Branding Cows

Well this has been a pretty crazy week.... crazy in a good way :)! So this week we had transfers.  So on Thursday Elder Hanson and I drove down to Winnipeg and went to transfer meeting. I was really sad to be loosing Elder Hanson, I liked him a lot and we did a lot of good things together. But change is good! So I got my new companion and drove back home on Thursday.  It was a long day of driving! I really like my new comp though, his name is Elder Bee. He is from Thatcher, Arizona, he only has 6 weeks left in his mission and then he is going home! We get along really well so far, he is a pretty funny guy and so far we have done well together. I am excited for the rest of the transfer, I think its going to be a good one. Its going to fly by, we have a whole bunch of driving and exchanges to go on in the next few weeks and we will be seeing a whole bunch of other missionaries. I am excited to see new part of the mission, it should be fun! 

So exciting story for this week. On Saturday we went out to a less active members farm and we helped brand their cows!!!! It was so crazy but it was so much fun! We got there and all the calves are in this pen and so some people are on horses and they rope the calves and then they pull them by the back legs and then there are two people that have to tackle them down and then hold them. We were the people that had to tackle them and hold them down. I felt bad for the little guys haha! One person would sit flat on their butt and be at the back of the calve holding it and the other had to like squat and knee the neck to make sure the head wouldn't move. It was super fun but it was exhausting! Some of these cows were huge and you would just have to jump on the dang thing and hold it down! Then they would give them a shot, tag them, brand them twice and worst of all chop off their nuts!!!! The poor calves!

On Sunday I was so sore haha my muscles were dying. I was like waddling around cause my hips and butt hurt from squatting on the things! It was a new experience but it was fun! I was on the ground one of the times holding the back legs and once the whole process is over you have to jump up real quick while your still holding the back leg and spin the calf so it goes the right direction. So anyways I did that and I held onto the hooves and it started kicking, and it got me right were it counts. It didn't feel so good. I had to sit down for awhile haha! 

Other than that this week has been pretty normal :) It was kind of sad we tried super hard again to get people to sacrament meeting and sadly they didn't show up again.  People and their darn agency. Oh well all we can do is try try try! I hope everyone is doing good and enjoying the first bit of summer! I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

PS: Sorry for all those that have written me letters and haven't gotten a reply yet! I promise I am trying, we have just been busy!

A couple of pics for the week.

Transfers and Zone Leaders

Hello this week,

This week was okay, we found one new investigator. Her name is Debby and she is an older native lady. We talked to her on the street and then we went to her house and taught her. She was really nice and seemed really interested. As far as  our other investigators go.... there not super progressing haha! We invited Brenda to church and she was committed but we went to make sure Sunday morning and she was working so that was dumb! Albert who we found a couple weeks ago just likes to bash with us haha and other than that no ones too solid. We are working hard to find some new people. I really think that this new transfer will be good, hopefully we can find some more... as long as were diligent and keep trying things always work out. 

So the big news of this week.... we got transfer calls. Sadly Elder Hanson will be leaving. I really liked him, he was a great comp, we got along really well, and we did some good work together. He will be going to Saskatoon and being a zone leader so that will be good for him. As far as me, my new companion is Elder Bee!!!! I served around him when I was in Melfort and he was in PA. He is a great missionary so I am pretty excited! He and I will actually be zone leaders here in Dauphin. This is his last transfer too and he will go home so i will probably be here another 3 months!!! I am excited for the new transfer. I am nervous to be a zone leader and take on all this new responsibility but it should be interesting! 

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

Eli and Sister McCurry

Eli's selfie with the cows!

God's Love and His Grace

Hey! 

This was a pretty good week. We went to Winnipeg last week for our zone conference and it was a really good meeting! We learned all about the spirit and how important it is in our teaching, it was President and Sister Thomas' last zone conference so that was sad! They are really great people and I will miss them! 

This week has been a lot of service.... again haha. I love it! We got to go out and help with sheep again. That was fun! We also helped a guy moved. We worked on a couple of yards and I think that was about it! 

We were able to teach a few lessons this week, not as much as usual, but overall it was a good week. On Sunday it was really good, one of the less actives we have been working with named Bev Watson gave a talk in church and another one of the less actives named Susie Campbell, who hasn't been to church in two years, came! It was so good to see her there and to hear Sister Watson speak. I love working with less active members, its like helping them rediscover a testimony and its great to see the blessings that come into their lives because of coming back to church. 

This week I was reminded of how much I love reading the scriptures. I have been reading in the Bible and I started reading in the Book of Romans, its a great book! I love chapter 5 and 6 where it talks about the atonement and also about baptism. Chapter 6 talks about how we are baptized and how we cannot be slaves to sin. Both of the chapters talk about God's love for us and about His grace. I then read President Uchtdorf's talk about grace and WOW what an amazing gift it is from God. In there it talks about how grace is one of the ways that God shows His love for us. It's through grace that we can become more like Him and we can one day be able to receive the celestial kingdom! It was a great reminder to me that we can't do all these hard things in life on our own, we have to rely on the Lord and His grace! He loves us so much and will always help us when we turn to him! I encourage all of you to read that talk and also those two chapters they are so good! 

Anyways I hope you all have a great week! I want you to all know that I really do love you so much and I'm so grateful for your support! Thanks for all you have done for me! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Exchanges and Zone Conference

Hello,

This week for me was a pretty good week. We had exchanges in Neepawa this week so we spent Tuesday there with the elders. It was a nice little break to go to a different area and do some work there, but it was also nice to get back. This week seemed to fly by just because we were so busy! We did a whole ton of service again this week but we were also super blessed to be able to teach as well. We are still trying to just get our investigators to progress. We are going to try a few different things this week to try and change it up and we will see if that helps any. We do have zone conference tomorrow so we will be driving into Winnipeg tonight and then staying for zone conference and driving home tomorrow night. It will be a long day haha. Its a 6 hour zone conference and then like a four and a half hour drive home.  I have definitely gotten used to long drives on my mission haha!

Other than that all is going really well! I am happy and things are going really great! I love my comp and I love this area. Time is going so fast though, I can't believe its almost transfer time again. WOW! Time flies when your having fun haha! I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love the experiences I am able to have and the great people I get to meet and talk to. I love the gospel and I do know that with out a doubt it is true and the only way to live life!!!!

I hope you have a great day and an even better week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Sheep Sheep and More Sheep

Well hello everyone how's it going? 

Life here in Canada is going pretty good. We had a great week this week, for the most part it was a sunny warm week. But Sunday all that changed! It was snowing again! Snow in the middle of May, kind of crazy but at  least it is warming back up today.

This week we were able to teach quite a few lessons and it turned out to be a great week. We found a guy named Albit this week. He is a black guy and he goes to the 7th Day Adventist church. He is really nice and we were able to teach him the restoration. He agreed with a lot of it and said he would read the Book of Mormon so that is exciting. He has a wife and 3 kids, so hopefully he will read.  I know that if he does he will find out its true and then hopefully things will go from there! 

Also this week we went out to some of the members and helped them sort sheep! What a job! We were running around like crazy people in this barn full of sheep and we had to sort them and put them into the chute so we could give them medicine and figure out if they were going to sell them or not. Sheep are crazy. They run around like nuts and they jump! I never realized that sheep jump before, but they do haha. A couple of them would jump straight into this tall fence we had up and then they would fly back down and keep doing it. It was a new experience that was for sure but it was a ton of fun. We would herd them into their little cages and sometimes you would have to grab them and move them, it was crazy! 

Anyways that's about all for this week.  I hope everyone is doing good and has a great week! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

President Thomas and Elder Hansen in Dauphin

Having Patience

Well hello everyone! How's everything going? I hope that everyone had a great Mother's Day, it was good to see and talk to you all! 

This has been a pretty good week for us here in Dauphin. We were able to find 3 new investigators this week, We actually went tracting and we were able to find a mother and a son! It was a neat experience we knocked on the door and she let us in, then she kept saying how amazing it was that we came over and she was so glad that we were there. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and had a really good talk with her. Her name is Mel. Hopefully we will meet with her again this week and get her progressing. We were also able to set a baptismal date with Brenda yesterday! The date is June 7th. We have got work on getting her to church so if you could all keep her in your prayers that would be great! The missionary work is sure moving along here. Summer time is a great time for service and missionary work and hopefully we will be able to see some great things come this summer! 

So yesterday and today in my studies I have been learning and reading a lot about patience. I love Preach My Gospel's definition of patience. Patience is the ability to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering with out becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious. It is the ability to do God's will and accept his timing. Patience is related to to hope and faith - you must wait for the Lord's promised blessings to be fulfilled. I love this definition because it is so true! We have to learn to endure through all of the hard things in life, but part of it is that we have to have a good attitude while we are enduring! Sometimes that really seems impossible, but I love how it says we also have to have faith and hope. We have to trust God and as we do that we will be strengthened and be able to endure through the hard things with a good attitude. Yesterday I was reading in Acts chapter 14 and I found a scripture that I really liked! In this part of the chapter Paul and Barnabas are going out to encourage some people to stay faithful and strong in the gospel. In Acts 14:22 it says: "Exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." I loved this scripture because life is never easy, we are going to go through tribulation and hard times and its ok because its all part of the plan, and if we are faithful and we endure through it we will enter into the kingdom of God. We have to be patient, we have to trust God and trust that he will fulfill his promises. I know that it is hard to be patient, it is something that I have really struggled with, but I do know that if we trust God and we are faithful to him and his commandments everything will work out. It might not be the way we want or when we want but it will all work out! I love the gospel so much I know that it is true and I know that as we live it we will be so blessed in our lives!

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

PS - Please note the change of address on the side of the blog for Eli!

Be a Member Missionary

Hello this week,

This week for us has been pretty good. We had a couple of lessons this week and we found another new investigator so that was a good thing! His name is Lucky and he is a really good person. He knows a lot about the church and he has some interesting beliefs and takes on life and religion but I like him. He is a super successful business man too. He has tons of money and things like that but he is really humble and doesn't care about money, he just does things to help people and stuff like that. Hopefully we will be able to have some more good talks with him and get him more interested. 

As far as investigators at sacrament we didn't have any. :( Its so hard to get them to come! They always commit but they never follow through haha. I'm learning patience too! We keep working with them though and hopefully we can get them there one of these days. We don't have any baptisms lined up right now. We are just trying to get our investigators to progress and then we will have baptisms. We are hoping to set a date with one of our investigators this week but we will see how that goes. 

Other than that things are going really well. I feel so happy! Its weird because this week we did a ton of walking around and street contacting and we did a bunch of service and I was really tired but yet I was happy! I have been setting a lot of goals lately and I'm really trying hard to achieve them. Its so hard sometimes, but I love when I am able to see the progress that has been made! How are all your goals from the new year coming along? Don't forget about them and keep making more goals! 

So the past couple of days I have been reading a book called The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton M. Christensen. You really should read that book. It lays out so well how to be a member missionary. One of our greatest responsibilities as members is to share the gospel! Don't let life get too busy and forget about that importance of sharing the gospel. I do know that if you try really hard to have missionary experiences the Lord will bless you!!!! 

Love Elder Farnsworth