called to serve Calgary

November 2, 2011

2011-11-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody for the one last time from the Canada Calgary mission! I still don't think it has really hit me yet that I am actually coming home... I still feel like I am going to be out her for forever! Maybe subconsciously I know and I am really nervous about coming home... either that or I got food poisoning. I got really sick last night and was losing a lot of liquids. haha. sad eh? I am really hoping I can start feeling better soon so I can actually eat the good food they give us in the mission home tomorrow. Anyway, sorry for the too much information. We had a really good week this week. I went on exchanges on Wednesday with the other Elders in our district. I went with Elder Perez who has only been out for 6 weeks now. We had a lot of fun. A member from one of my last areas, Sis Tredinnick took us to the Calgary Tower for lunch! That was sweet! I was glad I was able to get up there once before I left. Then we were finally able to get in with our investigator Robin again. We met with her at 6, but our priesthood didn't show up and we only had like 15 mins so we just talked to her at the door. It was good though and she came to church for the first time this month which was sweet! We taught a lesson during Sunday School and I just threw down on her and said that I was going home and the one thing I wanted her to know was that this is the only way she can be ready for the last days, because she worries about those a lot. I think it was really good. It definitely made her think. I just don't know what is holding her back from baptism... it's kind of frustrating really. She will get there eventually. Then on Friday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders and I went with Elder Gelwix. He came out with me and we were together for our two year mark. It was sweet. We had a lot of fun together. A member here named Chris took us to lunch to Tony Roma's and then these two sweet kids took us to a place called Moxies. It was fun. One of the Elders in our district was sick so we went to a couple lessons with the one that was feeling good that they had set up in their area. So that was sweet as well. Then Sunday was a lot of fun. We had this house of girls sign up on the dinner calendar for Halloween but we have to be in our apartment by six on Halloween so they switched it to Sunday. We had a big Halloween party and they even got a pumpkin that they had us carve. It was sweet. They are a really fun group of people. I am actually getting pretty sad to leave this area and to leave Canada. I have loved my mission and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have no regrets here. I could've worked harder at times for sure but I have made so many memories and so many friends that I will never forget! The mission really has taught me so much and it feels weird that it is ending. I know it has blessed me in my life and I hope it has blessed those I love. I pray for you all everyday! Well, this is my last email. I spend today with the zone for Pday and then tomorrow I spend the day in the mission home and then I'll be home for lunch on Thursday! I love you all and I can't wait to see you!

I'M COMING HOME!!!

Love
Elder Townsend

October 24, 2011

2011-10-24T15:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2011

2011-10-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

September 26, 2011

2011-09-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We had a pretty fun week here. It was transfers so its always crazy with packing and getting a new companion and unpacking and trying to get the new guy to understand the area and what we do here. It's been crazy. It was really good though. Wednesday we spent a lot of time at transfers because I was waiting for my new comp to come in from Trail BC. That was fun. He is an interesting fellow. He has been on his mission for one year and is a short soccer player. He doesn't really talk much but when he does it seems like he's yelling at you. He is fun though. I think we are going to have a good transfer together. There seems to be a lot of work coming up which is great news! Thursday we met with Robin again. That was sweet. We talked a lot about the atonement and how it helps everyone and why we focus so much on Jesus Christ still even though he already did everything and how we need to accept him and follow his teachings and then we talked a lot about how the Book of Mormon is really the only way she can come to know that these things are all true for herself. She told us she hadn't actually been reading or praying, but she said she would this time, so hopefully she does. She wasn't able to make it to church this week which was sad. She was in BC with some friends, but she knows about conference and she seems really interested in watching some of it. So that will be sweet. Then on Sunday night we met with this man named Eamon (pronounced "a-men"). He was sweet. We ran into him when we were stopping by some less active on our record and he lived there instead. He was with a friend named Steve but he wasn't too interested so he wasn't there last night. It was definitely an interesting lesson. We spent some time answering some questions at the beginning of us being there and one came up about how in Alma 7:8-9 it says Jesus will be born in Jerusalem.... but he was born in Bethlehem.... so if anyone can answer that let me know. haha. Then we went on and shared the first lesson with him. It went pretty good. At the end he said that he knew that one of us was wrong and if he was wrong he wanted to be helped and if we were wrong he wanted to help us. So we told him to read and pray and find out for himself who was wrong so he accepted to do that and he said he would get baptized depending on the answer that he got. So that was sweet. It was a cool lesson. It's going to be hard to meet with him though because he doesn't want to set up anything in advance but he said he would call us when he had free time but probably not with too much notice. So here's hoping that he actually does call and we are available. He did say he wanted to come to church though and he said conference would be something he would like to watch. So hopefully he will come to one of the sessions. That is pretty much the highlights of our week though. I'm looking forward to this transfer. There are some weird and very new missionaries around me now so that might be interesting but I think there is a lot for me to do here still. I just have to find what it is. Thank you all for everything! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Moore, Hansen and me

Some of my favorite missionaries. Hatfield, Heap, Hurley and Fowler. Hurley and Fowler are home now and Hatfield comes home with me.

me and Farnsworth

September 21, 2011

2011-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! We had a good week here. Me and Elder Farnsworth had a lot of fun. So it is transfers and we found out that Elder Farnsworth is going zone leader in the west zone and I am staying here and getting Elder Loveland. I don't know anything about him really. That makes 8 of my companions that have eventually made it to zone leader after I have served with them. So either president needs to keep me with good missionaries that can keep me in line or I am really good at preparing missionaries to be in leadership. haha. Who knows. But I am really looking forward to this next transfer. It should be a lot of fun and I think there is a lot of work to be done here in Edworthy Park Ward.

Last Tuesday we went to see a referral from the office that we got. That was interesting. It was for a man named Luke who was 21. When we got there it was a whole house of YSA guys and we sat down with three of them. Luke, Andrew and Jordan. One of the first things they told us was they were all going to Mount Royal studying religion and they just wanted to learn more... great... bashers. haha. So we talked to them for a while and apparently missionaries had been going by about a year ago but then stopped and two of them knew quite a bit. Jordan and Luke. Luke seemed more interesting and willing to listen to us. Jordan just asked a lot of leading questions to get weird topics on the subject. Andrew was really quiet the whole time. We did get through the first lesson which surprised me. Although it took an hour and a half and we had a lot of huge random tangents. We have another lesson with them this week. I don't really want to go, but we will. It might be our last time. The ward remembered them from last year and told us the last missionaries dropped them because all they wanted to do was bash with them. So I don't see this going very far. It was kind of fun though. A very interesting lesson, but not really one I ever want to have to go through again! haha. Then on Wednesday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders so Elder Kirklin came into our area with me and we spent a lot of time walking around downtown and talking to people. Nobody really listens to us downtown though. I don't really know why. Then we stopped by a bunch of people and talked to a bunch of people on the street as we went and we actually got a referral for us and one for the other elders in our district. So that was sweet. Then we had a lesson with a recent returned missionary. It was cool to talk to him. He lived with his parents in the sisters area and the sisters dropped by as well so there were four missionaries in the house. I hadn't had that happen before. It was funny. We shared a good lesson with him and he had a couple people in mind that he could work with. So it was sweet. I love recent RM's because they are still in the missionary mode. haha. Then on Friday we had a lesson with Nicole, a recent convert, who has been struggling recently. That went alright. She hasn't come to church in a while so that is what we are really working on with her. Then that night some other elders in the stake had two gator lessons to go to and they needed us to go so I went on exchanges with Elder Leany who has been out for like two months and we taught these two people they hoped to pick up as new investigators. It was a really weird lesson though. They were only there because they didn't want to say no to their friend who asked them to listen to us. They weren't really open to learning. They shut down pretty much every commitment that we gave them and it was seriously one of the worst lessons I have taught in my whole mission... and we didn't get a return appointment... but I guess we planted a seed in them. So that's good at least! haha.
That was pretty much the highlights of our week. We had a lot of fun. I'll miss Elder Farnsworth. But I'm looking forward to this next transfer. I'll let you all know how it is going next week! I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Downtown

I'm the king of New York!... or Calgary...

Another dog from Tubby Dog. "the red fox" 1/3 lb dog wrapped in bacon and topped with deli mustard, bacon bits, sauteed onions and baked swiss cheese then topped with jalepenos

it was SOOOO good I love that place

September 12, 2011

2011-09-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We had an OK week here this week. Nothing really too exciting. We didn't get to have too many lessons this week which means a lot of walking around downtown. Which is starting to not be as exciting anymore. haha. We did have some really cool lessons though. We had one with Addison, a guy who is coming back into activity. It was a really good one. He had us over for dinner with his family and then afterwards we had a lesson with just him where he talked about how he was going through some hard times in his life and some difficult changes and he thought that he would be devastated through it all, but he said that for some reason when it all happened he decided to start doing things more faithfully like reading his scriptures and praying more and coming to all three hours of church and he has noticed that even though all this is happening to him he just seems happy and everything seems to be going ok. Which was awesome. So we talked to him about obedience and sacrifice and how they both bring so many blessings into your life. That is so true. That is one thing I have definitely learned a lot about on my mission. Life may be hard but as long as you are keeping up on the basics of life then everything will turn out for the good. So it was awesome to hear Addison talk about that. We had another cool experience towards the end of the week. The other elders in our district had three baptisms this weekend and my comp did the baptismal interview for two of them. Then we were able to go to the baptisms. It was cool. I love going to baptisms. The Spirit that is always there is so strong. It's when I feel most relaxed as a missionary. It really is a huge reward seeing people go into the waters of baptism. I didn't even help with any of these but, it was still fun to be there. One of them was named Owen. He is like... 23 I think and just got married. Apparently he doesn't get excited very easily, which I can kind of relate to. haha, but we asked him after the baptismal interview if he was excited and he was all... eh not really. When we asked if he was happy and he said "yes". I thought that was really cool. Anyway. That was one thing that stood out to me this week.

Other then that nothing too exciting happened this week. Which means I also don't have any pictures this week... sorry mom. The sad part about this week was that we had a lesson with our investigator named Robin on Tuesday but she canceled and rescheduled for Thursday and then Thursday she canceled and told us she was going to BC for the weekend so she wouldn't be at church either. We have another lesson with her on Tuesday so hopefully that goes well. oh! Also, last Monday we were walking in the mall and a girl came up to us and started talking to us and turns out she is a less active member and she said she wanted to come back to church. We found out she was in our ward so we told her where and when church was so she could come but before we got a chance to get her last name or phone number she had to get back to work. So we were just hoping she would come on Sunday... and she did! It was sweet. Then we talked to her and got her phone number and she said to call her tonight and we could set up a time to go over to her house and meet with her. So that was sweet. I wish there was a number we could report for less actives to church. I've been pretty darn good at that in my mission but I get no recognition for it! haha. Anyway, that is pretty much my week though. I hope you are all happy and healthy. Thank you for everything! Next week is my last transfer so I will let you know if I am getting moved one more time or not. I love you all! Until next week.

Love
Elder Townsend

September 7, 2011

2011-09-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

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

me and my trunky papers... Don't worry, I'm not trunky or at least I'm trying my best not to be! hahadowntown from our apartment window

August 29, 2011

2011-08-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! We had a pretty good week here. It was a little slower in terms of lessons and the numbers we turned in at the end of the week but it ended pretty well. Monday we had FHE but we weren't allowed to go because they went to the temple site and that isn't in our zone. That was sad. So we spent all night dropping by less actives since the whole ward was at the temple. haha Then, Tuesday was pretty sweet. We had mission tour that happens every six months or so. Elder Baxter of the Seventy came and spoke to us. It was really good. They talked about being more consecrated to the Lord and to the work and I think that was something that was really good for the mission and they talked a lot about something else that I know was really good for the mission. They talked about personal contacting and talking to people on the street and what we should say and how we should act on the streets and stuff. It was good. That is definitely something this mission can work on. Myself included. I'm still horrible at talking to people and talking to everyone on the street. I don't really know why but, it's something I am working on. Then we had a really good dinner after the meeting. We went with this member named Jared who drives a sweet old VW beetle. He took us to this Columbian restaurant. It was actually really good. I've never had Columbian food before but that was delicious! Then Wednesday Thursday an Friday were pretty slow days. We stopped by a lot of less actives and potential investigators and former investigators and spent a lot of time walking around downtown talking to people, which I am still really bad at. It seems like all the lessons we had set up this week just kept falling through. Friday night we did meet with Robin again. That went really well. She knows this girl from another YSA ward that she went to high school with so we took her and Jeff Blackford with us to the lesson. It went really well. We talked a lot about the Holy Ghost and its roll and how it can answer your prayers and questions and we talked a lot about faith and how she needs to exercise her faith and make those steps that are by faith and she will see the blessings that come. She knows that it is all true and she knows she feels the Spirit whenever she meets with us or comes to church. She won't accept a date to be baptized though because she wants to learn more about our culture and get to know more people first. I guess we can work with that. She will get baptized. It will happen and I hope I can be here to see it happen. Then Saturday and Sunday were alright. Slower days. Saturday there was a BBQ at the church that the ESL class put on and they invited us to come along so that we could have conversations in English with the students there. That was sweet. And Sunday was cool because Robin came to church! YEA! She could only stay for Sacrament meeting but that was ok. She's solid. She really enjoyed the talks and stuff. So it was good. That was pretty much the best part of my week though.

I found out something kind of sad this week though. Do you all remember Heather Jaremko from Rockyview ward? She was someone I taught and baptized about a year and a half ago. Well, I got a call from the missionaries there and the mission office saying that she had suddenly gotten sick and was in the hospital and then passed away on Tuesday. I was shocked. It happened pretty suddenly. They think it was some kind of cancer. I was really sad when I heard about that, but then I started to think about how as missionaries we are here to teach people how they can come closer to our savior Jesus Christ in this life. We are here to warn them and to prepare them for the life to come. And I was able to help in that process with Heather. She is in a better place. I know she is and I know she is happy. I'm so glad that I am here serving a mission and helping people in any way that I can. I love my mission and I love being out here in Canada and I truly do love the people here. I cant wait to see who else I can help in the next couple of months. Heather's funeral is tomorrow and I am really hoping that I will get a chance to go to that. I would send a picture of Heather so you could see her, but I forgot my camera today... my bad. next week :)

Thank you all for everything. I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

(link to post about Heather's baptism here)

August 23, 2011

2011-08-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We had a pretty good week here. We didn't get a chance to teach too many lessons but the lessons we did have were great! On Monday we went over to Jeff and Dallas' house for dinner and then went to FHE where we drew sections of pictures and then put them together to make one big one. It was interesting. I'm not very artistic at all. Good thing the rest of my group was. haha. Then Tuesday was sweet. We had district meetings and then after that we went and drove to a place called McKenzie in the south east. There is this man named Jake who has been going to the YSA ward in the south stake for a couple of weeks and the missionaries there finally set up a time to teach him but he lives in our area so we went and taught him. It went really well though. His friend Elliot was there too and he just came back into activity I think and he was a lot of help in the lesson. We taught the restoration and answered a lot of their questions. It was really cool. Jake was really willing to learn and accepted it really well. He wouldn't accept a date to get baptized though because he feels like he needs to do a lot to change his life and thinks he needs some time to do that. So we will work on that, but he is solid. He will definitely get baptized it's just a matter of time. If we could have I think we would have been able to teach him all the lessons right then. He was very interested and very into the lesson. It was sweet. We are meeting with him tomorrow again. Hopefuly that goes well. Then Wednesday was a really good day. We taught five lessons which was sweet. We went and taught Chris McClure which was interesting. It is always interesting going over there. Then Jeff called us and wanted to go out with us to some lessons so we went and picked him up and then went and taught Addison Gough. That was sweet. Addison is making a lot of really good choices in his life recently and it's cool to see. Then we went and stopped by Andrea Arellano and dropped off her pan that she gave us last Sunday with shepherds pie in it and shared a message there and then we had a really good dinner and then went and taught Robin Roberts. That went really well too. She hadn't come to church in two weeks because she was out of town but she said he would come this week but she didn't which was sad. We had a really good lesson with her. We taught lesson three which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She really liked it and agreed with it, but she says she is too comfortable in her lifestyle right now to make any drastic changes like coming to church, which was sad to hear. We can work with that. As long as she continues to meet with us and come to church and reads the Book of Mormon the Spirit will work on her and she will come to know that it is true and that she can be so much happier when she makes that covenant with our Heavenly Father.

Then Thursday was a lot of fun. Jon Cummings came and picked me and my companion up and took us out to lunch to this sweet place called Saltlick. It was delicious. I got this huge steak. It was ginormous and really good. Then we got this delicious cake for dessert. I was in heaven. haha. It was sweet to talk to him and hear about life back home. Then we went to a special training from the assistants and Pres Archibald. That was good. They focused on how we can teach the third lesson efficiently and make it understandable. It was actually pretty good. I learned a lot. Then we had a dinner and then a lesson with Sariah Seabourn. That went really well too. It's sweet to see the changes she is making and how she really is doing it all on her own. She knows she is happier in the church so she is doing everything she can to make it happen. It's cool to watch. Then Friday was really slow. We didn't have a lot to do so we stopped by a lot of people and not a lot of people were home. The same thing happened on Saturday. It was way too nice of a day for people to be home. They all went floating down the river instead! I wish I could do that... it sounds nice when your burning up in a suit. Then Sunday was actually really fun. We went and did some home teaching with Jeff and then we took him with us to our dinner with Lachele and Carrie. That was sweet. I gave them the funfetti cake you sent me for my birthday and they made it for me and it was delicious. They are awesome. Also Mom, they were wondering if you could send more funfetti cake because it is delicious and you can't get it here in Alberta... sad. I really enjoyed this week. We didn't have a lot to do but we made the things we did have to do a lot of fun! Thanks for everything! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

I don't know if I've sent these pictures yet or not...

The zone last transfer

Me and my A-Bomb from Tubby DogMe and my Tubby Dog shirtThis is what I got from Carrie and Lachele for my birthday! :)

August 15, 2011

2011-08-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! This week was a pretty good week I guess. I was really sad to see Elder Worthington go to Medicine Hat. I was hoping that we would stay together for another transfer. I guess the Lord knows what is best for everyone. Elder Farnsworth is good as well though. He is a great missionary and a good worker so maybe we can get some work going this transfer. This week was actually pretty slow. We didn't get a chance to get too many lessons but the lessons that we did get were awesome. Tuesday night was really just Worthington saying goodbye. It was sweet though. We had some members take us out to dinner which was awesome. I've decided though that I have spent way too much money on food already this month haha. It was sweet though and our waiter was hilarious! Then Wednesday we had to go to transfer station at 8:30 and then Elder Worthington hopped on the bus down to Medicine Hat. Then I went with Elders Moore and Hansen as I was waiting for my new companion to get up here from Vulcan. (yes that is actually a town in southern Alberta haha) We taught a couple lessons and then went back and picked up my new comp, Elder Farnsworth. Then we went and shopped for groceries and unpacked and then we had a dinner with Aaron Nelson which was him just dropping off a huge sub from Safeway. It was funny, but it was actually pretty good. Then Thursday was kind of exciting. We had weekly planning which is always freaking long and I had to explain the whole area to Elder Farnsworth as well as I could, which I am really bad at and I don't really like doing. I think it went well. Then we had a dinner and then a lesson with a less active girl. She's sweet. She made the choice to come back all on her own. We didn't even have her records here. She wants to change and is making some really good progress in her life, which is awesome to watch. We will be meeting with her this week as well. Her name is Sarah Seaborn. She's sweet. Then Friday Saturday and Sunday we had a couple lessons as well, nothing too exciting though. Just with some sweet members. Sunday was sweet because a member named Spencer Wenzel brought a non member friend to church and then after church we went and had lunch with both of them and talked to the friend for a while. His name is Dante. He's hilarious and he did accept to hear the lessons so we set up a time to teach him this week. We are going to teach him during Sunday school next Sunday. Which is better then nothing! Then we had a dinner dropped off to us and it was this huge thing of shepherds pie and a freaking delicious chocolate cake. It was soooo good. Andrea Arellano made it and she made it for my birthday so she even had a sweet candle to put on it. haha. It was a lot of food though so we took it over to Jeff Blackford's house and shared it with him. He's freaking hilarious and is a huge help to us when we need Priesthood for lessons or dinners. So we thought we would pay him back a little bit. OK, so, Saturday was my birthday and it was the best birthday ever! It was sweet. We had a meeting with our zone leaders in the morning and then we went to tubby dog for lunch. It's this gourmet hot dog place that is freaking delicious and has some crazy hotdogs. It's freaking good though. Then the other missionaries, Moore and Hansen, told us to come to their house and they had decorated their apartment and we had a big surprise birthday party!! OK... so it wasn't that big... we are missionaries. It was awesome though. Then they drew all over our car while we were there too. It was funny. Those two are funny. Then we didn't have all that much to do until Jeff Blackford took us out to dinner to Five Guys. That was freaking delicious! I love Jeff and then he bought me a tie for my birthday as well. He is the man. Then we went and had a lesson with Lachele Wickens and Carrie Pickering and it actually ended up being at Dairy Queen so we could party for my birthday haha. and when I got there they had a bunch of presents for me as well. It was freaking awesome. They had a wicked sweet birthday card for me that they personalized and everything. It was hilarious. It was sweet. though. I freaking loved my birthday! People were way too nice to me but I guess I can't complain. And I got to spend the evening with my favorite guy in the ward Jeff and my two besties Lachele and Carrie. haha. Thank you all for the love and support and the birthday wishes! I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Tubby Dog. 1/3lb dog with pb&j and captain crunch on it "the captains dog" (freaking delicious by the way) and freaking huge onion rings

Happy birthday to me! :)

Our car

Nobody honked.... I was sad

Birthday cake from Andrea :)

August 9, 2011

2011-08-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! it's transfers! And to my surprise I am staying here. I was pretty darn sure that I was leaving. That means that I might actually end my mission in this area. The sad part is that my companion Elder Worthington is leaving. When he was getting transferred here I never thought I would be sad to see him go, but we have had a lot of fun together and have actually gotten along really well. It is sad that he is leaving but, he got called up to be a zone leader, so good for him. It means that I am getting a new companion. This one is Elder Farnsworth. I might have talked about him a little bit before. He was my district leader for my last transfer in Pincher Creek. I am excited for him to come. It should be fun. I am curious to see if he drives me crazy but, then again, that's what I thought about Elder Worthington too and he turned out being one of my favorite companions and we actually had a lot of fun together. So I'm just going to go into it with a positive mind. so we will see what all happens. It will be interesting to see if I end my mission here or end in a one transfer area. Anyway... don't need to be thinking about that. I still have a lot of time to do a lot of good.

Anyway. I hope you all had a great week! I did. I had a blast. We had a chance to have a couple of really good lessons with members and less actives. We got a couple of referrals that we are hoping we can start teaching soon. It wasn't a very good week for losing things though. I lost my planner and I forgot my camera at a member's house so I won't be able to send pictures home today... sad. We had a lot of really good lessons. This ward is awesome. I love it. It has had some interesting missionaries in the past and they were kind of done with missionaries when I came in but me and Elder Worthington worked our tails off to change that and it has really worked well. This ward is awesome and a lot of them are actually letting us come over and teach them and help them in their missionary work. It's really cool to watch a ward progress like that. It is also really satisfying to watch. Sadly we don't have too many investigators to teach, but we are working on that. The one that we do have, Robin Roberts, went out of town last Wednesday and won't be back till later this week. We were supposed to meet with her on Tuesday, but she said she had to pack and was too busy. So we are hoping to meet with her this week when she returns. The work here is really progressing and I hope it continues. The thing I am not looking forward to is having to tell Elder Farnsworth all about this area. It's probably the least favorite part pf my mission. haha. It will be good though. I will let you all know how this next week goes. Thank you all for everything! I love you all so much!

Love
Elder Townsend

August 2, 2011

2011-08-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? I had a pretty good week here and I hope you all had a great one as well. This week was kind of a slower one, but we had some really good lessons. We were able to teach Robin Roberts twice and she came to church! It was awesome! I haven't had an investigator come to church in so long I almost forgot what it feels like! It was great. The ward was actually really good at friend shipping her. She felt really welcome and our Relief Society Pres Holly Spackman did a great job and took her to class and to the third hour. It was kind of an interesting Sunday for her to come. It was a lot about missionary work. We had a missionary farewell and the 5th Sunday lesson was on missionary work as well and they had us talk about finding and how members could help us... it's just not really the best topic that we could have had for an investigators first time to church. But I think she still liked it and she liked knowing a little more about what we are doing out here and that we are here to help her. It was cool. We taught her the plan of salvation and read Alma 32 with her for the lesson and that went really well. She really feels the Spirit and knows that she does and she even said that she knew baptism was a beautiful thing and that it was something that she wanted. I think she doesn't know if she wants to make these changes in her life because of what other people will think about her. Every time we meet with her she tells us stories and how she is surprised by how much people don't like us and think we are all weird. So that's kind of sad but, it is something that is very easily overcome. So, I think she is going to be baptized really soon. It would be really sad if I got transferred away from this area next week and couldn't watch it happen.

Other than that we had an alright week. Elder Worthington had to go to what they call leadership training meetings on Wednesday from 9-6 so I went with the family ward missionaries into their area for the day and then on Friday we were supposed to go on exchanges with the zone leaders but one of them got called up to be trained to be our next assistant to the president so we only have one zone leader so me and Elder Worthington just went with him into his area which was sad because we had to cancel some appointments with people in our area. So we didn't have the most effective week in our area and we didn't get as much done as we would have liked, but it was still a really good week and we had a lot of fun. I am looking forward to this week. It should be a lot of fun. Although I am a little nervous about transfers. Mostly because I have no idea what will happen to me. I would be really sad to leave but then again I would just go to a new area and find cool members and work to do there so I guess it's just whatever the Lord wants for me! So I will let you all know on Tuesday where I am going or if I am staying! I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for everything! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

We didnt take any pictures this week and I dont know what all I have sent home.. so here are a couple random pictures enjoy! :)

Me playing chess with an old guy

Gorilla..... I dont know why I actually sent this one... I just thought you would enjoy it.Elder Moore.... isnt he beautiful? ladies... he is single haha

July 26, 2011

2011-07-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? I hope you all had a great week! and for all those that were at the lake I hope that was fun as well! I had the urge to go wake boarding all week... it was sad. haha. Anyway. Our week here was kind of slow. We find ways to make it fun. Monday we went golfing and it was sweet! Oh man it was fun. It was a really nice golf course. There are members that own it and so they let us in for free. There were 8 of us missionaries that went and we totaled it up and for all 8 of us and clubs and carts and balls it was like $1200. That's a lot of money. It was a beautiful course though. I'm not very good at golfing though. I shot 101, but played best ball at times... I did get a drive of 270 yards though. That was exciting. I ended on two legit pars. It made me feel really good about myself. haha. It made me really miss golfing though. It also made me wish I was good at it. Oh and it was probably the warmest day I've felt in Canada. It was 30C and I was sweating like non other! haha Then for FHE we played fugitive...again. Running in a suit, not so good when its really warm! haha. Then Tuesday we had a couple lessons and one was with a girl who has been less active for three years but has been coming back the past two weeks so that was sweet. She is really nice and has a non member boyfriend who came to church yesterday and told her he would come every other week. So we asked her to ask him if he would want to listen to us and she said she would ask. So hopefully we can start teaching him soon! That would be sweet. Oh and our other investigator we just picked up. We haven't taught her again yet. I don't really know what is going on with her. I think she just doesn't understand what we are teaching. I think she is just curious to learn and she is quick to forget what the Spirit feels like. She felt it really strong when we taught her but she hasn't really felt it since and without feeling it she doesn't have any desire to continue to learn. I don't know... hopefully we can teach her again soon and get her out to church. So we will see. We continue to teach Nicole Wilson. She is the recent convert who has been having a lot of struggles in her life since her baptism and I don't really know what else to do with her. She knows everything and even tells us she knows it is true. She just has to get the desire to live it and we can't force that on her. She has to get that for herself. So we will see what happens there. Other than that nothing too exciting happened here this week. It was my companions birthday on Saturday. So Friday and Saturday we had members from his old areas take us out to lunch. So that was sweet! And we had my two favorite groups of people from our ward feed us dinner those days. Friday was Jeff Blackford and Dallas Ausmus. They are sweet! They are sweet and are down to earth and know that we are normal people and they are hilarious and still missionary minded. They served together in the Las Vegas West Mission. They are awesome. I hope to be like them when I get home. haha. Then Saturday we had dinner with Lachele Wickens and Carrie Pickering. They're sweet and kind of missionary minded. More then a lot of people in the ward. They took us out to Mexican a place called Los Chilitos... probably the worst Mexican food I have ever had. I can't wait to come back to Tucson for good Mexican food. haha. That was pretty much our week. Thanks for everything! I love you all so much! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Golfing. My drives were REALLY bad that day.

We spent a lot of time in the sand...Luckily some of my best shots were coming out of it! hahaOur golfing group (Kuettel, me, Worthington, Tulane)

ps. We all got fried! My comps legs are still bright red. haha

July 18, 2011

2011-07-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How was your week? We had a pretty good week here. Things are starting to improve here which is awesome! Monday was pretty sweet. I don't remember if I told you about the three really weird looking guys that came to church on Sunday but on Monday for FHE we had a big Stampede pancake breakfast and they came to that as well and then performed for us. It was pretty sweet. The band is called Behind Sapphire. It's actually pretty cool music but the singer is really funny to watch while he sings. haha. Then we had a really good day on Tuesday. We had lessons with three less active members. They were all nice to us and let us in and one even had signed up on the dinner calendar. I like working with less active members. I have done it a lot on my mission and it is just as fulfilling if not more so to bring them back then to baptize people. It's sweet. But speaking of baptizing people! We found a new investigator on Tuesday!!! OK... we didn't really find her. She was a referral from missionaries in Okotoks (suburb if Calgary) She is awesome though. Her name is Robin Roberts and she is going to be baptized! She didn't accept a baptismal date yet but she got really emotional and said she would think about it. So I know she will. She just has family pressure I think. We are teaching her again this next week. Hopefully that goes well. She was going to come to church but she is unemployed and someone gave her a job for the day on Sunday so she couldn't come. We are going to have her talk to the ward employment specialist sometime too. That should be good. Anyway, she is amazing and freaking solid and she WILL be baptized. I am excited.

Then Wednesday we had interviews with our mission president. Those went really well. I really enjoyed it. It's the first time that Pres Archibald really just talked to me instead of giving some pre thought about little training. It was sweet. Then we had a couple lessons as well and then Thursday wasn't all that exciting. We are running pretty low on kilometers already so we walked around a lot that day and got a couple lessons in and then Friday we had a special training about how and why we should be keeping daily contact with our investigators. So that was good. But they did take three hours to explain something they could have taught us in one hour. It was still good. A lot of graphs and statistics as always. Then we had a couple lessons after that then Saturday we helped this one girl move. Her name is Lachele Wickens. She's sweet. Probably one of my favorite people in the ward. Luckily she moved within the ward still. Then she took everyone out for pizza that helped move. Always delicious. Then we had a couple lessons that night as well. Then Sunday was pretty uneventful. We went to church which was good and then went to choir, I don't know why because neither of us can sing. Then had dinner with the Bishop and a lesson after that. It was good but, Bishop lives really far away so we had to use a lot more kilometers then we would have liked. We are going golfing today so I am excited! A member owns a really nice golf course called Elbow Springs. I am excited to go golfing. But it is a really nice one and they say you have to be good or people behind you will get mad... I haven't golfed in a really really long time. I don't even think I went that often the year before I came out if even at all... so hopefully I wont suck enough to get people mad at me. Wish me luck! haha.

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I know I will try to have a good one here. And to all of you Townsend's and family I hope you have a blast up in Bear Lake! Thanks for everything! I love you all!

Love,
Devin

4th of July celabrations haha

Me and Elder WorthingtonPancake breakfast!

The crowd at the breakfast. Well one side of it. We were in the middle of it all.

Waffles on a stickThe place where we got waffles on a stick :)

July 11, 2011

2011-07-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks! How y'all doing today? Happy Stampede! Yee haw! haha. Sorry, I'm in the cowboy mood. The Calgary Stampede started on Friday. It's pretty intense. Apparently its the biggest outdoor show on earth. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to go to any of it, maybe I'll come back sometime to go see it. It sounds like it's pretty fun. Just a huge fair. The stampede grounds are in our area and it has been getting pretty crazy around here. I am really enjoying it. And, yes, the royal couple have been around lately as well. They went to the Stampede and the zoo and such. So because of each of those things it has been crazy and crowded downtown. haha. It's fun for us though because we spend a lot of time walking around downtown and talking to people. Especially since we only have half the use of our car this month. Probably the best part of Stampede is the free food! It is everywhere! There is a free pancake breakfast and BBQ lunch somewhere in Calgary everyday. It's sweet. Missionaries love free food. They are just put on by random companies and stores. Like Henninger Toyota had a freaking good lunch and The Source had a breakfast that was waffles on a stick put on by Vans and those were freaking good. The city of Calgary puts on a couple as well. It's pretty sweet. My dream of my mission was to be in downtown during the Stampede and I never thought it would happen. I'm so happy... :') haha. But don't worry. We are getting a lot of missionary work done as well. Well... not a lot but we are trying! It's hard to find times when people are actually home during all of this craziness, but we still manage to get a decent amount of lessons. We have been calling a whole bunch of the less actives and do not contacts just trying to see if they are still there or interested at all and it's actually been pretty good. We have had three of the do not contact people say that we could come by. One canceled on us though. We have been getting a hold of some less actives as well. It's been pretty good actually. So funny story from that though. We called a guy named Vincent Penny and when we called an older lady answered so I asked if she new a Vincent Penny and she was all, "no but I live with a Vicki Penny." and I was all "well is she related to Vincent. Do you have a phone number for him?" and she was all "no there isn't a Vincent just a Vicki." "Right so do you know of any Vincent?" "I don't think you understand. Vincent Penny is now Vicki Penny." "...oh... welp... is there anything we can do for you?" haha, oh man. It was pretty funny. Anyway, that was one of the highlights of the week. Another one would probably be the waffles on a stick and the free hat and stickers we got from Vans. That was pretty cool as well.

We were also able to teach a girl named Laura Halley. That was cool. She has been less active for years and called a guy that was in Elder Worthington's last area who is basically her father and she lives in our area and she wanted a blessing and a blessing on the home. It was pretty cool. Then we got this girl named Lachele to go and pick her up and bring her to FHE. That went really well. She was really scared she wouldn't know anyone there but she really enjoyed it and the Ward members were pretty good at fellow shipping her. It helps that Lachele is freaking amazing. She can get along with anyone. So hopefully we can continue to work with Laura and get her out to church and stuff. She didn't feel comfortable enough to come to church this Sunday but she will get there. Another cool story was a guy named Addison Gough. He's pretty sweet. He's kind of less active but he was thinking about going on a mission and then his girlfriend got cancer so he waited and now he is 22 and doesn't want to be 24 when he comes home. So he didn't want to go so we just taught him and told him that a mission is great and he would probably still really enjoy it. Then on Sunday the Bishop pulled us aside and said that he had just had a meeting with him and his girlfriend and something that we said in that lesson made it so that he was now seriously thinking about a mission. That was so sweet! He came up to us and signed up on the dinner calendar for this week so I am looking forward to meeting with him again.

Well, I hope y'all had a great week, I sure did. I hope all goes well this week for you. I'll keep you updated on the free food next week. haha. The Stampede goes until next Sunday so it should still be pretty crazy up here this week. Almost every night they have fireworks for the Stampede and we can watch them from our apartment balcony. It's pretty sweet. Anyway, have a great week! I'll let you know if anything exciting happens this week! Thanks for everything! I love you all!

love,
Elder Townsend

July 4, 2011

2011-07-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!!! Hurray for the United States of America! haha. I hope you all had a great week! We had a pretty slow one here. It was still pretty good though. It is officially half click month. So we only have half of our kilometers for our car. We only have 900 and we cover a whole stake. Which so far is not working out so well. Especially since I still don't really know anyone in the area who we can stop by. At least in family wards when you can't drive you can walk and stop by some people but when you are in a YSA ward nobody really lives close together so that doesn't work for meeting with as many people as you can. But we are still managing. We have spent the greater part of a lot of days just walking around downtown and talking to as many people as we can. It's actually a lot of fun. I like talking to people on the street a lot more then tracting and you get to meet a lot more fun people. Friday was Canada day and we walked around downtown for a while in the morning and we walked down Stephen Avenue which is a pretty happening little place. Especially on Canada Day. It was sweet. My favorite person we talked to was "the whistler" he won whistler of the year award. He was on the street asking for money. He was actually really good and when he saw us he pulled us over and said I've got a song you will recognize and he started to whistle "We Thank Thee oh God for a Prophet. It was sweet. Then we talked to him for a while. He is a member of the church or at least was in 79 and 80 but he said he didn't want any religion to have claim on him as their whistler. So he didn't go to any specific church. He was fun though. He even whistled the Star Spangled Banner for us. haha. I was going to get a picture with him but my camera ran out of battery. That was sad. As we were walking around there we ran into two members of our ward and they invited us to their BBQ they were having that night so that was sweet because we didn't have a dinner. Canada definitely doesn't know how to celebrate like the States do. It was sad. That was pretty much the highlight of our week. We have spent more time talking to people on the street this week than I have in a long time! I've walked more then I have in a long time as well. I'm so sore! haha. It is a lot of fun and we get to meet awesome people. We talked to this gay guy and a really drunk girl that were together and the gay guy was hitting on my comp and the drunk chick was hitting on me. That was fun. haha. We do meet people that actually do want to listen as well. We have given the Mandarin missionaries two return appointments and the sisters one and the other elders in our district five potential investigators from it. So that's sweet. Now we just need to find YSA age people. It will happen! We had a return appointment with someone who was 26 but when we got there he said "Oh I thought I said NEXT Saturday. Well next Saturday doesn't work either so just don't worry about it." and then closed the door... that was sad. We really need to find more investigators and I was hoping he would be one.

Well, I don't really know how half click month is going to work out. I'll keep you posted. I hope you all have a great week! I am going to continue to try my hardest to find people to teach! As for now our zone is having a big Fourth of July BBQ so I am excited for that! It should be fun. It's in the south zone so there goes a bunch of our kilometers... dang it. Anyway, I hope you guys are doing great! Thank you all for everything! I love you guys!

Love
Elder Townsend

Hepworth, Moore, Kuettel, me

Hepworth and myself

Downtown!

June 28, 2011

2011-06-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

Hello! How is everything going for all of you? Well, I am getting a new companion and staying in this area. My new comp is Elder Worthington. From what I know of him it should be an interesting transfer. But I am going to try my hardest to make it the best I can. This week was pretty slow for us. We actually had a pretty good number of lessons but most of them were with members. We are still trying our hardest to find some investigators to teach. We had a couple potentials we were hoping to teach but one got kicked out of his apartment for drug use and loud music and moved to the West Stake and the other ones name is Anti Tom... he's anti. So I don't think that will be working so well. haha. But the main person we are working on right now is Nicole Wilson. She is a recent convert who is going through some hard times in her life. She is slowly but surely coming back and is improving in all the best ways.

Probably the highlight of our week though is the fact that we are dying of black mold poisoning. We found a bunch of black mold under our kitchen sink. There was a leak that we called in and they fixed it but they left the cleaning to us. So we went to work with soap and bleach. I think it's pretty much all gone but I think I am definitely showing signs of breathing it in. Coughing, headaches and loss of attention span. But I called Sister Archibald about it and she said my body will just take care of it on its own. So hopefully that doesn't last too long.

Well, I don't have all that much time to write this week. There really isn't much left to write about. Thank you all for everything! I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Cleaning black moldCalgary

June 20, 2011

2011-06-25T07:26:00.001-07:00

Alright, So I am getting pretty sick of the rain. I hear other parts of the world need it, so what can I do to send it to you all? haha. I think it has rained here every day for the past three weeks. Apparently I just might never see a summer while I am in Canada. We didn't have much of one last year either. Anyway, besides all the rain, we had a pretty good week here. Nothing too exciting. We had a couple really good lessons with less active members of the ward. We had a lesson with Mathew Wishart and his mom. They are both less active. But we had a really good lesson with them and they committed to come to church on Sunday, but they didn't come. sad. But we hope to get in to their house again. They are very nice welcoming people. Then we had a lesson with Matt Haase. He was baptized last year, but he was baptized into another ward because the missionaries there didn't want to hand him off to the missionaries here, but now that he is here he doesn't have any friends so he doesn't like coming. But he is doing pretty well. He is a really fun guy, he didn't come to church either, but he comes every now and then. And we had a lesson with Nicole Wilson. She was baptized in February and has had some really big ups and downs but she is coming out of a pretty big down and actually came to church for the first time since I have been here and she brought her 12 year old sister who wants to be baptized as well. So that is pretty cool. We can't teach her though since she is 12... and she doesn't live in our zone. She is pretty sad about that. So is Nicole. But that's still pretty sweet.

On Wednesday we had a special training from president and the assistants. That was pretty cool. They talked about what they want us to do nowadays when we invite members of our ward to find someone for us to teach in seven days. We've been doing that a lot and they have changed how we do it. Now we teach a ten minute first lesson before and have the members pretend they are investigators and then ask them who the Spirit brought to their minds. It's pretty cool. So far it hasn't worked out too well. People get really distracted and off topic and it takes longer then I think most people expect to have us over. It's still pretty cool. We have had some pretty cool experiences with the seven day challenge in this ward so far. Some of the members actually do it and have some cool experiences. Nothing resulting in people we can teach though. Those will come with time and persistence.

Other than that we had a pretty slow week. Think the rain makes people go into hiding anyway. Well, I hope you have all had a great week and I hope all of you fathers had an amazing fathers day! You are all amazing and have a huge role in your families lives! Thank You to all of you!

I love you all! Thanks for everything!

Love
Elder Townsend

June 13, 2011

2011-06-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well, this week was pretty slow for us. It started out kind of fun. We went to the zoo last Pday. I've decided it wasn't worth it though. I'm not a big fan of paying $22 to walk around and look at animals. But it was OK. Then we had a couple lessons with members this week. Not too many dinners. But we were able to get a few lessons with less actives and recent converts. So that was good. We met with Chris McClure. He is a recent convert and is trying to work on getting the Melchizedek priesthood. So that's cool. The lessons with him are getting better. Less random tangents in the lesson. It doesn't help when your companion can't even keep focused ever. haha. We also met with Nicole Wilson. She is a recent convert that has been trying to decide if she is in the right church. I'm pretty sure she knows that she is but she decided that living all our commandments is just too hard. But she has been improving. Elder Hepworth is actually a really good missionary and knows his scriptures inside and out and can resolve her concerns pretty easily. It is still just up to her to decide to come back. I hope she does and I can see her progressing towards that since I have been here. So that's good. Other then those two none of the lessons were really that exciting. We are still looking for someone to teach in our area. Hopefully it happens soon.

We had a pretty exciting Sunday though. We got to church and a less active we taught, Russell, came and brought his non member roommate. That was sweet. It looked pretty funny with Russell wearing baggy shorts and a rock band t shirt and sunglasses and his roommate wearing a huge sweatshirt and a huge eyebrow piercing and a hat that said eye (showed a picture of an eye) <3 (heart) beer. It was pretty funny, but hey, it doesn't matter what you wear as long as you are there! So that was sweet! There was another non member there who "knows everything about Mormons" and has some things he doesn't believe and wasn't very interested in meeting with us at all, but he said he would probably be back to church sometime so we could say "hi" to him then. It was kind of sad that he wouldn't let us talk to him, but hey, if he's coming to church then that's awesome! The Spirit will work on him eventually.

That is pretty much our week though. Nothing too eventful. To make things all worse Elder Velinga, the car czar, called this morning and told me I got a photo cop ticket in a play ground zone. I hate play ground zones. There are little tiny signs on the side of the roads that tell you it's a play ground zone and you need to go 30kph (which is freaking slow by the way) and it is effective from 8:30am till one hour after sunset, which sucks when the sun is going down at like 10:30pm nowadays. But I was going 41 in a 30 so now I owe $60. Which really isn't that bad. So I guess that's good. Darn Canada.

Well regardless. It wasn't a horrible week. But I do hope that more exciting things happen in the upcoming week. We have a special training on Wednesday which could be fun. Well I hope all is going well for you all! I hope you all have an awesome week! Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Are you my mother?

Missionaries are weird....Red panda.... cute....

REACH!!!

June 6, 2011

2011-06-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? I hope you all had a great week! Congratulations to Zac on his mission call! That's so awesome! We had a pretty good week here. Nothing too exciting. I think I might lose some weight serving here in this area. It's a diet that I call the YSA dinner calendar diet. haha. No they actually feed us pretty well here for a YSA ward. Unfortunately we still don't have any investigators. Did I tell you last week about the guy named Steven who just walked into the church while we were there last week? Then we had to pass him off to the sisters in our district because he was 31. Well they taught him on Wednesday and he's probably going to be baptized. This Wednesday, we actually went on exchanges so I wasn't here for it, but we had a lesson with this man from Africa that one of our ward missionaries asked to come listen to us, but when they went there with the member he didn't show up. There was this man from Iraq that lived in one of the wards here that came in to talk to the bishop and he brought a non member friend into the church with him. The two of them started to talk about the differences between this church and the Catholics and Elder Hepworth and Kuettel asked if they could teach him about this church and he said sure so they did. He took it really well and accepted to be baptized on the 18th! Guess what... he was like 40 so we gave him to the elders in our district... well we are still looking for the miracle that we will have that ends in US actually having a new investigator, but it will happen eventually.

The other highlight of the week would probably be from Friday. We went branding. Yes, branding again. But I have to say that this one was a little more exciting. I had told them that I had done it before and how I did it and they said that we would be doing it the more efficient and a more manly way... OK... so I get there and what we did is this. They would let a bunch of calves into a corral and then there were like thirty people there and we paired up and then one of us grabbed the back right foot of a calf and the other grabbed the head and then we dragged it into an open area of the corral and then wrestled it to the ground. yea. I wrestled a bunch of cows. It was sweet. Then the guy on the back would hold down the back legs and the guy up front would kneel on the cows neck and hold the front legs as there were a bunch of people with branding irons and vaccines and knives (for castrating and horn cutting) and we would hold the cow down until everyone had come around. It was pretty sweet. Then repeat a lot. It really was a lot of fun and a lot more efficient. We did over 300 cows in about an hour and a half. It was sweet, but then we had mud/manure/cow blood covered clothes. haha. It was pretty nasty and my legs are covered in huge bruises where I got stepped on while I was holding another cow down. It was awesome. At the end I felt like a man and I was exhausted. If anyone needs help doing that when I am back home let me know! I would love to! haha.

That was pretty much my week though. Sadly, Ii didn't get any pictures this week. I will get some of branding soon though. There was a girl there that took a bunch of pictures. That's right there were even YSA girls there! I was impressed they did it, but they loved it! Some of them took a little convincing before they would do it though. haha. Well, I hope you all have a great week this week! I hope I can do the same. Thanks for everything! I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

May 31, 2011

2011-06-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

How is it going? That is crazy about all the tornados down there. It's hard to see all that happening, but we knew stuff like this would happen and it is great to know that we have the gospel and know that this life isn't the end. Just like Isaiah says and Nephi quotes, after all the destruction in the world his (talking about Jesus Christ) hand is stretched out still. All we have to do is turn to Him and grab His hand and He will help us. Just as Peter did when he walked on water. I hope everything works out OK for everyone.

As for me. I had a pretty good week here. We don't really have any investigators, but we are working on that. We do have a couple recent converts that we are working on. Most of them were baptized and then moved here. But it is good that we at least have them to work with. We are slowly having the area pick up. On Wednesday I went with Elders Moore and Kuettel into their area for the day and we taught a girl that was a referral from the office. Turns out she is YSA so maybe we can start teaching her. She seemed really interested and willing to learn, but whenever we asked her to do anything like read or pray or come to church she just said, I'll think about it. Which is sad. We are going to call her again this week and hopefully we can get in with her again. Then on Friday we had some baptismal interviews we went to for other missionaries in our district and during one of them we were sitting in the church and this guy walked up to the door and we let him in and talked to him and turns out he wasn't a member. He had been in the building two years ago for a funeral and he had been having a hard life this year and so he just stopped by to see if we could help him. So we talked about Jesus Christ and how He can help everyone in their lives and talked about the Book of Mormon and gave him one. He seemed really interested and such and we asked him how old he was... 31.... One year too old! ahh!!! haha. It was still a really sweet experience though. I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately we had to pass him off to the sisters.

Then on Sunday at church we had three really good talks about missionary work from converts. That was cool. Then after church we had a lesson with a recent convert who had another friend from another church over as well. Apparently she is church shopping now and wants to know which one is right for her. So Elder Hepworth really wanted to be there to talk to her other friend so he convinced her to let us over. So we came with Cody, the ward mission leader, so we could have priesthood and we talked about the different religions. I think we should have taught a first lesson really quick, but we didn't. It was still a really good meeting and I think it helped Nicole, the recent convert. But I think it could have been a little better.

That was pretty much my week here though. Thank you for everything you guys do for me! I love and miss you all! I hope you all have a safe and happy week! Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Townsend

The view from our balcony

This is what we are driving around in all day... I've never been in the heart of a big city like this and I have to drive because my comp was in an accident and the mission won't let him drive anymore.

May 24, 2011

2011-05-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I am glad to see that you have all survived the end of the world that was supposed to happen on Saturday. I don't know about you guys but nothing really happened here. This week was actually a great week. I have had a lot of fun being back in Calgary and being in a YSA Ward. Wednesday we didn't get to do much. I was on a transfer van from 10 in the morning until about four in the afternoon. Not actually on the bus the whole time, but that's how long it took to get up to Calgary after a stop in Lethbridge and a stop in Claresholm for chicken. Then we went and had a dinner with a recent convert and her boyfriend. I have a feeling like I am going to get a lot of pasta here. haha. Then we went shopping and that was pretty much the end of the day. Then Thursday was pretty busy. We had weekly planning which is always confusing on your first week in an area. You are trying to learn everything about everyone and you only have three hours to do it and then you have to try to remember it all! haha. Then we had a couple lessons with people. A recent convert who just moved from Montreal and a Ward Missionary who wants to know what she can do to help and our Ward Mission leader who talked a lot about mission stories. We had dinner with the Stake President. That was amazing steak. Probably won't get that too often anymore. Then we had a meeting with the Stake President. We meet with him every Thursday night to talk about missionary work in the stake. The Zone leaders used to do that with him, but then they combined this zone with the south zone so there used to be zone leaders in our area but now there isn't. It's us. So we go and talk to him about missionary work... intimidating. haha. Sometimes the Spanish missionaries come as well, but they didn't this week. Friday we had a meeting with a guy named Chris Mcleur. You'll probably hear about him a lot. Apparently we meet with him twice a week. He is a recent convert and is a little less accountable, but really spiritual at times. We are helping him with a lot of things and so it should be fun to see how that goes. We had a couple other lessons as well.

OK, so then Saturday. Oh my. We had a district meeting in the morning and we were talking about Jesus Christ and focusing more on him and in the middle of it all this classic homeless man walks in and asks to use the bathroom. So we let him and then we talk to him for a while and he tells us he was beat up 12-24 hours ago and he doesn't remember anything about his life before he thought he had some cracked ribs and a broken jaw bone. So we asked if he wanted an ambulance but he didn't so we asked if he wanted some doctors to come and he said sure... then we called an ambulance. haha. He didn't seem to quite be all the way there. When we told him there was an ambulance coming he said he would go outside for a smoke so my companion followed him and that meant so did I. Then he got outside and complained about an ambulance coming and how they scared him and he kept walking away so my companion followed him across this busy street so I did too. Then we called the ambulance back and said he was leaving but they were already almost there so they kept coming. Now I will tell you the rest from the perspective of a member who was coming to clean the church. They were driving up to the church and said oh cool a fire truck... oh cool an ambulance.... look they are pulling into the church.... oh look. There are two missionaries running across the street towards the church... that must be one intense zone conference! haha!! Anyway, when we got there we told the people what he looked like and stuff but they said if he didn't want help there was nothing they could do. So they left. This is also when I found out that firemen also have to stand behind the truck and back their partners out! They look a little cooler then missionaries though. haha. That was my exciting thing for the week. haha.

Then the spiritual highlight was after church on Sunday we went to this house of these two guys who decided on their own that they wanted to come back to church. So they have been for the last couple of weeks. It was awesome. They live in this little apartment in the middle of the industrial park. It was amazing though. We had a lesson and the Spirit was so strong and we even told them that. That the Spirit was amazing in their house. Then they started to tell us how they have been working so hard to get it so the Spirit could be there. We had no idea what that meant to them and then they thanked us for being missionaries and being such a great example. It was awesome. It is experiences like that make me so happy to be on a mission. It's so amazing what the church can do for people. It brings so much happiness and joy into our lives and most of us don't even realize it until we have an experience where we lose parts of it. I love the church I really do. And I love being on a mission and I think I will grow to love being in a YSA Ward. I have enjoyed it so far. Thanks for everything you all do for me! I love you all so much! I hope you have all had an amazing week!

Love,
Elder Townsend

The Fort Macleod ZoneThe Halls and Rob Frost

Brighton and Me

May 17, 2011

2011-05-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

Well this week was amazing! I actually had a lot of fun. It was a great week to be my last in Pincher Creek. yep. I'm getting transferred. I am going back up to Calgary. I'm going to a Young Single Adult ward in downtown Calgary. Edworthy Park YSA. It should be fun. I am excited to go back up to the city, but I have decided that it will be sad to leave this ward. There are great members here. I don't know how I feel about going to a YSA ward. I like family wards too much. Maybe they won't feed us as much and I can loose some weight before I get home. haha. I'm going to be with Elder Hepworth. He came out with me and he was in my district when I was in Cochrane. So that should be interesting. He is a funny guy. Funny as in humorous AND funny as in kind of weird. So I will let you know how that is going next week. I am going back to the south zone. This will be the third time I have been in that zone. I never thought I would go back but I am excited to do it. I love that zone.

Anyway, so back to my awesome week. Tuesday was alright. After emails we went and helped a family, the Ludwig's, with some yard work. It was fun. I got a little burned though. haha. Then that night we had a lesson with Rob. That was sweet. Rob is amazing. I'm really sad that I am leaving him. He actually just got the priesthood on Sunday and he was going to pass the sacrament in two weeks. That would have been cool to see, but I am glad that he is progressing so well still. We are trying to get the Elders Quorum more involved with him though. He's mostly just friends with the high priests now. It was a really good lesson. He really knows a lot. It's awesome. Then Wednesday we did service at the museum. That was fun. We tore apart this old chicken coup. It was kind of nasty with poop and stuff everywhere! It was fun though. Then we built this huge wood rack thing. A place they can put their lumber without it being on the ground. That was fun. Then that night we had a really good dinner with the Ball family. They are sweet. She works at Walmart, he is an umpire and they have a bunch of little kids. I love going over there. She made us Navajo tacos. I've decided that those are delicious! haha. Then Thursday my comps stomach was hurting him again so we didn't do much in the morning. Then we got a call from Bro Piepgrass and he took us to the Vanloons house. They are a less active native family. Well it's a grandma and two granddaughters, who are like 14 and 15, living in town. She wanted a blessing and a blessing on her home and when we got there she had her two grandchildren there and a sister and they all wanted blessings so we spent a while doing that. It was really good though. Then this Sunday the whole family showed up to church. So that was awesome. I hope they continue to come. They are a really nice family. Friday was good too. We had a couple lessons with the older people in our ward and we had a lesson with Scott and Sheryl Cameron, but they weren't home... sad... I don't really know what to do with them two. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that because I am leaving but I hope that they do come around sometime. Then we had a dinner with the Malmberg's. They are sweet. We helped them a lot last week with their yard so they had us for dinner. They are hilarious.

Then Saturday, oh what a day. So we got a call Friday night from Bro Westrup who owns a farm outside of Pincher. He asked us if we wanted to help him brand his calves.... HECK YES I DO! So Saturday morning we drove out there. It was so much fun! We had to separate the moms from the calves which was an interesting experience. They like their moms and as soon as we did that from then on none of them would shut up. haha. Then we chased the calves into a squeeze chute and then into this little gadget thing that had a bar you squeeze their neck in and one for their stomach and then you tied a rope to one of their back legs so it couldn't kick you then you flipped it onto it's side (which was actually before you tied its leg) then Bro Westrup stuck three hot irons onto the cows butt. It was fun. Smelled horrible though. Like burning hair. Then if they had horns we had to cut them off. They said they usually did that earlier but it was too cold before. That was pretty nasty at times. Some of them wouldn't stop bleeding. This one was quite literally squirting everywhere! It was nasty! They had this chemical stuff that was supposed to burn it and this powder stuff that was supposed to clot it, but that didn't work so Bro Westrup eventually just stuck his branding iron on it. It was pretty event. Then after we had done all of those (there were over 100 of them) we had to chase them into the fields and chase the moms into the squeeze chute to get some anti flea stuff. That was exciting and scary at times. When a bunch of huge cows are barreling toward you, your life flashes before your eyes. haha. It was a lot of fun though. We basically spent all day chasing cows around and getting manure and blood all over us. haha. I really enjoyed it. If there is anyone in Tucson that needs some help when they are branding cattle. I would love to! haha.

We also had a lesson with Bro Yellowhorn that afternoon so we left branding for a bit and went out there but he wasn't home. We stopped by a couple more people but they weren't home either. So we went back to branding. It was a good day. I think my neck and arms are getting a little tan again. haha.

Then Sunday was good. Church and Rob getting the priesthood. Then we had lunch with the Oliver's and then dinner with the Hall's. It was a pretty good day. A lot of food though. Then Monday we didn't have much to do so we drove out to the pass. That was fun. We ate 7-11 chicken for lunch, delicious and we stopped by a couple of families. We actually got in with two less actives and one active family. Which was awesome. That was more than we ever saw when we spent two days out there. Then we stopped by the guy who is kind of in charge of us going out there. Self appointed to be so at least. I think he's pretty frustrated that we haven't gone out there at all this transfer. It wasn't our fault though. We always had training or zone conference when we were planning on going out there. I don't really know what to do with the pass. There isn't much to do out there. Especially now that Dani isn't talking to us. But they get really mad and complain to the stake when we don't come. Luckily, I don't have to deal with that anymore either. haha.

So that was my week. It was pretty darn eventful for a week in Pincher and it was a great way to end my time here. I think I will miss being here, but I am excited to go somewhere else. Hopefully with more missionary work in the area. I'll let you know next week how that is going. Thank you so much for everything! I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Branding!

The dinglehopper

Mountain sheep in the pass

The pass

May 10, 2011

2011-05-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers and future mothers out there! How was everyone's week? Our's was good here. I just wrote on Thursday so there weren't too many days between then and now so not much really happened. But it was still a good couple of days. Thursday after we emailed we had a lesson with Scott and Sheryl. That went ok. We started to teach about the plan of salvation and were trying to emphasize families but it was a little awkward and then Scott asked us a question that was something like, "Why can't we as a church group take away the power that one of our members had? And I was really confused. Scott is a little not all there. But we figured out that he was having some legal issues with a member of the church in Raymond which is why they moved back here. They wanted to get away from all of that. Now he isn't sure if he wants to join the church that that guy belongs to. So we tried talking to him a little bit about it, but I don't think it helped him at all. So I don't really know what else to tell him. We are meeting with them again this Friday so we will see what we can come up with before then. Sheryl is pretty solid though. She is always really happy to see us and knows a lot about the church and is wanting to learn more. She hasn't come to church since she has been back though. So I don't know what is up with that. I hope that we can continue to work with them. I think the church could really help them in their lives.

That was pretty much the highlight of the week missionary work wise. Friday was good as well. We went and helped a younger couple with some yard work which was a lot of fun. I helped trimmed this giant tree. I don't think I've ever trimmed a tree before but they said it looked pretty good. haha. Then we went on exchanges. The mission just came out with 24 hour exchanges again. They haven't happened since I have been on my mission. So this is the first one I've been on. It was good. I was with Elder Hansen who took Elder Fowler's spot last week. We had a good dinner that night with the Sheens. They are a little crazy, but pretty fun to be around. Then we stopped by a couple more people. Saturday we went and helped Bishop Oliver move his non member parents into the ward. That was fun. They didn't have much to move, but hopefully we will be able to get in and meet with them sometime. They said they would have us over for lunch or something since we helped them so that would be sweet. Then we went back to the Malmbergs. The couple we helped with yard work the day before and helped clean up the mess we made the day before. Then we exchanged back. It was pretty fun and a nice break from the normal life here in Pincher.

Then Sunday was sweet. We went to church and Rob Frost came, it was supposed to be his week to work, but he came anyway... I don't know how. But he was sustained?... as a Priest in Sacrament meeting. I think he might have had to leave before he could actually be given the priesthood. It was still cool though. We had two less actives in church, Bro Yellowhorn. Remember him? We were going out there pretty regularly for a while but he went on a trip to the Ukraine and we hadn't seen him since. Then this other couple I hadn't met before. So that was sweet! We are going out to the reserve to teach Bro Yellowhorn this Saturday. So that will be cool.

Then we went back to our apartment and had our phone calls home! whoo hoo. It was really nice to hear your voices Mom and Dad! Thanks for all the love and encouragement! It's weird to think that it was my last phone call home. But don't worry. I'm not getting trunky. I'm still out here working hard! haha. That was pretty much our week though. I hope your week was good as well! Thanks again for everything! I can't wait to talk to you guys next week and let you know what is going on with transfers! Love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Cardston temple

Windmill!

May 5, 2011

2011-05-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm a couple days late! Long story but here it goes. So this week was pretty decent. Nothing too special missionary work wise. We had a new member lesson with Rob Frost and that went really well. We taught about the priesthood because he should be getting it the next time he can come to church. So that should be cool to see. He really is a great guy. I have really enjoyed teaching him and watching him grow. It has been quite the experience. We also have had an old investigator move back into town. Scott and Sheryl. They were taking the lessons but then moved to Raymond where she got baptized and he didn't but they moved back because he was having health problems that started up again two days before his baptism. So we are having a lesson with him this afternoon. So that should be interesting. I hope all goes well there as well.

The exciting thing that happened this week is that last Thursday I hit my 18 month mark. Anyone know what that means?... it means I get to burn some pants! haha. Don't worry mom. I didn't burn any of the expensive pants I have out here. Well. I was going to do it tomorrow because I was going to go on exchanges with Elder Fowler and he turned 18 last transfer and hadn't burned his yet, but Friday night Elder Fowler told me he was getting special transferred up to Calgary so we had to move it up a little bit so we did it this week. It was sweet. We did it in the back yard of the member they live with in Ft Macleod. So yea! I'm 18 months! haha.

Then this last Monday we had Pday which was kind of fun. There wasn't much to do which was kind of sad though. My companion started not to feel so good that night though so we couldn't go out and do stuff that night. Then Tuesday we woke up early and went to zone conference in Lethbridge. That was fun. It was our zone, Lethbridge zone and Medicine Hat zone. So it was fun to see all those missionaries and the training was pretty good too. They are trying to teach us a new way of thinking and teaching during our lessons and it's really confusing. I'm not very good at it yet. But it will come with time. Towards the end my companion's stomach was really acting up so Sis Archibald sent us to the doctor and he put my comp on some drugs that reduce the amount of acid his stomach is producing. I think that's been helping which is good. Then we went back to the church right as the zone conference was ending. Then we drove back here and then it was evening and we had a lesson with Rob. So that meant that we didn't have time to email that day. Then yesterday we went and helped at the museum and we raked more leaves and helped build a couple more walls and then when we were done with that we went over to the library to email and it was closed... I don't know why... so we are emailing today... after weekly planning. So sorry for the mix up.

That is pretty much my week here though. This next week should be short since it's Thursday already. haha. We have a phone call home on Sunday so that should be fun. It will be my last phone call home which will be weird. Thanks for everything though! I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Me and Fowler with our pants
burn baby burn!I'm so happy :')

Fowler's

Ya... that's all I took pictures of this week...

2011-05-02T06:49:00.000-07:00

"On a number of occasions we have had the honour of having your son in our home for suppers and lessons. We feel a great spirit and the love of the gospel when he and his companion are with us.
Thank you for your sacrifice you have made in sending your son to serve a mission for our Savior Jesus Christ.
We love the missionaries,
Joanne and Wayne Oliver

This photo was taken in our back yard. Welcome to Alberta Canada.
Your son, Elder Brighton and my husband, Bishop Oliver.
Enjoy the picture. My son on his mission does not send me enough!"

Elder Byington, Elder Townsend and Bishop Oliver
Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada
March 25, 2011

April 19. 2011

2011-04-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

This week was A-mazing!! Oh man. So Tuesday we had district meetings that went really well. Then that night we had our lesson with Rob Frost. That went well too. We went over the baptismal interview questions and made sure he was ready for Friday and then answered a couple of his questions. It went really well. He is amazing! Then we had the baptismal interview on Friday and Rob and Elder Farnsworth were in there for a while but they came out and he was ready So that was exciting. Then we had the baptism at eleven the next morning. That went really well too. It was cool because he is a volunteer on the fire dept in Pincher Creek so we had Sis Brasnett give a talk and Bro Earle played the piano and a musical number. Then Bro Westrup baptized him, he was the one that introduced him to the church. Bro Russell confirmed him there because we didn't have Sacrament meeting on Sunday.

Then after the baptism we went and had Stake Conference in Fort Macleod and Richard G Scott was there. That was awesome. They had the adult session at 6 and that went really well. It was a little interesting because he talked to us for a while about marriage and stuff, similar to his talk in conference, and then he had a big question and answer thing at the end of it but nobody really had any questions to ask him. He talked a lot about Elder Hales an how he is doing since we didn't see him at conference. Then he ended 30 mins early and shook everyone's hand that was there and the four of us missionaries were standing there and he came up to us and talked to us for a while and then we asked if we could get a picture with him so we did! That was awesome! I love Elder Scott! He is so loving and caring and funny and a lot shorter then I thought... but it was really good. Then Sunday morning at 830 he had a meeting where he invited all the recent converts and serious investigators and recently reactivated members. So that was awesome. We went as well. And yes Rob Frost made it to. That was awesome. Rob met an apostle his first full day of being a member of the church! Lucky. haha. It was a really good meeting though. A lot of question and answer there as well and he even asked a lot of questions. He asked Rob what brought him to the church and Rob talked a lot about Satan and his dark influence and how he loves the church because now he can escape that. It was awesome. Then at 10:30 he had the everyone meeting and that went really well too. Pretty similar to the other meetings. Questions. Again though nobody had too many questions. So we ended early that one too. It was really cool though. I love seeing and meeting and hearing from apostles of the Lord. I had a very strong feeling when I was there that he really is an apostle of the Lord. I love him. And I was even in the priesthood choir that they had at Stake Conference that was good too. Even though I can't sing very well and my companion dragged me into it. It was a cool experience and it gave me a good sweat. haha.

Then on Monday we all got together as a mission again in Calgary and Elder Scott met with us as well. It meant another two hour drive there at 6:00 in the morning though. But it was really good. He talked to us an so did Elder Brimhall of the 70 that came with him. (he was at stake conference too by the way) He talked a lot about how we should begin teaching people and he got a couple companionships up to role play with him. And then he asked if we had any questions so we asked him questions for a while. Some questions were actually really good but some were kind of interesting or didn't even make any sense. Then he had to take off to get to his flight so he didn't shake our hands. Luckily I already had like four times. haha. It was a really good weekend though. I loved it and to top it all off we just went to the temple today! Since we went to Calgary yesterday Pday was moved to today. So now we are still in Cardston and we are going to go play basketball with the rest of our zone. It should be good.

Oh, also. It's cold and snowy again here. It snowed six inches Saturday night which made for an interesting drive Sunday morning. Someone forgot to tell the weather that it was Spring and not Christmas... it's not to bad though. I've gotten pretty used to it. And mom, I'm learning how to drive in the snow just because you told me to! haha

Well I hope you guys had an awesome week as well. I loved mine. Hope this week is as good as the last one. Thanks for everything you guys do for me and I hope you all know how much I love and appreciate you! Thanks again!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Me, Bob Westrup, ROBERT FROST, Brighton

Brighton, Me, ELDER RICHARD G. SCOTT, Farnsworth, FowlerFarnsworth, Fowler, Me, Brighton

April 12, 2011

2011-04-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Como Esta? I feel kind of left out speaking English on my mission. Reading Eric's email made me wish I was speaking Spanish. So I thought I would throw a little in this week. haha. We had a pretty good week here. Nothing too exciting. We had transfers on Wednesday. Neither of us are getting transferred but one of the missionaries from Fort Macleod, Elder Grace, was going home so when the bus picked him up that would have left Elder Fowler alone so they had us go up there so he wasn't. That took most of the day because the missionaries coming from BC got caught in traffic on the way in so that slowed everything down. Then the rest of the week was pretty slow. We got some member lessons in which was good. I really do like this ward. I guess it won't be too bad staying here another six weeks.

Then we taught Rob Frost again on Friday night. That went really well. We taught lesson 4 which is basically all of the commandments. We throw a couple of them in the other lessons when we can so we didn't have too many left to teach. Then we talked about his baptism and he is still excited and ready to be baptized this Saturday! Woot! So that should be awesome. Then we went over the program for his baptism and who he wanted to give talks and baptize him and stuff. He is having Bro Westrup baptize him. He's the one that introduced him to the church. It was actually really cool. We had dinner with the Westrup's on Sunday and they invited Rob as well and it was their son in laws birthday on so they had a bunch of people over dinner. There was a time when it was just me and Bro Westrup and Rob at the table, my comp was getting more food, and Rob was talking to Bro Westrup about his baptism and then he got a little awkward as he was building up the courage to ask him and then he did and Bro Westrup said he would be honored and then there was kind of an awkward silence and then the conversation just kept going. It was awesome though. It was really cool to see the very spiritual experience between these two guys. Oh Man. I am excited for Rob. It is going to be a great day for him! Then he gets to see an apostle of the Lord the same day because Elder Scott is coming to stake conference here! and Elder Scott wants to meet with all of the investigators and recent converts and recently reactivated members in the stake on Sunday morning at 830. So that should be sweet as well. (we are going to try to sneak in there as well. they cant really say no to missionaries can they? haha)

So this next week should be a good week as well. Tomorrow we are having our interviews with President Archibald and car inspections and then we are going to the pass Thursday and Friday and then we are coming back Friday night for Rob's baptismal interview and then Saturday at eleven is the baptism and then we have Stake Conference at three and six on Saturday and then Sunday at 10 and hopefully 830 and then Monday Elder Scott wants to meet with the missionaries. So the whole mission is going up to Calgary again to hear from him and then they are moving Pday to Tuesday. So eventful. I can't wait. It's going to be awesome.

That is pretty much it from me this week though. Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love
Elder Townsend

Cajun fish and baked potato and zuchini (No i did not make this myself. My comp really likes to cook...)

Brighton, Mott, Farnsworth, Shupe and Fowler making waffles after district meetings today. Remember Mott? He was my companion for four days in Cochrane. Now he is my zone leader. weird.

April 8, 2011

2011-04-09T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Dont worry, I am still alive out here! We had transfers yesterday and me and Elder Brighton are staying so I get to be here when Elder Scott comes for stake conference and when Rob Frost gets baptized so that should be good. I am looking forward to it. But I didn't get a chance to email yesterday because we went to the temple. Monday night my companion found out there were some missionaries going to the temple in the morning so we decided to go with them. I'm pretty sure my comp would have killed me in my sleep if we hadn't gone. He was so excited to go and was rather pushy about it. I was hesitant because of the kilometers to get there but we went. It was like seeing a kid on Christmas morning. He was sitting in the seat beside me freaking out for the whole hour it took to drive there and then was so excited to be there it was ridiculous! haha. It was a great experience though. We went with four other missionaries. Elders Hatfield, Heap, Moore and Reese. Hatfield was in my district in the MTC and Reese was my companion for three months a while ago. It was good to go to the temple, I loved it. Especially after conference. It made for a great end to the weekend. Conference was great as well! I love conference. It's the only vacation we get as missionaries because we get to just sit and relax and listen to people teach us for a change. And those people are teaching us exactly what we need in our lives to be happy! It's awesome! Oh man, even if this time was a lot about marriage and I can't get married so it didn't really apply to me. But it was still great!

The rest of this week was good too. Kind of slower but not bad. We helped a less active family finish moving. We moved them a couple weeks ago but they still had a little bit in the garage so we helped with that. That was on Wednesday and then Thursday we helped a lady from Iran move. We moved her a while ago into a trailer and then we just moved her into a little town house on Main Street. That was interesting. Apparently she used to have slaves so she wouldn't do anything and was rather bossy. But it was still a lot of fun. The Bishop was there and he is hilarious. He reminds me a lot of you, dad, only a lot more random. Like we loaded two couches onto a pick up and then she asked if we could put some chairs from her dining room set on as well to save some trips (the dining room set costs more then her house) and Bishop was all... sure... so he put them on top of the couch and when she saw that she was freaking out they might fall off and Bishop Oliver just said "yea they might fall off and crash onto the ground and break everywhere... but it was your idea!" Anyway, funnier in person. But I love this ward. There isn't much to do here in terms of non members but I am really excited to work with the members here. They are all amazing! We also went out to the pass on Thursday and Friday. That was good too. Dani still doesn't want to meet with us. So we didn't have much to do. But it was still fun. That was pretty much our week though. I cant wait to see what this week has in store. Thanks for everything guys! I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Cardston, Alberta temple... I like it. It is beautiful.

Me at the temple. We didn't get a picture of the six of us that went though... we should have...District leader Elder Grace. My district leader here and my companion in Cochrane. He and like 20 other guys are going home tomorrow... weird... sad...

March 30, 2011

2011-03-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? We had a pretty good week out here in Pincher Creek. It started out pretty slow but ended on a great note! We had a pretty good day on Tuesday. We had district meetings which are always fun and awesome. Then we went out to a Chinese buffet for lunch. Then we went and had a couple lessons that night and did some service for an older guy in the ward. Then Tuesday night I was up all night feeling like I was going to vomit so in the morning I called Sis Archibald and we were pretty sure I got food poisoning from the Chinese food. So I was home sick all of Wednesday. I always feel bad doing that though because it leaves my companion home all day with nothing to do. But I couldn't help it. I would have much rather been out working. Then Thursday I was feeling a little better and we had our weekly planning so I still had a little time to recover and then we had dinner drop off food to us... guess what it was... Chinese from the same place! haha. yea... I didn't eat it. haha. But we went out and had a couple good lessons that night. Then Friday we had a special training in Lethbridge. That was fun. It meant a nice road trip out there. The special training took from 9 to noon and it was on the 7 day challenge and how we can be implementing it better into our lessons. It was interesting. It was nice to see other missionaries though because we had it with the Lethbrigde zone as well. So that was sweet. Then we went to Five Guys for lunch and then came back here and had a couple lessons here. Then Saturday was the highlight to our week. We had a lesson that night with Rob Frost at our ward mission leaders home. It had been a while since we had taught him but the last time we did he basically asked what being baptized would require so we were going to go over baptism again and then a couple of the main commandments. So we sat down and just talked to him for a while and it was Bro Dietze and Elder Brightons first time being in a lesson with him so we talked about why he started looking into the church and reading the Book of Mormon and stuff. He basically said that he was starting to realize he needed to change his life and he noticed that the church and what we were teaching were helping him change and feel the change in his life. Then we started talking about baptism and what it means and what leads up to it and such and Bro Dietze was giving a lot of really good input. He is a High School teacher and he is really good at just talking to people and helping them understand and after a while Bro Dietze was all just "well do you feel like baptism is a step you need in your life?" and Rob sat there and thought about it for a while and then just said, "yes". Yes! haha! So then we talked to him about that and we talked about the 9th of April but he was working so we went for the next week on the 16th. And he said he would prepare for that date so that is awesome! That is going to be a great day if I am still here, because its also Stake conference and Elder Scott is coming to our Stake conference! So that will be sweet. That's if I am still here. We are having transfers next week and I haven't decided if I want to stay here or not. So I guess I will leave it up to the Lord and what he thinks is best for me. So we will see what happens next week. That is pretty much it from here. Thanks for everything guys! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

March 22, 2011

2011-03-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! How is it going? We had a pretty good week here. Slower but good. We didn't get too many lessons in. This ward is kind of off and on in letting us come into their house. We did have a dinner every night though. And we were able to get in with one less active couple. So that was good. Thursday and Friday we went up to the pass and worked up there again and spent the night up there. That was fun. We stopped by the Hall's, a less active family. They own a thrift store up there so we stopped by the store and talked to them for a while and shared a message at the end. That was good and we were able to get in with a couple of members. A couple of people had us for lunch or dinner. On Thursday night they had a branch pot luck. That was fun. It was all Mexican food and they had some games they played like "guess the Spanish word" and they had a pinata for the kids and stuff. It was actually a pretty fun night. There were a lot of people out of town so there weren't many people there. But they said it was a great turn out... I guess I just don't know how many people usually come. It looked pretty sparse to me. haha. We stopped by pretty much all the less actives and potentials we had out there and not too many were home. But it was pretty hard to stay busy out there. No wonder they don't have missionaries just out there. But I like going. It's something new and exciting to do every other week. Also a really sad thing that happened in the pass. We called Dani earlier in the week asking if we could come by and she just said, "I think I am alright for now."..... dang it. But she did still want a bible so we went and dropped that off to her on Thursday and we talked to her for a little bit on the door step and it sounds like life is just getting really busy for her. So we are going to try again and then see if we should just give her some room for a while. That was really sad though. That was pretty much the only investigator we have anymore and now she didn't want to meet with us. I hate when that happens.

Also Thursday was St Patricks Day, but you would have never guessed it up here. They still celebrate it. People recognize it. They saw me wearing my green tie and thought it was fun. But nobody really cares about it up here. There aren't any decorations in the stores. Nobody wears green. It's just weird. Darn Canadians. haha

Then Saturday we did service for a less active guy pretty much all day. We didn't think it would turn out that way, but it did. We went over thinking we were going to move furniture for him, but we built flower boxes for his mother in law. They live in a trailer park and she has a railing up to her house and we built boxes all the way along that railing. Then right when we were done it started snowing like crazy. Which was really sad because it had been getting warmer and the snow was melting and then it snowed. And it didn't stop until last night. So there is snow everywhere again! haha Then Sunday was alright. We went to church and there weren't many people there and we didn't get anyone out that we were hoping to, less active or non member. But it was still fun. I really like this ward and the Elders quorum is hilarious. I look forward to that every week. Then Monday was P day and we went and played games and basketball with the rest of the zone and we went to Raymond and some kids came out and played basketball with us as well. It was ridiculous. I haven't worked out that much in like two years! haha. And now I'm freaking sore. I could barely get out of bed this morning. It's sad really. The mission is getting me really out of shape. It's probably those twenty extra pounds that weren't there before my mission.

Anyway, that is pretty much my week here in Pincher Creek. It's really slow here and there isn't much to keep us busy, but I am trying. I really am. And even though I don't feel like I am getting much accomplished here I know that the Lord put me here for a reason and I hope to be able to find that reason before I leave. Thank you all for the support you have given me. I love you all so much.

Love,
Elder Townsend

Chinook Arch (happens when a chinook comes in)

Branch party

Festive eh?

Canadian car :)

March 15, 2011

2011-03-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

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. :)

March 7, 2011

2011-03-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? We had an allright week here this week. It's been freezing! Apparently this is the coldest, snowiest, windiest winter they have had in years... yippee... there is snow everywhere. They have been working the last two days with big dump trucks and stuff to move all the giant piles of snow from the side of the roads to an empty field. (unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that mom. So you won't get to see that). When it's this cold it's hard to find things to do as missionaries. We try to stay inside if we can. Do some service at the library or visit the older people who don't work anymore. But every now and then we are forced to be outside. But having a car isn't too bad. You can go in there and warm up for a while every now and then.

This week was pretty slow for lessons. We didn't have anyone signed up on the dinner calendar so we lost those seven lessons and a lot of people just weren't home or available. But, we were able to go out to the pass on Thursday and spend the night out there. That was good. We were able to meet with pretty much every active member out there (there isn't too many of them) and a couple of less active families as well. I found out why there is a branch out there with their own building though. Back when the mines were open there would be like 150 -200 people there every week. But then the mines closed and now there are like 20 that show up. Everyone was forced to move for a job. So that's sad. They are pretty close up there though. It's a good little branch and I enjoyed being out there. It was fun. We met new people. It was a change in pace and we were able to meet with Dani each day. That went pretty well. She seems to be coming along. Although she did tell us that she wants to look into other churches to see all of her options. I guess thats good. But it means things will probably move slower then they would otherwise.

The Crowsnest pass really is a beautiful place. It could be a place I would come back and visit. Probably more in the summer though. I bet that place looks awesome in the summer.

Then on Sunday Rob Frost came and the other Iranian lady that we have been moving a lot were there. That was cool. I don't know if I have told you about the Romanian lady. She came to church once and then we helped move all of her stuff into a trailer. She just moved from Calgary. It was a whole bunch of really expensive stuff into a tiny trailer. I think she's planning on buying a house later. But that place is packed now. And she keeps calling Bishop "pastor" and I can't help but laugh to myself every time she does. Anyway... that's pretty much my week. Nothing too exciting. Don't worry, we have a couple dinners here this week. So that's good. Elder Christofferson is coming on Saturday up in Calgary so we get to take a road trip up there. That should be cool. I am excited for that.

Thanks for everything guys! I love you! Talk to you next week!

Love,
Elder Townsend

The pass. There are like six little towns in the pass. This is one of them... it might be Coleman... I can't remember
driving through the pass.

we might have gone out of our area to take this... we aren't entirely sure... I don't think so though. haha

March 1, 2011

2011-03-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? I hope all is going well for you guys. We definitely had a slower week here. We weren't able to meet with Rob Frost again and we had lessons with Danyelle last Friday, but she called us that morning and said she was too sick to have us over. We didn't get a chance to go to Bro Yellowhorn, a less active in the reserve. Those are the three people that we are really working with. So that was sad. But this week hopefully we can get in with them again. We are going to go out to the Pass on Thursday and spend the night out there and work Friday too. So hopefully we can get in with Danyelle both days and get in with some less actives and part members out there. President Archibald is kind of sceptical about that. Apparently missionaries have tried it before and didn't find much to do out there. But the high priest group leader is pretty excited for us to go and is trying to plan out both the days. So we will see how that goes. If nothing happens I don't think we'll be able to do it again. So I hope it goes well. Even if not much comes out of it though it will still be nice. Something to change up the routine a little bit. I have only been here for 8 weeks now, but I am already running out of things to do here. I don't know what I am going to do if I stay here too long.

I think the most exciting thing that happened this week is that we helped a less active older couple move across town. It was kind of fun. It was FREEZING. They started it on Friday night at six and we loaded up a little Uhaul truck and a couple of pick ups and headed over to the other house and halfway there the Uhaul breaks down... so Bishop got his half ton and towed it the rest of the way. I was actually really impressed with that little Ford F150. haha. Then when we got there we unloaded it all. It was amazing how much stuff they had in that little house. A whole bunch of furniture and a ton of boxes. It was getting really dark so we couldn't see much in the Uhaul so we got a car to shine its lights in it for us. I've never had to do that before haha. Then we went back for the last little bit of it. Just a couple more pick ups since the Uhaul was dead. And the last thing we moved in were the washer and dryer. That was exciting... I was carrying the washer in and I was the one walking backwards and on the driveway was this big snow drift I hadn't seen before.... and as my foot hit that it just slid right off of it and I went down and the dryer came on top of me... luckily, the snow absorbed most of it... I think... I don't really know what happened all I know is it didn't hurt me at all. I think it landed mostly beside me. But of course, nobody cared about the missionary on the ground they just ran to the washer and made sure I didn't break it! haha. Don't worry... I didn't.

That's pretty much our week though. Oh and we found out that Elder Christofferson (i don't know if I spelled that right...) is coming to talk to us all next Saturday. So that will be exciting. And it also means a really long, early road trip for us up to Calgary. That should be fun.

Oh, I guess I'll tell you a little about my companion, Elder Brighton. He is from Roosevelt Utah, a tiny town east of Provo. He is a nurse assistant or something. He started in high school and then went to a year of college and then did nurse stuff for a while. He came out when he was 20. He is at his year mark this up coming week. He is really good at playing the piano. He's been playing it for twelve years now. He is kind of awkward. Doesn't say too much. Tells the same stories over and over again. He really likes having everything really clean and he is the healthiest eating missionary I have ever seen. He has made homemade bread and this weird zucchini casserole and he bought a bunch of fruit and potatoes and stuff. It was ridiculous. (mom, I'm not doing that. I like making something really fast and then taking my nap for the rest of my lunch break. haha) He is a pretty good companion though. We seem to be getting along pretty well. It's kind of nice to have someone who is excited to do work here again and someone with new ideas of how to do work here. So that is good. Hopefully we can start having this area pick up more.

That's it from me this week though. Nothing too exciting. I'll let you guys know how next week goes. Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love
Elder Townsend

Darn Canadians and their weird sports...

My last district. Roberts, Lafond, me, Malagamaalii (aka m), Fowler and Grace

Februrary 22, 2011

2011-02-22T07:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Happy Family Week!... Apparently it's some Canadian thing. The kids all have this week off of school... apparently they like families more up here or something. haha. Today is transfers though... and for the first time in FOREVER I am not going anywhere! haha. I am getting a new companion though. We will see how that goes. His name is Elder Brighton. He was in the west when I was there. He never really said anything and he was just kind of shy. Other missionaries said he's pretty fun and easy to get along with though. So hopefully that is true. He is a male nurse from Utah. So I will let you know how that is going next week. It should be exciting. It's been like 6 transfers since I have been the one that has been in the area the longest... so we will see how that goes. haha. I'm sure it will be fine. I'm looking forward to it.

Other then that the week was pretty average. We got new windows in our apartment last week. That was exciting. So Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday morning we couldn't leave our apartment because there were guys in there putting our windows together. So that was boring... and Thursday I got sick anyway so we didn't leave our apartment because I didn't want to get too far away from a bathroom, just in case, and Sister Archibald told me that I should get some rest. So I did. I felt better the next morning though. But I felt bad for making my companion stay in the whole day. He didn't have much to do. He just did crossword puzzles all day. It was sad.

Other then that this week we just taught a bunch of members and tried getting in with less actives, but they never let us in. This is a pretty good ward though. There are some good members here. It's a small ward but they are all very close. I guess the highlight of our week was on Wednesday we went and taught Dannyelle up in Coleman. That was exciting. We just talked about how the stop smoking program was going. She hasn't gone a day without a smoke, but she says she is improving. So I guess taht's good. It's hard for her though since her mom and her mom's boyfriend still smoke. And then we talked about the three pillars of a testimony, scripture study, prayer and going to church. that went well. She still didn't come to church on Sunday though. We are going to try to start going out to the pass for two days every other week and spending the night out there. So we will work with some new people we don't get to see much of out there. President Archibald is pretty skeptical about us keeping busy enough out there, so we will see how long he lets us go out there. It should be fun though. We are going on Thursday and Friday this week.

Other then that nothing really happened this week. So I will let you know how this week goes. Thanks for everything! I love you all!

love,
Elder Townsend

There are deer everywhere in Pincher

Pincher Creek is one of the first places they put up windmills. And there are TONS of them!

The piggy bank again

February 15, 2011

2011-02-16T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? This week was alright for me. We were going to teach Dannyelle on Wednesday, but she called that morning and said "personal things" came up and she couldn't anymore. So that was sad. But we still had a pretty good day that day. Nothing too exciting just a lot of lessons with members. We helped Bro Barfus move 14 huge filing cabinets around in his office. that was fun. then Thursday we taught the Buffalo family. A native family out on the reserve who have been taught for a while, but it was my first time meeting them. It went good. They like to talk a lot so we didn't get to say much, but we did get a lesson in and she wants to come to church, he doesn't, but she doesn't have a ride out there and we can't find one for her. So that is actually really sad. Then Friday we got another lesson with Danyelle so we went out there and taught her. We did the 7 day stop smoking program with her. I don't know if I've told you guys about that. It's these 15 steps that if they follow them everyday will make it so they have no more desire for nicotine at all. It completely eliminates that, but the "cool" factor will still be there. We can't seem to get rid of that... but the lesson went really well. She was really excited to follow it, which is awesome. I hope she can quit! Unfortunately we called her Sunday morning and she wasn't going to be able to come to church. That was sad. And while we were talking to her she told us that she had slipped up on smoking... dang it. So she had to start the seven days over again, but she still had a really good attitude about it. She new that she slipped up and that she could try again and do better next time. That was sweet to hear her say that! (ya, that's right. I'm an awesome teacher. Just kidding. But seriously... I am. haha) So hopefully she can do that.

Then we taught this old lady. Like mid 80's. It was ridiculous. She said she knew like everything about our church and had a Book of Mormon and all that. She had me go grab it from this shelf that was full of every religious books ever! OK... maybe not, but a lot of them. So we were talking about the restoration and stuff and she seemed to like it. Answered any question we gave her and it was pretty sweet. Then we came to the first vision and she asked where in the bible that was so she could look it up... and we asked her if she wanted to be baptized on March 5th and she said "yea, I could come to that" and wrote it in the cover of her bible and then we asked if she would want to come to church and she said "oh no, of course not. I have my own church." So... I don't know how much she got out of the lesson... but the Spirit was there! haha. Then we talked to a lady in our ward Sis Le Pard and she just told us that we shouldn't continue. The old ladies family would get mad at us if they found out we were there. So in a space of less then 24 hours we got a new investigator, set her with a baptismal date and then dropped her. haha. It was weird. My companion still put it all on our numbers for the week. haha.

Elder Lafond is interesting. He is a fun guy, really weird at times though. Sometimes I am just embarrassed to be around him. I can't really not like him though. I think our personalities are just ones that don't really go well together... at all. Is it bad to pray for him to get transferred next week? I thought about doing that but then I thought if I did then he would stay for sure... I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. haha. But whatever happens next week at transfers is supposed to happen. Maybe there is something I am supposed to learn from him... I hope not, but maybe. haha.

Thanks for everything! You guys are the best! Thanks for all the love and support you give me! I love and miss you guys!

Love,
Elder Townsend

PS. Mom I got the package from Aunt Jenny and Uncle Bill. I got it today, but that means it probably got to the mission like two or three weeks ago. haha.

Random little town in the pass... apparently the best water in Alberta... tastes like water to me!

Februrary 8, 2011

2011-02-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

Hey! What is up? How is the party in the states going? I hear "it's a party in the USA" haha. Well, I had a little bit of a party here in Canada. Good old Pincher Creek. Actually it kind of sucks here. It is cold and it's snowing A LOT! More then they have seen here in like 5 years. And it's freaking windy! I hate the wind... its official. I ran out of money last month so I couldn't buy stamps to send mail to you guys so I got money this month went and spent $20 on stamps to hopefully last me a while and what happens? We open the door to the car and the wind sends all of them flying!! So that sucked. I wasn't too happy. So all of you waiting on mail from me... (especially Michael) I'm sorry. I'm trying... hopefully I'll have some in the mail today though. Speaking of mail. Another reason why I don't like Pincher Creek is I haven't gotten mail in forever! We were supposed to get it at zone conference but the assistants forgot to bring it... darn assistants. So I won't get mail until transfers probably. So that sucks. Why can't I just go back to Calgary where I get it like once or twice a week? haha.

Anyway. I really did have a little bit of a party here I promise. We were able to teach Danyelle again. That went pretty well. We taught lesson three and set a date for her to be baptized on the 19th. So that was sweet. That was on Saturday. We also got her to commit to coming to church. So Sunday morning we got up and called her to make sure she was still planning on coming before we drove all the way out to the pass to be with her. She said she was coming but she also said that she thought the 19th was too soon to be baptized. So we have to work on that again. Then we got to church and I realized we forgot to tell her church was three hours long so she wasn't too happy. Her kid was hungry and tired the whole time. So she was busy with him the whole time. I don't know how much she got out of it. She left early so we didn't get to talk to her about it. Then Monday we called her and all she really said about it was that it was too long. We are teaching her again tomorrow and she wants to do the seven day stop smoking program so she must not be too mad at us. haha.

So we were in the pass on Sunday. Which was weird. There were only 20 people in church and it was sacrament meeting. The only people that bore their testimony were us and Pres Hummell and another guy. Then they ended sacrament 20 mins early. So that was weird. Especially for being the first sacrament meeting an investigator came to. The members love us out there. They don't get to see us too often. So someone invited us over for lunch so we went there. That was fun. He is the high priest group leader and they live in this fun little mobile home that they turned into a log cabin looking place. It was sweet. Then we stopped by some part member families and less actives and then someone had us for dinner and then we drove home. A nice full day in the Crows Nest Pass. We are trying to find a way to get out there more. Maybe stay at a members house out there overnight or something because it kills our kilometers driving out there too much.

Then Monday was sweet. The Wright's took us out snowshoeing. It was awesome. The Wrights are really fun and they took their dog with us. So they take us out to Beauvais Lake and we start up this trail and we are trying to get up to a peak they haven't been to before. so we start out on this "trail" if you can even call it that. We were walking through trees and following orange signs that were nailed to trees. The snow came up to our knees even with snow shoes on. The dog disappeared when it jumped in. haha. It was really fun though. Then the trail ended and we started to make our own trail. It got really steep with a lot of snow. We crawled for parts of it. It was well worth it though. The view from the summit was definitely worth the effort. Coming back down the steep part took us 15 mins... it took us an hour to get up it. haha. It was a pretty fun Pday though. I am freaking tired and sore now, but it was awesome. I loved it. They want to do it again in a couple of weeks and since there isn't anything else to do here in Pincher, I'm looking forward to it! haha. It helps that the Wright's are awesome. He is an RCMP and she is a hair dresser and they are hilarious! I love going over there.

That was pretty much my week though. Pretty exciting. A party if I do say so myself. Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Townsend

snow shoeing

the "trail" haha

the summit

the wrights

Februrary 4, 2011

2011-02-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

Hey! How is it going? This week was pretty good for me. A lot of times there wasn't much to do but we still got a lot done! haha. Last Tuesday we were walking around after emails and we saw a lady who was scrapping ice off her sidewalk so we went and helped her and after she invited us into her house for some hot chocolate. Turns out she lived with her older sister and her mom and the mom is kind of less active and the daughters are very less active. So we talked to them for a while and they said we could come back if we could find a time that worked. They are a busy little family. But that was sweet. Apparently they haven't talked to missionaries in forever.

Then we had a couple days of not much to do. A lot of walking around trying to find someone to talk to or something to do. But then Friday was a great day. We had a lesson with Danyelle at noon. So we drove out there and had this older lady from the branch come with us so we could have a member there. She was the only one that was available then. The lesson went really well. We watched The Restoration and talked about Joseph Smith a little bit more and we started to talk about baptism and found out that she hasn't been baptized but that she had a name and a blessing when she was a baby. So she said she would be willing to be baptized. We weren't able to set a date and we told her that it would be good for her to come to church and the lady from the branch offered a ride and to sit by her during church. She didn't come because she didn't feel like she was ready. I think she'll make it there eventually. Then we stopped by a couple of people and headed home.

Then we had a dinner with a family. Elder Lafond said it might be weird because every time he had talked to them they didn't really like the missionaries. So we got there and they were all happy and a fun family. They even told us that we were the first missionaries they have had over in years because they didn't like any of the other ones. But apparently they like us. So that's cool. It was really weird when I walked in though because they had some pictures on their fridge of people I knew from BYU. Apparently their daughter went there and got married and was friends with Allison Slater and Morgan Thorup and there were some pictures of them at her wedding. So that was cool. They talked about that for a while. It's weird to see people that know people I know. I guess I'm not really that far from home even though it feels like it, haha.

Then after dinner Bro Westrup called us and said that we could teach his friend, Rob Frost, at the church at 8. So we went there and taught him a little about the restoration and we talked to him and found out that he wants to be baptized but not for a while. He wants to read the Book of Mormon and the Bible in a year and he thinks that he will be able to make the decision to get baptized after he does that. Which I guess is good and it's good that he will be reading. Once he starts to read and think about it the Spirit will get working on him.

Saturday we went on exchanges. I was with Elder Fowler here and we didn't really have all that much to do. We had a lesson in the morning. Our dinner canceled and we had a lesson in the native reserve in the afternoon but it was snowing too much to make it out there. So we spent a lot of time walking around and shoveling snow. We seem to do that a lot in this mission. haha.

Sunday we called this lady named Stacy who we had talked to on the street once and seemed nice and gave us her phone number. We called and she said we could come over later so we went around five with Bro Barffus and that actually went really well. There were three little kids there. Two where her own. So beside all the distractions and times where we had to stop because of crying kids it went really well. We taught a first lesson and she seemed to accept it. She said she wanted to get baptized but we couldn't set an exact date. She grew up Christian and kind of fell away but she wanted to get back into it. That's the only reason she talked to us on the street which is awesome. (she did think that we were from another church... but that's irrelevant. haha) Her dad seems to know a lot. She said that her dad always tries to talk to her and teach her and she doesn't really listen. So I hope that he doesn't start to anti her. I think that will be the only obstacle in her life and maybe smoking. But we can fix that. Easy peezy lemon squeezy. haha

Then Pday was pretty fun. The district all came here and we just played some games and stuff and then went to the really good Mexican food out in the middle of nowhere. So that was exciting. So it was a pretty good week. We got two new people to teach. I hope we get somewhere with them. But if not then we did our best. Thanks for everything guys! I love you!

Love
Elder Townsend

So Coleman (where Danyelle lives) is really close to the BC border. And the BC border is the border for our area. so we were going to go there and get a picture next to it. But we got there and it had snowed too much to get any closer then this...I tried

Trying......

Failed

January 25, 2011

2011-01-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? It's going pretty good here. We actually had a pretty good week. We set a goal of having eight new investigators this transfer and having at least three of those with a baptismal date and up until Saturday not much was happening to help us in that goal. But on Saturday afternoon we didn't have much to do so we decided we would go out to the little town of Coleman and see if we could stop by some part members or such out there. We don't get the chance to get out there too often. But we went out there and stopped by some people. Nobody was home and we tracted a little bit. Nobody was interested. We did get one older guy to talk to us for a while at his door. But in the end he said he wasn't interested at all. He was nice though. I enjoyed talking to him. Then we tried stopping by another part member family. Nobody was home so we started back to the car. But as we were walking down their steps a lady pulled up in her car with her 9 month old son. Her name is Danyelle and her son is Destin. We ended up talking to her for a while and we asked if there was a time we could come back and so we set up a time for Sunday at 2:30. So Sunday we went to the Crows Nest Pass branch that we also cover because Brome, who got baptized last week, was getting the priesthood out there. (that's where his girlfriends family is and her dad is the Branch Pres and he did the ordination. That is also the branch that has Coleman in it. So after the ordination we got one of the members from there to come with us out to Danyelle's house and teach her. That went really well. She was really receptive and seemed very interested and then at the end I asked her to be baptized and the conversation went a little something like this, "...we are holding a baptismal service on Feb 19th will you prepare yourself for that date?" "Does it matter if I have already been baptized?" "...like into our church?" "yea" "um... yes. Well, I guess we can skip that step... I don't really know what to do now... this hasn't ever happened to me before..." haha so apparently her grandma took her to church in BC when she was little. And when she told her mom Saturday night that we had stopped over and were coming back her mom asked her if she told us that she was baptized and she was all... no... I didn't know I was. Apparently she got baptized when she was really little. I'm a little hesitant about that though because she doesn't remember it at all. She didn't know anything about Joseph Smith or prophets or anything. So we got her name and birth date and the branch clerk is trying to find her records. We are going back on Friday though. So either way it's someone to teach! haha.

Also on Sunday we went to the first two hours of Pincher Creek ward before we went to the pass and Bro Westrup has been bringing a friend to church. This was his second week there. He was in gospel essentials which we were teaching and we taught about the Holy Ghost and it went well and we asked him to be baptized and!!!... he said no... but he did say we could come by and teach him sometime but we didn't get an exact appointment. He said to make it through Bro Westrup. So we are trying to do that. Also we got a referral from the Kirtland Historic visitors center and we contacted him and he said he wanted to learn more but his girlfriend wasn't interested at all so he would call us with a time we could go by when he was home but his girlfriend isn't. He also lives in the middle of nowhere. In a little town called Frank. Where a big rock slide happened a long time ago and covered most of Frank so now it's a really small town. haha. I'm excited though. That's a lot of good happening. I can't wait to see how it all pans out.

The rest of the week was alright. Nothing too exciting. We had interviews with President Archibald on Wednesday and that took pretty much all day. It was up in Raymond which is a two hour drive for us and then we had interviews and training from the assistants and the zone leaders and Sis Archibald talked to each of us for a while and then we drove home. By the time we got back it was like 7:30. We did stop in Lethbridge for dinner with our district at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which is actually pretty good.

That is pretty much our week though. It was a lot of fun and a lot of good things happening. I can't wait to tell you guys all about the ending of these stories! I hope I am here for them. Thanks for everything! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

World's most photographed tree...

World's smallest chapel

There are only four rows of those pews

Good old Pincher :)

January 19, 2011

2011-01-19T15:56:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great week! I had a pretty good one here. Well for being in Pincher Creek it was a pretty good one. We didn't get too many lessons. People in this ward are hard to nail down for a set time for a lesson. They are usually alright with us stopping by and letting us teach them in the evenings. So we were able to get a lot of those which was good. That means a lot of our mornings and afternoons are pretty empty. And there isn't too much service that we have found to do here. So we do a lot of stopping by older people in the ward or stopping by potential and former investigators and when it comes down to it... tracting... yea... haha. It's not too bad though. We aren't supposed to do it too much here. A lady got mad at the missionaries a while ago and wrote a big thing about it in the newspaper and the town got all mad. Apparently the missionaries were being too overbearing. But the Bishop has said he doesn't want us doing that much for a while. Which is pretty understandable. But it doesn't leave us with much to do in the daytime.

Thursday was good. We had a lesson with our investigator who was getting baptized. He finally came into town and I met him for the first time. He is actually pretty cool and seems like a pretty solid investigator. We just went over a couple of things like making sure he's still obeying the word of wisdom and law of chastity and things and went over the baptismal interview questions. He seemed like he was pretty good still. So we had the baptismal interview the next night. Our district leader, Elder Grace, came and had the interview. That went really well. He was only with him for like five minutes but he said he passed. So that was awesome. Grace said he didn't have very long answers but his answers were great. So that's cool. Then Saturday morning we went and filled the font. The font here is weird. You just lift the floor in the primary room and it's under the floor. Then we had the baptism at one. That whole thing was just ridiculous. Elder LaFond said they had everything planned out so I didn't have to worry about anything. When we got there, nobody was conducting the meeting, nobody could play the piano, nobody was asked to give prayers, nobody was asked to be witnesses. We didn't have anything to do while they were getting changed. So it was kind of just thrown together at the last minute. I conducted. There was a member of the bishopric to preside, which was good. And as for the prayers I just asked two of the missionaries that were there to say them as I was saying it. So they were volun-told. And we just sang acapella and we sang some more while they were changing. But hey, it happened. And that's all that matters right? He will be a good member. Then Sunday came and Presidnet Hummell (from the branch we also cover) was supposed to be there to confirm him (he also baptized him) but he woke up sick and couldn't make it so they asked LaFond to do it when we walked into church and he was freaking out. He did a good job though. So that was pretty exciting. Pretty much the most ridiculous baptism I have ever been a part of. It was exciting though. And I'm going to make sure it never happens again while I am around. haha.

Then Pday was pretty fun. We got together with the zone, the one time a month we can. And thought we were going to be playing basketball. We ended up not though. We thought the young men from Raymond were going to come play with us but the missionaries in Raymond, Reese and Dodge, didn't call anyone even though they said they would. They didn't even show up themselves. So we kind of just played games. Farkle and Catan and they played magic (this weird card game that is like pokemon and dungeons and dragons mixed... something I will never play! haha)

That's pretty much our week though. Nothing too exciting. Just another week in good old Pincher Creek. hey... that rhymed! (I don't know how to spell that...) Thanks for everything guys! I hope all is going well with you all! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

January 11, 2011

2011-01-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

FYI
Devin's letters will be coming on Tues while he is in this area. He said the little library in Pincher Creek is closed on Mondays. I also told him about how the town was named because some prospectors lost their pincer (a tool to trim horse feet) which was a valuable tool to them and someone found it later rusting in the creek. He said he had heard that but didn't believe it. Devin didn't mention it but it also said there were lots of wind farm development in the area.
Kim

Hello from Pincher Creek, the windiest city in North America! And guess what we do every Pday... we fly kites! OK. not really. That would be funny though... maybe I should get a kite. We had a pretty good week here. It was interesting. Tuesday morning me and Elder Newman woke up and drove to Lethbridge and from there I put my stuff into my new zone leaders truck, Elders Booth and Bradley. (remember Elder Bradley? He was my zone leader in West Calgary for a while. I love him!) and Elder Winder was in the truck as well (my comp I had for like a week and a half before he went home. He's back out! Has been for a little bit actually.) We also had Elder Carmack who was a Mandarin speaking but then last transfer president just said... I think you need to go English. So he did. He seems kind of weird. But the five of us drove to Fort MacLeod where I met up with Elder Lafond and then we came to Pincher Creek. The tiny town of 3500 people. There is a whole ward here though! We cover Brockett (a native reserve) and the Crows Nest Pass branch. So it's an alright area. Not much going on at all. We have three native investigators who aren't really going anywhere and then we have a guy named Brome who is getting baptized on Saturday. He isn't coming back into town until Thursday though so I haven't even met him yet. It seems a little sketchy to me but the missionaries think he's ready and he wants to be baptized so there is nothing holding us back! Even though it seemed like everyone in PEC on Sunday was a little hesitant on us baptizing people. Which is understandable because their last three converts are less active already. sad...

Well, there really isn't much to say about this area. We don't get very many lessons. This ward is really small and it's pretty hard to get in to teach people. There were only 50 people at church on Sunday. They say there is usually 100, but it's been snowing pretty good ever since I got here so they say that kept a lot of people from coming. And as for it being the windiest city in north America... I can believe it. It's pretty bad here. The wind is blowing all the time! Unless it's snowing. And then when it stops the wind blows it around and makes HUGE snow drifts. It's pretty exciting actually.

Me and Elder Lafond are doing pretty well together. I guess it's only been a week, but so far so good. Sometimes he is really weird and it just gets awkward, but I guess that's not too bad. He has an amazing impression of President Archibald and President Monson. It's kind of creepy actually. Sometimes President Monson wakes me up in the morning or President Archibald says our companionship prayers. haha.

But we are having a lot of fun. It's a good area. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of things I can do here and who I can help while I am here. It seems like we have a pretty good ward. Small but good members. So I think I am going to enjoy it here. I hope I don't stay too long though. Being in this tiny town for 6 months might drive me insane! haha.

Thanks for everything! I love you all and miss you all! Thanks for the support!

Love,
Elder Townsend

The Cervo family. Minus two kids who were sleeping.

Newman, me, Moore, Stevens

Pincher Creek chapel

Shoveling huge drifts off of driveways.... yippee....

January 3, 2011

2011-01-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

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.

December 28, 2010

2010-12-28T19:27:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everybody! It isn't quite that time, but it's close enough. It's weird that it is almost 2011... I come home in 2011... not that I am thinking about that at all yet though... haha. I've still got 10 months and I'm going to make each of them great! Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas! I did! It was a lot of fun. It was really a great week all together! We had a great Pday of basketball last week. Then Tuesday was a lot of fun as well! We went on exchanges so I went with Elder Stevens into his area. It was great. We talked a lot and got a lot done. Well... we tried to get a lot done... we stopped by a lot of people, but nobody was home... but we did have a dinner, which was a lot of fun. It was with a great family. But then sadly the investigator lesson we had canceled... so we spent a little extra time at the dinner and they had a bunch of people over and made ginger bread houses out of graham crackers. It was actually a lot of fun. Mine turned out pretty sweet. I made an Arizona Christmas house. haha. Then we stopped by a couple people and were actually able to get a lesson in with one of their less actives. Then Wednesday and Thursday were both packed with things to do. Thursday we had two investigator lessons. That was awesome! It's rare to have more then one in a day here. haha. The first one was pretty sad. It was my first time meeting with them and the second time the missionaries have been there. The first time they were really solid and Elder Newman was sure they were going to be baptized. But this time we went over and started teaching lesson two. It was just a big gong show. Their kids were going crazy. The mom kept giving them toys and letting the dog in and out. The husband went and started talking to a heater guy that came and then checked his mail and was reading a bill he got while we were trying to teach them about the atonement... it was awesome. So we just stopped in the middle of the lesson and told them that if they didn't want us there then we didn't want to waste their time. So we asked if they were still wanting to learn or come to church and they were kind of hesitant. They said they would try to come to church next week. So if they don't show up I think we are going to drop them. They aren't going to go anywhere. So that was sad. But the other lesson was awesome. we went and taught Travis again. This time we did the stop smoking program with him. That went well. He seemed to be really receptive and willing. We had a lot of fun with it as well. Unfortunately he hasn't aswered any of our calls since... so we don't know how he is doing... hopefully it was just because it was Christmas time.

Then Friday was awesome. We had a really good Christmas eve. We were allowed to play some games with our district so we got together in the morning and played some games and then went over to Stan's house. I love him. He is so much fun and such a great guy! He fed us the biggest, most delicious steaks. They were so good. We told him about the lady that we talked to that lived in his building that was going through a hard time and he went into his kitchen and filled five bags full of meat and bread and eggs and ice cream and frozen waffles and all kinds of stuff and told us to go deliver it to her. So we did. That was awesome. When she saw that she cried and gave us huge hugs! (awkward) But she had us come in and we talked for a while and shared a couple Christmas scriptures. It was awesome. Then we went to the May's house. That was fun. They are a fun family. We talked for a while and they opened some presents and gave us some presents. American mountain dew! I'm not a big soda drinker let alone mountain dew. But I do have to admit that Canadian mountain dew is disgusting. So whenever people go down to the states and ask missionaries what they want they always say mountain dew or Oreo's. (Canadian Oreo's are also disgusting!) or fruity pebbles. haha. So that was awesome!

Then Christmas came! That was fun. We opened presents with the family we live with. That was a lot of fun. They have three little kids so it was fun to see them all excited. I haven't had a Christmas with kids in a long time. Then came the phone call home. That was awesome! It was so nice to talk to my family. I loved it. It's nice to hear their voices and know that they aren't just words in an email. I love you guys so much! Thank you for being such a great family! You are awesome!! Then we had lunch with our bishop and played ping pong with his family for a while. It had been forever since I played that game. I love it. Then all the missionaries and some members got together and played basketball and then we had a dinner that was pretty good. Kind of awkward but the food was great! Then we went to another families house and had a lot of fun there. It was weird that it was over so fast. So much time spent building it up and then its gone... it's really kind of sad. But the Spirit of Christmas doesn't have to leave! I gave a talk in both wards yesterday about how we should always have this great Spirit with us. Christmas time is such a great time of year because everyone is focused on Christ and loving and caring. But why can't we do that all year long? We should... I know I don't... (not as a non missionary at least) but we should! haha.

That was pretty much our week though. It was a great and a fun filled fantastic one! I loved it! Thank you all so much for everything and for the gifts! I am getting more mail next week because its transfers. So if I haven't gotten yours yet, hopefully I will next week! Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a great week this week! I love and miss you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Arizona ginger bread house!

me and my house

Christams morning and all my presents! Thanks everyone!

December 20, 2010

2010-12-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Isn't this just an amazing time of the year? I love it so much. Especially as a missionary. Because we don't have to worry about anything. We just get to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and remember Christ and all that He has done for us. It truly is amazing and I know that all the presents and parties and stuff are good and fun, but don't let them make you forget about the reason for the season. This shouldn't be a stressful time of the year. It should be one of love and peace and... stuff. So I hope you all remember that as we are getting close to Christmas in order to have the best Christmas ever we need to remember Christ!

Anyway, I am excited for Christmas. It's going to be a good day. We have a lot planned. But I'll tell you about it next week. But this week was pretty good as well. We were able to get in a lot of really good lessons. We met with Travis again. I think I told you about him last week. He is doing great. I am a little worried about his motives though. When guys come into the church just for girls, it can be bad. haha. But we had a great lesson with him on Wednesday and he brought up that he needed to stop smoking... before we even told him that he needed to. So this week we are going to go over and do the 7 day stop smoking program with him. I think that will be really good for him. We will see how motivated he is in this. So that will be good. I am looking forward to that lesson.

Then Thursday was a pretty good day as well. It was kind of sad because we were supposed to go on splits and have like 5 lessons that night... but everything canceled... well almost everything. We ended up with two lessons... which isn't bad, but not as good as we were hoping. We also had a training from the assistants and Pres and Sis Archibald that day. That was pretty good. They talked all about planning and finding. Which was awesome. It really made me excited to try some new things. Well... things I should have been doing anyway... haha. And then at the end of the training they took us into another room where they had hot chocolate and cookies and Pres and Sis Archibald told us Christmas stories and then they gave us all of our packages. The mission holds all of our packages until Christmas so we don't open them. Which I think is a pretty good idea, but not all missionaries were too happy about it. haha. Now I have a bunch of packages in my room and I am so tempted just to open them all! But that would be sad because then I wouldn't have anything to open on Christmas.

Anyway, so have I told you that Elder Newman is a music major? He's pretty good at piano and singing. It seems like everyone wants him to perform. Saturday we went to a funeral and he sang "Amazing Grace". We hadn't even met the guy who died. It was good though because there were a lot of non members there. I think it's funny though because I never thought I would get so many weird looks in our own church... yea, we get weird looks all the time because we are missionaries, but I mean come on... its OUR church! haha. And then we had another ward Christmas party that night and he performed again there. I love ward Christmas parties. They are a lot of fun. A lot of good food and it is a great way to get to know people. So many people brought non member friends. It was awesome! These wards are pretty good at that.

Then Sunday morning Elder Newman woke up with a sore throat. Which wasn't good because he was singing in sacrament meeting. haha. But he still did it and sounded pretty good but by the end of both Sacrament meetings he was dying. So we went home and he took a nap. Then we had a couple of lessons that night he went to but we had one with a less active guy, Bro Finch, who we had an amazing lesson with last Sunday. He didn't feel good at all so I went with Bro Judd, a member for the ward. It was a pretty good lesson. He's a great guy! I really hope we can help him come back.

That is pretty much my week! Thank you guys for everything! I love you so much and I hope you all have an amazing Christmas! And family, I can't wait to talk to you Saturday!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Elder Newman in a wheel chair... this was our lunch break from weekly planning... weekly planning makes you a little crazy haha.

The only picture I have of me this week...

The roads were really slippery one day... Elder Newman almost hit that fence. It was pretty ridiculous. haha

December 13. 2010

2010-12-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How was your week? Mine was pretty good. Kind of crazy. Full of surprises. Tuesday we had an awesome lesson with a guy that we met at church. His name is Travis. He has a friend, Braelynne (or something like that...), who brought him to church and wanted he to learn more so we went over and had a pretty good lesson with him. We had it at our bishops house. He wasn't able to be there though. But we were able to teach him a pretty good first lesson. One of the better ones I've had. And he didn't have much religious background so we were able to keep it really simple but still teach everything that we needed to. So that was awesome. He even said that he would be baptized. We weren't able to set an exact date with him... he said he was going to be out of town on the date we suggested. But he was willing to be baptized! Which is awesome! We gave him a Book of Mormon and some chapters to read so hopefully he does. We are meeting with him again this Wednesday. So I am really looking forward to that lesson and seeing how things are going with him.

Then we had another really big surprise. We got a call from our bishop... and later from the mission office saying that the people we were living with didn't want us in their house anymore. So they were kicking us out by the nineteenth. But our bishop decided he wanted us out of there as soon as possible because he was sick of dealing with the lady we were living with so our ward mission leader, Cam Cervo, said we could go live with him so Saturday morning a bunch of people came over and helped us move. Taht was pretty exciting. Cam is an awesome guy and has a sweet family. It's been pretty fun so far. We have only been there for a couple of days though. We aren't living in the biggest space which is alright and he does have a couple of kids so it isn't the quietest place either. Especially when it comes to morning study time. We found that out this morning. haha. But it isn't bad and it isn't with the Nohrs. So I am pretty happy with it.

Then Saturday was a lot of fun. We had some really good lessons and a Ward Christmas party that night. It was awesome. Really good food and a lot of people and a lot of fun. Elder Newman is a music major so they had him sing a song while playing the piano while this guy played the trombone. That was awesome. I love the sound of that instrument. And he was good. He does that for a living. It was pretty sweet. I got a picture with Santa... it isn't on my camera though... sorry mom. But they'll print a copy of it for me later.

Then Sunday was awesome as well and ended on a high note. We had some really good lessons and then at 830 last night we went over to a less active guys house. Bro Finch and had an amazing lesson there. He really opened up to us and we were able to help him a lot. But his big concern was something that we can't really help him with. He is going to have to read and pray and find the answer for himself. We could tell him but it isn't going to mean much. So I really hope that he does. We are meeting with him next week. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. The lesson was amazing and the Spirit was so strong during it. Especially when we gave him a blessing to help him get through this and make it back. I think he really wants to do it for his kids, but any reason is a good reason right?

Well that was my exciting week. I am really looking forward to Christmas. It really is a great time of year. Especially for missionaries. I love it. And I love Christ. I am so grateful for everything He has done for me and will do for me. Thank you all for everything! I love you guys so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Elder Hurley, Trymer, Angie and myself

me and Elder Hurley

Elder Hurley got me started on this license plate game where you have to find all the numbers in order. So I found 000 with him and now, six weeks later, I found 001. At this rate I'll be at like... 100.... when im done.. haha

December 6, 2010

2010-12-11T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hello from Medicine Hat! The small exciting town with three sets of missionaries in it. One of the furthest places from the mission home I can be. It was quite the ride down here. Wednesday morning me and Elder Hurley packed all of our stuff into the car. Which is really hard to do. Trying to fit all of both of our stuff into a little Malibu. But we made it. Then we went to the transfer station and we put all of our stuff into the trailer that they pull behind a thirteen passenger van and we took that and about five cars full of missionaries down to southern Alberta. We stopped at a place called Fort MacLeoud. We dropped the people that were going there off and the people going to BC met their companions there and headed out. So that is where I had to say goodbye to Elder Hurley. That was sad. We had an amazing six weeks together. One of my favorite transfers. I love that guy. Then the rest of us headed down to Lethbrigde where we met the other missionaries. That was awesome. I got to see a lot of missionaries that I haven't seen in a long time. Elder Gelwix, Elder Mott, Elder Estupinan, Hatfield. It was a sad day but seeing all of them made it better. Then I met Elder Newman, my new companion. I don't know if I ever said anything about him... but he was in my zone when I first came out. So we already knew each other which was fun. Then the two of us drove the last three hours down to Medicine Hat. So it was a lot of driving for me. We started at 8:30 and ended in Med Hat around 5:30. Just in time for dinner. But I am here now and so far I am really enjoying it.

We have been able to do a lot of lessons with members and investigators. We have a lot of investigators which is fun, but we don't have very many that are progressing from what I have heard. We spent a lot of this week planning and organizing our area book and finding people that we can stop by while we are here. It's going to be a good transfer. I have a feeling that we are going to get a lot done while we are here. And hopefully I am here for a while. I don't like moving very much. haha. We have a lot of service that we can do here too. We work at the Canadian Red Cross and the food bank and this other place I haven't gone to. So that's fun. So far I really like my companion. He is a lot of fun we have had a lot of fun together and we work together pretty well. It's so nice to have companions that have been out on their missions for around the same time as you. It just seems like you work together a lot better. I am really enjoying it and I think we are going to have a good couple of transfers together. He has only been here one transfer longer then me so we will probably be together for two. Which will be nice.

The place that we live in is pretty nice as well. The members are down in Utah for the winter so we have the place to ourselves. But don't worry. We aren't destroying the place. Someone comes and checks up on us every Thursday. It is pretty nice though. We have a huge Jacuzzi tub which is really nice after a long day. haha. We have our own car, but we only get 900 kilometers every month so we will have to be walking a lot I fear...

It was really sad to be transferred right before Christmas. It means that I don't know anyone here and they don't know me, but it will be a fun Christmas. I have been in a little bit of denial about it being Christmas just because I don't want to be away from home again. But Saturday we were in the stake choir (Elder Newman is a music major so he likes to sing) and it was awesome. I suck at singing, but we performed a bunch of Christmas music for the stake and then on Sunday night we went to the First Presidency Christmas devotional. It was awesome. It made me really excited to be here and for the Christmas season. Last Christmas was a lot of fun and I hope this one is too.

Unfortunately... when I got transferred here I left my backpack in the van... so I don't have my chord to plug in my camera... so no pictures again.... and I also don't have my bathroom stuff or my scriptures or my pillow or "Preach My Gospel"... it's back in Calgary... sad, eh? I'll get it when our zone leaders get mail, but being so far away from the mission home means I only get mail once every three weeks or so... sad day...

Thanks for everything guys! I love you so much and I hope you are getting into the Christmas Spirit! It's a great time of year!

Love,
Elder Townsend

November 22, 2010

2010-11-30T12:22:00.000-08:00

Winter finally came to Canada! haha. It took it quite a while, but its here. Last Monday night we had a big storm and got about four inches of snow and then for the rest of the week was constantly snowing, and I mean constantly. It wasn't much, just flurries, but the sun only came out for one day! It was ridiculous. It took till the middle of November to come but, oh man... its here. In full force. And it's cold. And I mean cold! haha. It was a good week though. I really enjoyed it. It was an amazing week for missionary work. We were able to have a whole bunch of awesome lessons. It was great! The wards have been putting forth the names of people that we need to work on and they have been setting up the first appointment which makes our life a lot easier and gets us into a situation that we can be more effective than just teaching all the active members that will let us into their house. We are actually getting into less actives and people that we can actually try to help in their own lives. It's awesome. Our mission is trying to get all of our wards to do that but so far Queensland ward is the only one that I have been in that actually has done it pretty well... or done it at all actually. So it's awesome to see it working. We were also able to have a good lesson with Angie and Trymer, and yes mom, his name is Trymer. Trymer Morrow Jr. His dad was named Trymer too. haha. But we had a really good lesson with them before they went down to Utah for the weekend to visit his son. It is amazing to see how much Angie has progressed even since I have been here. She is the most amazing investigator and a hilarious person! She is great! I am so excited for Saturday. Her baptism is going to be at two and Elder Hurley is going to baptize her. I am going to be conducting the meeting. I've never done that before and I've never seen missionaries do that before but Elder Hurley and Trymer have so Angie thought it would be fun. I think it will be fun. I'm really going to enjoy it. It will be a great day. I love baptisms. They have such an amazing Spirit to them and it's so awesome to watch someone make that big and sometimes scary step in their lives. Angie is going to be an amazing member of the church. I'm looking forward to seeing her be one.

So it was a great week. An amazing week if I do say so myself. But there is always opposition right? Well, for my companion at least. Tuesday morning after the big snow this week we were on our way to district meetings in the morning and what does my companion do? Slide the car into a curb in our parking lot and bend the front right rim. It was pretty bad. Then right after that happened the zone leaders call us and tell us the cars are grounded because the roads are too slippery. So that was kind of.. late. haha. But it meant district meetings were canceled so we didn't have to drive on a bent rim. We took it in to get fixed and they gave us a loaner car until they could fix that one. A couple other things happened that were really just sad. It was a good week but had little spots of unfortunate events like that. haha.

Well... Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I don't get to celebrate it here (we had ours last month) but hopefully well have a good dinner on Thursday. But I just wanted to tell you all how thankful I am for you. I love you all so much! and I hope you guys have an awesome week! Transfers are next week. I hope neither of us leave. That would be sad. We want to be together for Christmas so hopefully we are. We are praying for it. haha.

I love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

What missionaries do when it snows
Our car Tuesday morning

Our car a little bit later on Tuesday morning haha

Elder Crowe. Another good ol AZ boy that is freezing up here. haha.

November 30, 2010

2010-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? This week was freaking crazy for me! I don't know how I really feel going into this week... but this last week was awesome! It was a pretty average week for lessons. We were able to get a lot of good ones in. And we spent most of our mornings and afternoons trying to fix our car. Elder Hurley ran into curb and bent one of our rims so we had to take that in and get it fixed and do all the paper work for that. That was pretty intense. The best part of our week was with Angie and Trymer. I love them. I really do.

We met with them on Tuesday and had a pretty good lesson with them. Then we went over again on Thursday an had an alright lesson and when we left me and Elder Hurley could tell that something was wrong and that Satan was going to work really hard on Angie those next couple of days. So we started to fast as soon as we went into our apartment for the night. Then we kept her in our prayers all day. We prayed throughout the day. Multiple times together. Then we went to their house again on Thursday and she was freaking out. So were me and Elder Hurley. All day long I was worried about her and when we got in to the house I was even more worried. But we had an amazing lesson with them that night and the best part was that me and Elder Hurley probably only said 10% of what was said that night. The rest was Trymer bearing his testimony about everything. It was awesome. The Spirit was so strong and we were able to help her in so many ways. We felt so much better when we left that night. That was the first time that whole day that I was sure the baptism was going to go through. We knew that it was still going to be hard and that Satan was still going to work on her. We continued to pray the rest of the next day for her as well. Then Friday night we went with our district leader and his companion over so that Elder Asjian could do the baptismal interview. She seemed really happy but was nervous for the interview. But she went in and when she came out she was leaping through the air yelling "I passed!" haha. She is awesome. So she passed and we were able to go through with the baptism the next day. The most amazing baptism I have ever been a part of. Me and Elder Hurley went in the morning to fill the font and get everything ready. We made sure that everything was perfect. We even had an electric kettle going that we were boiling water with and throwing it in the font to make sure that the water was warm and stayed warm. It was quite funny to watch. Trymer came and brought us lunch and did his bumbling magic to make it so that we had as hot of water coming out of the spout as we could. Then people started showing up. It was awesome. It was the most Spirit filled baptism I've had. We had amazing talks and an amazing movie while they were changing. We watched the "Reflections of Christ" DVD. It was awesome. And the best part was after when we were talking to Angie and she said that she didn't recognize the Spirit in the font because she was too nervous but when she walked into the room and that movie was playing she just felt warm inside. That's awesome. She is the most amazing person! I love her. She is going to be an amazing member of the church. She asked me to conduct the meeting. So that was fun. I haven't ever done that before but it was quite the enjoyable experience. Then after the baptism we went out with them and Trymer's family for dinner. That was awesome. They are a hilarious family and we had a lot of fun that night. It really was a great day.

Sad news though... I'm leaving. Transfers came in and im going down to Medicine Hat. A little town south of here. I am really sad to be leaving. I wanted to be here for Christmas and to be able to be here with Angie and Trymer again and to help her with anything and to be here for the new member lessons. I am really sad to be leaving but we knew that it was coming. Friday we got a call from Pres. (you never want one of those) and he asked us to come and meet with him. Apparently some member has been complaining about us. Saying we haven't done any work and that we didn't teach with the Spirit. DIDN'T TEACH WITH THE SPIRIT!!! Who on earth has the guts to say that about missionaries. We are called to have the Spirit with us always! It was just one member and it's really sad to see because everyone else here loved us. We had fast Sunday this last week because they are having Stake conference next week. We got up in both wards and then afterwards there were probably 5 or 10 people in each ward that came up and said how much they loved us and appreciated all that we did for them and their families. And everyone that we told said the person was insane and that we were two of the best missionaries they have had in these wards for a long time. So president had already told us that we were leaving. He can't keep us here with members saying those things about us and then on Sunday we got a call from the assistants saying that we were getting Sisters in this area and to clean our apartment really well. What a slap in the face that is. We worked really hard to get this area going. Not to say anything bad about sisters... but Elders and Sisters are really just different kinds of missionaries. and its sad to see Sisters coming in here. But I know they will do good. I am excited to go down to Medicine Hat and to serve there and do as much there as I can. I will do whatever I am supposed to get done there.

So this week was kind of sad. But all in all one of the best weeks I've had on my mission. At the end of the best transfer I have ever had on my mission with the best companion I have ever had on my mission and to end it all I had the best baptism I have ever had on my mission in which I was able to see the best investigator ever be baptized! I love Angie and Trymer and I hope that they know that! I hope that I helped them in their lives but they will never know how much they helped me in mine.

I love you all and I can't wait to tell you about my first week out of Calgary. I hope it goes well and I hope to thoroughly enjoy my new wards and companion. Thank you all! I love you so much!

Love
Elder Townsend

Angie and Trymer. Best baptism ever.

Joba their cat
Hurley got dear johned... and yes. That is a life size poster of her. haha

Elder Townsend the artist

2010-11-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning up today and found these letters from Devin that I had saved because of the artwork. My kids love writing letters to Uncle Devin and getting them from him...especially when Buzz Lightyear is involved!!

November 15, 2010

2010-11-16T06:12:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? Well... this week wasn't really all that exciting. There really isn't much to tell you. We had a lot of really good lessons. I think I am getting really sick of member lessons though. This isn't anything I thought I would be doing when I was coming out on a mission and I am just sick of dealing with members. Why can't people just accept commitments we give them? Is it really that hard to look for opportunities to do service for friends or neighbors or to share your testimony with a non member? Why do members have to butcher every commitment we give them? Anyway. I am glad to be on a mission though. And those members that do listen to us and are happy to have us in to their home are so much fun to teach I love going over there.

And it was a great week for missionary work. We met with Angie and Trymer twice this week. Angie is doing amazing. There is definitely nothing holding her back from being baptized on the 27th. I am so excited for that date and she is as well. She is the best investigator that I have had on my mission. I love going over there. And her husband Trymer is hilarious and fun as well. We even did some service for them on Saturday. That was a lot of fun. We raked their leaves for them. And Hurley had the great idea to burn the leaves instead of throw them away so Trymer went and got an old truck bed tool box and we filled it up and tried to burn them. It didn't turn out so well and we thought the fire truck would show up any minute. haha. It didn't though. So that was good. It was a great day though.

We also had a service opportunity with a non member. We went and helped her clean out her basement that was covered in mold. Everything...the TV stand, couches, carpet. It smelled horrible and I thought I was going to die. I'm pretty sure there is a bunch of mold growing in my lungs right now. haha. So that might be exciting. But it was good. We gave her our phone number and I think we could have a good chance of teaching her sometime. She seemed really nice and she was very grateful for us to be there. It was awesome.

Not much else happened this week though. We got this huge amazing lazy boy couch with a center fold down console and two recliner chairs on either side that was a killer to get up the stairs but definitely the best addition to our apartment. It's an amazing place to do comp study. I love it. And I have to thank Tina from the thrift store in Cochrane for bringing it down here for us. She is the best!

That's pretty much our week though. Not too much exciting to talk about but it was a great week for missionary work. I hope you all had a good week as well! I love you and miss you all!

Love
Devin

November 8, 2010

2010-11-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? I hope you all had an awesome week! I had a pretty good one myself. We went and played football for Pday. That was pretty fun. We went to a school and played in their feild... didn't think about what would happen when school got out though. It was crazy. Little kids everywhere. Some even wanted to join in for a while. I thought we would get kicked outbut we didn't. So that was pretty exciting. haha.

Other then that not too much exciting things happened this week. It was pretty sweet though. We were able to get a lot of lessons this week which was awesome. We are teaching a couple of less active people which is sweet. And we are teaching this one recent convert girl. She is awesome. She's kind of struggling being the only member in her house and she's losing her friend that brought her into the church. So it's pretty sad to see, but she is still pretty strong which is awesome. And we are also still teaching our investigator Angie. She is doing amazing. We weren't able to teach her this week because she wasn't feeling too good last night. We always teach them Sunday night. But we were able to have her husband Trymer take us to dinner. Which was awesome. He took us to a place called Peters. It's this amazing burger joint that is a big old heart attack waiting to happen. I think I had a little heart attach that night. haha. It's OK though because all that grease just lubricates the heart right? Just makes it all flow smoother? haha. It was soo good though. Especially with my mango-peach-strawberry milkshake. You can combine up to three flavors and they have a bunch of them. It was delicious.

We had zone conference this week too. It was actually a really good one. I really enjoyed it. We did a lot of role playing though,. I hate role playing. I feel like an idiot. But it does help for when you are actually teaching. So it is a good thing for me to do. They came out with a bunch of new rules as well. A lot of missionaries weren't too happy about them. Like we aren't allowed to have guitars or ukuleles anymore. We aren't allowed to have weight sets. And a couple other things. None of them really affected me but it didn't make too many people happy. They also added a point to our standards of excellence. They want us to find one investigator to teach every month, by our own efforts. So we might have to start going tracting more. Which I think will be good. They said that in North and Central America we are the most efficient mission when it comes to investigators being baptized. For every three investigators we have one get baptized. The average is about thirteen. So they figured that if every companionship could find an investigator on their own every month in addition to what we already have then we will be flying high. haha. It wold be sweet though. I'm excited to see what I can do to make that happen. We actually had a pretty sweet thing happen yesterday. There was this guy who lives in the condos that overlook our church parking lot and he was impressed with always seeing us there and being dressed well and coming to church on Sunday and just being good people so he was always curious to come in and this week his family came to visit (who happen to be members) and wanted to go to church so he came along! He came to all three hours and after Sunday school we talked to him and asked if he would be interested in having us over and learning more and he said yes and gave us his business card and we gave him our phone number. So hopefully something will come from that. That would be awesome! And kind of our own efforts! haha.

That is pretty much our week though. I love this area and love Elder Hurley. We are working hard and having fun. It's great. And we are working really well together as a team. It's nice to have someone who knows how to do missionary work and have fun doing it. I'm really enjoying it so far and I hope we stay together for a while. Thank you all for everything! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love
Elder Townsend

November 1, 2010

2010-11-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? I hope you all had a great week. I did. It was awesome! We were able to get a lot of lessons this week. As a mission we try to get 20 lessons a week. These last couple weeks here have been some of the only ones on my mission so far that I have been able to even get close to that. It might help that we have two wards to work with, but it also helps that I have an awesome companion. Elder Hurley is amazing. We have a lot of fun together and get along great, but we know how to work as well. We were able to get a lot of lessons with members this last week. We even got a couple pretty good lessons with less active members and we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Angie. She is amazing. She is married to an excommunicated member who is also awesome. He's working on coming back and hopes to be baptized on the same day as Angie. She has a date for the 27th of November. And I know that she will be ready. She is awesome. We watched the testaments with her and she loved it. We were able to talk to her after and solve a couple of her concerns. She never has very big concerns just little ones that are easy to resolve. So that's good. She is awesome. I can't wait to continue to work with her and see her progress towards baptism.

That lesson was yesterday. Oh, Happy Halloween by the way! We had to come in at 6 last night so that we wouldn't get into any trouble. So we had a lesson with Trymer and Angie and they fed us an amazing breakfast for dinner and then went in and played some board games and set up some lessons for this week. It was a lot of fun. I really wanted to go trick or treating though. I really just wanted some candy... I may or may not have already eaten everything you sent me mom.... haha. It was fun though. And luckily we didn't have anyone come to our door... we didn't have any candy to hand out. Didn't think of that.

Oh! By the way! Probably the best part of our day was when we got the call that we were moving into an apartment. I was finally able to unpack! It was awesome! It's a pretty small little one bedroom apartment, but hey, its ours. And it's awesome. It's on the third floor so we don't have to worry about people making noises above us. But it also meant that we had to move all our stuff up a bunch of stairs. That wasn't fun. I'm still sore from it. We went and got a bunch of furniture from the mission storage... but it still doesn't look very full in there. But it took us forever to unpack! In between service and lessons we didn't have much time. The first night we were there we were up until one in the morning just trying to unpack enough for us to sleep. It was kind of ridiculous. But hey, we are all moved in and having a blast. I like having my own place. I hate the feeling that you are in the way of the people that you are living with. So this will be nice. I love this area and I can't wait to see what I can do here. I am excited for it!

Oh... by the way. I hit my year mark this week, and yes, I burned a shirt. That's right. It was awesome. I can't believe I'm at a year though. It's crazy to think about. They say this next year go's by really fast but I hope it doesn't. I've hit the point where I really just don't want to go home anymore. I love it out here too much.

Thanks for everything guys! I love you all so much! Can't wait to talk to you next week! I love you!

Love
Elder Townsend

Before

After

October 25, 2010

2010-10-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? This week was pretty good for me. I moved into my new area. The Queensland and Parkland wards and am back in the zone that I started my mission in. In fact I am even in the same district as Chapparal. Which is pretty awesome. I've been able to see some of the members from there already and it has been awesome to see them. My new companion, Elder Hurley, is awesome. I love being around him. He is a hard worker but also knows how to have fun and enjoy himself. I can tell already that this is going to be a great transfer. I was really sad to leave my last area, especially since both of us were leaving. I was afraid that all the work I put into that area and all the progress I had would be lost, but Elder Barber who went in there with his greenie seems like a great missionary and I am sure that area is in good hands.

I have been able to have a lot of fun in this area already though. We carved pumpkins with some of the other missionaries. We helped a member get rid of his 100 year old piano. And by get rid of it I mean that we put it in the back of his truck, went to a big parking lot and he went in reverse really fast and then hit the brakes and the piano went flying out the back and got destroyed! Don't worry... we cleaned it all up. Nobody would ever know that we were ever there. But it was definitely the best service I have ever done. I have a feeling I am going to love it here.

We have an investigator named Angie who has a date for November 27th. That's awesome. We had a lesson with her and her excommunicated husband who is also working on coming back. The lesson was sweet. We went over Alma 36 and just talked to her about it. She had some concerns about getting baptized but we were able to resolve them pretty easily. She is ready for baptism. She really is. I don't know if I am going to help her towards it at all, but I hope I do. I hope that I was put here for a reason. And maybe that reason was to help her to overcome some problem that hasn't come out yet. Or maybe the reason I am here is for someone else. An investigator we don't have yet. We were walking around one day and found this guy named Christopher. Well he kind of found us. He saw us and walked up to us and asked if we were Mormon. And he said he had just moved there and was a born again Christian and was looking for a church he could go to and asked if visitors were allowed in our church so we told him when it started and he said he might be there and we set up an appointment to go visit him yesterday but he wasn't home. We were walking up to the house and the guy came out and said. We aren't interested... it wasn't Christopher though so we went up and he came back out and he said Christopher lived in the basement so we went around back and knocked on his door and he didn't answer. I thought that might happen though. he seemed like a kind of sketchy guy. But we are going to try back again soon to see if he is there. He didn't come to church which is sad, but maybe he will show up some Sunday.

I am really loving this area and Elder Hurley and I am excited to see what good I can do here. Thank you all for everything! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Townsend

The girls at Cochrane Home Treasures

Me, Elder Crowe, Elder McFarland and Elder Hurley

Our room... I haven't unpacked yet because we are moving

ps. So... I forgot to tell you all that when I got to the area Elder Hurley told me that the member we are living with is really frustrated with missionaries in his house and wants us gone... so we spent a lot of the week looking for a new place to live. We went to a lot of members but President Archibald wants us out of there as soon as possible and we couldn't find a member that could house us that soon so we are going to be moving into an appartment this week sometime. I don't know if that will be a good thing or not. I think it will be nice, but I have really enjoyed being with members so far on my mission. But it could be a nice change. I always feel like we are getting in the way of the members we are living with. So that will be something fun to tell you guys about next week!

love you all!

October 19, 2010

2010-10-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone! How is it going? So transfers are this week. I am getting transferred down to the SE Calgary again in the South stake to Queensland and Parkland wards. I am going to be a senior companion to a guy named Elder Hurley. I don't really know anything about him but I am excited to get down there and see what I can do in that area. I really am sad to leave Cochrane but I guess it is what the Lord wants and I am looking forward to seeing the good that I can do there with the members and the investigators. I am a little nervous to be a senior companion but I am looking forward to it. It is going to be a great experience for me and will help me focus on being a great missionary and doing the best I can at planning and staying busy. I am truly sad to leave though. I hate that as soon as I start seeing some success in an area that I get transferred out of here. I was just barely starting to like it here. I came in and it was going really slow and I was working hard to get this area started again and then as soon as it starts to pick up I leave. And it's not just me. They are purging our area. Me and Elder Grace are leaving. He's going to Fort Macleod. And Cochrane is getting a trainer and a new guy. It is really sad but I guess it is what the Lord wants for all of us. It will be for the best and I am looking forward to seeing what happens.

This week wasn't too exciting though. We just had a lot of service that we did and lessons with members. We weren't able to have a lesson with any of our investigators. But we did go on exchanges with the zone leaders and me and Elder Clarke stayed in our area. That was fun. Not really. We spent most of the day at the library because he had to do a bunch of zone leader paperwork and then we went and had dinner and then we had a lesson with some friends of members in our ward. Their friends have been coming to church for two weeks and we asked if they wanted to learn more and they said sure we have a lot of questions you can answer. And they did. It was weird. He started out with questions like why don't we pray to Heavenly Mother and why Jesus is always pictured as a white guy with brown hair. And then the member friend showed up. He was late and then they just started talking about random stuff. We as missionaries didn't even get a word in once he came. Then when it was time to leave we barely even got a chance to have a prayer before we left. The new missionaries are going to have a lesson with them on Wednesday though. I wish them the best of luck.

That was pretty much it for my week though. Not too exciting. We have been able to spend a lot of time with Tina and answering some more of her questions. She really is amazing. She is sincerely interested and I can't believe how awesome she is. She is going to be really sad when we go tell her that we are leaving, but I am sure the next missionaries will be able to do a great job with her as well. I am really sad to leave. I truly am. I love it here. But it's what God wants not what I want. So I'll let you all know next week how things go. No pictures again this week... sorry... I love you all! Thanks for everything!

love
Elder Townsend

October 11, 2010

2010-10-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! And no I'm not just saying that in advance. In Canada this is their thanksgiving. Weird I know. But it's pretty sweet. It means I get two this year. And we even had a turkey bowl this morning. It was fun. I didn't think I would get one. But I did! Whoo hoo! It was cold and wet though. And there were little rocks in the grass. It wasn't very safe. haha.

This week was pretty fun though. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures though. Sad day. But we were able to do a lot of service. Even Pday we didn't have anything to do so we went and helped Tina at Home Treasures. That was fun. Then Tuesday we had district meetings and then stake president Miller had the missionaries in the zone over for lunch and then talked about how we need to be more unified with our wards. So that took pretty much all day. That was weird. Then Wednesday we had interviews with President Archibald. He told us that we need to start having better back up plans and it's true. I'm pretty bad at those. But I am working on it. I guess I just get lazy because most of our first plans won't ever fall through. haha. It was good though. I like interviews with president. They are nice and we only get them every other transfer now. Isn't that sad? I thought so.

Then on Friday we had dinner with the Reilly's and their son Nick who we have been teaching was there and so we had a lesson with them afterwards and it went really well. His parents kind of took over the lesson but it did go well, but he isn't ready for baptism so he won't be getting baptized this weekend sadly but he will eventually.

Then on Sunday we went to church and afterwards Tina called us and asked if we would come answer some of her questions about the Book of Mormon. That's right she has been reading! A lot actually! It's awesome! So we went and talked to her and her daughter Megan for a while. That was sweet! They seem to be understanding a lot more than before. They are pretty caught up on coffee though. Well, Megan has a lot more problems but Tina can't get over that. But that isn't too hard to overcome though. And we are even going over to her house for thanksgiving dinner today so I am excited! It means this letter is pretty short though because dinner is pretty soon. So hopefully we can continue to talk to her about things today. And the rest of her family will be there too! Sweet!

Well, that's pretty much it for my week. I'll talk to you guys next week and let you know if I am leaving Cochrane or not. I really hope not. I don't like transfers. I like it here a lot. I really do. Thanks for everything guys! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Townsend

October 4, 2010

2010-10-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody. How are things going with you guys? Things are going pretty well up here in Canada. It's definitely becoming winter again. I've already scraped ice off my windshield a couple of times. The leaves are all yellow and orange and covering everything. It's starting to get dark before I fall asleep again. haha. It's pretty weird. We had a really bad summer and they say this winter should be pretty mild too. So I guess that not too bad.

So this week was pretty good. Not too much exciting happened. Last Monday we went to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. That was pretty fun. We went and met the Banff missionaries in Canmore and then drove together there. It was pretty sweet. Those lakes really are beautiful. I love Canada. And the best part is that you don't really have to hike to them. The parking lot is pretty much right there! haha. It was absolutely beautiful though. I loved it.

Then Tuesday we had district meeting. Those are three hours long now though. The district leader is teaching us everything he learned in the meetings last week. So they are kind of long. But they are good. Then we went and helped a member and his neighbor lay sod in their yards. That was fun. And of course it decided to start pouring on us right before we started and stop right when we finished. So we were soaked and covered in mud. It was actually a lot of fun though. I really enjoyed it. Also on Monday I hit my 11 month mark... weird. Time flies when you're having fun I guess. haha.

Then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we did a lot of service during the days and teaching at night. So that's good. I really like it here. The service opportunities are awesome and I really do have a lot of fun doing it. We even get a lot of opportunities to talk about the church to people. In fact this week we even gave Tina, the manager at the thrift store, a Book of Mormon. That was pretty sweet. She even said she might read it. And she found me on Facebook and is probably going to be reading this so everyone should tell her she should read it. Ready? one... two... three! TINA YOU SHOULD READ IT!... welp. There ya go Tina. they said it. haha, Tina is really fun though. I really enjoy working with her and the rest of the people at Home Treasures. So thanks to all of them!

Then came conference. That was awesome. I absolutely loved it. It was ten hours long but it was a great ten hours. I loved Elder Holland's talk Saturday morning. It was a great way to start off the conference. He really made me think of how much I really do appreciate all of my family and love them so much. So thank you guys. You really are awesome. It actually made me really sad when I heard him talk because I really wanted to go home and be with you guys and be able to just give you a hug. But then it made me also want to work hard so when I do get the chance to hug you guys again I will know I did everything I could to have a great mission. I love you all so much! I really do! I cant say it enough! The rest of conference was pretty good too. A lot about making the right choices in life. It was a good conference. It was weird though because here in Cochrane they had it in the church building since the stake center is so far away, but most people must have just watched it on the computer because it was really just me, Elder Grace, and like four other people there the whole time. So we had the whole building to ourselves. Which was a good thing though. I enjoyed the solitude a little bit. After I left the Sunday afternoon session though I thought about how I only had two more conferences on my mission... weird. But I'm going to make the next year the best year of my life!

Thanks for everything! You all are amazing! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Moraine Lake. Look how beautiful that lake is. Again though... the sun was in the wrong place for good pictures... Thats Elder Grace's fault this time.

Glacier that feeds Lake LouiseThis is Elder Hepworth... and his favorite sign. haha

September 27, 2010

2010-10-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? This week was awesome for me! A lot happened so I'll try to get everything in without making this email too long haha. so Monday kind of sucked. we didn't have anything to do for Pday so we went to the church and I played with some Lincoln logs I found in the nursery and then took a nap... not the best Pday ever. haha.

But the rest of the week was exciting. Elder Grace had a bunch of meetings that he had to go to in Calgary and so did the senior companion from Banff so me and Elder Mercado were on exchanges pretty much all week. Tuesday through Friday until dinner. It was awesome! I love that guy! He is amazing! We had a lot of fun together. We were able to do a lot of service. Which is awesome. I love he service here. And the people there seem to love us a lot! Especially at the thrift store. There are a bunch of ladies there that are awesome! I love them! They are hilarious and make going there a lot of fun. And the manager there is named Tina. She is awesome. The last time we went there she bought us a whole box of peaches. She heard me say I liked peaches and then she went to the farmers market and bought us some. Isn't that awesome? I thought so. We work with Compassion Africa as well with Jon and Tim and Wanda. They are hilarious. Tim and Wanda are great. I've never seen two grown people act like them. It makes it really fun to go there when we do though. They are amazing. They are moving down to SE Calgary in Oct though. So we don't get to work with them for much longer. That's pretty sad. We have the food bank as well. Elder Mercado loves going there because we get free food. He loves food. As any good Philippine does. haha. It really was a great week though. We were able to teach the 8 year old out in Morley again. That was awesome. She seems to be doing amazing and it's great for her mom to hear this all as well. And we were able to teach Nick Reilly again. He is going awesome! He has a baptismal date for October 16th!!! I was so excited! He was a little hesitant about it and we did kind of push it on him. But at least he has that as a goal he can work towards. When it comes to that date either he will be baptized or his true concerns will come out. Either one will be good. haha.

Oh, then Saturday we had the Cochrane food drive. That was awesome! We went around and collected food all morning. And if people didn't have food on their porch then we knocked on the door and asked if they had any. It was awesome. I felt like I was tracting but it was weird because there were a lot of people that were actually excited to see us. haha. But we couldn't talk about the church at all because the food drive people didn't want us too. But our church hosted it so all the food that was collected went to our church and got sorted and boxed. That was awesome. It was a great opportunity for people to get into our church. There were even pastors and stuff from the other churches here that asked if they could go into the chapel and they were very surprised that it looked so normal and were very grateful they had the chance to see it. So that was sweet. The community is starting to think that we are a little more normal I think. haha.

But the most exciting part about this week. Besides the baptismal date was that I went to BC!!!!! That's right! Beautiful British Columbia! haha Wednesday when me and Elder Mercado were on exchanges a member from his branch asked if they could take us there to meet all the less actives there.... OF COURSE! haha. So we went to Lake Louise and saw the people there. That was beautiful! Then we drove on over to a little town of Fields BC. I was so excited! It was awesome and beautiful! No wonder they call it beautiful British Columbia. Although Lake Louise was still in Alberta... but still. I love it here in Canada. It really is a beautiful country.

That's pretty much it for my week though. Not bad, eh? I was pretty excited! And we are going to Moraine Lake today for Pday. I am excited!

Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love
Elder Townsend

Lake Louise! Beautiful, eh? haha

BC!!!!!!!!Canadian Rockies

Elder Mercado. haha

Dad wanted a picture of the sisters in the district. This is Sister Riley and Sister Ireland. Sister Riley got transferred though. Now we have Sister Hill. But no picture of her, sorry.

2010-10-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hi Kim.

I am sitting here talking to your son and he is raving about your COWBOY SALSA.

He tells me you MAY give me the recipe if I ask.

So I am asking.

Would you mind sending it to me?

I will try to make it like yours so he will feel at home.

Thanks………Bonnie

PS…. We are really enjoying having your son in our home. Devin is very friendly and very willing to serve in this mission. We often just end up talking for long periods of time on any matter that may come up. We love him, he is a wonderful young man.

September 20, 2010

2010-09-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. How is it going? My week was pretty good. I spent most of it still trying to get over this food poisoning that I had. At least I think it was food poisoning. But I feel a lot better now. It seemed like I was always feeling better as long as I never ate anything. So I always felt pretty good in the morning and afternoon, but then as usual we would have a dinner appointment... I've never not looked forward to one of those... but that never settled well with me after I ate. So most nights weren't too good for me this week. haha. But I think I'm over it now. The last day or two I've been eating pretty regularly and digesting at a normal speed. So that's good. haha.

Other then that not too much happened this week. We went in for Pday last week. So we were able to play some basketball and volleyball. That was fun. It means that we have absolutely nothing to do today though... we might play Risk... or go to the thrift store. haha. Then, Tuesday morning we got a call from Elder Zaugg saying that we needed to go change our oil in our car and he told us a guy that we needed to go to. It was way on the NE side of Calgary though. It took us an hour and a half to drive there. It was ridiculous. And it was kind of sketchy when we got there. We pulled up to this building. A little Chinese guy came out and asked for our keys and said he'd be back in half an hour and just drove off and left us in the middle of Calgary's "ghetto" area. haha. It was pretty sweet. Our car did come back though. So that was good. But that took up pretty much the rest of our day as well because we got lost... it gave us a pretty good tour of downtown Calgary though. haha.

Then Wednesday we had a special training from the assistants. President was supposed to be there too... but he wasn't for some reason. They talked all about how we make and keep covenants all of our life and then as a zone we covenanted to be 100% obedient in everything. Which we already did in March with our Miraculous March... so I don't really know what it was for... it was a pretty good training though. I liked it. And it gave me another chance to see the missionaries in the zone and then go to lunch with them afterwards. I haven't done that in a long time. Darn Cochrane and being so far away from people all the time! haha. Then we came back here and the Elords came and picked us up to go do some service with them. That was fun. I really like that family. They took us forever away and then we got to these old trailers that the church used for their nativity pageant and we took out all the electrical in them because they were getting new ones... which was good... those things looked like you would find better ones in a junk yard. It was a lot of fun though. Then that night we went to Mutual and taught all the young women how to be good missionaries and stuff and taught a lesson on the plan of salvation as well. That was pretty fun. I really like getting to know the youth in the wards. It makes me feel like I'm back home. It's a nice break from being around all the old people in the ward all the time. haha.

Then Thursday we did a lot of service and then for the evening we headed out to Morley. That was pretty sweet. We went to the House family. We are trying to get Brandon to be a priest so he can start baptizing people, but when we got there he was the only one there and he said his mom would be home soon so we could come in. So we went in and he went downstairs and went to sleep... so we just kind of sat there for like 45 mins talking to Bro Allison who took us out there. Then his mom finally showed up and we started talking to her and we talked about how she wishes that her family was more motivated when it came to church and she wishes that her husband was more supportive in it. And then her kids all came in and we taught a really good lesson. I was actually impressed that the kids all just came in on their own. That was sweet. Then we started to talk about the grandma who wasn't feeling to well and so the mom called her and asked if she wanted us to come give her a blessing and she did. So we were going to head there but then I asked Lana, the mom, if she wanted a blessing of comfort while we were there and she did. And then we went and gave her mom a blessing as well. It was pretty sweet. I really was thankful that we were able to go out there. Especially after the first 45 mins we were there when it looked like we had struck out for the night. But it was sweet in the end.

Then Friday we had a mission tour. We had Elder Zivic of the 70's come. That was pretty good. He was kind of hard to understand but it was good. He said it was his first talk in a mission that wasn't in Spanish. haha. He was really funny and we learned a lot from him. It was also a great chance to see the other missionaries from the mission. Well, at least the ones in Calgary. I saw Elder Byington my trainer and Elder Gelwix my old district leader and a lot more. That was sweet. It weird to think my trainer is going home in a couple of months though. And it's even more weird to think that I only have a month and like ten days until I hit my year mark... time flies when you are having fun I guess. But it's making me want to keep working hard so that I can make the best of the time that I have left. So I'm looking forward to it. I love it out here and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything!

Thanks for everything! You guys are the best! I love and miss you all so much!

Love,
Elder Townsend

We went to the Flemming's for dinner this week and they live out in the middle of nowhere. And on the way there we saw a black bear... it started running away before I could get a good picture of it though. But it was right next to us on the road for a while. And then on the way back we saw a bunch of deer. There were six or seven of them... I couldn't seem to get a good picture of them though. It was getting pretty dark by that time.
We also did some service at the thrift store and we have a group of Hutterites that come in every Saturday and give the manager there, Tina, some leftovers from the farmer's market they have in Cochrane. And this time she gave her a pie and then she gave it to us. It was delicious. A homemade Saskatoon berry pie. Not bad at all. :)

September 13, 2010

2010-09-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? Well my week was pretty short. With transfers being this week. But it seemed like it went on for forever. Not much really happened though. Last Pday we didn't have anything to do so we just went and did some service with Jon at Compassion Africa. We finally started packing a shipping crate. We got that full and it should be on its way to Kenya sometime this week. So that's pretty sweet. And we even got to talk to someone that was over in Africa. I don't remember her name... but she wanted to talk to me and Elder Grace and tell us how happy we were making the people in Kenya and how grateful she was for everything that we are doing. It was actually really sweet. It made me feel good for the rest of the day. haha.

Then the next day we went out to Morley and taught some of the natives there. That went really well. We were able to stop by a lot of them and teach them. including this young man named Brandon. He is a member but pretty less active. But we are trying to get him excited to become a priest so that he can baptize his cousin and the rest of his family when they decide to join as well. He says he wouldn't mind it but he hasn't made any steps towards coming back. It's hard for them to make decisions and keep commitments. It's just part of their heritage to not to. He even told us that he doesn't ever really make decissions for himself. He would just do what his mom or grandma would tell him to do without asking any questions and that's just the way they are. So it will be kind of hard out there. But I hope we can touch them in some way while I am here. Maybe get a branch out in Morley again. That would be sweet.

Then Thursday we went to Cochrane Home Treasures, the thrift store, and helped there. They had a big sale because they had way too much stuff in there. So whatever you could fit in a bag was only $5... so I'm going to be sending a box of stuff home soon. I was really good at stuffing things into that bag. haha. It was pretty sweet. Hopefully it makes it home... I don't really trust things going through the border... but I'm going to have to. haha.

Then the really exciting part of the week happened. Friday morning I woke up and did not feel good at all. So I went into the bathroom and destroyed it! It was bad. Turns out I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning... I'm pretty sure I ate a microwave bowl of chunky soup that was expired... not a good idea. I was out of commission from Friday to pretty much last night. The good news though, I lost all the weight that I've gained on my mission so far. haha. We did go to the corn bust on Friday though. That was fun. For those of you who don't know what a corn bust is, because I didn't til I got to Canada, it's where everyone gets together and all you eat is corn. Lots and lots of corn. There is a place in southern Alberta, Taber to be exact, that apparently has the best corn in the world and grows a lot of it. So every year around this time everyone is eating corn... except this year... apparently it was too cold and wet for much to grow... so I'm missing out on that experience. We did have some corn there but it was also made into a chili cook off. It didn't really matter to me anyway because I wasn't in any condition to eat food to begin with. That was pretty much my week though... not too exciting... actually pretty crappy... literally... but hopefully your week was better then mine! haha. Thanks for everything guys! I'll let you know about this upcoming week next time which hopefully is a little more exciting! I love you all! Thank you!

Love
Elder Townsend

"The Three Sisters" a mountain(s?) in Canmore. This one is for MY three sisters. haha

This one is for Dad. Because he is the "chief" of our family
And this is my three brother in laws because... well... they're weird. haha

September 7, 2010

2010-09-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! How is it going? We had an awesome week here in Cochrane! Last Pday we went with our district, me and Grace, Elders Hepworth and Mercado, and Sisters Riley and Ireland, to Johnston's Canyon in Banff. That was awesome! We had a lot of fun! It was a pretty easy hike! It was paved paths the whole way and it was beautiful out there. I love Canada. It really is a beautiful country. I love my district! We have had a lot of fun together! We are losing Sister Riley but the rest of us are staying. So that will be fun. It was a good Pday. I really enjoyed it.

Then on Tuesday we went out to Morley again. I love it out there. It is amazing! I love the natives! They are such nice and awesome people. And when we go out there we are able to see a lot of them. Which is good. We had some really good lessons out there. Including the House family which is one of the only two families that are semi-active.

Then Wednesday we were invited to go play fugitive with the youth. That was awesome. They dropped the youth at Cochrane Golf Course and they had to make it back to Cochrane Ranche without being caught by us and the leaders who were in cars. It was a lot of fun and it was a good opportunity to continue to get to know the youth and their families. We only lost one boy, haha. We started at seven and we all pretty much made it back to the Ranche by 8 or 830. But we figured out one of the boys was still out there somewhere. So we sent everyone out looking for him. We thought he died. Turns out he just took a really long way around and just walked into the Ranche around 10. haha. Well... I guess he did win. Good for him. haha. There were only about four out of the forty kids that actually made it back without getting caught. yea. That's how awesome we are! haha.

Then Thursday was fun. We went on exchanges with the Elders in Banff. So me and Elder Mercado came here. It was awesome. We did a lot of service but we had a lot of fun together! I love Elder Mercado! He is from the northern part of the Philippines and is amazing! He was baptized four years ago. Became a counselor in the bishopric, a Young Men's leader and a ward missionary. Before he came out on a mission he baptized five families into his branch. When I asked him what he did for fun back home he said missionary work in his branch. haha. He is awesome and he is hilarious! Everything he says is funny. Even when he doesn't mean for it to be. He is still working on his English so every now and then it sounds like he swears at you or something but he just gets words mixed up or doesn't know how to pronounce things. It's actually really funny. He really wants to eat a dog. Every time he sees one he says how good it would taste. haha. I love him. We had a lot of fun together. But it meant we had to drive him back to Banff as well... so we used 355 clicks that day... we only get 1700 for the month! haha. But it was well worth it and we had to do it anyway... the district leader has to go on exchanges. haha.

Then Saturday was awesome! We went to a powwow out in Morley! It was awesome! It was really loud... but a lot of fun. They were dancing and singing and beating drums. It was sweet. I wanted to buy a CD of the music but it cost way too much and I was going to buy some authentic, hand made native moccasins. But turns out they cost $90... yea.... I'm not spending that much on a couple of pieces of leather... I think it was because I was white... They like to take advantage of us "rich white people" haha. It was a lot of fun though. If you guys ever get a chance to go to a powwow I would highly recommend it. Then after the powwow we had a lesson with Nick Reilly. It was our second lesson with him and it went really well. It was at our ward mission leaders house again and he was an awesome help with it too. I think he is really interested and I think it's going great. We even got him to say a prayer at the end of it. Then we had dinner with his parents. His dad was baptized 11 years ago and his mom was just baptized a couple months ago. We were talking about the lesson and they were really happy it was going so well. We even told Bro Reilly that Nick said the prayer at the end and he told us that he knew how to pray because he had heard his father do it so many times. This made his dad so happy that it brought tears to his eyes and he told us that he had never heard his son pray before. That was an awesome experience. So for all of you parents that don't think your kids are listening or paying attention to you. They are. To everything you do. So keep being an awesome example. It will benefit them and you so much!

Then Sunday was church and lessons. Nothing too special. Then Monday came around... that day sucked... it was Labor Day so everything was closed, including all the places we could do service at. And nobody was home to talk to or didn't want to talk to us on their day off... so we were able to go to the Cochrane parade in the morning. That was awesome! It was a sweet parade! Especially the Shriners and their little midget cars. I love those guys. I was even able to see Canadian Mounties all dressed up! They weren't on horses though... sad... but it was a lot of fun. We were even able to talk to some members there. But after that nothing.... we didn't even have a dinner... it was really a sad day.....

Come to think of it I should have left off on Saturday... but oh well. haha. Well that's it for me today... I'm still in Cochrane and still with Elder Grace. So I'm looking forward to see what happens here this transfer. Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

Love
Elder Townsend

Banff!

The elders in the district!

The powow. Yes. Everyone out there is dancing. They just dance and walk around for hours on end. Its sweet!

I love their costumes. They are sweet!

MOUNTIES!!!!!!

August 30, 2010

2010-09-01T06:59:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! This week was pretty good for me. I hope it went well for you guys! Last Monday we went in for Pday. It was the only time this transfer that we could do that. So it was fun. I got to play basketball and volleyball for the first time this transfer. It was great! It was made even better by the mail that I got! I continued to get even more birthday mail! It was awesome! So thank you to everyone again! It was awesome! I love you guys!

Then Tuesday we had zone conference. That was pretty good. We learned a lot on how to ask good questions and make our members and investigators learn by faith through their own words and answers. It's pretty sweet. Really hard though. I suck at asking good questions, but I'm working on it and I am getting better. So that's good. Oh and the church came out with eight new lessons for the missionaries. Not ones that we teach but ones that are taught to us. They are all about how we can teach the lessons to investigators more effectively. So we are going to be being taught these lessons in zone conferences and special trainings that we have. So that will be fun. President says we already know a lot of the stuff in the lessons, but that we will still be able to learn a lot from them. So I am excited to get trained on them and learn how to teach better!

Then Wednesday we helped this non member move in. That was sweet. Iit was a friend of a member and we got a couple of the young men to come help as well. It went really well and they really appreciated the work and we were even able to talk about the church a little bit. They weren't too eager to learn more, but their friends are still going to work on them. Then we had a lesson at our ward mission leaders house. He had invited the non member son of one of the families in our ward to take the lessons. So we went and taught him. It went pretty well. He said that he would read and pray so hopefully he will. And he told Jason, our ward mission leader, that he wanted to take the other lessons as well. So that's awesome. He is YSA age though so we might have to hand him over to the zone leaders... darn zone leaders taking all of my investigators! haha

Thursday we did a lot of service. At the food bank and the thrift store and then that night we had a lady call us and say that her son needed a blessing so we went over there. It was pretty sweet. The dad and other son were camping and the younger son had a bunch of dental work done and was asking for a blessing, which I thought was sweet because he was like 6 years old. So we went over and gave him a blessing and he was really excited to have it. It was awesome. And the mom, Sis McKinnon was really grateful that we could come over and do that for them. It was sweet. I love giving blessings!

Then Friday we had training all day. Me and Elder Grace trained the rest of our district on the how to ask good questions. Just like we learned from the zone leaders last week. Then we all had district lunch at a Chinese buffet. Then we went back and had a training by the assistants and president Archibald. It was really good and I learned a lot. But it seemed like this week we were sitting and getting a lot of training. From that and zone conference. So it was good but I was definitely sick of sitting around this week! haha

Then Saturday we spent the whole day filling the font and going to the baptism of an eight year old native from Morley. That was sweet. We were able to meet a lot of the people from Morley and we even set up some appointments to go teach them this week. So that will be fun. Then we all went to the Scholl's house for some food afterwards and it gave us a chance to continue to get to know some of the natives which was good.

So all in all this was a pretty good week for me. And we are going to go hiking out in Banff today so that will be sweet. I am really excited for that! Thank you all again for everything! I love you guys and miss you!

Love
Elder Townsend

This ones for you Mom! haha. A member gave us this at church on Sunday
cows

August 23, 2010

2010-08-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? My week was pretty good. It seemed like it went on for forever! Monday was fun. We went and met the zone in Tuscany for Pday. Only about half the zone showed up though. But at first it was just us, the zone leaders and the sisters and we went and saw this old abandoned house that the sisters said was really cool. It wasn't all that exciting. It was just a house that the garage burned down and was left there. It smelled horrible inside. I think animals lived in there and there were remnants of late night teenager parties there as well. So that was kind of exciting... not really though. haha. Then we went back and found the rest of the Elders in the field so we played football and soccer and ultimate Frisbee and then we all went and got slurpees. So it wasn't a bad day. It was better then doing nothing out here in Cochrane which is what we were planning on doing. haha. I got mail for the first time in three weeks! It was awesome! I got four packages and six letters! It was sweet! So thank you to my parents and the Farr's and Nana and Don for the birthday packages! They were awesome! I can't remember who the letters were from right now.... but thank you guys too! It made my day! haha

Then Tuesday we had district meeting. That was fun. But even before that we had a family that wanted us to teach someone. The Leavitt's had a girl named Carlie over. We went there at like 7 in the morning and had breakfast and then we taught her the first lesson after that. I think it went really well. She said that we answered a lot of the questions that she had about our church and she was really interested in what she learned and she wanted to learn more. But she is a really busy girl. She is only seventeen but has two full time jobs and is a barrel racer in the rodeo. She graduated from high school in four months and has been working ever since. The Leavitt's have been trying to set up that appointment with her for five weeks. So she wanted to meet with us again but we don't know when that will be. The Leavitt's are amazing people though. They just got back from a mission so they are still in that missionary mode and when Carlie came to their house trying to sell them a water filtration system, they just did what missionaries do and we ended up teaching her. haha. I love members like that!

Then Wednesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Bradley to their area. That was awesome! I absolutely love Elder Bradley! He is hilarious! We had so much fun together! Why can't I get companions like him? haha. But at the end of the day we stopped by this family, the Elfords. Who are actually in my ward but have a YSA daughter in the zone leaders ward. But they just had a helicopter in their front yard... it was sweet! So obviously we had to take pictures with it. haha.

Then Friday and Saturday we spent the whole day with members out in Morley. That was sweet. We just stopped by as many members as we could and tried to get to know them and leave a Spiritual message with them. It was awesome. I love the natives! They are amazing people! The land that they are on in Morley is absolutely beautiful. I love it out there! Most of the members out there are less active though. They don't like waking up early enough to get out to church and they don't like making commitments. It's just part of their culture.

We are also helping the members we live with, the Comstock's, redo their walkway in their front yard. Just whenever we find a spare hour or whatever. It's pretty fun. We took up a bunch of bricks and redid the border for them and then got a lot of sand to put under the bricks. I might have had too much fun with that sand though. haha. I couldn't help it! And there were two of the Comstock's grandkids there so we were all playing in the sand. It was fun. haha.

That's pretty much it for my week though. We also had a lot of member lessons. I think we are gaining more member trust which is good. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens this next week though. Thanks for everything guys! I miss you and love you all!

Love
Elder Townsend

Me and my sand bird, haha

Happy Birthday to Me!

Me in the Hopticopter

That is Elder Bradley

August 16, 2010

2010-08-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! How is it going? This week was pretty good. Not too much that really stands out as exciting. Monday we had Pday but we couldn't go in to the stake center to be with the rest of the zone because we live too far away... I don't like that rule. But we called a bunch of the young men and they came out and played basketball with us at the Cochrane chapel so that was pretty fun. It was a sweet way to get to know the youth in the ward. There are some awesome ones here. And they are all really tall and good at basketball... and I'm not either of those so that was sad. haha. But today the zone is all going to go to Tuscany and play fugitive in some ravine, so we actually get to go in this time since Tuscany is in our district! Yea! And the best news is that I finally get mail!!!! I haven't had mail all transfer because we are so far away that we never see the zone leaders. That also means that I get my birthday package today! Woohoo! Yes, it was my birthday on Friday and yes that means that it was Friday the thirteenth.... sad. (mom I wasn't born on a Friday was I?) It was a pretty average day though. Not too different from any other day. We went and did some service at Compassion Africa and I got some free clothes from there. Then we went to the thrift store and I found a coca cola sign that was awesome and Tina gave me that for free. So that was sweet. I considered those my birthday presents since I didn't get my package that day. haha. Then we had dinner with this really nice older couple. They fed us really good taco salad with all fresh grown vegetables, even the corn. It was awesome! And then they even made a cake for me. I wasn't going to tell anyone it was my birthday, but apparently Elder Grace put it on the dinner calendar so they knew... haha. It was fun though. For a birthday on a mission in Canada I didn't really expect much else. Oh and in the morning I got the call from all the senior couples in the mission office and they sang Happy Birthday to me. That was pretty sweet and a bit of a surprise because I had actually forgotten it was my birthday until that happened. haha.

We still have a lot of service that we are doing though. Which is really fun. I wish we could teach more of the members though. But this ward is kind of interesting. Nobody really seems to want to meet with us. If we ask they say they will call us and never do or they will talk to us later at church and then seem to avoid us. But I think slowly we are building member trust. We got more lessons this week then we did last week. And we are getting more people to sign up for dinner. And even on Sunday the Leavitt's came up to us and told us they had someone for us to teach and so we are going over there tomorrow. So that is going to be exciting. And the best part about that, I thought, was that the Leavitt's are the ones that got mad at us when we missed dinner the first day Elder Grace was here. So apparently they weren't too mad at us, eh?

But one of the best parts of the week was we had a lesson with a recent convert named Pat Hocaluk and we couldn't find priesthood to come with us so we were just going to stop by and see if we could talk to her on the porch for a bit. When we got there she said she really wasn't feeling good so we asked if she wanted a blessing. We had to go find priesthood though. Bishop lives a couple houses down from her so we went to go see if he was home but he wasn't. His wife called Bro Henry and got him to come. So we went and talked to her for a while and Bro Henry was awesome. He just kept talking about the plan of salvation and temple work and how her son that passed away when he was 22 was still alright and how we don't always know the Lord's plan. It was awesome. The Spirit was very strong. Then she asked me to give the blessing. I was really nervous. Even though last conference there was a talk about how we shouldn't ever be nervous when giving a blessing because it doesn't really matter what we say. The Lord is still going to bless them the same. But yet I was still nervous that I was going to kill the Spirit there or something but it turned out great. I don't really remember anything I said, but it was amazing. I loved it. It was definitely my favorite part of the week.

Well it has come to my attention that I haven't talked about the place I live yet. So we live with the Comstocks. They are funny people. Not home much though. But we live in their basement in a tiny place. We have our room and then a room that is our kitchen bathroom and laundry room all in one... it's awesome. haha. It isn't bad at all though. And it really doesn't matter what the place we live in is like. We aren't there much. And they let us go anywhere in their house so we aren't confined to those close quarters which is good. So that's pretty much that. I don't have much else to say. Thank you guys for everything! I love you!

Love

Elder Townsend

Birthday!

Cochrane scenery

Downtown Cochrane! Look how small and cute it is.... haha

The bedroomThe three-in-one-room. haha

Devin's Birthday

2010-08-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

we enjoyed having your son for his birthday

August 9, 2010

2010-08-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? So after such a busy week last week I had a pretty slow one this week with not very much going on. Cochrane is a tiny town and there isn't much to do here. The ward is amazing though. I love the people here. They are so nice to us which is awesome since they don't really know either of us at all. Elder Grace put that it was my birthday this Friday so someone signed up to feed us then... I was kind of hoping that the ward really wouldn't find out. I don't think I really like things being about me... but I guess it's a good thing. It got someone to sign up for the dinner calendar so we are going to get fed. So that's good. And the ward pretty much filled up the dinner calendar for the rest of the month which is awesome! We have had a lot of people come and tell us they might have people for us to teach. So that would be great because we don't really have that many people to teach at all. I think Elder Basinger and Elder Estes were too good of missionaries. They were the last missionaries here and they seemed to have baptized pretty much everyone that was interested in being baptized! Which is great for them and it means we have a lot of recent converts we can teach, but it left our investigator teaching pool pretty darn empty... but that is where the service we can do here comes in handy. I might have told you guys about them last week but we have the food bank, the thrift store, the library and Compassion Africa which collects clothes and sends them to Kenya. It's pretty sweet. I do love service and it's keeping us pretty busy for the days. But it would be nice to replace some of that time with teaching people. haha. That's pretty much all I really have to say about our week though. Not much really happened. Elder grace seems like a pretty cool guy. I haven't even been with him for a week yet though. And he is a little bit hard to understand. He went to speech therapy for twelve years of his life but he still has a pretty bad lisp. So me and members ask him to repeat himself a lot. I think he gets kind of frustrated with it at times. He is a good missionary though. He works hard and we still have fun together.

Anyway, so Cochrane is actually a pretty cool place. The downtown is pretty small but there are a ton of houses out here and they are pretty spread out. So it makes this area huge! We drive about 50 kilometers everyday and it doesn't even seem like we do very much every day. We also cover a native reserve, which is awesome. It's called Morley and it is the Stoney Indians. They are pretty sweet. The natives are so humble and willing to learn, it's pretty awesome to see. The only problem is that they aren't very committed. Pretty much all of the members there are less active. There used to be a branch out there, but nobody ever came so they combined it with our ward. We actually have a separate Sunday school class for the natives. It's pretty cool. They cover the basics and teach it really simply so that they can understand. It's pretty awesome. But there aren't many people there. Yesterday we had a Mom and her two sons and then some others from the ward in it. It is a really good idea though. I think the natives will learn a lot better in that environment. Especially because they aren't very outspoken and kind of shy around non natives so a class for themselves that goes at their pace is awesome. We haven't gone out to Morley much though which is sad. I really like it there, but its a 45 min drive to get there and "isn't safe" for us to go alone so we have to get a ride every time we go there. I've only been out there once so far. It was fun though.

And for how big this area is there isn't much fun things to do. Since we are too far from the stake center we can't go in for Pdays and play basketball or whatever with the rest of the missionaries so we are kind of stuck with not much to do... So we called a bunch of the youth last night and hopefully we can get some out to play with us at our chapel today. Last Pday was really fun though. That was when I was with the zone leaders and the Rockyview Elders said Bob, the guy we did service with when I was there, was taking them to Kaninaskis for a hike and he asked if I wanted to come. So I went with them. It was actually a lot of fun. We hiked along this river and then came to a big waterfall after a while. I really enjoyed it. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of hiking. But I hope that one of these Pdays we can get out to Banff. We have to find a member that will take us though... but I hear it's beautiful up there! anyway.... that's pretty much it this week! Thanks for everything!

Love
Elder Townsend

Hiking

Climbing up a rock... kind ofWaterfall

Epic"The view from the summit is worth the effort"

It said drinking water... so why not try it?!?!Where was this sign before?!....

August 4, 2010 - Sorry its late, I couldn't help it! haha

2010-08-04T21:37:00.001-07:00

What is up everyone? How have things been going? This has been the craziest week of my mission so far. So, Tuesday we found out transfers and me and Elder Gelwix were both leaving and a lot of other people in the zone were as well so most of them went to go pack and say goodbye to people. So nobody got together at all so me, Reese, Gelwix and Lake all went and hung out with Emma and Richard for the day. We played Uno and rugby. It was actually a lot of fun. Then me and Elder Reese went to go meet his greeny because he was training. That was fun. He got a guy named Elder Hansen. He's really tall and seems really fun. I really like him. But it was kind of sad because I couldn't go say goodbye to people that night. Which sucked. That has happened to me in all of my areas now. But luckily they tell us if we are training the week before so I said goodbye to people the whole weekend. I really loved that area. It was awesome. I really understand how missionaries can grow to love an area and people so quickly now. I was only there for four and a half months but I feel like everyone there was family. Which is probably why I left now that I think about it... haha.

Then Wednesday was transfers. We had to drive to the Mission Home/Willow Park chapel and be there at 830. We got stuck in traffic and didn't make it till about 9 though. But we met our new comps there and I got Elder Mott. He's awesome! I love that guy! Then I said goodbye to a bunch of people there especially the ones going home. This transfer going home was huge and I knew all of them pretty well. It's going to be weird to not have them in the mission now. It was kind of sad. But I was actually really excited because me and Elder Mott get along great. So we go to Cochrane and this place is awesome. It's a little town of 15,000 people or so, I think. It's pretty awesome it's in the middle of the country and the town is tiny. Just a couple streets for the downtown area. There are a lot of houses around it though. So we drove around for a while trying to get acquainted with the area and then we were told by the previous missionaries to go to a place called Twisted Basil. (oh, just in case you were wondering we were both new to the area and had no idea where anything was or what was going on. but the two missionaries before us left pretty good notes so that was good.) So we show up to this place called Twisted Basil. It's a little hole in the wall Mexican looking place that sells all fresh local organic foods. We were told they would give us free food but we had no idea how that worked so it was really awkward for a while. Luckily the Bishop's daughter was there and recognized us and told us how everything works. It's owned by members and we just put whatever food we want on the "elders account". It's pretty sweet. We go there every Wednesday for dinner. It's not the best food or very much food but its free. I can't complain. haha. Then we went back and unpacked for the rest of the night.

Then Thursday we went to the food bank. We were told we do service there but we didn't know where it was. So it took us a while to find this little warehouse in the back of the city. It was awesome though. We went and collected food from the stores in town and then we helped the ladies there sort it into boxes. It was actually a lot of fun and the ladies there are pretty funny. The best part was that when we left they said we could take whatever food we wanted. Which was awesome! Because it was the end of the month and we had no money left and with both of us being new to the area, we had absolutely no food. So that was awesome! Then we helped this one lady mow her lawn. We didn't know she wasn't a member though till the end. So that was kind of fun. But we got eaten alive by mosquitoes! It was ridiculous! I couldn't believe how many of them were there!

Thursday night the assistants called and wanted to talk to Elder Mott. They didn't sound too happy. Turns out they had found out that Eder Mott and his companion while they had been serving downtown had gone to the Stampede and went to a concert. Which we are not allowed to do... so they weren't too happy about that so they said he was going to have to have an interview with president. So that was kind of sad/crazy. It wasn't a very happy night. Then Friday we woke up and went and did some service at this place called Compassion Africa where they collect clothes and sporting equipment and ship it to Africa and then we had a couple of our investigators we stopped by and said hi to and introduced ourselves and then we had dinner with a family that we decided we would walk to and on our way there was this huge black as black cloud coming towards us and then a guy in a news van pulled over and told us to find shelter because there was a tornado warning for Cochrane. That freaking scared us so we booked it to our dinner and they were watching the news and Elder Mott was freaking out thinking he was going to die but turns out the storm went right by us. It was still sunny the whole time. Kind of anticlimactic if you ask me. haha. But we had a really good dinner with them and then we started back home. But then we got a call from the AP's again saying that Elder Mott was going to get special transferred down to Lethbridge and I was going to get a new companion. He was going to leave Sunday night and I'd get my new comp Tuesday and stay with the zone leaders till he came. That was really sad. I freaking love Elder Mott. He was awesome!

Saturday we did some service at the thrift store here called Cochrane Home Treasures. That was actually a lot of fun. We helped them move a lot of furniture around that they kept getting in throughout the day and we were testing all of the electronic things and making sure they all worked before we sold them. It was actually a lot of fun and the people there were awesome too! It's sweet though. There is so much service opportunity here. We are going to be doing a lot of service here I can tell. It's going to be a lot of fun. Then we had a member that came in and asked us if we had a dinner and then invited us over. That was awesome. We had a really good dinner there! Then we headed back to Rockyview to go see Heather Halstead get baptized! That was awesome! It went really well and the best part was seeing her dad give her a big hug after she was baptized. He was the non member who wasn't too excited that she was going to be baptized. So hopefully that softened his heart a little bit. It was a great day though. It was awesome to see that go through and I was able to see people from that ward again too. Most of them didn't now I had left though because I only left like three days earlier. So that was funny.

Sunday we went to church and that was awesome! This ward is amazing! We had like four people come up to us and tell us they wanted to have us over for dinner and they wanted to invite a friend for us to teach as well. It was pretty amazing! Elder Mott wasn't too excited though because he knew he was leaving in a couple of hours. Then we went home and packed up Elder Mott and took him to the Stake Center where we met the AP's and they went and took him to Lethbridge. That was really sad. I was only with him for four days but I loved him. He was awesome! Then I went with the zone leaders. I was not too excited about that. I was with them till Tuesday. They were actually pretty fun though. Elders Bradley and Clarke. We had a lot of fun together and we were able to have some pretty good lessons. Then Tuesday I was supposed to get Elder Grace, my new companion at four thirty, but the AP's said they wouldn't be there till 730 so we went to a couple more lessons. Then we went and picked him up. He seems like a pretty cool guy. Kind of quiet though. But I think things are going to go really well this transfer. We are getting along pretty well though considering we've only been together for 15 hours or so now... haha.

I was really mad at the AP's though. Turns out for some reason my phone didn't work when I was with the zone leaders and there was someone who had signed up for dinner on Tuesday and were expecting us there at around six. But we didn't get into town around 8.... so that didn't work out so well. When we got into town we had five voicemail's from them saying how they expected us to be there and they were inviting a less active family and then that they were coming to pick us up and then that that they were at our house waiting for us.... so that was sad. Then when we called them back to apologize they forgave us but I get the feeling that it will take a while for us to gain their trust back. So that sucks. Those darn AP's ruin everything!

That's pretty much my week though. It was absolutely crazy.... so much happened. Even more stuff then I even put into this email. It was insane! This is really long though so I'll end it. Thanks for everything guys! I'll let you know how things are going next week!

Love,
Elder Townsend

Saying goodbye to the Woodruffs

Welcome to Cochrane!Tornado warningGoodbye Elder Mott... :'(

July 27, 2010

2010-07-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Guess what? I'm getting transferred. How sad is that? I knew it was going to happen though. I really started to like this ward this last transfer and have started to see a lot of really good friends come from here and I've been able to see this place really progress and make a lot of progress since I've been here. So I figured since all of that has been happening it was really just time for me to leave. Sad, but true. But the good news is that I'm still in the west zone and I'm only going to be like a half an hour away from here. So I'll still be able to see missionaries and hopefully members from here every now and then. That's going to be sweet! So I'm going to an area named Cochrane. It is actually another city I think.... just a little one. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere and a little farm town. From what I hear at least. And we cover part of an Indian Reserve so that is going to be awesome! I'm going to go teach the natives! And the last people to be in that area, Elders Basinger and Estes, have seen a lot of success in that area so hopefully I can continue that out there! My new companion is Elder Mott. I don't really know much about him except that he is about a year out on his mission, and my zone leaders here say he is a pretty good guy. So I am excited to go over there and serve with him and see what good we can do together.

The rest of the week this week was a pretty good one too. We didn't do much on Pday except play basketball. It was actually really fun though because we told Richard that he should come and he did so that made things a lot of fun. I love that guy. He is hilarious! Then Tuesday we had district meetings and then we went with the Royal Oak missionaries, Gelwix and Lake, and taught Richard together. That was awesome! The lesson actually went really well and the four of us missionaries and Richard and Emma had a blast together. It's times like that that are really going to make me miss this area. I've had a lot of good memories and hopefully lifelong friends made here. Then after Richard we went and taught a bunch of members for the rest of the day.

Then Wednesday we went on exchanges so I went with Elder Lake into his area and had a blast. We planned our day and then went and taught Richard again. This time just me and Lake. And we couldn't take the car anywhere so we had Richard and Emma come to Royal Oak and then we taught them in the chapel in the building there. That lesson went really well too. And we had a lot of fun together then too. And afterward we spent a little bit of time throwing a football around and having Richard and Emma try to teach me how to throw a rugby ball.... I really suck at that game.... it's kind of sad. Then we went and had an awesome dinner with some members in their ward. They gave us delicious steaks and then ice cream cake. It was amazing. And they were a really funny family too. They had a bunch of kids and they were hilarious! And we taught them a lesson at the end of dinner and then went to someone else and taught them. It was a really fun day though. I really enjoy exchanges. It's kind of a break from your area and companion and just kind of a day to get yourself rejuvenated. haha

Then Thursday was a lot of fun too. We had weekly planning and then went and did some service for Sis Moraes and her daughter. They wanted to go get some dirt and then move it to the yard of their apartment to even in out. But we didn't have a truck so we just threw a tarp into their trunk and then threw all the dirt into the trunk. It was hilarious! The back of that car was very weighed down and it looked really funny as it was driving down the road. But we couldn't be in the car with them so we had to ride our bikes to the dirt pile and back twice. That sucked... it was a huge hill! I almost died! OK, not really, but it still wasn't fun! We had a lot of fun with that and then we talked to them for a while. They are a pretty fun family. I really enjoy being around them, and Sis Moraes is hilarious! She's from Brazil which for some reason just makes her even more fun to talk to. haha

Then the funniest thing happened Thursday night. We got a call from the AP's and they asked for me and then told me to put it on speaker and then asked if I knew what happened the Thursday before transfers and I said "training calls" and they were all, yep. So would you mind telling Elder Reese that he is training! And then I just burst out laughing! Because this whole transfer I told him he was training and then he just got mad at me. haha. But, indeed he is training and that meant that I was pretty darn sure that I was leaving the area. It is very rare that they make someone go into a new area to train. So I really just spent the rest of the week saying goodbye to people when I saw them. But that also meant that the next day on Friday we had to go to a trainers training meeting for Elder Reese. It went from twelve to five so it took up our whole day and we had to cancel on two investigators to go. And then we get there and it's all just about how the trainers need to act and what they need to do to be good trainers.... so what did I do? Just sat there with nothing to do because it was all directed at the trainers. They didn't even ask me questions or anything. So that was kind of a bummer. I basically didn't do anything on Friday. Tnd then we got back and Sam finally came back from his vacation and he wanted to take us to dinner so we went with him to Montana's and had some really good ribs. We talked to him for a while just about stuff. He said he would have us over on Monday night and we could have a lesson. But when Monday night came around he wasn't home. So I probably won't get to see him again ever. Maybe missionaries won't see him again ever. He is going back to Malaysia on Wed or Thurs to go see his mom who isn't doing to good health wise. And I don't think they have missionaries in Malaysia. So that was actually really sad for me. But I guess we planted a pretty good seed for him.

Saturday was awesome! Richard Pak got baptized! I was so excited that I was able to be here for it. It really was a great day. The baptism went really well. It was pretty funny though because the Allen's did pretty much everything for it. They gave the talks, conducted, baptized him, and confirmed him. Which makes sense since it was Emma Allen who pretty much brought him to this point and he got to know the Allen's really well. But it was kind of funny too see them all doing that and it was also pretty funny because he had to be baptized into the Royal Oak ward but the bishop and ward mission leader in that ward didn't even meet him until that day... so that was really weird and semi humorous. haha. The service was amazing though. Emma's brother and Dad gave really good talks and it was awesome to see Richard be baptized. There is always a special Spirit at baptisms and I really enjoy going to them. Then after the baptism we went over to the Allen's house for some snacks and stuff and then we went and played some rugby. Again they tired to teach me how but I must admit. I really do just suck at that game. It is really fun though. I wish I was better at it. But we had a lot of fun with that. Then we went and I said goodbye to a couple more families and gave quick messages.

Then Sunday we went to our ward and that was pretty sweet. I said goodbye to a couple more people there and it was actually sweet because the whole ward, pretty much, met together for the third hour and bishop just talked a lot about how we need to always be looking for those opportunities to serve in our communities and make our presence as a church more well known and hopefully that will help to bring more people into the gospel. It was awesome to see that and to see how much the ward's outlook on missionary work has changed in the four and a half months I was here. It was sweet. And I also got a lot of comments from people about how much they appreciated the work that I had done in the ward and how great of a missionary they thought I was and how grateful they were to have had me here for this time. It was cool to see that. It was fun to hear all of those things and how much people appreciate the work that I do. It's nice to know that the work I put into this area is appreciated. It was so much fun to hear that. And I guess its a good thing that I am leaving this area now. I'm leaving it on a high note. With two baptisms! well.... one and a half.... Richard doesn't really count for this area. bummer eh? But I am excited. I love this area and the people here but I'm sure I'll like my new area as well.

Then Monday was pretty sweet as well. We did some service with the Atwoods and an older couple in our ward. We mowed their grass and weeded and then we went down to a potential investigators house and did the same thing for him. His name is Alf and then he showed us his 1940 Ford and his 62 Thunderbird.. they were pretty sweet. Then he took us for a ride in the Thunderbird. It was awesome! He's a pretty fun guy. Then we had a lesson with Mitch and Savanna. That went really well. Mitch is doing really well on quitting smoking and says he feels like a new man. So that was sweet to see! He just seems happier and healthier. The Word of Wisdom really does help with health! Then we had dinner with the Moraes and Emma and Richard at Angel's drive-in. It was delicious and fun! The six of us all squished into a little booth and we just had a blast. It was a great way to remember this area. I love it here. The people are great. The area is great and I just love it. I'm going to have to come back and visit one day.

That was my eventful week. A lot happened and it was awesome! And if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry. People keep calling and asking where I am going so I get distracted a lot. haha. Oh also, we went and found the Silver Springs on Monday. We walked down this wooden path to a place where these springs are coming out of the rocks and that is why this area is called Silver Springs. It was awesome. I cant believe a place like that was so close to me for four months and I never knew about it. It was amazing. Well, I cant wait to let you guys know how my first week in Cochrane goes. I love you guys! Have fun! Be safe!

Love,
Elder Townsend

'40 Ford
'62 ThunderbirdWalking to the silver springs
The waterfallTrunk full of dirt... haha

Me and Richard!

Matching ties!!
Me, Richard and Emma

Savanna, Mitch and me

July 19, 2010

2010-07-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How is it going? Hope you guys had an exciting week. I did. Exciting and crazy. I'm so tired.... only ten more hours before I can go back to sleep. But that is still way too far away.... it's going to be a long day... haha It was a pretty good week though. Just a really sad one as well.

Monday it hailed like crazy! It was insane! I've never seen so much hail! It damaged a lot of cars. In fact all of the Mandarin missionaries were at the same chapel for Pday and all of their windshields got destroyed! It was crazy. So none of them had cars this week because they were in the shop. It was a good time for it though because it is half click month this month so we only get half of the kilometers we would normally get. Which doesn't really affect me too much. I'm just stuck walking all the time because one of the missionaries we are in a car share with got planter warts on his feet so he can't walk. So I've been walking and riding bikes all this month. Which really isn't that bad. Our area is pretty small compared to others.

Tuesday we had zone conference. That was pretty sweet. I got to see a lot of people from my first area. I saw my trainer Elder Byington and that was awesome! I miss that guy! I also saw Elder Crippen. He was one of my ZL'S in the south and he is officially one of my favorite missionaries I've met out here. I love that guy. It was a pretty sad conference though. They always have the missionaries that are new this transfer bear their testimony and then the ones that are leaving this transfer. And Elder Crippen and Basinger are both leaving this transfer. (Basinger was another ZL in the south and is in my zone here as well) this is a pretty big transfer that is leaving and I got to know a lot of them pretty well. Crazy. I'm gonna miss those guys! Also at the lunch break I talked to President Archibald about what he thought we should do with Richard Pak who has a baptismal date for this Saturday. We have been teaching him but he is YSA age and doesn't live in our area but asked of we could teach him because he has come to our ward for two months and knows us really well and the YSA Elders creep him out. Pres said we couldn't teach him but he could be taught by the missionaries in the family ward he is in so we had to give him to the Royal Oak Elders. Richard wasn't too happy about that but it isn't bad because we have just been going on splits with those Elders when they go teach him so it has worked out pretty well so far. But it does mean that he won't count as my baptism anymore. But in the end that doesn't really matter. What really matters is that he got baptized right?

Then Wednesday we were going to do exchanges and Reese was going to go with Gelwix to teach Richard and I was going to go with Lake and do.... something. But turns out Gelwix and Lake were on exchanges with the ZL's so I went with Elder Bradley one of my zone leaders. That was actually really fun. He is a funny guy and a really good missionary. I didn't really have anything planned for us to do though because I thought I was going to go to Royal Oak ward and do stuff there but at the last minute plans changed an we stayed in our area. So Bradley said we should go look through the area book and then pray about formers or potentials we should stop by so we did and then made a list and then before we left the apartment we prayed that some miracle would happen that day. Then we headed out. Not many people were home since it was four in the afternoon but we were able to find a former investigator home and we talked to him for a while and he said we were welcome to come back! How sweet was that? I was excited! I was so grateful for Elder Bradley and him teaching me a lot about missionary work while we were together. Turns out Fred, the former, when we went and talked to him the next day told us that he doesn't really like us but just wanted to be polite.... but hey, at least we know that now! haha

Thursday was pretty boring. Just a lot of lessons with members. Then Friday sucked! Everything fell through! It was crazy! And we got yelled at twice for being up in Greenwood Village when we were visiting members up there in the trailer park because the managers got mad at us because they thought we were proselyting up there. Which we weren't but they didn't believe us. So we might get kicked out the next time we go up there.... that could be interesting.

Then Saturday was sweet! We had a big Stampede breakfast as a ward at the church! It was awesome! It was all you can eat pancakes and sausage and there was line dancing and everything! It was outside and we had a lot of non members come that we were able to talk to for a while.... none that would want us coming by though.... but we had a lot of fun. This ward is hilarious!

I'm really starting to love this ward though! I really hope I don't have to leave on the 28th... but I probably will. I've been here 4 1/2 months now and it would be my luck that right as the ward starts to like and trust me and we are finding success in this area that I would get moved. I hope not though. As for the success. We do have Richard getting baptized this Saturday at one. That doesn't really count for our ward anymore though but I am going to go to it anyway. And we have Heather Halstead being baptized on the 31st at 6:30. That is going to be an awesome one! But as for the Somante family.... we haven't been able to see them in two weeks now... they haven't come to church. They don't have a phone so we can't call them. And every time we stop by their car isn't there, the lights are all off and the screen door is locked.... I think they got evicted since they couldn't pay their rent. So that is really sad. But at least we planted the seed, eh? So in the last week we have gone from six baptismal dates to one. Not a bad week... but I am still excited at the progress we have made in this ward and area. It's been sweet!

Thanks for everything guys! I love you all so much!

Love
Elder Townsend

PS. good luck on your MTC experience Eric! haha

Angels Drive In... DELICIOUS!
Ice cream!All you can eat pancakes!
mmmmm..... (Dad i miss your pancakes and syrup. haha)Bowness park
Ridin my bike.... haha
What the heck is a washroom?!?!Water bridge over the Bow River