A Classy Time in Canada: Joy

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" Doctrine and Covenants 18:15

Well your probably all wondering if Byron got baptized......yes, yes he did. And it filled my soul with great joy!

I'll tell you about the beginning of my week first and then more details about the baptism a little bit later in the email.

So Wednesday we had a lesson with Shauna. AND IT WAS THE BEST LESSON EVER. Shauna has never been interested in coming to church with us. We've invited her a few times but she always says no. So we've just been taking things slow with her and have just been reading from the book of mormon with her. We were reading 1 Nephi 11 and just talking about what the verses says and then she randomly brought up the fact that she wants to come to church with us on Sunday! What??! I was in shock. Apparently a member had messaged her on facebook and invited her to come and she decided that she wanted to. Having members help with missionary work is the best thing ever. So then we continued reading from Nephi 11 and then Shauna randomly asks the most important question ever. "What do I need to do to continue staying on the right path to follow Christ."..........me and Sister Sagers were silent not knowing what to say and I'm just saying a frantic prayer in my head to try and say the right thing. I then boldly told Shauna that in order to follow Christ we need to exercise our faith in Him, repent of our sins, be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God and receive the Holy Ghost and then endure to the end. I honestly don't remember what else I told her but something along the lines of gaining her own testimony of these things and then acting on the answers she gets....one of those actions being baptism. She then said that if she got the answer that the church is true and that the book of mormon is true then she would get baptized. OH MY GOODNESS. Of course she's going to get the answer that its true! She just needs to recognize the answers from the Holy Ghost. Shauna is incredible and one of my favorite people. I'm really hoping that she can be patient with trying to get answers to her prayers.

On Thursday we had our last lesson with Byron before his baptism and we talked with him and his fiance about setting the goal to be sealed to each other in the temple in a year from now. They told us that they have made that goal and they can't wait for that day. Yay! Their family is too cute and I'm so excited for them!

Friday rained all day long. All day. Didn't stop once. Which is fine except for the fact we told a less-active member in the ward that we would walk her dogs for her. So we bundled up in lots and lots of layers and walked to her house in the rain. Then walked her dogs in the pouring cold rain and then walked home in the pouring cold rain. It was great.......kind of....not really but the less-active member was so happy we walked her dogs that it did make it worth it.

Good thing I love helping people! We then tried to contact some potential investigators and tried to find some new people to start teaching which has been so hard to do lately. We really really need to find some new people to teach. I've been getting frustrated with that lately but then I just need to remind myself to be patient with Heavenly Fathers timing.

Saturday we helped with a child of record baptism which was so sweet. I love baptisms. The spirit is always so strong. We then contacted this former investigator from Nepal and we'll hopefully start teaching him again next week! I'm really hoping. We also ate dinner that night with a member from Sudan and she made some very yummy food. I really do feel like I'm traveling the world here. I love Calgary for that very reason. Also on Saturday my eye was looking a little irritated but I didn't think anything of it until I woke up on Sunday and it was superrrr pink. PINK EYE. What in the world?? I was so angry that I got pink eye the day of Byrons baptism hahaha of course that would happen to me. Things just went downhill from there. We then had a lesson cancel on us before church. And then we got to church and the bishopric was freaking out because they didn't have bread for sacrament, luckily a member had brought me and Sister Sagers lunch so we just gave them the bread from our lunch to use. Then the bishop came up to us and was like "Oh by the way you don't have a ward mission leader anymore." All I'm going to say is thats a good thing, we needed a new ward mission leader from the first day I got here. So after a stressful day at church we set up for the baptism. Byron ended up being super late which caused us to stress a little...more like a lot hahaha. And then our former ward mission leader decided he didn't need to print out programs for the baptism...sooooooo that made me a little angry but I held it all in, so be proud of me haha but the most important part happend. Byron was baptized, he recieved the Holy Ghost and everything is great! Shauna also had the chance to come to the baptism so hopefully she felt something there.

I love this gospel. I love serving a mission for our Heavenly Father and seeing His work move forward. I know the church is true and that we can live with our families forever.

I love you family so much! I hope you have a great week and that you had a fun camping trip!

Love

Sister M.