Drive, Train, Drive, Flat Tire, Drive, Eat, Drive, Ticket

Hey everyone, how was your week? 

This week wasn't as good as last week, but it was pretty good! The first part of this week we were in our area and we were able to do some good work. On Thursday we went to Neepawa and had an exchange there. It was a good exchange, we went and contacted some referals they had gotten and we painted the museum they have in town, it was pretty fun! After we got done painting though we went out to our car and.... it had a flat tire. So anyways we called the tire shop and they came and took the tire, fixed it up, brought it back and it was good as new so that was a huge blessing! 

Thursday night we went to the Beaumonts for supper, it was kinda crazy. We had specialized training on Friday so we had missionaries traveling from Flin Flon and Thompson down to Brandon and the Beaumonts invited all of them to come for supper too. So it total there were 8 missionaries at supper, that's a lot haha! 

On Friday we went down to Brandon and had a specialized training. It was really good. President and Sister Craig were there as well as the assistants and our whole zone. It was a lot of fun to have everyone there and everyone gave great portions! We had a portion by President and Sister Craig about online proselyting and a lot of things are changing with that. We have to un-follow all of our friends and people from back home.... we can keep family but other than that we are now told to focus on just our mission and the people within it. Its a little different but it should be good. I can still do skype lessons and work with people from back home we just have to have the mission Presidents permission first. 

Anyways after specialized training we had interviews, then we drove Neepawa back home and then we drove back to Dauphin... lots of driving! This week we are supposed to go on exchange with Portage and Brandon... so lots of driving again haha! It should be a good week though. The temperature is starting to change here too... its getting cooler and the days are getting shorter, I can't believe that summer is almost already over.... everyone starts school again next week... time goes so fast! 

I hope you all have a great week! I would love to hear from you all! love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Flat tire

The District - with "Serious Faces"

Speeding Ticket from all the driving!

Exchanges

Hey everyone! How was your week this week? 

Our week was pretty good. It started off a little slow, but it was a great week! So to start off last Monday we had our P-day and we had a little time in the evening so we thought we would go walking around and tract a few houses. Well we saw a guy outside so we went and talked to him. He was interesting, he was an evangelical guy and holy. All he wanted to do was bible bash with us! He told us that he feared for our souls and salvation and all this crazy stuff. We spent like a good 20 minutes talking to him and finally I just bore my testimony to him and then we left. It was an interesting experience, but it really reaffirmed my testimony. It is interesting because in life some people try to tear us down and put doubt in our minds but like President Uchtdorf said "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." Unfortunately that guys wasn't really prepared for the message of the restoration, but maybe next time! :) 

On Tuesday the Neepawa Elders came to Dauphin and we had an exchange. It was pretty good. We did some service and then we had a dinner appointment. The two elders in Neepawa are pretty good, one of them is actually from Riverton. He went to school with me. I had seen him in the halls before but didn't really know him so that's kind of interesting!

Neepawa exchange experience.

On Wednesday we got to drive up to Flin Flon and have exchanges up there. That was a lot of fun! Its about a 6 hour drive to Flin Flon so we left and while we drove up there it rained pretty hard the ENTIRE time! It was crazy. Then we exchanged with them and drove 6 hours back home on Thursday. It was a long drive. It was a good exchange though. Flin Flon is really different from the rest of the mission. It is really hilly and rocky and its got some interesting people in the town. It is pretty far up north and the farther up north you get the crazier the people get! They did have a baptism this weekend in Flin Flon though so that was great.

On the way to Flin Flon

Elder Moore and Elder Farnsworth in Flin Flon

The view of Flin Flon

On Friday we had MLC. That is always a long meeting, and our internet wasn't working for skype so it was interesting but we figured it all out and it turned out ok.

Supply Box Explosion with all the traveling.

Now for the best news of all....... on Sunday Elder Wilson and I both had to give talks, we spoke on Elder Hales talk from the last general conference.  We had 3 non members at church, two of them were investigators and 1 is a potential. We also had 5 less actives there! It was so good to see them all there, it made me so happy! One of the investigators is a pastor and he brought his friend and they both really loved the whole church meeting, they even stayed for Sunday School and they enjoyed it! I know they felt the spirit there and I really hope that when we follow up with them they will be a little more serious and interested in our message. 

Sad news of the week.... our baptismal date with Debbie, we had to drop her date a couple weeks ago and now she doesn't want to even meet with us anymore. Her husband came back and he told us that she didn't want to see us. I think he made the decision not her. That was pretty sad but all we can do is try!

Well I hope you all have a great week! Love you all and miss you all! I would love to hear from you all. 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Ukrainian Festival

Hello everyone,

This week was alright for us, nothing really too exciting happened. This week they had the Ukrainian festival in Dauphin. It is a really big deal here lots of people come and there is dancing and parades and all sorts of things going on. We got to go to a couple of things so that was fun.

On Tuesday we traveled into Neepawa and had a district meeting and then we drove back and went to a farm and did some service. On Wednesday we went and did some service and Thursday was a good day, we taught a few less active members and had some good lessons. Finding new people was pretty difficult this week. Everyone we talked to was out of town and everyone we stopped by was at the Ukrainian festival so that was hard. but hopefully this week will be better. 

So we all know how the Farnsworth children have "tummy troubles".... well I think I found out what gives me tummy trouble.... BANANAS! They kill me haha! The past few weeks my stomach has been pretty upset and every time I eat a banana it gets worse so I won't be having those anymore haha! Last night my comp ate something weird so he was throwing up and I had some banana cream pie.... so it was a rough night haha but we survived and were doing good today :) 

This week should be good, we are supposed to go 6 hours north and visit the missionaries in Flin Flon so that should be fun. I am excited to go see the north country! 

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

The Dauphin Beaver with Eli

Choose to Believe

Hey everyone! How was your week? 

This was a great week here in Dauphin! We had transfers this week and Elder Bee went home :( .  I will miss him, he was a great missionary and I had a ton of fun with him. I think that is one of the biggest things I learned from Elder Bee.... missionary work can and should be fun! I really look up to him, he was great! 

I got my new companion this week on Thursday evening. His name is Elder Wilson. He is from Salt Lake City and he has been out for 9 months now. He is a good person. I am excited to serve with him, He is really patient and calm so that should be something good that i can learn from him :) 

I really think we will have a good transfer here in Dauphin. 

So this week we got one new investigator. Her name is Alisa. Her mom is Pam who is another investigator of ours. She is really nice but interesting. She is super into the bible and kind of just wants to bible bash so we are going to meet with here again and see what happens. Hopefully she will decide to be sincere and be able to feel the spirit and know what we are teaching is true. Then she might show some good promise. Other than that we had to drop our baptismal date because she hasn't come to church and we were not able to meet with her this week. Kind of a bummer, but hopefully we can get her back on track.

This week we helped a guy put in a new kitchen. An Ikea kitchen. It reminded me of when we did that! Also this week we had some weird random guy come up to us and start asking us all about dinosaurs and weird things. Some people say the weirdest things haha! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! 

We had a lesson in church yesterday based on the talk from conference Choose To Believe. It was really good! I encourage you all to read that talk! Remember that everything is a choice. We choose to be happy, or we choose to be sad, but most importantly we choose whether or not we want to follow Jesus Christ and live his gospel. What an important decision that is! I know that choosing to follow Christ will brighten your life and help you with all challenges that you have. God and Jesus Christ love you and as you follow them I promise you will be happy! 

Have a great week! LOVE YOU ALL!

Love Elder Farnsworth

The year "Burning of the Shirt and Tie"

Farewell Elder Bee

Love Me Some Pie

Hey everyone! How's it going? 

This week was a good week for us here... nothing too exciting but it was busy! 

On Wednesday Elder Bee and I had to give our ZTM. That was a new experience haha! We spent a good amount of time preparing for it, but on Tuesday President Craig texted us and asked us if he could come to it... that kinda put the pressure on haha! It went really well though, we had a lot of really good participation from all the missionaries in our zone so that was good! It was kinda crazy because we left Dauphin Wednesday morning to drive to Brandon. We had to pick Neepawa up on the way, but as we were getting to Neepawa our car smelled like it was burning! So anyways we thought something was wrong with the oil because we just got an oil change.  Anyways we had to take it to like 3 different places and finally they told us they would look at it. So we drove to Brandon in Neepawas car but we were late to our ZTM haha that was bad news! The car ended up getting fixed and it was just a gasket that had broken so it leaked a bunch of oil... we were blessed to make it to Neepawa! 

On Thursday we had a dinner appointment and did some service. On Friday we walked around a lot. On Saturday we got transfer calls!  So for transfer calls.... I am getting a missionary named Elder Wilson! He has been out for 9 months now. I have heard a lot of really good things about him so I am pretty excited! Our zone is kind of crazy this transfer though... we have 7 trainees. In the Brandon district there are 4 trainees and then every district is training besides our district. That's a lot of new missionaries! It should be good though, I am excited to go on exchanges and get to know all of them. 

So you asked some questions about what kinds of food we eat a lot of and what my favorite/ least favorite food we have eaten is. We get fed pretty well, we get at least 2 solid dinner appointments a week and sometimes more. We always get fed really good meals though... lots of meat and vegetables. Everyone here has a garden so its all fresh and tastes super good! We also get so much pie here. I don't know what it is but everyone loves their pie. I'm not complaining though, I LOVE pie haha! The worst thing I have eaten so far.was at the pig roast there were some weird Filipino type things. That was probably my least favorite food. The pig was good but some of the other stuff was nasty haha! 

Our good news for the week..... we got an investigator to come to church!!!!!!!! You have no clue how happy this makes me.  Donna came to church. This is the first time since I have been here that someone came. We try so hard every week to get people there, but they always bail on us. We invited Donna to come hear Elder Bee speak and she came. I couldn't stop smiling yesterday it was great!!!! 

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

Lots of rain in Brandon

Selfie with a moose

Favorite Things

Hello this week! 

So this week has been really good for us here in Dauphin. On Monday we were able to go and teach a lady named Debbie and we set a baptismal date with her! It was great. We took 2 of the members from the branch with us and they were great fellowship. We taught the plan of salvation and at the end invited her to be baptized and she said yes! That was probably the highlight of my week! 

It also rained a whole bunch here this week. It was really good though, it had been hot and dry the past few weeks so the rain was good. On Tuesday we were out and it started to rain so we went back to the car and we were driving through these huge puddles! It was crazy. I don't think I have ever seen it rain that hard before. Everyone was really happy though because it watered all of the grass and all of the gardens. Other than that this week has been just about the same as the rest, just out doing good ole missionary work. We had an MLC this week which was really good. They talked a lot about how to be a leader and what it means to be a good leader. We also talked a bunch about obedience and how important it is. Obedience is the first law of heaven and its so important for us to be obedient to the commandments of God. It was a great meeting! 

So Michelle sent me some good questions that she wanted me to answer about my mission. It makes it way easier to write when I have some good questions, so if anyone has questions about my mission or what is going on just send them my way and I will try to answer them :) 

So my favorite area in my mission so far has been . . . I don't really know haha! I loved Melfort. It was such a good place and I loved being trained there, but I also really really loved Warroad. The members in Warroad were so great and they took such good care of us. I had some hard transfers there, but for the most part I really loved serving there. Dauphin is a good place too... I feel like I have learned the most being here in Dauphin. It is a hard place and we don't have near the member support that I have had in my past two areas and it has really helped me to develop as a missionary. Every area I have been in has been great but I would say Warroad is my favorite. 

As far as my favorite companion so far . . . that would have to be Elder Brown. I loved Elder Brown. He was such a good trainer and I learned a lot from him! I loved the 3 transfers that we got to serve together. He was a hard worker but we also had a lot of fun and we really got a long good! 

My favorite thing in my mission so far . . .  I really don't know. There have been a lot of good things, but I guess I don't really have a favorite. I love all of the service that we are able to do. It can be challenging at times but I love it. I also really like all of the people I am able to meet and build relationships with. I think the most crazy thing that I have done so far on my mission would definitely have to be branding cows... that is hard work haha! 

Well I hope everyone has a great week this week. I love you all and I miss you! Remember to always do what right.... and God will bless you! 

Love you all!

Elder Farnsworth

Oh hey, I forgot to tell you.... we went to a pig roast!!! It was in Neepawa at the branch president's house. There are a whole bunch of Filipinos in Neepawa in the unit there and we got to go to their pig roast! It was pretty neat. 

Keep an Eternal Perspective

This week was a little bit different than the past couple of weeks.... we were actually in our area for more than like 4 days so that was really nice! We got to go to Winnipeg this week and meet our new mission president. Elder Bee and I drove 4 hours down there, we met President Craig and then drove 4 hours back... it was a long day. It was really good to meet President and Sister Craig though, they seem like really really good people. I think they will be great for the mission. They seem a little more strict than President Thomas, which I think will be good. They also seem so loving! I think they will do a ton of good here in the mission. It's hard to change mission presidents, but I really do believe that it will help the work move forward. 

We had some pretty good experiences this week too. On Tuesday we went to a care home and did some service. It was a pretty unique service opportunity. They had us sit in with a lady that was passing away. She didn't have any family and the home care people don't want them to be alone. The lady was pretty much gone and she didn't talk or move or anything, it was interesting. I have never been so close to anyone that was dying like that before. It really made me think a lot about life and about the plan of salvation. I am so grateful to know that God has a plan for each and everyone of us. Life can be hard and it is a challenge, but we have to remember that there is so much more than this. I was reading a talk this week and it was talking all about keeping an eternal perspective. That is so important to realize that we are not going to be here forever and that someday we will pass away. We need to keep the end goal in mind, eternal life with Heavenly Father and with our families. It was such a good experience this week. I am so thankful for the opportunity we had to sit in that room with that lady. It seems like such a small thing but I learned so much from it! 

On a different note....we had branding round 2 this week! It was not near as bad as the first time! Except for the first time I went to sit behind the cow... it started pooping and it was diarrhea so I was being sprayed with cow poop! NASTY! But we survived it all and it was a pretty good day! 

This was definitely a hard week. We put a huge effort in and tried super hard but not too much really happened. I guess sometimes we just have to show Heavenly Father that we are willing to work hard and then later on the blessings will come. 

Well I hope everyone is doing good and enjoying their summer! I love you all! And don't forget to remember what is most important and keep an eternal perspective. 

Love Elder Farnsworth