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

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

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

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