March 15, 2011

Hello everyone! How is it going? I hope you all had a great week. We had a pretty slow one here. It was sad. We had a couple of dinners and a couple of lessons which all went really well. We have great members here. I love this little ward and town. There just isn't anything to do missionary wise. We tried meeting with Rob Frost, but he volunteers at the fire house so he was busy all week. We didn't get a chance to find a time that worked to teach Dani. We had a lesson with a native couple we have been teaching off and on, but they canceled the morning of. Bro Yellowhorn, a less active native, hasn't been answering our calls lately. So we didn't get any lessons with non members or less actives this week. We did get the chance to do some service at the museum though. Every Wednesday morning we go and help out there. So we got there and they had us shovel snow. They didn't tell us when to stop so we just kept going. We shoveled off all the sidewalks that went around the museum. It was ridiculous. There were a whole bunch of drifts as well, huge ones and drifts suck to shovel. They get so packed down its like breaking away at ice. So we did that from 10 to around one, then took lunch and at the end of lunch got a call from Bro Mallard. He lives out in Lundbreck, a tiny town, and asked us to come help shovel at his house because he thought his house was going to flood. It has been really warm around here, which has been really nice. All the snow is melting and I don't have to wear a jacket anymore. But that means that there is water EVERYWHERE!!! So we got to his house and he has a HUGE drift covering his entire garage door and on the side of the garage is a huge drift covering almost the entire side entry door and neither are really weather proofed at all and the garage leads right to the basement so they figured if they didn't move it the basement would die! So we get there and for the rest of the day, until 6 or so, we were hacking away at this mound with pick axes and shovels and eventually got to the point where we could open all the doors. But then we had to go to dinner. That was the most exhausting day ever and it didn't seem like we got too much accomplished. We were going to go back the next day to help again, but they found someone with a bobcat to come help with the rest of it. So that was nice haha.

But the most exciting part of the week started Friday night. Friday night around 930 the missionaries from Trail BC came and spent the night with us and then at 3 in the morning we got ready and left at 430 to make it to Fort MacLeod at 515 to catch the tour bus to take us to Calgary. The mission had a bus pick everyone up from Lethbridge and Medicine Hat and then came here and picked us up and then drove to Calgary. That was fun. Things go crazy when you get a tour bus full of missionaries that haven't seen each other in a while. haha. But we got to the Sundance chapel around 700 and then we all sat down and sang until about 745 when Elder Todd Christofferson and Elder Real (pronounced ree-ahl) from the seventy came in. That was so sweet. I love apostles. They are amazing. Elder Real spoke for a little bit and then Elder Christofferson talked to us for about 2 hours. It was awesome. He was hilarious. He was real with us. He joked around and quoted a random beer commercial and when an Elder quoted him, Elder Christofferson asked Pres Archibald if he had a cookie for him. haha. He was just funny and he didn't chastise us for being horrible missionaries. He just told us some things that some missionaries forget to do and told us that we should work on it. Like planning around a commitment instead of planning a lesson and then sticking in a commitment randomly. Anyway, it was a great experience! (even though I was really tired, haha) I left feeling great and like I wanted to go out and do missionary work. Not like a lot of times when I leave meetings just feeling like a horrible missionary. It was a great feeling. Then we took the long ride back and got home around 3. So that was a pretty good day. It's never a bad day when you get to shake hands with an apostle. It's awesome.

Then Sunday we didn't get any of our investigators out to church, but I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about the Holy Ghost. I don't know how well it went with not getting much sleep that night and then losing an hour of sleep Saturday night from daylight savings time. But people said it was good. It made sense in my mind. I talked about how the Holy Ghost helps our investigators and how the Holy Ghost can feel to people and then I talked about the blessings we can have from having the Holy Ghost in our lives, whether they be emotional, physical or spiritual. And I love that. I love the feelings of peace or happiness or joy that can come from the Holy Ghost. Our Father in heaven loves us so much and wants us to be happy. So he sends us the Holy Ghost to help us. Sure we are going to still have hard times and struggles, but that is how we learn and grow. This is when we need to turn to our Father in heaven most and look for those subtle prompting's or feelings of the Holy Ghost telling us that everything will turn out the way that we want it to. Prayer is a wonderful thing and I pray for you guys everyday. Thank you all for everything you do for me. I love you so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

PS... I wore a different suit to district meetings today and we came straight to the library after them and I left my camera in my other suit... so no pictures today. I'm sorry. I'll send some next week I promise. :)