just in case nobody believed what day it was. haha