Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Happy New Year!

This was another really good week out here in the mission field! It was so good to talk to almost everyone in the family... you all seem to be doing great! Christmas was really good, we were able to go over to International Falls and spent some time with two member families over there. We also had permission to watch a rated "G" Disney movie on Christmas as well, so we watched Big Hero 6. It was a great movie! Other than that Christmas came and went and now its on to the new year! 

The temperature has started to drop this week. Yesterday was the coldest, it was about -15 all day and in the evening and night it was -20 which I guess really isn't that bad, but when the wind blows and all that makes it a little cold haha! I guess its about time that winter weather actually showed up.

This week we had Sean and his family come to church again!!!! That's twice in a row! We were able to teach Sean and Tiffany again after church and they both said this is the church that they are going to start regularly come to and they even said in the beginning of the lesson that they want their kids baptized in this church!!! BAPTIZED! So we taught lesson 1 and they really liked it and said that they think its true, so they are praying about the Book of Mormon and we also committed them to be baptized when they find out the Church is true. They both said yes! So we hope to set baptismal dates with them this week :) hooray! 

We also found two other people to start teaching this week. They are pretty interesting but we will see how it goes! They are a mother and a son but they have some issues to work through, but hey the gospel can for sure improve the quality of our lives! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! Happy New Year! Love you all! 


Love Elder Farnsworth

Monday, December 21, 2015

Christmas Miracles

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!! 

I hope that you all have a great Christmas this year... Don't forget to remember the true meaning of Christmas, Christ's birth! 

This week has been GREAT! I'm telling ya we saw some Christmas MIRACLES this week. We started out the week by driving to Winnipeg last Monday. That's a long drive. It was about 4 and a half hours, but anyways we got there, had interviews with President and then we had to find our way around that crazy city. Thank goodness for GPS. Anyway that night was interesting we got billeted at some of the missionaries apartments, but there was 8 missionaries in one apartment and not many beds, so we slept on the floor haha. The next day we had Christmas zone conference. It was a great zone conference. We talked a lot about how we can be better at finding, how we need to teach to people's needs and also that we need to remember who we are. Each of us is a son or daughter of God, we need never to forget that! We had a lunch and a dinner and we also had a talent show and they let us watch a Christmas movie. We watched It's a Wonderful Life. It was really a good zone conference. 

Then Wednesday morning we woke up and were supposed to go home, but it was snowing like crazy! So anyway long story short there was so much snow and the roads were so bad that we had to stay another night in Winnipeg. It kinda was terrible haha but oh well. We ended up going to get snow tires on Wednesday. We got there at 2:00 and the assistants were supposed to pick us up but they didn't come so we sat there for 3 and a half hours until we got our tires haha. It was a joke. 

But then Thursday morning we finally got to leave. The roads still were not great but I drove carefully and we made it home.  We left at 11:00 and got home at 5:00. It took forever haha but we made it! So that's our first miracle -- We made it home from Winnipeg. 

Then on Sunday Sean and his family showed up to church! They are the family they came to the Christmas devotional broadcast. We were able to teach them and they loved church. We had such a good lesson and they really opened up to us! So that's miracle number 2. 

Then during church, we were blessing the sacrament and we looked up and bam one of the less actives we have been working with just showed up all on his own. AND there's more! On Sunday night we were doing some stop byes and we were going to this ladies house that we have stopped by a million times and I thought she was just going to be "busy" but she opened the door invited us in and we taught her lesson 1. She loved it and said she would read the Book of Mormon and have us back after Christmas. It was amazing! 

I love missionary work so much I cant even explain the feelings that come when you get to share the gospel. I love this time of year! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Don't forget to remember Christ during this time of year, He has done so much for each of us. He gave us the best gift that anyone could ever give. Share that gift with others!!!!! 

Love you all! 


Love Elder Farnsworth

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Little Miracles

HEY! 

This was a good week this week.... we were super busy again! I guess that is a missionaries dream... to always be busy haha! This week we were able to teach one of our investigators named Joyce. We actually taught her 3 days in a row at a members house, it was great! We invited her to be baptized and she said she would pray about it so that's exciting! 

We also did quite a bit of finding this week. We were out street contacting and this lady was walking toward us. I said hi and all the sudden she was like "hey are you missionaries, can you come visit me tomorrow?" Then she just blurted out her name and address and a time. It was GREAT! haha. We went over but she was busy so were going back next week. Hopefully it works out. 

We also got to bake some Christmas cookies with Pattie, that was pretty fun! the cookies tasted great too! 

There were so many small miracles this week. I am so grateful for those small little blessings that God sends to each of us. I think that sometimes as people we always look for the big blessings and the big miracles, but really we need to realize that we are blessed each and every day. Every time  we make a good choice or do something kind, God blesses us! There are so many things to be grateful for! 

I love you all and I'm grateful for your support! Have a great week!


Love Elder Farnsworth

Monday, December 7, 2015

Christmas Devotional

What a week!!!! 

This week was kinda crazy! The first little bit was just like a normal week. We had P-day then district meeting and all that good stuff, but then the end of the week we had the Christmas devotional broadcast. Elder Ringger and I for the past two weeks have been putting together this big event for the Church's Christmas devotional broadcast. We made invitations and posters and put them up all over town and handed out tons of invitations. We made this huge display for the Christmas initiative. We were coordinating everything with the members for this thing to work. It was a ton of work. It was really just me and Elder Ringger with really no party planning experience and somehow we made this thing work haha! I now understand why we have relief society presidents, and other people in wards with callings with regards to planning events and things.  Planning takes a lot of work haha! 

So anyway Sunday rolls around and we had a great church meeting. There were 15 people there, and NO visitors. That's a record haha! We had testimony meeting and it was a little interesting but the spirit was so strong, it really was such a good meeting. After church we went over to the United Church and volunteered at an event they were doing and then we came back to our church to finish setting up for the devotional. It was crazy. We set up everything for the broadcast and it was all working great and then like 5 minutes before it started the broadcast just stopped working. It was like pausing on the computer. So anyway we both panicked haha and we switched everything over to the satellite super quick and we were praying like crazy that it was all going to work out -- and it did! I was pretty stressed haha but it turned out great. We had 30 people attend and 10 of them were non members. One was a family of 3 that we are hopefully going to start teaching. It really just goes to show that if you put work into something and try your hardest, God is going to be there to help you and it will all work out! 

Well I hope everyone has a great week! thanks for all your love and support. Love you all! 


Love Elder Farnsworth


The results of hard work putting together the Christmas Devotional presentation.


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Senior Couple Arrives

Hey this week! How was everyone's Thanksgiving? 

Our week was really good... we even got Thanksgiving dinner. On Thursday we went over to some members house is the Falls and had Thanksgiving with them. It was really nice of them, but holy cow it was a pretty sketchy dinner haha. The house was real nasty and there was some weird things going on with the food, but we ate any way and we didn't get sick. The blessing of the food was answered haha! It was really nice of them to invite us over though so we appreciated that! 

This week we had the senior couple come. They are the BEST! Their names are Elder and Sister Walton, and they are from Lethbridge Alberta. They are in their mid 60's so their even pretty young. They are really great though, they are going to be a huge strength to this area. We had a board game club this week on Friday and 8 people showed up!!!! We were so excited, usually there is only three of us there so this was pretty good haha! On Sunday we also had a training on a new program were doing called the rescue initiative and it went really well. We even had 15 people at sacrament meeting. I repeat 15 it was great!!!! I think this transfer will be a good one. We have the Christmas devotional broadcast this week and were starting a new Christmas initiative also so things are really looking up! 

I love being a missionary, its such a blessing to take part in the Lords work full time, sometimes its exhausting and sometimes I don't want to go on, but I know the Lord is helping us. He is guiding us, and he is really hastening his work! This is the most important work in the world today. During the Christmas season its so easy to talk about Christ and about church. I would invite all of you to take advantage of this time of year and share the gospel. I can't even explain the feelings that you will have and the blessings that will come. 

I love you all!!! Have a great week! 

Love Elder Farnsworth
Happy Thanksgiving





 District saying good-bye to Elder Elwood who was transferred.
"Missionaries are weird." according to Eli.


Monday, November 23, 2015

Temple Re-Dedication

Hey everyone! 

This has been a great week. We got two things of good news this week. First off Fort Frances is getting a senior couple!!! It will be so nice to have a senior couple here, they are going to be a huge help and a great support to the branch here. Second, we got transfer calls and me and Elder Ringger are both staying in Fort Frances this transfer, so no big changes this time around. It will be nice to not have to change before the holidays come. 

Other than that it snowed this week so that has been fun. We shoveled some walks and things like that. This weekend we had the Montreal Quebec Temple Re-dedication. It was great! We got to go to all three sessions to be the priesthood holders that were there and it was amazing. I felt so spiritually uplifted. It also amazed me how much the church actually felt like a temple during those three sessions. I loved it! I gained a few insights from the talks that were given. 

1. They compared the temple to a mountain, they said that usually temples are built on mountains, but the temple represents a mountain because it shows how it can be a climb for us spiritually. They talked about how sometimes it is like climbing a mountain of trial to get a temple recommend but also how when we go to the temple it requires us to rise to a new sense of commitment and spirituality. It was really good! 

2. The people you stand proxy for when you are in the temple, they love you, they appreciate you, and they will always remember you and what you did for them. They talked about how those people that we do ordinances for are present when we go through the temple for them. They also talked about how because we helped them, they will help us and can teach and be with our ancestors that need to learn and need to gain these ordinances in the spirit world. I never thought about that before, but its really a neat thought. 

3. They said when you  leave the temple the one thought you should always have is when can I go back. They also said whenever you think of the temple... SMILE :) 

It was a great experience to participate in the Re-dedication.  I loved it! 

Well I hope you all have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving! Love you all!


Love Elder Farnsworth





Monday, November 16, 2015

Welcome to Atikokan

Hey everyone, another week has come and gone! Its crazy how fast the time flies bye! 

This week wasn't too exiting. On Tuesday we had a district meeting and then had exchanges.  They went pretty well. I stayed in Fort Frances and Elder Elwood from I Falls came to spend the day with me. We had a good time and were able to do some good work. We talked to an atheist guy on the street... that was interesting haha! 

On Thursday we drove out to Atikokan. It is like an hour and a half drive. We drove there to see one of our investigators and to visit some of the Atikokan branch members  there. It was a little sad... our investigator totally lunched us. But we did get to see some members and things so it was ok! 

The highlight of this week...remember the girl Ashly in Moose Jaw? She got baptized!!!! I talked to Elder Baumann and he said everything went great! She also has a temple recommend already and is going to the temple this week! I am so happy for her. She will be a great member! 

Well everyone have a great week! Love ya all! 


Love Elder Farnsworth



Monday, November 9, 2015

Oh Canada . . . How I love your weather!

HEY! 

Well this week was a pretty typical week. Nothing to exciting. We did have a big zone training meeting on Wednesday so that was pretty exciting. Me and Elder Ringger planned for and then carried out the whole meeting. It took a lot of time to get everything all ready but it went really well so that was good. It was also great to see all of the missionaries in our zone, they are really some great elders and sisters. I remember when I first came out on my mission I was so shy and I would always get nervous when we had big meetings, but now I love them! It is so good to be around other missionaries, to hear from them, to learn from them, and to have a good time with them. I love our zone :) 

Other than that this week we tried to do a lot of finding. We walked around quite a bit and even did quite a bit of tracting. Nothing has come from it yet... but soon!!! The weather this week was definitely not too good. It rained so much!!!! I was so sick of the rain by the end of the week. I wish it would just snow cause the snow isn't as wet and messy. When it rains you just get soaking wet and then your freezing cold on top of it. Oh Canada how I love your weather haha! 

Our area is doing alright, it has definitely been a struggle trying to get people to teach here. A lot of the people have not been keeping their appointments and things so that is kinda rough, but we keep trying! It is so interesting here too, cause our whole branch are recent converts and they have all been baptized within the last 3 years so they all have really new testimonies and there all trying to figure out how things run and work so we work with them a lot and try to help them out. It is good though, I do love this area! 


Well I hope you all have a great week! Love you all! 

Elder Farnsworth

Eli at ZTM

Eli with Elder Ence and Elder Ringger

Eli and his new best friend Smokey

Monday, November 2, 2015

Exchange Week

Well this was a great week! 

On Tuesday we got to drive up to Kenora and do exchanges with the missionaries up there. We had a really good time with them. Kenora is a beautiful place, it is northern Ontario so there are tons of trees and mountains and lakes and its really nice! It was kind of funny, I was on exchanges with a missionary named Elder Hirschi. He has only been out about 3 weeks. Anyways he and I went street contacting and tracting. It rained on us the whole entire time haha! It was fun though, we found some really good people and definitely had some good experiences! 

On Thursday we drove from Kenora to Winnipeg for a MLC, we drove like 2 and a half hours to get there and then we had a GREAT MLC. It was 6 hours long.... so that part kinda stunk but it was great we learned so much! We had two men there from the missionary department in Salt Lake and they taught us a lot of great things. We talked a lot about the proper way to plan and how extremely important it is as missionaries to plan and prepare for our days and weeks. But he explained how important a skill that was for our whole lives, it was really good. We also talked a lot about baptism and the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. It was great what they taught us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plain and precious truth that each one of us need. That is why the Book of Mormon is so important. It teaches us those plain and precious truths. We talked about how each step in the gospel of Jesus Christ is helping to prepare us for the next step, and eventually the whole gospel prepares us to live with god in a fullness of joy! 

We also talked about how throughout each of the missionary discussions our main message is centered on how the heavens are open and how we can receive personal revelation for ourselves to know that these things are true! It was a great MLC! 

After the MLC we drove 4 hours home... lots of sitting and driving the first part of this week. Then on Friday we had the assistants come and do exchanges, I was with Elder Joncas. We had a great day! We went out and walked around a ton! We talked to a lot of people and found quite a few potential investigators so that was great! 

Halloween was pretty dumb... we had to be in by 6 and then we were supposed to clean our apartments.  Ours was pretty clean haha but we also had to take KS so really nothing exciting there. 

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all.  Don't forget the gospel is true and it will bless our lives as we continue to faithfully live it! 


Love Elder Farnsworth

Monday, October 26, 2015

Life in Fort Francis

Hello everyone,

Everything here is going ok. We are really just trying to figure out what to do to get things in the area moving forward. We have tried a few things but this week and the rest of this transfer we are going to try and be really creative to find new people and increase our teaching pool. It's a hard town cause there are lots of old people that are stuck in their ways so we have to be creative to peak their interest haha! I guess it's just another new experience to help us get out of our comfort zone and mix things up! 

This week we got to teach a Sunday school lesson on Gerald Causse's conference talk from last April conference. It is about if the gospel is still wonderful to you. I loved this talk and this lesson! We really need to make sure that the gospel is always wonderful to us. We can't let it just become common in our lives and the things that we do. It needs to stick out. We need to be having spiritual experiences always and constantly learning and understanding new things about the gospel. We will never fully understand it. There is always something new to grasp and learn! I love the gospel.  It is something that we have to continue to learn about. It is something that will helps us to continually improve and come closer to our Savior Jesus Christ! Keep studying the gospel and keep finding new ways to make it wonderful to you! 

Love you all!

Elder Farnsworth

Bro Batang and Elder Baumann

 Bro Batang and Family

 Eli by the River in Fort Francis


 Fort Francis River during the day



Monday, October 19, 2015

Crazy Week

Hello everyone,

This week was pretty sad/crazy! I left Moose Jaw on Wednesday afternoon and made the trip to Regina. It was sure hard to leave Moose Jaw. We were able to meet with a lot of the people we were working with so I got to say all of my good byes. It was hard but I know that Elder Baumann will take care of those people. They are in good hands! 

I stayed the night in Regina on Wednesday. That was actually pretty fun. I got to stay with Elder Brown and Elder Hanson so we had a good time talking and being together before they went home. Then Thursday morning we were up at 5 and started to long drive to Winnipeg. We drove about 6 hours. It was a loooooooong drive haha! We finally got to Winnipeg and had a good transfer meeting. It was really sad to say good bye to Elder Hanson and Elder Brown. I will miss those guys a lot, they really helped me and I learned a lot from them. 

After transfer meeting me and Elder Ringger drove down to Warroad and had a mini exchange there. It was actually really fun to be back in my old area and I was able to see quite a few of the members there. It was good to visit with them and see how they were doing. After that we drove back to Fort Frances on Friday afternoon, it was like another 2 hours.... so I think in total I was in the car for like 12 hours.... lots of driving haha! 

I am glad to be in Fort Frances though, it's a small town but its actually really nice. There is a river that runs right along side of it and its really pretty. I like the people here so far too, they are all really nice and welcoming. It was crazy. The Fort Frances building is huge! It is like the size of a stake center. They built it back quite a few years ago when there was ton of members, but the paper mill here ended up closing and all the members moved away. So this week in church we had a huge building but only 8 people were there including us two missionaries. It is a bit of a change but I guess it just means we gotta work really hard to fill the building.

Well I hope you all have a great week, love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth




 Moose Jaw District

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Moving Again

Hey everyone! 

Sorry this is going to be a short post this week! We had a pretty good week this week. Elder Baumann and I were able to teach quite a few lessons and saw some good things happen. We got to travel out to a small town this week to give a lady a bible. She requested one. We gave it to her and had a neat experience talking with her. We also taught Bro. Batang and Ashly this week, and they are both doing really well.

Sad news for this week. . .after only 6 weeks here in Moose Jaw, I am getting moved :( I am so so so sad to be leaving. This area is so good! I love the members, I love the size of it, and there is so much potential here and so much work going on. I am so sad to be leaving it. I am also so sad to be leaving Bro. Batang and Ashly. They are great investigators. They decided to close down the Moose Jaw zone. They have now just made it one big district and now I am being moved to be a zone leader in Fort Francis Ontario. It will be a good experience there. I will be right on the boarder of Canada and the States, and I am getting a good companion too so it will be good. Fort Francis is really small, only about 6 thousand people, so nothing new I guess haha! I am sad to leave but I guess that is just what the Lord had planned. 

I hope you all have a good week. I love you all and miss you! 


Love Elder Farnsworth

Monday, October 5, 2015

Seriously Great Week -- So Many Blessings

Hey this week! 

What a great week! I loved general conference this weekend. It was sooo good! I am super excited about the new apostles. I think that they will all be great. Especially Elder Renlund. Haha I was so excited to hear he was one of the new apostles. I totally got to shake his hand haha :) 

I loved all of the talks, for some reason I especially liked Saturdays sessions. All of those talks really answered a lot of the question and thoughts that I had going in to conference. I know that our church is in such good hands. The Lord really does know what he is doing and I know he called each and every one of the leaders of the church for a specific reason. They are all amazing. 

This week here in Moose Jaw has seriously been so good! This week we saw so many great blessings. As I talked about a little while ago the mission is starting to implement a new plan to try and increase the baptisms. Part of the plan is to invite people to be baptized in the first discussion and then invite them to a specific date in the 2nd discussion. Its a huge focus in everything that we do to think of what we can do to get baptisms and find those that are prepared. Anyways this week Elder Baumann and I were determined to live the plan to the fullest. We had some great lessons this week. We met with Brother Batang and his family and we had a great talk and invited him to be baptized. He accepted! After the lesson we were just eating and talking with him and I invited him to come to Utah some day and Elder Baumann invited him to Austria one day and he is like, you have to baptize me before you guys leave or I will not come haha! He is so prepared. Now were going to start meeting with him twice a week and hopefully within the next month he will be baptized. He does have a 2 week vacation in October but were really excited for him. He also came to conference on Sunday morning. It was great! 

Then on Friday, we went and met with a potential investigator, her name is Ashley. We started talking with her and her cousin and had a great lesson with them. Her cousin is less active and Ashley has never been baptized. She almost was when she was 11 but chose not to. Anyway we had a really good lesson, and learned a lot about both of them. Then at the end we were pretty much about to get up to leave but out of no where I was just in my head thinking, we have to ask her to be baptized. So we asked her and she said she would love to that its something she has really wanted. So now we will be working with her quite a bit too.

Her story is actually kind of amazing too. She was having a horrible day and everything was going wrong. She said she was just wanting to give up and she prayed to God and asked him that if he was there and if he loved her to send her a sign. She said like two minutes after her prayer she checked Facebook and we had messaged her on there and were trying to reach out to her! Amazing experiences. God is truly preparing people and he will lead them to the truth!

I hope you all have a great week. Pray for missionary opportunities. You never know who needs you to reach out to them and who is being prepared. I love you all! 


Love Elder Farnsworth


Selfie of professional haircut by Sister Neitz

Raking leaves with Sister Bodily

Elder Baumann and Sister Bodily
arnsworth

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Changes

Happy fall everyone! 

Things here in Moose Jaw are going really good. This week we were able to start teaching a Filipino family! The mom and the kids are all members but the dad is not, so we got to teach him this week and we had such a good lesson with them! The guys name is Brother Batang and he is really prepared. I think he will be baptized next transfer so that is really exciting! 

This week we got to go down to Weyburn . . . twice. We went there on Wednesday for an exchange. The exchange went well, we had a good time and we were able to do some good missionary work there. But then yesterday we had to drive back down there. They were having some problems so we went and worked it out and then drove back yesterday. It was a long trip but we survived. 

On Friday we had a great day. We did service in the morning and afternoon and then that night we had a ward activity. We had a bonfire and we invited a whole bunch of people and 3 of the non members we invited showed up so that was great! Two of them are captains for the salvation army church, they are great people but they came out and I think they had a good time. Also a lady named Bonnie that we did some service for a while back came. It was great to have them there. All in all it was really a good week! For some reason this week seemed to go faster than other weeks, but we sure got a lot accomplished and it was good. :)

It is kind of interesting things in our mission are starting to change. President Craig is starting to change things quite a bit and move the direction of the mission. We have had a few MLCS this transfer which have all been really good. We have come up with a new plan to help increase the baptisms in our mission and I am so excited for it! I love the changes he is making I think it will really improve the mission! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Endure to the End

Hey everyone! 

This week was pretty good! We have had a major focus this week on finding new people and trying to increase our teaching pool. We created this big list a few weeks ago of less actives and part member families and this week we went through and made a ton of progress on the list which was great. We found some new people from it and had some great lessons. 

We had a really good experience this week. We were walking back to our car, we parked a long ways away, and walked to the church and while we were walking back Elder Baumann and I were talking and we were trying to figure out how we were going to find a new investigator. We just kept talking and thinking and we were a little worried cause we were running out of options and things to do. Then we got to this stop light and I looked across the street and saw this guys smoking on his porch. I told Elder Baumann we should go talk to him. As we got closer I realized that this guy looked pretty rough and I figured he was just going to give us a hard time and then tell us to leave. So anyway I walked up his steps and started talking to him and he just opened right up to us and started talking about his family and about what happens after we die and he had tons of questions. Anyways we started to teach and testify to him and he ended up becoming a new investigator. He was so prepared for the gospel, and God led us right to him. This work is so amazing, just when you start to get down and things start to get hard, the Lord lifts us up and helps us to keep going. 

It's the exact same with life. I was reading a general conference talk this morning. It was called Stay By The Tree, by Elder Kevin W. Pearson. It's a great talk. He talks about enduring to the end and how we need to keep drawing closer to Jesus Christ and how we need to strengthen our commitment to live and keep our covenants. He talks about trials and how they can cause us to fall away and stop enduring, but when we turn to Christ and we ask for his help He will lift us up and help us endure! 
Just remember that living the gospel and being a member of the church isn't just a once a week kind of thing. We need to constantly be thinking of Jesus Christ, and the covenants that we have made and we need to do our best to keep them! 

I really do love this gospel so much and I do know that it's true. It is not easy to be a member of the church, but it is worth it.  It is not easy to share the gospel but it is worth it!!!  

I hope everyone has a great week, remember to be the best person you can be! 

Love you all! 

PS: If you are interested, Alyssa is helping me to do a project with some Books of Mormon. We are gathering everyone's testimony of the Book of Mormon and were going to write them down and glue them into the backs of the books so that when I give them away people have a testimony that they can read and relate to. If you are interested, you can write your testimony down and send it to Alyssa and she will print them all out and send them to me to stick in the Books of Mormon! I know this is a great project and it will really help people relate and see how the Book of Mormon can help them and bless their lives! (here is Alyssa's email: alyssahuffman22@gmail.com)


Love Elder Farnsworth




Me and Elder Baumann


Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Be a Disciple

Hey everyone! how was your week? 

First off thanks for all the happy birthday emails and messages that you sent, it was a pretty good birthday! 

This week has really been such a great week! It started on Tuesday. We had an MLC where we talked a lot about the mission and some of the struggles and problems that we have been having. It was such a good meeting. We talked a whole bunch about faith and also about having a good attitude and following the Lord's plan. Our mission actually got assigned by the Quorum of the Seventy to come up with a plan on how to increase baptisms. We created a plan on how our mission was going to move forward and get more baptisms. It was a great experience. It was like a big ward council. It worked out so well and I felt the spirit so strong as we all counseled together to move the mission forward. It was a great experience! 

This week we also had a general authority visit the mission. Elder Dale G. Renlund and his wife Ruth. It was great to have them here and to learn from them. They are both such amazing people and they a real spirit about them. It really strengthened my testimony of the leadership of the church. I know that God calls his leaders to guide his church and they will not lead us a stray. 

So to share a few things that I learned and a few things that they shared. They talked about the sacrament and they said each and every Sunday we need to have a spiritual experience with the sacrament. If we do we will never go less active and we will always have a desire to be at church. It is so true, Do not take the sacrament for granted. It is an amazing blessing and each Sunday we need to feel the spirit as we partake. 

They also talked about becoming a disciple of the Lord. They talked about how we need to decide right now if we will follow the Lord and be his true disciple. If we choose to be his disciple it will guide all of our other decisions. Disciples of the lord do not do the things of the world. I loved that so much! It is a decision that we need to make and then act on! 

It was a great week in the mission this week! I hope you are all doing well back home. I love you all! 
Have a great week!


Love Elder Farnsworth



Elder Brown


Elder Brown (his dad) and Elder Grant (his brother).  I am sure all you missionaries know what that means.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Moose Jaw

Hello this week! How is everyone? 

So this week we had transfers. Can I just say that transfers are always so crazy! On Thursday morning I drove down to Winnipeg with another missionary named Elder Moore. We got there and we got to sit in on the meeting for all the trainees.  After that the trainees got introduced to their new companions and everyone talks for a bit and eats pizza, and then the craziness begins! So since some of the missionaries are going west, we have to stay the night in Winnipeg.  We have to figure out billets and we have to move all our luggage around and make sure everything goes smoothly.  It is quite a process. Anyway Friday morning we met at one the churches, we loaded the cars in the transfer train and we started the 6 hour drive west to Regina. So the big news is I had to drive the transfer train. I drove this HUGE 15 passenger van WITH a trailer on it and I didn't even crash :) haha! The funny part of it too was that I had 5 sister missionaries in this bus and 2 elders so it was pretty interesting. I have to admit I was pretty nervous but I did it so I was pretty excited about that! It was a long drive though and every time the wind blew I felt it haha! 

Anyway I did make it to my new area. I really love it here! Moose Jaw has about 40,000 people in it, so its pretty big. There are a ton of stores and restaurants here, so it is way different than Dauphin. There is also traffic here. I haven't had to deal with that for awhile either. I am so excited to be here though, there is so much potential in this area. The ward is really pretty good size, not huge but the members are great. They have all been really nice and it just seems like this is going to be a great place! 

I also really like my new companion. His name is Elder Baumann. He is from Austria. He is a great guy! He has a pretty thick accent, but he is super humble and just wants to go out and work. 
I feel so blessed! I am so lucky to be in a great area with a great companion. It is going to be a great transfer! 

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! 


Love Elder Farnsworth


Leaving Dauphin


 Good bye Bro. and Sis. Monson

Monday, August 31, 2015

Another Transfer

Hey this week, hows it going? 

This was a pretty good week here in Dauphin. We were able to spend most of the week in our area and we got quite a bit of really good work done here. We were able to find 2 new investigators this week. It was really good! One of them is named Carolyne. She is younger, probably 20's and she is really nice. We had a good first lesson with her and will go back Wednesday to teach her again. Then Thursday we knocked a couple of doors looking for a less active and we talked to another lady named Charolette. We talked about the Book of Mormon and she was really interested. We had a really good talk with her and now we will meet with her again today! We also had a branch activity this weekend out at the Beaumonts house. It was really fun. It was with the Dauphin branch, Neepawa unit and Brandon ward. Everyone drove a little distance and met in the middle. It was a fun little corn roast haha. I think that's what they called it! Anyways it was good we got to meet a lot of people and all the missionaries from Brandon and Neepawa were there so it was a great activity! 

On Saturday, we got transfer calls. So my big news for the week is...... I am getting moved! I am being transferred to Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. I will be serving with Elder Bauman. He is from Austria! He goes home in two transfer so I will probably end up killing him off! We will be in the Moose Jaw zone as the zone leaders there. I am super excited!!! I have heard so many great things about Moose Jaw! It's actually a ward so it will be the first ward I serve in. It's not a huge town, I believe there are only like 50-70 thousand people that live there so not too big, but it will be the biggest place I have served in so far. Also there will actually be other missionaries around us there too..... that will be a first haha! We have a set of sisters there too so it should be pretty exciting. I love Dauphin and I will really miss it but I am looking forward to a new area with new people and new opportunities! 

Anyways that's about it for this week. I hope you are all doing good! I love you all and hope you have a great week! 


Love Eder Farnsworth


The Beaumonts and the Drinkwaters


 Cooking at the Branch Activity

 All the missionaries from Dauphin, Neepawa, and Brandon

Lunch rendition of the Plan of Salvation

 Sister Beaton

The Kosturs

Monday, August 24, 2015

Tattooing Sheep

HEY this week! 

How was everyone's week? Its hard to believe that another week has come and gone. This week flew by for us. The start of this week we were out of our area quite a bit. On Monday we traveled in to Neepawa for P-day, then that night we drove to Portage La Prairie and started our exchange with the missionaries there. It was a pretty good exchange. I was with Elder Griffith. He has been out a while and is about to go home. We had a good exchange though. We were walking around on a Portage street contacting and there was this super drunk native guy laying in the stairs of a building and he started talking a little bit to us. He was interesting. He was got drunk off of mouth wash. I didn't realize people really did that until I came to Canada -- fun fact haha! 

On Tuesday night we drove to Brandon and started our exchange with Brandon on Wednesday. We had another good exchange there. I was with Elder Peterson and Elder Bingham. They are both great missionaries! I really like Brandon. It is a descent sized city and the people there are all pretty nice. Thursday we left Brandon, drove back to Neepawa had our district meeting, and then continued on to Dauphin. It was a tiring first part of the week, but we survived and had some really good experiences.

On Friday we went out and helped on a ranch.  Crazy story of the week. We were out there and we went out to the barn cause we were tattooing sheep. We opened the door and this one sheep started going crazy! Anyways the guy we were with walked away for a few minutes to go get some more things and I was watching the sheep. She was breathing really weird and I told Elder Wilson that I thought something was wrong. Then the guy came back and I told him that something was wrong with his sheep so he went over to her cause she was laying on the ground. He nudged her and she didn't do anything. The sheep DIED. I watched it take its last breath and die. It was kind of sad, and the worst part was that its poor little lamb was right there. SAD! 

But on a different note :) We had a good weekend we taught some lessons and got some less actives to church so that was good! We almost have this one less active lady reactivated, she has come really regularly to church and is doing really good! 

Anyways I hope you all have a great week this week! Love you all! 

HAVE A NICE DAY! :) 

Love Elder Farnsworth



Elders Bingham and Peterson


When you run out of money and wonder what you are going to eat for a week, the good people of Dauphin deliver tons of food.  BLESSINGS A PLENTY!




Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Drive, Train, Drive, Flat Tire, Drive, Eat, Drive, Ticket

Hey everyone, how was your week? 

This week wasn't as good as last week, but it was pretty good! The first part of this week we were in our area and we were able to do some good work. On Thursday we went to Neepawa and had an exchange there. It was a good exchange, we went and contacted some referals they had gotten and we painted the museum they have in town, it was pretty fun! After we got done painting though we went out to our car and.... it had a flat tire. So anyways we called the tire shop and they came and took the tire, fixed it up, brought it back and it was good as new so that was a huge blessing! 

Thursday night we went to the Beaumonts for supper, it was kinda crazy. We had specialized training on Friday so we had missionaries traveling from Flin Flon and Thompson down to Brandon and the Beaumonts invited all of them to come for supper too. So it total there were 8 missionaries at supper, that's a lot haha! 

On Friday we went down to Brandon and had a specialized training. It was really good. President and Sister Craig were there as well as the assistants and our whole zone. It was a lot of fun to have everyone there and everyone gave great portions! We had a portion by President and Sister Craig about online proselyting and a lot of things are changing with that. We have to un-follow all of our friends and people from back home.... we can keep family but other than that we are now told to focus on just our mission and the people within it. Its a little different but it should be good. I can still do skype lessons and work with people from back home we just have to have the mission Presidents permission first. 

Anyways after specialized training we had interviews, then we drove Neepawa back home and then we drove back to Dauphin... lots of driving! This week we are supposed to go on exchange with Portage and Brandon... so lots of driving again haha! It should be a good week though. The temperature is starting to change here too... its getting cooler and the days are getting shorter, I can't believe that summer is almost already over.... everyone starts school again next week... time goes so fast! 

I hope you all have a great week! I would love to hear from you all! love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth


Flat tire


The District - with "Serious Faces"


Speeding Ticket from all the driving!


Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Exchanges

Hey everyone! How was your week this week? 

Our week was pretty good. It started off a little slow, but it was a great week! So to start off last Monday we had our P-day and we had a little time in the evening so we thought we would go walking around and tract a few houses. Well we saw a guy outside so we went and talked to him. He was interesting, he was an evangelical guy and holy. All he wanted to do was bible bash with us! He told us that he feared for our souls and salvation and all this crazy stuff. We spent like a good 20 minutes talking to him and finally I just bore my testimony to him and then we left. It was an interesting experience, but it really reaffirmed my testimony. It is interesting because in life some people try to tear us down and put doubt in our minds but like President Uchtdorf said "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." Unfortunately that guys wasn't really prepared for the message of the restoration, but maybe next time! :) 

On Tuesday the Neepawa Elders came to Dauphin and we had an exchange. It was pretty good. We did some service and then we had a dinner appointment. The two elders in Neepawa are pretty good, one of them is actually from Riverton. He went to school with me. I had seen him in the halls before but didn't really know him so that's kind of interesting!

Neepawa exchange experience.


On Wednesday we got to drive up to Flin Flon and have exchanges up there. That was a lot of fun! Its about a 6 hour drive to Flin Flon so we left and while we drove up there it rained pretty hard the ENTIRE time! It was crazy. Then we exchanged with them and drove 6 hours back home on Thursday. It was a long drive. It was a good exchange though. Flin Flon is really different from the rest of the mission. It is really hilly and rocky and its got some interesting people in the town. It is pretty far up north and the farther up north you get the crazier the people get! They did have a baptism this weekend in Flin Flon though so that was great.

On the way to Flin Flon
Elder Moore and Elder Farnsworth in Flin Flon
The view of Flin Flon

On Friday we had MLC. That is always a long meeting, and our internet wasn't working for skype so it was interesting but we figured it all out and it turned out ok.

Supply Box Explosion with all the traveling.

Now for the best news of all....... on Sunday Elder Wilson and I both had to give talks, we spoke on Elder Hales talk from the last general conference.  We had 3 non members at church, two of them were investigators and 1 is a potential. We also had 5 less actives there! It was so good to see them all there, it made me so happy! One of the investigators is a pastor and he brought his friend and they both really loved the whole church meeting, they even stayed for Sunday School and they enjoyed it! I know they felt the spirit there and I really hope that when we follow up with them they will be a little more serious and interested in our message. 

Sad news of the week.... our baptismal date with Debbie, we had to drop her date a couple weeks ago and now she doesn't want to even meet with us anymore. Her husband came back and he told us that she didn't want to see us. I think he made the decision not her. That was pretty sad but all we can do is try!

Well I hope you all have a great week! Love you all and miss you all! I would love to hear from you all. 

Love Elder Farnsworth



Monday, August 3, 2015

Ukrainian Festival

Hello everyone,

This week was alright for us, nothing really too exciting happened. This week they had the Ukrainian festival in Dauphin. It is a really big deal here lots of people come and there is dancing and parades and all sorts of things going on. We got to go to a couple of things so that was fun.

On Tuesday we traveled into Neepawa and had a district meeting and then we drove back and went to a farm and did some service. On Wednesday we went and did some service and Thursday was a good day, we taught a few less active members and had some good lessons. Finding new people was pretty difficult this week. Everyone we talked to was out of town and everyone we stopped by was at the Ukrainian festival so that was hard. but hopefully this week will be better. 

So we all know how the Farnsworth children have "tummy troubles".... well I think I found out what gives me tummy trouble.... BANANAS! They kill me haha! The past few weeks my stomach has been pretty upset and every time I eat a banana it gets worse so I won't be having those anymore haha! Last night my comp ate something weird so he was throwing up and I had some banana cream pie.... so it was a rough night haha but we survived and were doing good today :) 

This week should be good, we are supposed to go 6 hours north and visit the missionaries in Flin Flon so that should be fun. I am excited to go see the north country! 

Well I hope you have a great week! Love you all.


Love Elder Farnsworth


The Dauphin Beaver with Eli

Monday, July 27, 2015

Choose to Believe

Hey everyone! How was your week? 

This was a great week here in Dauphin! We had transfers this week and Elder Bee went home :( .  I will miss him, he was a great missionary and I had a ton of fun with him. I think that is one of the biggest things I learned from Elder Bee.... missionary work can and should be fun! I really look up to him, he was great! 

I got my new companion this week on Thursday evening. His name is Elder Wilson. He is from Salt Lake City and he has been out for 9 months now. He is a good person. I am excited to serve with him, He is really patient and calm so that should be something good that i can learn from him :) 
I really think we will have a good transfer here in Dauphin. 

So this week we got one new investigator. Her name is Alisa. Her mom is Pam who is another investigator of ours. She is really nice but interesting. She is super into the bible and kind of just wants to bible bash so we are going to meet with here again and see what happens. Hopefully she will decide to be sincere and be able to feel the spirit and know what we are teaching is true. Then she might show some good promise. Other than that we had to drop our baptismal date because she hasn't come to church and we were not able to meet with her this week. Kind of a bummer, but hopefully we can get her back on track.

This week we helped a guy put in a new kitchen. An Ikea kitchen. It reminded me of when we did that! Also this week we had some weird random guy come up to us and start asking us all about dinosaurs and weird things. Some people say the weirdest things haha! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! 

We had a lesson in church yesterday based on the talk from conference Choose To Believe. It was really good! I encourage you all to read that talk! Remember that everything is a choice. We choose to be happy, or we choose to be sad, but most importantly we choose whether or not we want to follow Jesus Christ and live his gospel. What an important decision that is! I know that choosing to follow Christ will brighten your life and help you with all challenges that you have. God and Jesus Christ love you and as you follow them I promise you will be happy! 

Have a great week! LOVE YOU ALL!

Love Elder Farnsworth

The year "Burning of the Shirt and Tie"


Farewell Elder Bee



Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Love Me Some Pie

Hey everyone! How's it going? 

This week was a good week for us here... nothing too exciting but it was busy! 

On Wednesday Elder Bee and I had to give our ZTM. That was a new experience haha! We spent a good amount of time preparing for it, but on Tuesday President Craig texted us and asked us if he could come to it... that kinda put the pressure on haha! It went really well though, we had a lot of really good participation from all the missionaries in our zone so that was good! It was kinda crazy because we left Dauphin Wednesday morning to drive to Brandon. We had to pick Neepawa up on the way, but as we were getting to Neepawa our car smelled like it was burning! So anyways we thought something was wrong with the oil because we just got an oil change.  Anyways we had to take it to like 3 different places and finally they told us they would look at it. So we drove to Brandon in Neepawas car but we were late to our ZTM haha that was bad news! The car ended up getting fixed and it was just a gasket that had broken so it leaked a bunch of oil... we were blessed to make it to Neepawa! 

On Thursday we had a dinner appointment and did some service. On Friday we walked around a lot. On Saturday we got transfer calls!  So for transfer calls.... I am getting a missionary named Elder Wilson! He has been out for 9 months now. I have heard a lot of really good things about him so I am pretty excited! Our zone is kind of crazy this transfer though... we have 7 trainees. In the Brandon district there are 4 trainees and then every district is training besides our district. That's a lot of new missionaries! It should be good though, I am excited to go on exchanges and get to know all of them. 

So you asked some questions about what kinds of food we eat a lot of and what my favorite/ least favorite food we have eaten is. We get fed pretty well, we get at least 2 solid dinner appointments a week and sometimes more. We always get fed really good meals though... lots of meat and vegetables. Everyone here has a garden so its all fresh and tastes super good! We also get so much pie here. I don't know what it is but everyone loves their pie. I'm not complaining though, I LOVE pie haha! The worst thing I have eaten so far.was at the pig roast there were some weird Filipino type things. That was probably my least favorite food. The pig was good but some of the other stuff was nasty haha! 

Our good news for the week..... we got an investigator to come to church!!!!!!!! You have no clue how happy this makes me.  Donna came to church. This is the first time since I have been here that someone came. We try so hard every week to get people there, but they always bail on us. We invited Donna to come hear Elder Bee speak and she came. I couldn't stop smiling yesterday it was great!!!! 

Well I love you all! I hope you have a great week! 


Love Elder Farnsworth

Lots of rain in Brandon


Selfie with a moose