Thursday, January 30, 2014

December 3rd, 2013

Hey fam,
Everything is going great here in good old Calgary!  We're picking up a new investigator today, her name is Mary Marcelin and she gave us a call the other day saying that she wants to quit smoking because she scanned a stop smoking poster or called the number at the bottom and said she'd be interested in trying it.  Can't wait to meet her and help her out.  Oh and we got Christmas all figured out.   We're going to the Stevens family and Sister Stevens is originally a Montrealer and apparently knows Dawn Ross, so tell her she says hi!  I'll try and find out her full name so I'll get it to you for next week.  I'll probably put my package under their tree and open it on Christmas day.  Me and Elder Averett are doing good.  
 
Everything is going good. we have a lot of potential investigators who are pretty close to becoming investigators and there's a ward Christmas party and a lot of members are bringing their friends.  Also there is a person that we do service for who found us someone who might be interested, and another area who handed off an investigator for us so we just need to contact him.  Marima is also hopefully coming back this week and so we'll probably pick her back up soon because she's been gone for a while.  We've also been utilizing our ward missionaries more often and the Lord seems to be blessing us because of it.
 
Too bad the missionaries in our ward have no one they're teaching because our ward seems to be a goldmine for investigators.  I remember when Nancy joined the church and the black lady from Botswana, I won't try spelling her name.  But that was when Elder Holm and Elder Bernier were serving and seemed to know how to find investigators in the area.  Elder Blank was also really good at picking the ward up and talking with everyone he came in contact with.  I remember it was him and that Australian Elder McLain who found Nancy.
Well that's about all that happened that was new and exciting for this week. Hope I'll have many other stories to tell for next week :)
Love you guys!
Elder Gagnon


November 25th, 2013


Hey family,
Everything is great here in the Bow Valley ward.  This is now my 4th transfer here in the ward and it's great because the ward is so great.  Ever since we've baptised Chee Wee the ward has trusted us more with their friends which is good because now there's more unity between us. This past Sunday our ward mission leader told us he had to meet with the bishop so he put us in charge of gospel principles like 1 min before class started and it was on the Sabbath day and it went really well.  The ward mission leader and a bunch of other people came up to us and told us that it was a really great lesson and were suprised we hadn't prepared for it.  It was a lot of fun.  My companion told me he'd probably not do too well in teaching the doctrine so I just had him bear his testimony at certain parts while I taught the whole lesson.  I never thought I was that good of a teacher though.  It was funny, because I've been so nit picky about the way I teach and to have all that at the end of a lesson felt good.
Oh and my new companion is Elder Averett.  He's from Arizona and has been out for 3 months. His first area was Cranston in South Calgary. It was cool because his first name is Sturling and it reminded me of a small town near Lethbridge called the same name and made me miss the south a little bit, but I love it here in Calgary.  The work is a lot of fun.   Anyway, I gave Elder Renshaw a big huge before he left and he told me how much he's going to miss this mission.  I remember as he was packing, he wept a bit about how it was all over.  It was a sad day.  We did get a whole bunch of pics together before he left though. I'll send them to you. Oh and I'm not sure when Chee Wee is going to the temple, but he'll let me know.
We also got another call from Jorgina telling us that she wants to take the lessons again.  So we'll be meeting with her again which is nice because we lost contact with her for a while.
Well that's about all for this week!
Love you guys!
Elder Justin Gagnon


November 19th, 2013

 
 
District Activity
                                                   
                                                     Saying good-bye to Elder Renshaw


 
 
Hey fam,
Yea I don't think I'll need the new scriptures, I read the feedback on them and looked at my comps new scriptures and it didn't look that exciting.  Oh well, maybe the next addition will have more stuff and be actually worth while.  But the ones I got right now are great.  I made some scripture boxes for them a couple of months ago with a bunch of mission and church memorabilia on it.  I'll see if I can send some pics of it next week.  My comp Elder Renshaw is pretty dead right now, he arrives home on Thursday and he's super excited but sad at the same time.  He loved the mission and is planning on visiting in the summer.  Just the other day we went to his final interview with President and after on our way back he wanted to see some of the memories of specific areas in Calgary.  I'll send you some pics of us and our final memories together. It was fun serving with him and we're probably going to miss each other.  We worked though and managed to find a lot of people to teach.
Oh and big news, Chee Wee is planning on going to the temple pretty soon to start doing baptisms for the dead and he wants me to go with him as a witness.   He's progressed so well in the gospel and has been reading the Book Of Mormon every day and has the Aaronic priesthood now.  We've also been working with a recent convert named Gram Padler and he's been a member for about three months but never got prepped to receive the priesthood in the YSA ward he was in and so we prepped him and now he has it and will eventually go and do baptisms as well. We also found this one investigator whose name is Kate and is going to UOC.   But we'll have to pass her off because she's YSA, but she's solid, she really likes what we teach and is pretty ready.  We're going to teach her on Friday and hand her off to the sisters of the YSA ward.  We had to do this to a lot of people and hand them off but it's alright because we're getting a lot of investigators handed to us as well.
About Christmas, I just picked up some socks not too long ago and they seem to be pretty sturdy so I think I'll be good for socks.  Maybe a tie or two would be nice, not sure what else I would like.  When I got to the apartment there were a bunch of study materials, so I think I'll be good for studying.  Oh, did Heather come back from Mountainview yet?  If so, I think she has a bunch of books that I aquired from the members in Cardston.
Well that's all for this week.
Love you guys,
Elder Gagnon