Week of Blessings

Well hello everyone!

How is everyone doing? We had a great week this week! Its been kind of a crazy week weather wise... the weather here is kind of bipolar. It started out this week with terrible weather.... on Tuesday it dropped tons of snow.... I can't even count how many times I was out pushing our dang car. It seemed like everywhere we parked we got stuck, so that was fun haha! But by the end of the week the weather is really good. It has been warm and sunny and now there are huge puddles everywhere from the melted snow! 

Other than that its been good. We have been able to teach quite a few lessons this week and we found 2 new investigators so that was a huge blessing to us this week! This area is a lot different than my other two and the people here are a lot different too! The people here are a little more crazy... it seems like quite a few of them have fried their brains with drugs and things so we have some interesting appointments, but ya gotta love the people! 

On Saturday we got to go tubing with the branch. That was a lot of fun! We have really good branch members here and they are a lot of fun! That was the first time this year that I got to go sledding so that was pretty fun! All in all its really been a great week. 

I am so excited for Easter this weekend, that is one of my favorite holidays! The church actually came out with a new Easter initiative this week and its really good! They have another movie and website all about it! You all should go on Facebook and share the movie and website. The missionaries all have special pass along cards for the initiative and its our main focus for now!

Well I hope you all have a great Easter! Thanks for you prayers and support! Love you all!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Life in Dauphin

Hello everyone,

I made it to Dauphin this week! We went to transfer meeting on Thursday and then Thursday we also drove up to Dauphin and got to the area. So far I like it here, its a little bit bigger than Warroad.  It reminds me of Melfort, but its bigger than Melfort too! It almost feels like a city compared to the other two places that I have been serving. So far the people here are really nice. We had a branch activity on Saturday and it was a lot of fun to get to know the people here. There are a lot of older people here and about 3 younger families so that is a big change from what I just came from. It was also crazy because the sacrament meeting here is a little smaller than what I'm used to. There was about 30 people at sacrament on Sunday. I am really excited to be here though. I feel like it will be a great place to serve. 

As for my companion, his name is Elder Hanson. He is from South Jordan Utah. He actually went to Bingham. I really like him a lot. We got a long really good so far and he is a really hard worker. He has been out for almost 18 months. He actually came out with Elder Brown. So this should be a great transfer. I'm super excited to get to work and hopefully we will seem so really good things happen! 

I hope everything at home is going well. I love you all and think about you from time to time.... Hopefully you all are doing your missionary work haha! 

Have a great week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

The Erickson Family and Willie

Transfer Meeting

A Baptism and Transfer Time

Hey everybody!!!! We had a great week this week! 

Starting the week off was really stressful this week, we were trying to figure everything out to be able to work things out for Kendra's baptism. We still had a lesson to teach her, we had to go over the baptismal interview questions and we had to have her interviewed for baptism... and it doesn't help that she just started a new job! But needless to say everything worked out perfectly, prayers were answered and miracles happened! We were able to teach Kendra the lesson and go over the questions and then she was interviewed the same night and everything went great! Then on Saturday Kendra was baptized! I felt the spirit so strongly at her baptism. Kendra was truly prepared by Heavenly Father. She has such a strong testimony and her desire to follow Jesus Christ is so strong! I am so grateful for the chance that I had to be a part of this whole process for Kendra. She is a great person and I have really seen the gospel change and bless her life! This is what a mission is all about, helping others to come closer to Christ. 

We had some really great experiences this week on top of the baptism. On Tuesday we had a ZTM. We talked a lot about our commitment as missionaries and we also talked about procrastination. There was a talk entitled DO It Now by Donald Hallstrom. It was a great talk and I really got a lot from it. ZTM was so good it really inspired me. On Wednesday after we taught Kendra we went to Roseau and taught Willy, then we went to subway to eat lunch. While we were there one of the workers came up and sat down by us and she asked us what we believed about suicide. We told her that only God could judge the situation and she explained that her son had committed suicide a year ago. We were able to testify to her that she would see her son again and that families are forever. It really touched her heart and now were going to start teaching her. What a miracle, being in the right place at the right time is real. To top off this great week, it was in the 60's yesterday.... THE 60'S!!!! It was so nice! 

We also got transfer calls this week...... and sad news, I am being transferred. I am being moved to Dauphin Manitoba. It is a small little town a few hours west of Winnipeg. My new companions name is Elder Hanson. I don't know too much about him but I'm excited. I am sad to leave Warroad but I am so grateful to have served here and to have helped build this area. I will miss the amazing people here so much, but the only way to grow is to get out of your comfort zone and experience change. I will be sad to leave but excited to see what happens next!

Thank you for all your love, support, and prayers! I love you all! Have a great week!!!! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

PS: Don't send anymore letters to my address here, send them all to the mission home. Love you all!

A few pictures of Elder Elliott, Casey Nelson, Kendra, and Shayne

Love Me Some Donuts

Its finally sunny here! The weather the past two days has been so nice! It's been in the late 30's and the 40's and man it feels like summer outside! The sun is shinning so bright and I can't wait for it to be summer time! 

This was a pretty good week all in all. We had quite a few things fall through on us this week, but we still stayed busy. We had a couple of lessons scheduled in Roseau this week but they all bailed on us, so instead we went out and contacted some former investigators. We were able to find some really good potential there and we found a new investigator from it so that is exciting! We also tried to stop by and visit quite a few less actives this week and we saw a little bit of success from that too! We were able to take out some of the priests this week and they spent the day with us. That was a lot of fun! I think they had a really good time, and it's like they were a good luck charm for us too! People were a lot nicer and seemed to have more compassion haha so it was good to have them along with us this week! 

On Saturday we did some service, we helped Shayne Otto cut some wood and stack it, then we got to make some delicious donuts with Edie and Rodney! The donuts were soooo good! It was quite a process to make the donuts, and afterward everything smelt like grease! We fried them in these two huge blocks of lard too so I am sure they were really healthy!!!! They were good though..I am not sure how many I ate that night, but I think I gained a few pounds! 

All in all this was a really good week. I can't wait for this week. We have transfer calls already and we also have Kendra's baptism. Everything is starting to line up for the baptism and Kendra seems to be getting really excited! Hopefully everything will go as planned, and hopefully its a great day for her! 

Well thanks for all your prayers and support. I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! 

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dayne and Megan!!!! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Making donuts with Edie and Rodney

It's Almost Summer!

Hello everyone! 

To start off I just want to say that things did warm up this week!!! The temperature today is 32 degrees, it almost feels like summer out! we drove with our windows down it felt so warm! 

This was a really good week. We were able to find a new investigator this week. Her name is Wendy and she is a great lady! She is super interested in the Book of Mormon and she has one of the strongest faiths in Jesus Christ. We had a great lesson with her and now were going to start teaching her every week. We also taught Willy and Kendra and they are both doing really good. They both came to church yesterday and we had a great gospel principles class. Both Kendra and Willy are really starting to understand and they are both gaining great testimonies. in Kendra's lesson she told us that she is totally committed and she is really excited to be baptized! I can't wait for her, she will be a great addition to the branch here. 

In gospel principles yesterday we were talking about obedience and we were talking about 1 Nephi 3:7 and how God always prepares a way for us to be obedient and obey the commandments. Kendra started talking about how she was prepared and how Heavenly Father has helped her change her life so that she would now obey the commandments. It was so good to hear her testimony and to see the growth that she has gained in only 2 short months!

This week we actually got to go back to Canada too. Wendy lives in Canada and we have a few members up there so we went and ate dinner with the members and then had the lesson with Wendy. the two members we ate with are older people and one is from Yugoslavia and the other from Italy. It was pretty interesting trying to understand them but they had some pretty interesting stories to share! I love the members here they are some of the best! 

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

BRRRRR Freezy -46 degrees!

What a week! 

This week has been pretty good... it has been freezing cold but good! We have made a huge push this week to visit a whole bunch of less actives, and we ended up having 4 less active lessons and then we had 3 recent convert lessons. It was so good to go out and meet a whole bunch of people and really start working and teaching them all. We have some really great less active people here... I think it will be challenging to get them to come to church, but we will try! We also had a lesson with Kendra this week... it was a pretty intense lesson. We got there and started to talk and then within the first 5 minutes she started talking about temple sealings... I guess a member told her that he was going to be sealed in the temple and was really excited, but Kendra got curious and looked up temple sealing on the internet... the INTERNET! Needless to say she pretty much got all the details about the temple and she was pretty freaked out, so that was crazy I had never dealt with that before, it was hard cause you can't talk about that stuff, but some how we calmed her down and worked it out. After that we taught her the plan of salvation and she really accepted that. She is still on track to be baptized, but now we just have to really work with her on understanding the temple. 

Other than that this has been a pretty normal week, we helped a person move on Saturday and had a whole bunch of great dinner appointments this week. On Friday we actually stopped and helped this lady, she almost hit a deer and then ended up sliding into a ditch, so we stopped and helped her and waited with her until someone came to pull her out. Its so funny how many people end up in the ditches here... I have been in it once when Elder Burnett was driving, but I keep praying that while I'm driving I stay out of them! 

Anyways I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the warmth... it got down to -46 this week!!! brrrrrr! 

Love you all have a great week! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

 Elder Burnett before he went home

Snow from Eli's deck in Warroad.

Great Missionary Work Week

Well hello everyone! How was everyone's Valentines day?

This has been a great week! Elder Elliott and I have been able to do a lot of great missionary work this week! We have been working like crazy. We have really been making a push to see and visit a whole bunch of less actives and also visit a bunch of part member families. So far we are seeing a a lot of success from that, we have so many potentials for investigators right now because of all that. Mostly we have been going over and introducing ourselves and getting to know people and now hopefully this week we can go back to a lot of them and start to REALLY teach them. 

It was kinda sad this week we didn't get to have a lesson with either Kendra or Willy, they were both super busy but they did both come to church so that was great! They have come to church for about 5 weeks in a row now, which is so good! Yesterday in gospel principles we were laughing because we taught missionary work.  We had taught 2 of our investigators to do missionary work and they were so excited about sharing the gospel.... they are both so prepared for baptism! 

Other than that our week has been pretty normal.  We had a ZTM in International Falls this week and it takes about 2 hours to drive there. I was nervous because I was driving on like sheets of ice the whole time, so that was scary, but we made it! It has been snowing like crazy this week too. We went walking around one day and man I thought we were going to freeze to death! But everything is going really well. Elder Elliott and I get along really well and I think we will see a lot of great things happen this transfer! 

I hope everything is going well back at home! I love you all and miss you! Have a great week! 

Love Elder Farnsworth