October 24, 2011

Hello everyone! How was your week? We had an OK week here. It was another really slow week. Pday was fun though. We spent a lot of time playing sports. I threw out my arm and now it won't stop twitching though. It's driving me insane! haha. Wednesday we had a training from the zone leaders with our district. It was all about faith and having faith in our baptismal goal of baptizing a stake before the temple is completed. It was good. I like our zone leaders a lot. We had a specialized training on Friday which was a really good training. My mission president is really excited. Apparently we are a more obedient mission then we have been in the past so instead of having to talk about obedience they can give training's on other things. This one was on goal setting and having faith in them. We talked a lot about the goal that we set as a mission of baptizing 2600 people before the completion of the Calgary temple. It was good though. Also they had me and Elder Gelwix, a missionary who came out with me, give our farewell testimonies. Each transfer at something like that they have all the missionaries going home bear their testimonies. It was weird. I never thought that time would come for me and I wasn't expecting to do that on Friday. It was good though. Also Sis Archibald told me I need a haircut but nobody in the ward knows how to cut hair and I'm not spending $20 on a haircut so I'm getting an RM to do it. He cut his comps hair on the mission. So if I come off the plane without any hair I'm sorry. haha. Then Friday night we went on exchanges with our zone leaders. So I went with Elder Henrie for 24 hours. It was a lot of fun. He's sweet. I wish I served around him more on my mission. We worked hard and had a lot of fun together. That's how a mission should be. It makes time go by faster and helps you to just be happy while you are out here.

Sadly we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators and we weren't able to meet with very many less actives or recent converts. But we did get some really good lessons with members. This ward seems to be more and more missionary minded each week. I can't wait to see what happens my last couple of weeks here.

Thank you all for everything! I love you and appreciate your support while I am out here!

Love,
Elder Townsend

October 17, 2011

Hello everyone! How was your week? We had an OK week here. It was another really slow week. Pday was fun though. We spent a lot of time playing sports. I threw out my arm and now it won't stop twitching though. It's driving me insane! haha. Wednesday we had a training from the zone leaders with our district. It was all about faith and having faith in our baptismal goal of baptizing a stake before the temple is completed. It was good. I like our zone leaders a lot. We had a specialized training on Friday which was a really good training. My mission president is really excited. Apparently we are a more obedient mission then we have been in the past so instead of having to talk about obedience they can give training's on other things. This one was on goal setting and having faith in them. We talked a lot about the goal that we set as a mission of baptizing 2600 people before the completion of the Calgary temple. It was good though. Also they had me and Elder Gelwix, a missionary who came out with me, give our farewell testimonies. Each transfer at something like that they have all the missionaries going home bear their testimonies. It was weird. I never thought that time would come for me and I wasn't expecting to do that on Friday. It was good though. Also Sis Archibald told me I need a haircut but nobody in the ward knows how to cut hair and I'm not spending $20 on a haircut so I'm getting an RM to do it. He cut his comps hair on the mission. So if I come off the plane without any hair I'm sorry. haha. Then Friday night we went on exchanges with our zone leaders. So I went with Elder Henrie for 24 hours. It was a lot of fun. He's sweet. I wish I served around him more on my mission. We worked hard and had a lot of fun together. That's how a mission should be. It makes time go by faster and helps you to just be happy while you are out here.

Sadly we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators and we weren't able to meet with very many less actives or recent converts. But we did get some really good lessons with members. This ward seems to be more and more missionary minded each week. I can't wait to see what happens my last couple of weeks here.

Thank you all for everything! I love you and appreciate your support while I am out here!

Love,
Elder Townsend

October 11, 2011

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everybody! Well, it was actually yesterday, which is why I didn't get to email yesterday. So here I am! haha We had a pretty good week here. Actually it was really sad. We had an appointment with Robin on Thursday but she went to Okatokes for the weekend to be with family for thanksgiving so we couldn't meet with her and she didn't get to come to church. So that was sad. Also, we had two lessons with two other non members but they both fell through as well. They were both people that other missionaries had found and gave to us, but when we called them to confirm an appointment they wouldn't answer and then they never showed up to the appointment that we did have. So that was sad. It was really hard to find people to teach this week because it was thanksgiving weekend and all the YSA kids were all going back home to be with family for the weekend. So we actually had a really slow week and a lot of cancellations. So it was pretty sad. We still had a pretty fun week though. We had a pretty sweet FHE. We ate salad with random utensils and had to eat spaghetti while our hands were tied to the hands of the people next to us. It was sweet. Sadly they canceled FHE yesterday though... again. Nobody was here because it was thanksgiving. sad... Then Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday all of our appointments in the evening fell trough. So that was sad. Luckily we were able to find a couple sweet people at home we could stop by and share a message with. We only had one dinner this week since we couldn't pass around the dinner calendar last Sunday because it was conference. So that was sad. Although our dinner was on Wednesday and it was a really good one. Kole Moore took us to all you can eat beef ribs at Tony Roma. It was delicious. I had no idea beef ribs were so huge though. It was sweet. I ate way too much beef though. I could barely move the rest of the night, haha. Then Sunday was a pretty good day. The bishopric all had a big thanksgiving dinner and invited all the people who didn't have family around to go to so we went to Bishop's house and there was about eleven of us there. It was pretty sweet. It was really good food and it was a lot of fun. We had some pretty good conversations. I love this ward and I really like Bishop Kroeker. He's a lot of fun. Then yesterday for Pday we just played a lot of sports and I am really sore from it. It was fun though. It's weird to think that I only have three more Pday out here. I'm going to have to make the best of the time I have left. Hopefully we can see some success here before I leave! Thank you all for everything! I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

October 8, 2011

Hello everyone! How is it going? We had a pretty good week here. It started pretty sweet. For Pday we went to a lake down in south east Calgary and we played beach volleyball and football. It was fun. It started really late because we were waiting for people to show up so that was kind of sad though. Then we had a lot of pretty good lessons with members and such. On Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Perez for the day. He has only been out for two weeks now. It was interesting. We didn't have a lot to do so we just spent a lot of time tracting. He was actually pretty good at it. I was impressed. Then on Thursday we met with Robin again. That was sweet. We took our newly called ward mission leader, Ryan Pinchack with us. That was interesting. He was a very interesting teacher. He laughed at Robin and said she needed to stop fighting what she knows to be true. So that was interesting. Not really the path I would have taken but I guess it works. It was a pretty good lesson. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how she will come to know these things are true. She is to the point where she knows everything pretty much. Now she just needs to start keeping our commitments. So hopefully she starts doing that. She came to the Saturday morning conference and she really enjoyed it so that was good. She said she was going to watch the rest online so let's hope that she did. I think there were a lot of really good talks that she would enjoy and that would help her.
I really enjoyed conference. It was really good and I've decided I love going to the church to watch it because I pay a lot more attention when I do. They make us go there as missionaries in case non members show up. So it's pretty sweet. How did you all like conference? I think my favorite talks were Pres Uchtdorf's in Saturday morning or Elder Holland in priesthood or Pres Monson in priesthood. Although I also liked Elder Carl Cook Saturday afternoon. Oh man it was sweet. I love conference. It's such a testimony that the church is true. I go with questions in mind. I go hoping they will say something that will help my investigators or help me with my investigators and they say exactly what we need to hear. I love the church. I really do!
That's pretty much the highlights of my week though. Sorry this email is so short... I love you all though! Thank you for everything and for the love and support you have given me on my mission! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend