Last Christmas in Canada

Hope everyones Christmas was wonderful. Mine was. 

Last week was one for the books as always... after the week was over, we had had about 2 days to work in Fredericton... So it wasn't the best week as far as meeting with the b'ys (investigators) or finding goes, but it was still an awesome week.

We sat down with Yan and taught him the Law of Chastity and some of the Christ-like attributes.. That went really well and we had him read Moroni 7 and Ether 12.. His exact words were, "Wow, i read those chapters and they are like very meaningful, it helps me a lot. I think after, oh all the good stuff is in the back and in the middle so i need to get done with the story to find the good stuff" We thought that was funny.. He is finishing up 2 nephi right now.. so he has had a tough time understanding all the Isaiah chapters hahaha.. He loves it though.. 

the good news is it has snowed again and it turned into winter in a matter of a couple of hours.. its now -15 and we got about a foot and a half of snow. Church was about 20 minutes long yesterday because the bishop wanted everyone to get home safely, so we took the sacrament and that was it. From here on out it should be nothing but white fluffy powder and massive Tractors moving snow until the end of May! Woo! haha

Saturday we had a neat experience. President called us and asked us to attend a baptism because he couldn't personally be there.. They baptized the guy in a lake. and the lake had about half an inch of ice on top of it, so they broke ice and moved it as the walked into the water.. man was i glad I wasn't in there haha.. looked cold. But it was an awesome experience too, we have a couple pictures of them jumping in and walking.. there are some really good facial expressions, make sure to check them out:)

The rest of Saturday I got to spend in Edmonston (the potentially new french area) We went around with a member from a nearby ward and visited some of the inactive members there.. by the end of the trip, we had 9 who said they would come to church every week if we were to bring missionaries up there to start a church. one of which was a high priest and two others were Melchizedek priesthood holders... Another awesome part about it all is there are still 15ish names that we didn't have time to visit.. so the place has so much potential!!!!! We called president after the day and its quite likely that this place is opening up:) President and I will be going up sometime this next month to meet with those members again and I've been asked to write a letter about the experiences up there so we can get a church going.. :) I'm super excited about it! 

love you all.. 

John 17:3

Je vous aime la

Elder Argyle

Cheers to a Canadian Crazy Christmas!

Cheers to a Canadian Christmas

That describes the next few weeks for us here... and last week. Last week was awesome. Monday night we got permission to bring Steven out with us to do some missionary work. We went to a family home evening, contacted a media referral and taught him then returned to the university and taught Steven there. Good way to start the week off on Pday! Tuesday we woke up bright and early and traveled down to Moncton for the New Brunswick Christmas Conference. I got to see most of my French posterity, minus Elder Darche and Elder Portellano who are out in Nova Scotia.. That was nice. We took a French picture.. you'll get it dont worry. The devo was awesome though, it was tons of music, testimonies, talks and a really unique talent show. We performed the missionary version of "the candy man can" but it's "the president can."  It was pretty lame because we had about 1 minute to get it all prepared. Wednesday we were visiting Woodstock and Houlton (Half in Canada and other half USA) It is always a joy to see those American flags and faster driving speeds, but man Canada definitely has nicer drivers hahaha.

Holiday Leg Warmers

We had a couple cool experiences down there. One was we had to take their car to get its tires changed so we walked to the local McDonald's to call some potentials and this guy sat by us and we ended up teaching him. He was just firing out questions and it was awesome. 

 

Thursday we were in Fredericton. We met up with Yan, who is doing awesome by the way. We taught him more about Jesus Christ's life and the Christ-like attributes which was awesome.. He was absolutely amazed with the miracle of Christ healing the man born blind. It was cool. We used a few of the Bible videos to do it.


We are teaching two other people who are working towards Jan 30 to be baptized. We need to get them to church is the only problem which should be solved now:)


Two Funny stories for the week for ya...

My Comp with Epic Hot Chocolate Spill

Numero 1: Saturday a huge gust of wind came and blew over our 5 gallons of hot chocolate for our stand... it was crappy but very funny too... Who knew wind could be so strong!

Numero 2: I got super pumped up for missionary work this week last night as I was watching the Joseph Smith movie. I especially noticed his example that he set through tribulation. He was tarred and feathered, his kids died, he was thrown in jail on a regular basis, his own friends would betray him, and he would witness all the persecution. What amazed me in watching it was how he never doubted. I was reading in Alma 17 as well where it talks about the afflictions of the sons of mosiah and alma..

"Yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."

 

 

Sometimes we go through hardships and trials to set an example for someone else. Those early saints sure set a good example for each of us, and one that is used to defend the church and strengthen our faith. I promise this turns into a funny story. So, I got super amped up about all this stuff and I knew what I needed to do to help the zone and I just ranted for like an hour or so. Elder Allsop was trying to go to bed and he tried to keep up and not be mean and fall asleep but after 45 min or so he fell asleep, I had talked my comp to sleep hahahahahahahaha. Pretty awesome. 

Feelin' Festive

This next week will be nuts. We will be in our area working for only one day.... keep us in your prayers! It helps:) May the force be with you.

Last thing, A member asked a missionary to go visit the Edmonston and area around it members.. so the missionary called president to see if it'd be ok and president said, "I want Elder Argyle to be there." I even talked to president about it. I'm like 110% sure that I will be opening it soon:) maybe in 1 or 2 transfers is my guess:)

Je Vous Aime Tous!

Elder ARgyle

Le Tour de Faith

Le Tour de Faith was awesome. It was such a fun week... The competition was Sisters vs Elders.. and the Sisters won, we are not sure how hahaha.. Somehow they did it. The week was awesome though, because it would have been impossible to get any of the standards and teach the people we are.. we had to skip most of our meals and ended up eating a super big meal once a day instead of the small scattered stuff. We saw tons and tons of success! There was one day where someone just started texting us(we write our numbers on the cards) and was interested and we were trying to find otu who it was without asking them haha.. couldn't find them in the area book and we ended up street contacting him later that day and he was like, "Ya I texted you two this morning!" we then walked a few kms to the church sat down with him and taught him the restoration.. It was super cool. Talk about right place right time.

We had a few other awesome experiences, we did a hot chocolate stand downtown (like usual) contacted a guy who didn't want hot chocolate and he then said he had lost his faith the past few years.. we got his contact info and went and taught him and he accepted the baptismal invitation. We also got a media referral who was a kid that the sisters had given a card, we talked to him on his door and he was like "yeah i talked to some missionaries on the bus today, I just felt like maybe there is a god, so i asked for missionaries to visit me." These are just a couple of the miracles, in all seriousness there was like 5 or 6 of these everyday. 

We also met a big native man named tony, we didn't sit down with him but we did invite him to church and he was like ya what time? this happens like all the time.. but he then came to church.. He loved it! We are going to be meeting with him this week:) But it was awesome because there is another native fellow here who actually was running for chief who saw him and after the prayer just sprinted to him to talk to him.. after church ended he came up to us and was like, "We need to get him baptized, that's a lamanite" ahahahaha.. it was awesome. 

Yan came to church this week, it was a fast sunday (duh first Sunday of the month) and he just loved it.. it was his first. afterwards he was like, "wow I need to come at least once a week because that helps me a lot." Steven and Liam are best friends now.. which is cool because they totally met through us.. they were in Moncton all week, but saw the missionaries there hahaha. Victor is working towards church, he committed to live af ew more commandments so that he xcan be baptized, we are moving his date back because he still hasn't came but he still wants to be baptized:) We got 30 hours of street contacting/knocking last week, it was so fun.. surprisingly, usually those things are a little bit dreaded especially with this weather but we did it.. it was awesome. The whole zone is just like a butterfly.

Weather: snowy! We are getting to the point where thats just what the weather will be, so the next few months will be full of shoveling, just enough to get us all buff or break our backs

OOO one more thing.. Last week we had a day where we pretty much just invited people to be baptized on contact and it was so weird but awesome.. we planned out how we get to an invitation naturally in studies and practiced it with a few other missionaries during comp study and it went awesome.. Between the two comps in the area we invited over 50 people to be baptized in one day and there were actually a solid 5 or 6 that accepted just in a 5 min contact. Of course we will see where it goes from there:) But MAN TOUR DE FAITH WAS SWEET! We all have such greeny fire hahaha

Almost forgot.. we rented a guitar and a violin and did a street concert last week too.. that was awesome. We had a bit of success from that too:)

I met a french guy... and a german guy thought i was french because of the way i said "Poutine"

Love you all:) My ponderize scripture is for Christmas 

Luke 2:11-12

"To pity distress is but human: to relieve it is Godlike." Horace Mann

"If you judge someone you have no time to love them." Mother Theresa 

by the way.. if you haven't checked out the new christmas videos.. they are awesome.. the Alex Boye one is my fav

Elder Argyle

Zone Conference

Last week was awesome. We had our zone Conf up in Moncton and I got to see a lot of my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. One of them has been out for only one transfer and he is about as fluent as it gets in French... So cool. Gift of tongues to the max. During Zone Conf, president Pratt showed us all "Le tour de Faith" it's a blitz week for the mission. He set some awesome goals for the mission this week to get 30 hours per comp of finding (knocking, street contacting etc) which is a crazy amount if you have a teaching pool, but we are finding ways to get it this week. We are super excited. So this next week, the entire mission will be going nuts on finding. It'll be awesome and we are really excited to see the results that will follow. Elder Allsop and I are going to make a "le tour de faith" t-shirt. I'm getting the yellow jersey. During le tour de faith we aren't doign any exchanges.. and we will be visiting Edmundston next week to see if its missionaryable:)


Playing guitar for testimonies

We had some really awesome lessons last week with our investigators. Victor, is now getting motivated to come to church, which is super cool. We just need to find him some car seats for his kids so they can hitch rides with some members. This is a big change because our first lesson with him about a month ago he said that he needs time before he makes the commitment to come and now he is making it. Liam and Steven both were overbooked with school and studies... so we only met with them once. We read Alma 32 and talked about the seed of faith. This is Liams favorite chapter and Steven at the end was like "I can do this" because he was super stressed with school and church stuff. So it was awesome to see the scriptures motivate them. Yan, had a bad day last week as well, and after the lesson he was just shining. It was amazing to see the difference the gospel can make in under an hour.  The work is going great! We also met with Bruno from Paris France.  He wants to be baptized but he wants to know a few more things first. Its amazing, all of our investigators are just so solid hahaha.  

Cool things that happened last week: a guy came up to Elder Allsop and I while he was carrying his groceries and we talked to him.. He had a long walk to do and no gloves (it was really cold) and elder Allsop just handed him his gloves.  that was awesome. the guy didn't ask for them either we just contacted him

We had a big miracle with a Recent convert who went Less active.  We had been trying to meet with him for the past 7 or 8 weeks and couldn't pin him down.. Finally we asked him to if he wanted to go to lunch and we got him:) We ate some wendy's came back tot he church and had an awesome lesson. His gf and her family are not supportive of him being a mormon and have repeatedly asked him to take his name off.. so he has been struggling pretty bad. when we talked to him about it he left pretty motivated, and he called us this morning and his gf wants to be taught! WOOOO! talk about a change wrought in the hearts of men(or his gf) by the atonement of Jesus Christ! We are hopeful to meet them both this week and see where things will go:)

My scripture this week is Matthew 6:33

Love you all:) Here is a pic of the Fredericton missionaries and the zone:)

by the way.. I'm getting a haircut sometime soon. maybe today. I know my hair is a little too long haha

I was blind, but now I see

Last week was awesome. We ate some more Chinese food with all of our Chinese investigators, including bamboo.. stuff is weird hahaha. Last week we read through Alma 36 with Liam. It went really well, our point was showing him how repentence makes us happy in hopes to help him muster the strength to stop drinking.. It doesnt even seem like a problem for him because he does it maybe once every two weeks, but he won't commit:( thats tough.. He seemed to understand very well after though, he shared his own testimony and how he has loved his experience here in Canada and how he will always believe in God now. He expressed his desire to continue changing.. This was all good news:) Steven is doing good as well, Liam came to the lesson with us to help him with understanding words that we couldnt translate into chinese for him haha.. Yan, is doing incredible.. he keeps connecting dots on different principles of the gospel and is just soaking everything in. He has been reading everyday and it was really funny, he expected us to be dissapointed when he said he was only reading one chapter per day. We were actually pretty excited about it as you can imagine. He is asking great questions and he is applying the gospel into his life. He was asking us on Saturday how he can get God's advice on what he can do for his project in comp science.. he has a very strong trust in him. its incredible to see the change in his life already. Victor is doing just dandy. He had a custody battle last week in courts for his two kids.. He is really poor and wasnt able to hire a lawyer or anyone and said a prayer before that he would be able to take care of his kids instead of his ex gf.. She had weeks of preparation and a lawyer and he ended up winning full custody. This is a huge miracle. His ex was not supportive of him bringing the kids to church.. but now he has legal permission to do what he thinks is best for them and will be able to start coming:) He also is now in the middle of 2nd Nephi with his reading. He is just flying.

 

Last week we watched the Montreal temple rededication. It was a very special experience and one I wont forget. Unfortunately they put English translation over for everyone so I only could catch bits and peices of French but it was still amazing. At the beginning I felt a really strong prompting that I needed to study more in depth the french language, even though I am in an English area and will likely be there for the next few transfers. Then later on, President Eyring said that many of us have already felt God teaching us and motivating us to improve in some aspect and we are to follow that prompting.. Never before in my life have I ever received direction and then a confirmation on that direction so fast. It was an amazing experience!

 

Right now for the zone we are trying to find different ideas that will help with self motivation to get away from the aspect of everyone having to be managed instead of lead. After lots and lots of prayer, careful study, and talking with the other leaders we have came to the conclusion that it all starts with our studies.. (a big duh I know) This is the same for everyone whether missionary or not. Without daily prayer and a sincere study spirituality and a love for God will slowly step by step diminish and your life in turn will follow suit. Make sure everyday you read and pray! Heleman 3:29 "Yea, we see that whosever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked.. 30 and land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heave, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out."

 

Love you all! By the way.. got my glasses.. I never knew how blind I was hahahaha, not sure how I played baseball! First thing I noticed was the grass (which is gone now it is snowing) you can see the blades from so far away! love you all be safe, read and pray:)

 

Elder Argyle

Transfer letters

We got transfer letters yesterday, Elder Edge is going to do some lost sheep search and rescue in PEI. I will be holding down the fort in Fredericton with Elder Allsop. I haven't met him yet, the mission is kind of huge, so there isn't a lot I can tell you about him yet other than he was serving on a native reserve for quite some time and did some really good things there:)

Last week was awesome. I went on exchanges down to Woodstock NB and Houlton Maine. It was great driving on a freeway that was fast! 121 KM compared to 100! We had some awesome contacts and found quite a few potentials to teach and the Woodstock elders did some awesome follow up and are now teaching a few of them:) By the way, If you didn't realize it.. Last Monday and Tuesday I was in the USA. Felt good <3 miss that place

 

 a members very funny dog.. he sits on the couch like this

 

Some fun things that happened last week.. played basketball with the YSA and our investigators, who knew Chinese people loved basketball so much? We did our hot chocolate stand and met a bus full of German students who are touring Canada.. That was really interesting they were very curious about what mormons believe haha especially about the nature of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The sisters, as you know from previous letters, crashed and totaled their car a few weeks ago.. so they have been sharing ours.. We had two lessons scheduled at 7 and 8 PM and the sisters were about 30 min out of town and couldn't get out of the door for whatever reason.. So we literally ran across town (its a big city) to get to the lesson.. We were 30 min late but it was still pretty awesome. They gave us the car right when we got to the bottom of the hill where the church is.

 

Our lesson with Yan (24 computer science from china) went so good. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom and he was like, "Oh that's easy I don't like any of that anyways." He loves learning the different "Rules" because he knows that its good for him. We also asked about his prayers and he had a super powerful experience. His mom was in Paris this past week and he wasn't able to get in contact with her. He prayed she would be safe and she was able to get the last flight out of France. He said it was God protecting her and he also said "I love you" to Heavenly father during his prayer at the end. It was so awesome. Also he connected the dots with the apostasy and restoration and said, "So what do we do with all the other churches? Do we destroy them?" hahaha of course we told him we don't destroy them but it was funny. 

Steven and Liam are doing great as well. They both came to church and they are feeding us tonight :) super excited. We made Crepes for a lot of the members and all the investigators yesterday after church and it was really funny.. All the Chinese investigators (three of them) wanted to try making them and did a good job.. Liam  made his a Christmas tree. So my previously learned skills are coming to good use! 

Je vous aime! Il n'y a pas beaucoupe de francais ici mais je practique chaque journee!

Elder Argyle

 

November 9th - Elder Glasses

Last week was nuts.. literally crazy frantic driving around New Brunswick. Last Tuesday the assistants came in and Elder Edge and I split with them to go cover two different areas to help the District leaders. Literally the minute we got back to Fredericton we got a call from the Sisters who had crashed and totaled their subaru 45 minutes out of town. I'll find the pic its a good one. So we had to play search and rescue and head down to them. They both were completely fine though, it's a huge miracle.. they both fell asleep and drove off the road into a ditch, pulled out a few fence posts, hopped a creek, knocked a few trees dodged a few boulders and landed in a nice pile of dirt and grass.. didn't roll once just skidded on its side. They both had literally no injuries not even a scratch. Once again Elder Sortomme's wise words he told me in Corner Brook , "God is merciful to idiots." aren't we so happy he loves us haha:)

Fredericton is doing great. Only two of our investigators showed to church this last week... Yan (24) China and Steven (20) China. They are progressing really fast. They don't feel quite ready to pick a day to make a covenant but they are working on it:) Liam (24) China couldn't come. He had a lot of things pop up.. but it's ok we will forgive him this once he did make it 11 times in a row. Victor hasn't been to church yet but he is literally feasting upon the Book of Mormon.. He loves it. We are helping him resolve a few concerns about church.. 

News.. went to the eye doctor and he had a good laugh. He was very surprised I had never had glasses before and said, "You have been missing out on a lot!" Also he said, "You are two weeks late, you would have seen all the leafs." I definately needed glasses.. Haven't bought any yet but I did learn what I need to get. It was nice being able to read the letters on the wall instead of guessing hahahaha

One of our investigators has been asking us to teach him all the commandments first because one of our other investigators said we don't smoke,drink etc etc.. He sent us a message on facebook and said, "I want to learn more about your rules because I know that they are good for me." He also talked about how he has been praying everyday and has felt a big difference in his attitude and hasn't been getting angry. So we have been teaching him the commandments, law of chastity, word of wisdom and so on and he loves them. God knows his sheep!

This week i'll be down in Woodstock/Houlton Maine.. So I'll be in the usa for just a moment #USAUSA󾓦

love you all:)

Elder Argyle

This last week I've been studying a lot about missionary work.. and of course a lot of the best examples are in Doctrine and Covenants.. I'll be ponderizing D&C 68:6 this week

November 2nd

Last week was miracles. We went on exchanges, so I served in Fredericton with a missionary from another area while Elder Edge went with the DL.. It was pretty fun. The Missionary I served with was.... Elder Gardner! (this is for Dennis) he is good. He was a fun missionary to serve with because he had previously served in Corner Brook a few months before I had served there.. It was fun talking about the work and area. We had a couple of really awesome miracles while we were on the streets.. We went to a former investigator's house who had moved and talked to the guy who moved in. It was a 24 year old computer science student from China. He was super interested and we ended up teaching him on Saturday and he then came to church Sunday. After church, he said, "So how do I come back next week? Do I need to walk?" And we asked him how he enjoyed it and he absolutely loved it. Steven and Liam both came as well! they are doing super. We will be inviting Steven to be baptized this week. We first need to teach him what it is though because the only background he has is what he has done with us haha.. He will accept it though, we are quite certain:) We also contacted a referral from the Bishop named Victor. Victor is a single dad, the mother had some big issues that could have effected the family so the dad packed up the kids and got out of there. His mom was a member, but passed away  a few weeks ago.. He had wanted to be baptized for 3 years.. but was unable. He has now given up smoking, drinking, and coffee so he can be baptized before we even met him! He is on date to be baptized in December so keep Victor in your prayers:)

 

Halloween went good. We spetn our time planning while we cooked some poutine in the oven. Poutine is the worlds greatest food and if nobody starts a poutine restaurant back at home then i will. It's gravy and cheese curds on fries.. <3 what more can i say.. I also listened to a lot of French talks/church movies.. nobody knocked on our door:( probably because we have a picture of Jesus on it and the guessed it was missionaries.. or it could have been because we were in an apartment building. 

 

Funny story for you.. people still can't say Argyle.. the bishop's kids keep calling me R guh Lay.. it's fun. 

Another funny story.. One the YSAs here went to weber and his roommate was a dart... he also lived in Alberta and went to the same ward as one of the sister missionaries now serving here.. they were friends before the mission and now shes on a mission in the same ward where he is going to school... talk about weird stuff..

My ponderize scripture is D&C 121:45,46 love you all:)