Canadian Thanksgiving

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!!!! 

Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving here and we had a great Thanksgiving! On Sunday night we were able to go over to the Atwoods and have Thanksgiving with them. Then yesterday we went over and had Thanksgiving with the Frocs! It was really nice to celebrate and remember all of the things that I have to be grateful for. Too often I forget all of the amazing people/things that I have in my life. Its nice to have a special day to remember and think of all of those things!

This week was a pretty interesting week, it was actually pretty bad as far as teaching. We were able to teach a couple of our investigators, but ALOT of people ended up canceling on us. I think a lot of people were busy for Thanksgiving and the weekend and so it was kind of a bummer. We were able to do quite a bit of service this week which is always good. We do have a whole bunch of appointments lined up for this week, so we are just hoping and praying that they all follow through! We did teach James this week and his baptism is scheduled for November 1st. We still have a couple of lessons to teach him, and he still has to get married before he gets baptized so we just keep praying that everything will work out! The good news is that all of the drama that we have been dealing with has calmed down. Its nice to have a break from all of the problems... at least for a minute haha!

With it being Canadian Thanksgiving and all I thought I would just tell you all how thankful I am for you! I'm so grateful for my family especially! I love how big and how crazy everyone is and I'm so thankful for all of your support! I love you all. I'm also so grateful for all of my friends. You are all the best! You all email me every week and you have made a huge impact on my life! I also want you all to know how grateful I am for the gift and the power of prayer. Heavenly Father does hear our prayers, and He will answer them! If you ever have trouble or need help pray!!!! There has been so many times in the past 3 and a half months that I have prayed and received help. Without the power and ability of prayer I wouldn't be here! I love this gospel, and I'm so grateful for it in my life! I love you all so much and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Getting Cold

Well hello everyone! How's everyone doing?

Things here in Canada are good, its starting to get really cold here!!! I had to buy my coat this week and we received our first little bit of snow! SNOW in the first week of October.... I think winter is going to be rough. Apparently it gets to be like -40 here and with the wind chill its supposed to be like -60, so that will be interesting!

This week was pretty good, we taught Elizabeth this week and like always the lesson was really really good! We taught her the word of wisdom and about Prophets. She was really receptive and even came to the first session of General Conference. It was great! We also moved a couple this week and they said we could come over and teach them, so our teaching pool is slowly getting bigger!

Conference this weekend was so good!!! I loved it! There were so many talks that I loved! It was kind of funny because all of the talks were directed toward people that Elder Brown and I were teaching. They would have been perfect, and answered so many questions.... it was super disappointing though because only Elizabeth came. I swear missionary work can be so frustrating sometimes. I wish sometimes that we could just force people to feel the spirit, because if they did they would know that its all true! I hope that kind of makes sense haha!

Other than that we just did our normal things this week. We dealt with even more drama! Its funny how much drama can be in one little branch! I think all of this drama is gonna make me insane! I have definitely learned a lot from dealing with all of the chaos though. Its amazing how much Heavenly Father loves us. He wants each of us to learn and grow. He gives us all so many challenges and trials, but they are all to make us stronger!

I'm so grateful for the gospel, without it I would be lost. It gives people the chance to change and become better! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Transfers Again

This week has been a pretty good week. It has flown by for some reason. We have been pretty busy all week long so that's good! We went to Prince Albert for pday last week and spent the night up there with the other Elders. It was a lot of fun! The P.A. Elders have been going through a rough time because right now they are in a tripan and two of the elders don't really want to work so they have been struggling a little bit. Also P.A. is an interesting place. There is a lot of drugs and things up there so its hard to do missionary work, and right now they are in kind of in a dry spell! The Sisters up there are doing really well but the Elders are suffering haha! 

The rest of the week we taught a couple of lessons, we got a new investigator named Cori. He is a really neat guy. He is a native and his girlfriend just had a baby. He has been working as a carny in the carnivals for a while now and he has decided to change his life! He is really nice and loves what we taught him. He came to church and now we have another appointment with him too so that is great!!!!! 

Also this week we have been dealing with tons and tons of drama haha! The branch here definitely has some problems! Some of the members just don't seem to get along. Then we have a recent convert who has had some problems that we are trying to fix! It's tiring! 

We also got transfer calls on Saturday..... ( drum roll please) and I am staying in Melfort... with Elder Brown again! I guess its super rare to have the trainee stay with the trainer, but President Thomas wanted us to stay. It should be a good transfer, we have a lot of potential baptisms and were working hard! Also Elder Brown is now district leader so we have to step it up even more to be good examples! It will definitely be an experience! We will need lots of prayers! 

Well thanks for all of your support! I miss you all and think of you often! 

Love Elder Farnsworth!

A Normal Week in Melfort

Well this was a pretty normal week, we met with all three of our investigators this week, and the lessons went really really good! The first lesson was with James, we taught him the restoration, and he loved it, he seemed super excited about it and he said that he already knows Joseph Smith is a prophet because he already knows the Book of Mormon is true.... it’s only been 2 weeks since we have started meeting with him and he already knows!!!!  He is solid haha! It was fun when we went to James we got to play Settlers  of Catan with him and his girlfriend and it was really fun, it might be my new favorite game haha!

On Thursday we met with Elizabeth, that lesson went really well. We finished teaching her the plan of salvation and she loved it! She said that it made so much sense, she loved how there were degrees of glory and she loved the spirit world. I love teaching her, she has the strongest desire to learn and grow! She also told us this week that she did pray about baptism and she said it is something she will do, but she said she just needs to pray about it again and be sure... I think we will have a date with her this week.

We also met with Candace this week, and taught her the word of wisdom. She actually took it surprisingly well and said she would stop drinking coffee! We also taught our recent converts and had really good lessons with them. It’s hard to be in the small towns, because we don’t get to teach as much as in the cities. We mostly do a lot of service and volunteering. We try to get really involved with the branch and the community so we can hopefully generate people to teach!

This week on Saturday we volunteered at the multi K marathon here in Melfort. We were crossing guards on the road, so we got to direct traffic. It was pretty fun! We also had our branch activity this week, it was a pie and chili cook off. It was a lot of fun, and it was a huge success, they had 17 nonmembers there!!! It was like paradise for us haha. We went around and introduced ourselves and talked with everyone, it was really fun and the pie and chili were delicious haha!

Well that’s about all for this week, thank you all for your love and support, I’m so grateful for all of your prayers! Love you all and hope you have a great week!!!!!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Member Missionaries

Well this has been a pretty good week! The beginning of the week started out pretty slow, but the end of the week was great! On Thursday we got to go down to Saskatoon for a specialized training, our whole zone was there, and the other Saskatoon zone was there, President and Sister Thomas were there too.  We learned a lot about how to work with members, and how to teach better and all that good stuff! It was a great training. I learned so much from it! Then on Friday we were able to teach an investigator named James. We did a whole bunch of service for him last week, and this week he let us come teach him. We were able to set a baptismal date with him for October 11th. He has a lot of work to do before then . . . he has to get married!!! haha. He is super solid though and his girlfriend is a less active so it shouldn't too big of a deal! 

This weekend we also had stake conference. It was so good it was all about the temple, family history work, and doing missionary work! The talks were so good, they definitely inspired me! This week I realized how important the members are to missionary work! Before I came out on my mission I never knew or understood how important member missionary work is. Members are the key to missionary work. In our mission they took away tracting and now the most productive way for us to do missionary work is through the members. It is so important to remember that everyone of us is a missionary! So many people think that you are only a missionary when you were a name tag, That is not true! I was reading yesterday in 2 Nephi 26: 22-33. I love these verses, I love how it states that the gospel is for everyone, no one is denied and in verse 27 it says that we are commanded to persuade people to repent. It is our job to help everyone we know receive the gospel. I also love verse 30-31 if we truly have charity and love for others we will want them to receive the gospel! We all have a duty to help those around us receive the gospel. I know its hard and before my mission I was probably one of the worst member missionaries. Looking back I had so many opportunities to share my beliefs with those around me but I never did. I always thought it was too hard or too scary and I always thought that was a missionary's job to share the gospel. Now I realize that its all of our jobs to share the gospel and I realize now that its really not that hard. We just have to have a gospel conversation, or use Mormon words like family home evening or priesthood or church, anything that will spark peoples interest and then we can talk about the gospel! There are so many ways to share the gospel, if members are willing to work and share the gospel, the work will move forward at such a fast rate! 

I am so grateful for the gospel. I know that each of us has a sacred responsibility to share this Gospel with others. As you help to move the work along your lives will be so blessed, you will see so many miracles, and your testimony will grow! Remember its not just missionaries who share the gospel, its members too! I love this Church and I'm so grateful that I get to share this gospel with all of those around me! Thank you all for your support, I hope to hear from you all soon. Love you all! 

I challenge you all to go out and share the gospel with all of those around you, you will be blessed and so will they!

Love Elder Farnsworth

First Baptism!

This has been a really good week! Elder Brown and I had our first baptism this week!!!! Rhoneil and his son were both baptized on Saturday night, it was so amazing to see them both get baptized, the spirit was so strong there... I loved it!!! Rhoneil's family was so excited to have him baptized. His daughter got up and spoke at the baptism and said that she was waiting 7 years for this day. It was definitely a good day!!! The rest of this week was pretty good too. We didn't get to teach Elizabeth or Candace this week, but we did still get to teach a lot of the less active and recent converts. We had exchanges this week, so the three elders in Prince Albert came down to Melfort and spent some time with us. We had a lot of fun, we did service with them and taught a few lessons. It was nice to see other missionaries for awhile haha.  Me and Elder Brown are like exiled and sometimes we get bored of each other haha! There is not too much else to say about this week, it has been good, The baptism was so amazing, I can't really get over it! I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father allowed me to take part in it, what a blessing! Rhoneil is an amazing guy and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to teach him!!! 

Today for my birthday we aren't really doing anything exciting. Last night the Frocs made me a cake which was super nice of them. Then tomorrow we are going to get ice cream with a recent convert. Friday we are having a big fire at a members house for my birthday. The members here are so nice to celebrate with me!!! I love them all. I'm so thankful to be out here. It's so hard but its so worth it!!! Thanks for all your love and support. I hope you all have a great week!!! 

Go out and share the gospel!!! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Rhoneil and his son's Baptism Day

Eli and Elder Brown canning pickles at a member's home.

Labor Day in Canada, Eh? Who knew?

It was good to hear from you! Sorry I am emailing a day late, but since it was Labor Day the library was closed, and then we were really busy yesterday and couldn’t even email at the church. I’m glad that you guys had a good week, it seems like everyone is keeping busy and just going on in life! Nothing too exciting happened this week, it was pretty normal. We had our typical lessons with our investigators and less active recent converts. Good news for this week was that Elizabeth did come to church!!!!! Hooray! she was crying all throughout sacrament so that was good too haha! Also this weekend is Rhoneils baptism.  He should be baptized with his son on Saturday, and his other son will be baptizing both of them so that should be really good!  

It’s so weird, I feel like I haven’t seen you all in forever, and I feel like you have no clue what is going on in my life haha! It’s so hard to summarize everything that happens in a week into one little email. I go through so many different thoughts, emotions, experiences in one week that a week can feel like a year haha! The time is going by really fast though. I honestly can’t believe it. I am more than half way through my training. I can’t believe that its almost my birthday too.... WEIRD!

Oh I should update you on the senior couple. They are actually really good people. They do talk WAY too much but they are really good to us, they are like our grandparents! Elder Brown and I love them, but at the same time get annoyed with them. This week has been challenging with my companion, he gets on my nerves sometimes, but we do get along really well and I do love him haha! I have just been tired this week! I better just get used to it. Sorry this email has been so whinny, I really am having a great time and I’m loving it out here. I promise I’m not "struggling" haha I’m doing good!!!!! There’s no place I would rather be right now, I love it here!!!!

Love Elder Farnsworth