April 1, 2013

Hello everyone!!

Haha, funny story of the missionaries. I don't know what it's like over there but in our mission it is kind of tough. There are some areas where the money you get each month is more than sufficient (like Sudbury) and others where you literally (I mean it when I say literally) starve. I got down to 170lb in Ossington at one point, the last week of that month we had $20 between the 2 of us. So thanks for thinking of the missionaries out there, it makes life a lot easier!

Glad to hear teaching went well mom, there is not much that is more rewarding than helping others learn, one of my favorite things to do as a missionary is show people how to read the hymn book when they first come to church, weird but true, I love it.

This week was pretty crazy. We drove down to Windsor to do an exchange. In the morning we were driving to district meeting when a brick fell out of a truck in front of us and landed on our windshield, it busted it pretty good. We were going 80km/h when this happened, I don't know how it didn't break straight through, but it's good it didn't because it would have hit me, and since I was driving we probably would've ended up crashing into something else. Just a little testimony that the Lord protects His servants.

Besides not dying there were some great miracles all around this week. The zone saw 3 baptisms for the second week in a row, with a few investigators randomly deciding they wanted to be baptized sooner than originally planned. That was cool because we ended up baptizing exactly our goal for the month, nice to see the Lord bless us with that. One of those baptized was a Chinese lady Elder D and I contacted. 

In our area, there are some amazing investigators coming out of nowhere. I think I mentioned Vythi last week, she is doing great, we taught her on Friday, the Spirit was super strong, she started crying in the lesson. At one point in the lesson my companion looks at her and invites her to be baptized, she says yes and so he says "will you prepare for the 21st of April?". Well her fellowshipper freaked out a bit and gave my companion the "what have you done! You’re scaring my friend!' response. But then the fellowshipper's husband speaks up and says, "Vythi, the 21st is more than enough time. The elders are inspired to tell people when they can be ready. You decide if you're ready for that day. In fact, you SHOULD be ready for that day. You deserve to be a member of this church." It was SO nice to have a member testify like that. That is the kind of attitude we all need to have, none of this "please be a member!" like they're doing us a favor, rather a loving but bold declaration that everyone may come, if they will.

We also started teaching a girl named Codi, who is interesting, she accepted the invitation to be baptized, and at the end of the lesson was telling us how she can feel other people's "energy". We walked by some people and she said "wow, I could feel a ball of fire coming out of that guy at you", she said she notices that people always have negative thoughts about missionaries. I'm not sure to what point I believe in her "energy-sensing" ability but it was interesting to know that we're not the only ones who think people stare at us a lot.

Another great guy we're teaching is Chang. He's one of the investigators we taught to pray last week. This week we sat down with him for an hour and taught him EVERYTHING. He now knows about the plan of salvation, the restoration, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and pretty much all the commandments. He'd hear something and then say "okay, what else?”. I was on exchanges so I wasn't there but Elder D said that he was really receptive and ready to live everything. We're excited to see him progress this coming week.

Last person and I'll stop talking. A recently returned missionary named Filly brought her brother, Joey, to church on Sunday, we taught the plan of salvation in Gospel Principles class and are going to teach him tonight. Huge miracle to see him at church. We have been seeing a lot of amazing people recently and I'm grateful to see God blessing the people here through us, and that despite our incompetency we still get to be a part of this. He is very patient and I know He lives!

Well, hope you all have a marvelous week. That package will be super useful, the sole just fell off my last pair of shoes so I have been using duct tape to hold the sole and shoe together, it looks pretty dumb. Thanks for all you are and do! Good luck with school, work, teaching, sports and everything else that's going on in the Wild West!!

Tyler

Tyler and Elder D

London, Ontario (they get lots of snow surrounded by the great lakes)