Exchanges and Zone Conference

Hello,

This week for me was a pretty good week. We had exchanges in Neepawa this week so we spent Tuesday there with the elders. It was a nice little break to go to a different area and do some work there, but it was also nice to get back. This week seemed to fly by just because we were so busy! We did a whole ton of service again this week but we were also super blessed to be able to teach as well. We are still trying to just get our investigators to progress. We are going to try a few different things this week to try and change it up and we will see if that helps any. We do have zone conference tomorrow so we will be driving into Winnipeg tonight and then staying for zone conference and driving home tomorrow night. It will be a long day haha. Its a 6 hour zone conference and then like a four and a half hour drive home.  I have definitely gotten used to long drives on my mission haha!

Other than that all is going really well! I am happy and things are going really great! I love my comp and I love this area. Time is going so fast though, I can't believe its almost transfer time again. WOW! Time flies when your having fun haha! I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love the experiences I am able to have and the great people I get to meet and talk to. I love the gospel and I do know that with out a doubt it is true and the only way to live life!!!!

I hope you have a great day and an even better week!

Love Elder Farnsworth

Sheep Sheep and More Sheep

Well hello everyone how's it going? 

Life here in Canada is going pretty good. We had a great week this week, for the most part it was a sunny warm week. But Sunday all that changed! It was snowing again! Snow in the middle of May, kind of crazy but at  least it is warming back up today.

This week we were able to teach quite a few lessons and it turned out to be a great week. We found a guy named Albit this week. He is a black guy and he goes to the 7th Day Adventist church. He is really nice and we were able to teach him the restoration. He agreed with a lot of it and said he would read the Book of Mormon so that is exciting. He has a wife and 3 kids, so hopefully he will read.  I know that if he does he will find out its true and then hopefully things will go from there! 

Also this week we went out to some of the members and helped them sort sheep! What a job! We were running around like crazy people in this barn full of sheep and we had to sort them and put them into the chute so we could give them medicine and figure out if they were going to sell them or not. Sheep are crazy. They run around like nuts and they jump! I never realized that sheep jump before, but they do haha. A couple of them would jump straight into this tall fence we had up and then they would fly back down and keep doing it. It was a new experience that was for sure but it was a ton of fun. We would herd them into their little cages and sometimes you would have to grab them and move them, it was crazy! 

Anyways that's about all for this week.  I hope everyone is doing good and has a great week! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

President Thomas and Elder Hansen in Dauphin

Having Patience

Well hello everyone! How's everything going? I hope that everyone had a great Mother's Day, it was good to see and talk to you all! 

This has been a pretty good week for us here in Dauphin. We were able to find 3 new investigators this week, We actually went tracting and we were able to find a mother and a son! It was a neat experience we knocked on the door and she let us in, then she kept saying how amazing it was that we came over and she was so glad that we were there. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and had a really good talk with her. Her name is Mel. Hopefully we will meet with her again this week and get her progressing. We were also able to set a baptismal date with Brenda yesterday! The date is June 7th. We have got work on getting her to church so if you could all keep her in your prayers that would be great! The missionary work is sure moving along here. Summer time is a great time for service and missionary work and hopefully we will be able to see some great things come this summer! 

So yesterday and today in my studies I have been learning and reading a lot about patience. I love Preach My Gospel's definition of patience. Patience is the ability to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering with out becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious. It is the ability to do God's will and accept his timing. Patience is related to to hope and faith - you must wait for the Lord's promised blessings to be fulfilled. I love this definition because it is so true! We have to learn to endure through all of the hard things in life, but part of it is that we have to have a good attitude while we are enduring! Sometimes that really seems impossible, but I love how it says we also have to have faith and hope. We have to trust God and as we do that we will be strengthened and be able to endure through the hard things with a good attitude. Yesterday I was reading in Acts chapter 14 and I found a scripture that I really liked! In this part of the chapter Paul and Barnabas are going out to encourage some people to stay faithful and strong in the gospel. In Acts 14:22 it says: "Exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." I loved this scripture because life is never easy, we are going to go through tribulation and hard times and its ok because its all part of the plan, and if we are faithful and we endure through it we will enter into the kingdom of God. We have to be patient, we have to trust God and trust that he will fulfill his promises. I know that it is hard to be patient, it is something that I have really struggled with, but I do know that if we trust God and we are faithful to him and his commandments everything will work out. It might not be the way we want or when we want but it will all work out! I love the gospel so much I know that it is true and I know that as we live it we will be so blessed in our lives!

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

Love Elder Farnsworth

PS - Please note the change of address on the side of the blog for Eli!

Be a Member Missionary

Hello this week,

This week for us has been pretty good. We had a couple of lessons this week and we found another new investigator so that was a good thing! His name is Lucky and he is a really good person. He knows a lot about the church and he has some interesting beliefs and takes on life and religion but I like him. He is a super successful business man too. He has tons of money and things like that but he is really humble and doesn't care about money, he just does things to help people and stuff like that. Hopefully we will be able to have some more good talks with him and get him more interested. 

As far as investigators at sacrament we didn't have any. :( Its so hard to get them to come! They always commit but they never follow through haha. I'm learning patience too! We keep working with them though and hopefully we can get them there one of these days. We don't have any baptisms lined up right now. We are just trying to get our investigators to progress and then we will have baptisms. We are hoping to set a date with one of our investigators this week but we will see how that goes. 

Other than that things are going really well. I feel so happy! Its weird because this week we did a ton of walking around and street contacting and we did a bunch of service and I was really tired but yet I was happy! I have been setting a lot of goals lately and I'm really trying hard to achieve them. Its so hard sometimes, but I love when I am able to see the progress that has been made! How are all your goals from the new year coming along? Don't forget about them and keep making more goals! 

So the past couple of days I have been reading a book called The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton M. Christensen. You really should read that book. It lays out so well how to be a member missionary. One of our greatest responsibilities as members is to share the gospel! Don't let life get too busy and forget about that importance of sharing the gospel. I do know that if you try really hard to have missionary experiences the Lord will bless you!!!! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Staying in Dauphin

What a crazy week! On Monday we got a text from one of our investigators named Brenda and she told us that her friends Alisha really wanted to meet with us. So on Tuesday we were able to meet with Alisha and we had a great lesson with her. She kind of unloaded all of this stuff about how she felt about life and everything on us and pretty much told us her whole life story... it was kind of a crazy lesson. But then on Saturday we were able to teach both Alisha and Brenda and we had a great lesson. Alisha brought up a whole bunch of concerns she has and we were able to testify to her about the plan of salvation and really help her. It made me so happy. It is experiences like these that make me love my mission! 

Also this week we were able to do a ton of service! We helped an old lady in our branch by cleaning out the ditch in front of her house... holy cow that was a much bigger job than we thought but we got it all done. She was so grateful and happy for the help. Then on Saturday we went out to a ranch and helped a less active member put up a fence... that was a tough job, we were in like calf deep water and there was soooo much mud!  He tried to drive his four wheeler through all the mud and so we spent a long time just pushing the four wheeler out of the mud... we got really dirty haha. It was kind of like we took a swim in mud but it was fun! 

Yesterday we had a great church meeting. We got a couple of less actives out to church and we almost got Brenda and Alisha there but they got sick. In church they talked a lot about being self reliant and especially being spiritually self reliant. We each need to have our own testimonies and be able to know things for ourselves. I never realized how important that was until my mission! 

All in all it has been a great week! We also got transfer calls and both Elder Hanson and I will be staying in Dauphin for another 6 weeks! 

I hope everyone is doing well at home! 

Love Elder Farnsworth 

Hunting Squirrels

Well hello this week! 

This has been a pretty good week for us here in Dauphin. We had a really good week as far as teaching this week, we were able to get in touch with quite a few of our investigators and we had some good lessons with them this week. We also were able to teach a couple of less actives this week and we got one to church and we almost got another less active to church but sadly she didn't show up. This branch is an interesting branch, a lot of the members here have been offended by other members and that's why a lot of them are less active. There is also some members here that are really good people but they are also threatening not to come to church because of some other members..... DRAMA! It makes me so sad because we all know what is right and we all know we need to go to church.... don't let other people cause a road block for you to come to church, its not worth it! So this week we have been helping and serving a lot of the members and trying to keep everyone happy and keep the branch here strong. 

There was a couple funny stories this week.... So being here in Dauphin we don't really have p-day activity cause were so far from other missionaries, so last p-day we hunted this ground squirrel outside the church for p-day activity. We filled in all his holes and then Elder Hanson caught him and the dang squirrel bit him hahaha! It was pretty funny, so we ended up setting a trap and killed the squirrel and his other friend.... we were kind of worried though cause we thought Elder Hanson might get rabies, but so far he is ok haha! Also this week we were at the food bank handing out food boxes and some native lady started hitting on me. At first I didn't even know what she was saying so I was smiling and then I realized what she had said and I get all red and we just walked away.... that was my first time getting hit on by a native haha! But all in all this was a good week! 

I hope everything back at home is going good and I hope you all have a great week! Love you all! 

Love Elder Farnsworth

Normal Week

This week Eli did not write me something separate for his blog, he just told me to . . . "Post bits and pieces . . . "

I had asked him several questions about a normal day and this is what he told me. 

This week was ok for us out here in Dauphin..... I guess I'm kind of bad at telling you all that goes on around these parts haha! I will try to be better! A typical day here really isn't too exciting. We have investigators, but a lot of them are not very dependable and they are horrible about keeping appointments and commitments. Lately we have been trying a lot to find some really solid people.... easier said than done but its ok! I am so grateful though for the people that we do have to work with. Lately we have done a lot of street contacting and also service. Spring time around here is big service time! Everyone lives on ranches with sheep and cattle and everything so we do a lot of service for members and less actives. The branch here is a little bit "broken." There are a couple members that don't always get a long and they aren't the best at fellow shipping or doing missionary work, but were working with them! 

As far as the comp goes. . . we are getting along great! We agree on a lot of the same things and we just get a long well haha so that has been a big blessing this transfer. It is always nice when you don't have to figure things out with a companionship but you can just focus on the work. 

As far as what I eat haha it makes me laugh that your so interested! I do eat relatively healthy.... I eat a lot of rice and spaghetti with Alfredo. I eat sandwiches and stuff like that. Not a ton of meat cause its so darn expensive! But the members feed us pretty good up here so that is really nice! I do find that maybe I eat a little bit too many sweets but I guess some things will just never change haha! 

Hope you enjoyed a little bit about his normal week.