January 3, 2011

Welp... I'm moving again. Apparently President is just having fun moving me around a lot. I'm getting transferred to Pincher Creek. It's a random little town in southern Alberta. My new companion is going to be Elder Lafond. He was in my district when I was in South Calgary for the first time. so I know him pretty well. he seems really weird but I think that we are going to have a lot of fun together. I still cant believe I am moving though. I just got here to Medicine Hat five weeks ago. I just started to get to know people here and like it here. I am really sad to be leaving Elder Newman. We have had a lot of fun together and we were really helping each other to become better missionaries. We didn't think it was ever a possibility for either of us to leave this transfer. I had just gotten here and Elder Newman came one transfer before me, but I guess it was supposed to happen. Whatever there is to do in Pincher Creek I am looking forward to doing. It's just sad to be leaving here now. We had just barely started getting people to listen to us. We have been working with some formers and a lot of less actives and they were just barely starting to get somewhere. So hopefully Elder Newman and Elder Bass can continue to help them. I was only here for five weeks. It makes me wonder what I did in these five weeks that was the reason that I was here....

Anyway, we had a great week this week. We had a lot of fun. We had a whole lot of lessons, which was good. A lot with members. We had a lot of seven day challenges because we have been trying to find new people to teach. Everyone we have been teaching has been leaving or we've been dropping them. Even Travis, the kid we were trying to help quit smoking, just up and moved to Fort Mc Murray. Who does that? So me and Elder Newman have been working our butts off trying to find new people to teach. We have been trying to find through our members and we were even tracting an hour a day trying to find people. We went on exchanges with the zone leaders on Friday and I went with Elder Nii in our area. So we went tracting as well, which was good he helped me to do it better. We went to doctor and dentist offices asking them if we could put copies of the book of Mormon in their waiting room. That didn't work out so well. haha. But it was good. We have been working really hard and I feel great about it.

We didn't really find anyone through any of that, but the Lord blessed us in different ways. Especially yesterday. We went to church and one of our former investigators showed up. Her name is Sarah. She is a tall black lady and she even brought one of her sons. Then after sacrament meeting she asked if we could come over that day sometime. So we went over and she was asking us if we could write some reference letters saying that her family was a good family and stuff because her son got in trouble with the law and might be getting taken back to Africa. So we said that the church couldn't officially write one but our ward mission leader, who was with us, said that he and the Bishop could write some just as people that know them. But then we had a really good lesson with them. We basically taught them the first lesson even though we weren't planning on it. It just came out. They both said that they would think about getting baptized and Sarah said she wanted her whole family to learn. She has like seven kids. How sick is that?! Then we went over to the Lilly's house. They are an awesome less active family. They are a younger couple, 23 and 20, and have a kid. But are very less active. They told us that they wanted us to help them in their goal of getting to the temple so we are doing that. We had a great lesson with them. He opened a lot to us and even started talking about scriptures he knew and bore his testimony and stuff. It was great! Especially because he is the main less active there. I think she only is less active because of his influence, but that was sweet! Then we went to Matt Finch. I think I've talked about him before, but he is a less active who wants to come back really bad but thinks that he is just too far off. So we have been helping him a lot. We read Jacob 6 with him and it was sweet. He picked out six different parts of the chapter that applied to him. It was awesome. Oh man, he's coming so far. The worst part is that we had all this great success, but now I am leaving tomorrow. I guess maybe that's why I was here. Just to get those things rolling. But I wanted to be here to see how things played out.

Anyway, can you guys believe that it is 2011? I can't. That seems crazy. I came out on my mission in 2009. I am now done with the year that I am on my mission for the whole thing. It's crazy! I still have a long ways to go. I still have ten months and I am looking forward to those ten months. I am planning on getting as much out of them as I can. Thanks for everything that you guys do for me. I love you so much! I'll talk to you guys next week and let you know how things are going in Pincher Creek! I hope you guys are having a great new year! Love you!

love
Elder Townsend



Elder Moore and Elder Stevens. I love those guys.


Me and Elder Newman. We bought ourselves some new sunglasses for Christmas. That is also the new jacket that I bought off of him for Christmas.