Christmas Week

Hello again this week! 

I can't believe that Christmas is already over... where in the world did the time go? I cant believe that I have been gone for 6 months too, its so crazy how fast everything goes by!

My first Christmas out in the mission field was definitely a good one. It was so good to talk to all of my family. I am so thankful for the love and support that my family has always given me. I don't know how I could do this without their support! After I talked to my family on Christmas we went over to a members house and ate dinner with them. Then after dinner we were able to watch the Lego movie, it was pretty good. It felt weird to be able to watch a real movie again... I felt like I was breaking the rules or something haha! but our mission president lets us watch any PG or G rated movie on Christmas, so it was ok!!!

Other than that this week has been pretty slow. It was hard with the holidays, but I am hopeful that this week the work will pick back up. Our mission president challenged our whole mission to read the Book of Mormon all the way through starting on Christmas and being done by New Year's Day. At first I thought this would be impossible, and I was skeptical as to if I would even get anything out of it. But as of now I am in Mosiah and its amazing the things that I have learned and put together reading it that quickly. I know that the Book of Mormon is true!!!! It has helped me so much and it gives me so much direction in my life as to what to do. I am so grateful to be on a mission and I'm thankful that I get to share this message with other people! I love this work!!!

I hope you all have a great week and have a fun new years!!!! Love and miss you all!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Moving Day

Well the day has come.... I have to leave Melfort. We got our transfer calls on Friday afternoon and now I am being transferred and moved to War Road Minnesota! Back to the mother land haha! I have so many emotions over my transfer call, I'm really excited to go to the states and serve, but I am so sad to be leaving Melfort. I have grown so close to the people here and it really does feel like I am leaving home and leaving my family again. There are so many people here that I have grown close to, and there is so many activities that I will miss doing here. I think this was one of the best places for me to start out my mission. I feel like I have learned so much in the past 6 months here. I will definitely miss it! 

But now its on to War Road. I guess War Road is actually even smaller than Melfort... i didn't really know that was possible haha! War Road has a population of 1500 people and there are a couple little towns around War Road with like 3000 people. I have heard that I will be doing a lot of driving there. It is about 30 minutes to each city, so that will be interesting. I also get a new companion, his name is Elder Burnette and this will be his last transfer before going home. I am so excited to get there and start working! 

Other than that our week was pretty boring, we were able to teach a couple of less active and recent convert lessons, we also taught the family that we found last week. We were able to teach them twice this week and both lessons were really good, they asked a bunch of questions and they seemed to be really interested.

This week I had one of the most amazing experiences yet. On Thursday night Jordan called us and he sounded pretty worried. He asked if we could meet him and Erin at the church to give him a blessing. He asked me to give the blessing and I was really nervous. I gave him a blessing, and I can honestly say that I have never felt the spirit that strong before. I know that priesthood power is real and I know that it can bless our lives. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has given this power to bless the lives around us and also to bless our own lives.

I am so grateful for the time that I have been able to serve in Melfort. Everybody always say how much they love the people in the areas they serve and how hard it is to leave them, I now know exactly what they mean! It is SO hard to leave, but its amazing to know that there are new experiences and new people to love! 

I hope everyone has a great week! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Here are some pictures of places and people of Melfort.

 Melfort Welcome Sign

 The Vera Family

They are from Chili and would feed the missionaries every Friday.

 The Ethiers

Sister Ethiers is a recent convert.  Bro. Ethier is the Branch Mission Leader.

 Benton Froc

 Jordan & Erin

The Turner Family

The Praskis

The Atwoods - aka Grandma & Grandpa

Miracles

This has been a pretty good week! We saw so many miracles in our area this week, I don't even know where to begin!!!

So on Tuesday Elder Schollars and I did the unmentionable... we went tracting. We didn't have much to do and we had to fill up our time so we went and tracted. We tracted in the ghetto area of Melfort and we actually had quite a bit of success! we found a family out of it and also a single guy that is in his 20s. So in all this week we found 5 new investigators!!!! That's unheard of in Melfort! 

We were able to teach them all, we taught them about the birth of Christ, and we had really good lessons with them all, it was a huge blessing! It was crazy because this whole transfer we have been praying for a family to teach and then just like that a miracle happens and we found a family! It's so amazing to know that Heavenly Father truly does answer our prayers! 

Also this week we were able to teach Elizabeth. It was a really good lesson! The spirit was so strong. She actually really opened up to us and she told us how much she loves having us over and she said she loves the branch, but she said she isn't ready to commit yet. I really admire her, I have never had so much genuine care for a person before. All I want for her is to get baptized and to start progressing in the gospel. I really do think that one day she will be baptized, it just takes time, and she really wants to be sure of her decision. Its amazing to see how much she has grown as we have been teaching her. Elizabeth has been meeting with us for the last 5 months and I really do notice a difference in her! 

This week we also had Christmas zone conference on Thursday. It was really fun. We had great talks and we even got to watch meet the Mormons. It was really good! I got all of my Christmas packages and letters and I loved them all! I haven't opened any yet...YET! haha! 

Well I hope everyone has a great week! The church is TRUE! Love you all!

Love Elder Farnsworth

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