Bathurst Boyee

All I can say about this week is WOW. At the beginning of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc., I was in Tracadie-Sheila. We were having potentials and new investigators start to pop up like crazy! There was a road that we found three new investigators on! But, I left Thursday night for Bathurst so I wont be teaching them. In Bathurst though, we have a chapel. It is small and we have about 40 members give or take a few. One of the members is a RM from Toronto. His name is Chad Pitre and while in Toronto, his zone leader was Brock Beyer (Carson and Cayden Beyers older bro hahaha - small world) Bathurst is one of the coolest places in the world. There is a huge bay that freezes over in the winter. There are hundreds of little creeks that everyone builds houses around. All the leaves are different colors and there is a MCDONALDS! And it's Bilingual. Which is weird...  not everyone speaks both languages, its either you speak French or English. They understand each other but they can't speak the other language. So it's like,

"Ca-Va?"

"Yep I'm good how bout you"

"ca-va bien"

And then continue on in a full conversation with two different languages..

So wierd to listen to hahah.. Alrighty this weeks events are lengthy, so prepare yourself... To start it off, I've been struggling a bit lately. This learning a language thing, getting doors shut on you, being looked at weird, getting yelled at, is really different than Utah. I've been working as hard as I could, but I felt like something was still wrong... So Last Thursday, I started the 40 day fast. I read about it in a talk that Elder Waldie gave me. You start by fasting from food or water for 24 hours, the typical fast. Whenever you think about something that destracts you from the work, for instance: cars, home etc, you write it in a notebook. My list is long. At the end of the 24 hours, you promise to do your best to stop thinking about those things you have written down and replace them with thoughts of how to work in the field to in turn become the best missionary you can be. Honestly I was praying like crazy that this would work and after just 4 days I have changed into a whole new person. I have been able to connect with people, speak French better, and I'm not kidding, I am only thinking about cars when I see one outside of someones house and talk to them about it and then introduce the gospel. It has helped TREMENDOUSLY. I didn't think I could be any happier of a person but holy goodness I'm like one happy thing happening away from tears all the time! Now the past few days I've met a couple funny people and we now we have a few potentials:)

 

Here is a quote by C.S. Lewis,

 

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may be a creature.. you would be strongly tempted to worship... There are NO ordinary people."

 

I took that out of a talk I read this week at a BYU address. I have that written in my planner now and It is so true. Think of all the people we walk by everyday, all the people who we constantly are judging, oh that person does this or that person did that. Remember you are judging someone who is a potential God, just like you. After you remember, then stop.

 

Love you all dearly, especially Jango

Elder Argyle

 

 

Here is a picture of the creek with tons of trees, like most of canada, with a catholic church in the back!

FIRST TRANSFER

Well this week has been quite eventful. Tuesday morning I was throwing up so we weren't able to go tracting until later that night, when I was going on exchanges in an English territory because my companions had Leadership council. It is so much easier in English holy cow.. I was in Mirimichi (english) for that night and the next day and that is when I had my first Dinner apointment! YAY. Last week we lost our only investigator and we were all really bummed.. she had a baptismal date and everything for her whole family but for reasons unknown, dropped us. I think I talked about it last week. So we were all really sad. The NEXT day however, we met with the basketball coach who has known us for a while. He agreed to start having discussions and he seemed really interested. Its amazing because he is catholic, but doesn't believe in his church. He has his own ideas about church and how things should be and its like just listening to someone describe the LDS church. He hates all things drugs which most people old or young here are addicted to, he has personal prayers every night and I don't even remember what else he does. Amazing though. We also met a lady by the name of Michelle too. She is practically the same and we have met with her twice now. So after losing one investigator, we have two:) We have been able to work all over the Acadian Penisula, including Shippigan, Caraquette, Tracadie, and Neguac. They are all super awesome. It's like Thick foresty stuff in Neguac and then the ocean and a beach. Shippigan is I  think a tiny little island with a bridge to it. I can't remember if I'm thinking of the right place... but its kind of miserable. I don't know why anyone would live there (hahaaha.. ) Caraquette we went to yesterday. It is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It's farm land and cliff coastlines. Amazing. The people there are super nice too and there is a lot of them. For population wise, not really but in comparison to Tracadie there are a lot. We contacted 41 people in two hours. That sounds bad, but there just aren't that many people here so it's actually really good.

 

Transfers.. :)

Well I got to spend about 3 weeks in Tracadie-Sheila, a beautiful little town where the people drive up and down, literally just up and down, a road all day everyday. It has been amazing. My companions Elder Waldie and Elder Erickson have been awesome. Elder Waldie is going to be a zone leader in some English speaking place, Elder Erickson is the new district leader and also the ONLY french training leader. I am going to Bathurst, which is completely bilingual, french and english. It will be interesting. I leave on Thursday.

Weather

It's a bit like Utah with like 12 different storms in one day... but it just happens way more often. A few days ago it was 2 degrees celcius and today it is about 20.. so its up and down. But all the people here are really scared for winter because it's too cold already. It's usually high single digets. A lot of the trees have frost bite (haha) and the leafs have black spots. It rains like every other day too which is interesting. Elder Waldie gave me one of his jackets, its massive. Like the jackets that go to your shins. So now I don't have to buy a $300 one:)

Our investigator Stephen, the bball coach, is really sad we are leaving so he is taking us out to dinner after his kids' soccer game tomorrow. We have been playing football with him on saturdays for a few months so he loves missionaries.
Spiritual thought

I'm reading through the BoM again, like everyone should. I read through a few chapters of Alma this morning and Alma 31 stuck out a lot.

It's everyones duty to fix the world. We have the cure and we aren't sick, it is wrong not to share it. Each member of our church is a REPRESENTATIVE of Jesus Christ. We are here to help people find the straight and narrow. Some people need more work than others but you never know how close they are. I compare it to water freezing, Some people are 33 degrees and just need that extra push to freeze others could be 50. Be good everyone, somebody is always watching you, so be a good example. much love and stuff <3

Elder Argyle