August 12, 2013

Hey guys, how is it going? 

In terms of outward results this week began much worse than last week. Alex, the guy who we knocked and he agreed to a baptism date, dropped us suddenly. He didn't give an explanation or anything. He just yelled through the door that he wasn't interested anymore and to go away. It was devestating. The next morning I was so sad and upset that I vomited my lunch all over the bathroom. 

The week got better after that. We didn't have so many lessons, but we finally managed to contact in person the Belanger familly (our refferal from the ward mission leader) and they are Born-Agains, but their greatest passion is missionary work. They love what we are doing and want to hear our message. The father works at a Domino's Pizza because he has never had time to develop a career due to the decades of missionary work he has done in Mexico and Taiwan. They have eight kids, and the kind of faith in Christ that I hope to obtain in my life. All they need is the restored truths of the gospel in their lives. Also Brother Belanger (as we hope he may come to be known as) seemed to perk up and become especially interested when he heard that there is a prophet on the earth again. Our first lesson with them is on Wednsday. Almost all our lessons this week are on Wednsday. We are doing splits with the Zone Leaders and I am headed to Longiel on Wednsday. Oh well, at least the first lesson will have the benefit of two experienced missionaries. 

We also had a second lesson with a young man named Junior. He comes from the Dominican Republic, and is learning French. He's way ahead of me. He likes religion and has a lot of questions about things that are answered by the Plan of Salvation. We asked what he thought of getting a Mormon baptism, and he said that he thought it would be cool. He has talked with lots of missionaries from other churches, but we are the only ones he says that he has really liked. He offered us juice and apples. His next lesson is also Wednsday.

We have a lesson with Gabrielle (the one who married a member) on Thursday. It sounds like she is really close to baptism. We hope that we can help her make it all the way there. We havn't really met her yet, so i can't say too much right now.

Other than that we have just knocked mostly. We do go to ward council, but they haven't had it for two weeks now. We have had some talks with the Bishop, but our goal is to really work on getting the members involved more. Knocking is a very slow way to find investigators.

French comes. it improves each week. The Quebec accent is difficult to understand, but I am beginning to learn the differences in pronunciation. The people here in Quebec are extremely kind, unless you mention religion, then they get uncomfortable and try to make you go away. We talked to a man sitting on his porch who was really nice up until he found out we were missionaries. Then he got really agitated and said that he had to leave to work because he was already late for work. We walked by his house the other way half an hour later and he was still sitting on his porch. We stopped and joked with him about it for a minute. He was really embarassed, but still didn't want to talk to us.

I hope everyting is going well at home. This week Elder Murphy's sister and her husband were in Montreal and got permission from President Patrick to come buy us lunch. The Lunch was nice, but it took several days for Elder Murphy to re-focus on Missionary work.

I'm glad you guys got your own set of missionaries. Sisters are the best. No one likes slamming doors in their faces. The "Sister Effect' is very real. At the MTC when we would go and teach volunteers member-lessons they were always nicer to the sisters.

I hope that all is well back home. I hope that Grandma and Grandpa's French friends enjoy their stay in Washington. It's awesome that Ronnie is going to be 2nd class before he even turns Twelve!! i can't write more because I have to write the weekly letter to the mission President now. Have a good week everyone!