It's Cold Outside!

Well hello for this week! hows everyone doing?

So the temperature dropped pretty dramatically this week haha! It snowed a ton this week too, we shoveled about 8 driveways in one day and WOW was it a lot of work! I think by the time I get through the winter I will have huge muscles from all this shoveling! The past two days the temperature has been a base of around -25 to -30 but with the wind chill we have been -41!!!! It's so cold haha, but don't worry I have my coat and hat and mitts so I'm all nice and warm!

As for this week, it was pretty good. We were able to teach a whole bunch of less actives and recent converts, but all of our investigators couldn't meet this week. That was pretty sad, but with it being so cold we weren't too surprised. It was weird because on Sunday we usually have a pretty descent turn out but because of the temperature we only had 26 people at church. I sure hope that this doesn't continue through out the whole winter! Its kinda funny because when I got here everyone would tell me about winter and how cold and hard missionary work would get... I would always just shrug it off, but now I believe them haha its true! We just keep working hard though.

The new Christmas initiative for the church started this week, so that was really exciting! I think it will really help us to talk to people and have people listen. Christmas is the most natural time to talk and testify of Christ... after all it is his birth we are celebrating! 

Well I hope everyone has a great week this week... just think 24 days and I can talk to you over the phone!!!! Love you all!

Love Elder Farnsworth

It's Snowing - A Lot!

This week for me was actually pretty rough haha! There was definitely some good things that happen, but it was still a hard week! We were able to meet with both Elizabeth and Corey this week. They are both doing really good. Elizabeth came to the relief society super Saturday and she seemed to have a great time. This Sunday was the primary program. It was really funny to watch all of the little kids up there singing and giving their talks! It was kind of weird though, we started sacrament meeting half an hour late... everyone just kind of sat there for half hour and then finally the meeting started. We had to wait for a family to get here for the primary program. It was sad too cause none of our investigators came to church. On Saturday it snowed a lot so we think that kind of deterred some people from coming. 

The snow here is crazy. It snows and snows and snows, and then the wind blows the snow everywhere! I am so excited about the snow though, I have been waiting for it and now its finally here! Its actually snowing right now haha! 

As for my new companion, I'm still trying to get used to him. He is a pretty nice person so that's good. Its been hard to teach him about the area and to help him get used to things, but its slowly coming along. We seem to get along pretty good so I'm definitely happy about that! This week one of our less active members who works at salvation army gave us a TON of Christmas decorations, so on Thursday I decorated our whole apartment for Christmas... its pretty decked out haha! 

Well that's about all for this week, thanks for all you do. I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving! Don't forget to be thankful!!!! 

Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

New Companion

Well hello this week! 

How is everyone doing?  I am doing pretty good. I got a new companion this week. His name is Elder Schollars. He is from Washington and he has been out for 20 months. I was actually really sad to see Elder Brown go, I will miss him alot! Even though at times he would drive me crazy, we had a lot of fun together! I learned so much from him, he taught me how to be myself and relax, but he also taught me how to be a missionary. He was a great trainer, and I will really miss serving with him. So far Elder Schollars seems okay. I don't really know him too much right now, but he seems like he will be a good companion, he is definitely different than Elder Brown though, that's for sure!!!!

This week was pretty sad in regards to teaching, we were only in our area until Wednesday morning and then I was in Saskatoon until Saturday morning waiting for Elder Schollars to get here. It was kind of a bummer to be out of the area for so long, but now were back and were ready to work hard! I decided today that I really truly love Melfort, its so small and there is not a ton to do, but its a great place. It has taught me how important it is to serve others. We do so much service and its amazing the feeling I get when I serve! I love it here!

As for the weather its actually not that bad, its definitely cold, but there is hardly any snow :( I'm sad I want lots of snow... but its just not coming! Everyone has been saying its been a pretty mild winter so far, so we will see what the rest will be like haha!

Well I hope everyone has a great week. I can't believe that its almost American Thanksgiving already! That is crazy! Well I love you all!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Transfers

I had a pretty good week this week, we actually saw quite a bit of success! We had a lesson with Elizabeth, and then she actually ended up coming to church on Sunday! I was so happy. Then we were able to meet with Candace again this week. She actually text us this time! So we went over and had a good lesson with her! She is pretty hard to teach though because she agrees with everything, but at the same time she won't act. So its like she knows what she needs to do and she wants to do it, but she just won't act. It gets pretty frustrating but hopefully as we keep working with her things will get better! This week we also met with our other investigator Corey! This was another miracle... a couple of weeks ago Corey actually got thrown in jail, and we thought he wasn't going to get out for like 9 months, but i guess they put him out on probation, and now he has all these rules he has to follow! We went over and talked with him and he said he is super ready for change. He said he wants to start a new life! So we will be working with  him and hopefully he will start progressing. One of the hardest things of serving in Canada is teaching the native population. Both Candace and Corey are natives, and the natives here for the most part have no sense of time or commitment. If you set a time up they will agree to it, but then you go try to visit and they aren't there! It gets frustrating, but we keep working on it and we are seeing success so that is good!

So I'm sure your all wondering about the weather about here... its not snowing anymore :( it snows on and off but nothing is really sticking... instead its just freezing cold! This morning it was -14 Celsius, so i think that's like 4 degrees Fahrenheit or something, so it is definitely starting to get cold! We went and washed our truck this morning and by the time we drove 5 minutes to the library the whole thing was frozen! haha It might be a long winter!!!!

We did get transfer call this week, I will be staying in Melfort, and Elder Brown is being transferred to Fort Francis Ontario. He will be a zone leader there. My new companion's name is Elder Scholars. From what I know he is a pretty good guy. He has been out for like 19 or 20 months, so he has a lot of experience too. Hopefully I will learn a lot from him! It will be interesting because this transfer is only 5 weeks instead of 6 and the transfer ends right before Christmas, so I think I will be moving right before Christmas, but we will see what happens!

I hope everyone is having a great time back at home, I can't believe its already the holiday season, hopefully you all have a great time celebrating haha! Lately I have been reading a lot in Mosiah, its such a good book. I have learned so much from it. I'm so grateful for the book of Mormon. I know that book is true! I love you all I hope you have a good week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

James' Baptism

Well this week we got to baptize James!!!! We were so happy and excited for him. He got baptized on Saturday by Elder Brown, and I was able to confirm him on Sunday. It was a great experience. I felt the spirit so strong, and James seemed so happy! James has a really bad back and legs, so I had to be in the font with them to help get him back up in case his leg went numb. Before we all got in, James said wow this is too good to be true, there is no way this isn't the true church. Then on Sunday in gospel principles he said a prayer. In his prayer he said something like I'm so glad I could be apart of this true church for 16 hours now! This made me so happy!!!! It really strengthened my testimony. It made me realize how much I have been blessed to be apart of this TRUE church for 19 years. I'm so thankful to have grown up in the gospel! What a blessing!

The rest of this week was pretty slow. We went on exchanges in Prince Albert this week, Tuesday to Wednesday. I learned a lot on exchanges. I went with Elder Crake and Elder Rivera, they have both been out for about 20 months, and they taught me a lot. They have a lot more experience, and it was good to go with them and learn!

We did teach our less active named Nick this week, but instead of teaching him on top of the pub, we actually got to teach him in his room in the pub haha that was pretty funny!

Halloween was pretty good, we spent it with a member and her less active mom. We had a good time. They made us dress up so I got to be a cat and Elder Brown got to be Barney! haha. We had a good time!

I'm so thankful for all of your prayers and support, they truly do help! This has been such a good week, I know the Lord is blessing us and I'm so grateful! I hope you all have a great day!

Love Elder Farnsworth

James' Baptism

The women in front are James' girlfriend and the girlfriend's mom.

Eli and Elder Brown

 Its snowing!

This picture was taken this morning out his apartment window.  

Zone Conference

Hi everyone!!! 

This has been one of the best weeks yet!!!!!! Elder Brown and I saw so many miracles this week, it was amazing!!!!

On Tuesday we had a zone conference, it was so good. We had one of the area seventies come and tour our mission, his name was Elder Malm. He is from Sweden, he is such a good speaker!!!! Everything he talked about was exactly what we needed to hear! He talked about how we need to change, how we need to become better and become more like Christ. He talked about how we need to expect miracles. He also talked about how we can move our mission into the next phase. Right now our mission does have baptisms and things, but he talked about how we could take it to the next level. It was soooo good!!!! He talked about how we need to be bold and ask more people to be baptized. He also talked about how to find more people to teach! It was such a good meeting. Me and Elder Brown were so tired after the meeting because it was so spiritual that it was exhausting haha!!! 

On Thursday we had a really good day too, we got to meet with Elizabeth again which was great!!!! we thought she had dropped off the face of the earth, but we were able to teach her again. The lesson was really good. We asked her to be baptized and she said that she probably would, but right now she is nervous about her family. So we are working on that. We also need her to come to church, but she is always busy. Hopefully she can come this week!

Now for the biggest miracle of all!!!! So Elder Brown and I were able to teach James on Thursday too. Going into the lesson we were super nervous. We were teaching him the law of chastity, and he is living with his girlfriend. We were nervous because the week before he told us that they weren't going to get married for awhile and that they were just going to live together. So going into the lesson we thought it was kind of do or die. Well the very first thing that he started to talk about when we started the lesson was how he and his girlfriend broke up and how he wasn't living with her anymore!!!!! It was such a relief. So we taught him almost all of the commandments and he loved them, he told us he would live them. Then on Saturday we were able to meet with him again, and we went over the rest of the commandments, and the baptismal interview questions. So now we are having a baptism this Saturday!!!! I am so excited, we both weren't sure if he would get baptized or not, but the Lord wants him to, and the Lord prepared him!!!!!

Sunday was also a really good day. It was our branch president's son's farewell. He is going to the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania mission. He leaves tomorrow for the MTC. He and Elder Brown both talked and it was a really really good sacrament meeting. There were tons of non members there and it was just another miracle!!!!

Also crazy story this week, we went to the Melfort museum, and we were working in the saw mill and we were cutting these huge logs. Well one of the guys that was working the saw almost got his hand chopped off!!! It was crazy. He went to grab this piece of wood that was by the saw, and the saw was still moving. Well anyways the wood got caught on the saw and totally flung around and smashed his wrist and threw his hand into the saw. His hand got pretty cut up and he broke his thumb and has to have surgery. It was crazy. I thought he lost his hand for a minute there!!!!

I'm so thankful for all of your prayers and support. I can feel them everyday!!!! I love being on a mission. I have seen so many miracles and it just keeps strengthening my testimony! I know this work is lead by God, he helps us everyday. I know this church is true and I'm so thankful for the blessings that I have received because of it!!!!! Love you all! Have a great week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Zone Conference

Service at the Library

Ward Halloween party

 Logan's Farewell

Teaching at the Pub

Well Hi Everyone! 

How are you all doing? This has been a pretty good week. We have had some funny experiences this week! Our week started off pretty slow again and we were a little bit discouraged, but then in the middle it started to pick back up. We were able to meet with one of our less actives this week, but it was pretty funny because he lives in the upstairs of the town pub. So we went to teach him and we actually taught him outside on the roof of the bar! It was pretty funny, definitely a different experience! We also got to volunteer at the salvation army this week. One of our other less actives works there so that was fun to spend time with her and go through peoples old junk!

On Wednesday we got our flu shots.... that's the first time I have ever gotten a flu shot and for some reason it made my arm hurt! It ached clear until Saturday! I wasn't too happy, but oh well! We also were able to volunteer at the museum this week. We were helping them cut these huge logs! They use this really old school cutter and one of the logs actually fell off the saw and it took all 8 of us an hour to figure out how to get this huge log back on the saw! haha It was pretty fun. The best part was we were able to talk to and see one of our potential investigators!

The end of this week was kind of a bummer though, all of our appointments ended up getting busy and everyone canceled on us again! That was kind of frustrating, but we just keep trying! Sunday was good. We had an investigator come and one of the members invited her niece to come, so she actually came and brought her kids. She seemed to really like it, but I guess in relief society the teacher was saying things that really freaked her out. So hopefully this week we will be able to meet with her and help her understand more of what was going on and maybe, hopefully she will be a new investigator! Sunday was good too because we had potluck! Who doesn't love pot luck! haha 

Well I hope everyone is doing good. I miss you all and hope you have a good week!

Love Elder Farnsworth