called to serve Calgary: September 7, 2011

Hello everyone! We had an OK week here this week. It was kind of a slower week lesson wise but we still got work done which was good. Nothing too exciting happened though. I wasn't able to go to Heather Jaremko's funeral, but I hear it was nice and I wrote a letter to her husband. Tuesday we had a specialized training from the assistants and Pres Archibald about the second lesson. It was good. They are going over each of the lessons and helping make sure we can teach them simply and clearly. Which is good but it means a lot of role playing for us which I am not the biggest fan of... it was good though. I learned a lot. Then we had a dinner with Sariah Seaborn. She's sweet. She made some really good food and it's cool to talk to her and hear the changes she is making in her life to come closer to our Savior and to see how much it is blessing her life. The church really is true. haha. Then Wednesday we had our district meetings because the special training was when we would normally have them on Tuesday. After that we had a lot of lessons. We had four. They were all with members but they were all really good. Then Thursday we did our weekly planning and then went downtown and talked to people down there. There are some crazy people in this city! haha. Then we stopped by a bunch of people and then had dinner with a guy named Geordie. He's hilarious. I love him. He's kind of a redneck and is in the rodeo and stuff. He's really nice and really outgoing and is a good person for us to talk to when someone needs a friend. I want to be more like him. We got ice cream from DQ and then he threw it at us and it got all over our suits and ties... it was some kind of weird redneck joke... I didn't like it... haha. Just kidding. He didn't really mean to throw it at us. It was funny though. He was freaking out but I was just laughing the whole time. You can't get mad at Geordie and besides we are missionaries our clothes are destroyed anyway. haha. Then Friday we had a lesson with a girl named Jodi. She moved to Canada a couple years ago and hasn't been to church since but we got a referral from SLC telling us her mom wanted us to stop by so we set up an appointment. It was cool. She is a lot of fun and has a pretty good testimony from what I can tell. We just need to get her out to church. She has a social anxiety I think so we will have to work on that. Hopefully we will teach her again this week though. Then Saturday and Sunday we had a couple of lessons but nothing too exciting happened.

I got what they call my "trunky papers" this week. It's telling me my flights and time I'll be home and stuff. It was weird. It's weird to think I'm that close to coming home. It seems way too close but don't worry! I'm going to work my butt off for the rest of the time I am here! No excuses, do the work! haha. Thank you all for everything! I love you all! I hope you had a great week and a fantastic Labor Day!

Love
Elder Townsend

me and my comp