Christmas

December 26, 2016

Dear Family,

Merry Christmas!!

On Tuesday we had an exchange with the Montague Elders which was pretty successful, Elder Burggraaf and Elder Phillips are awesome. So Elder Burggraaf is really good at beat boxing so we might have a hit coming to you soon, haha, I rapped to his beats it was pretty sweet.

On Wednesday we went to an old folks home with the youth and sang a bunch of Christmas carols for them there, fun thing to do especially this time of year.

For one of our Christmas weekend activities we went to Canadian Blood Services in Charlottetown and I got to give blood for the first time. Kind of nervous but it wasn't bad at all, wish I could say the same for the guy sitting next to me who looked like he was ready to pass out, haha.

Christmas Eve was fun we got to spend it out at the Cutler's and had a big turkey dinner and shared the birth of Christ story, talked about family traditions, all that fun stuff.

Christmas was pretty relaxed, it was nice. Elder Wynder and I read about Christ's early life for our studies and then we opened gifts afterward, by the way thank you so much everything is awesome!

We spent the afternoon and rest of the day at the Veitch's and we played card and board games and just had a good time. Don't worry I loved skyping home too! :)

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

President Pratt gave everyone "i-pads" for Christmas

Winter Tracting

Christmas Zone Conference

December 19, 2016

Dear Family,

Wish I had time to write more last week but plans changed. We were supposed to leave Charlottetown Monday night at six to get to Moncton for our Christmas zone conference the next day. But then a huge snow storm was coming in and our whole district had to leave the island before it hit so we left at noon and spent part of our P-day driving. If we didn't there was a high chance of us being stuck on the island and not getting across the bridge if it was shut down due to the storm. But we made it. The weather did get nasty though, a lot this week. It just kept snowing. So we spent our P-day in Moncton and helped set up everything for the conference. Then after, since we had time, we went to visit the Mollers, who lived in Montague while I was there, and now live in Moncton. So because many other missionaries didn't want to miss the conference because of the storm, other companionship's drove up early as well and so in the Moncton apartment there were fifteen elders! Oh it was crazy but fun. Showers in the morning was a gong show though, haha. No one wanted to miss this conference because it was the looked forward to one all year, a devotional, many special musical numbers, a talent show, and a gift exchange, it was so good.

Then right after the conference we stayed in Moncton to go on an exchange with the zone leaders and I'm pretty sure we spent most of the time knocking apartment buildings though. We definitely saw both both sides of the nice/not nice scale.

Second storm of the week hit Thursday evening and we worked through that but it was starting to get worse and it just went downhill from there. Friday morning we were getting calls saying not to go outside and literally no one was outside, even the RCMP were telling people to stay inside. Those days are the worst because you can only do so much missionary work from your apartment before you run out of things to do. So in the afternoon we decided to try to go out and we bundled up, but it didn't matter how much you put on it still pierced right through you. 100mph winds, our car said it was minus fourteen Celsius (7F) but with a wind chill of minus thirty five (-31F). Let's just say we weren't outside for very long. With the mess outside all of our plans were shot and the ward Christmas party that was that evening was cancelled. I think by the end of the day we were starting to go a little crazy. Oh Canada.

We are working with a member, Michael, who is struggling with our church and his old church, but he expressed that he wants to do baptisms at the temple and get his patriarchal blessing so we are planning to teach him more about those this week. Other than that the people we are trying to work with are either out of contact or too busy this time of year to meet so for now it's looking for new people to teach.

Elder Wynder and I also started doing this thing where instead of asking people if we can shovel their driveways and then them always saying no. We just do it and then knock on their door afterward, talking about light the world and how they can do service for others too. It's been way more effective, and my back is getting stronger. Haha.

Love You!!

Love Elder Ray

Squad Up, from last transfer

Service and More Service

December 7, 2016

Dear Family,

For Worldwide Day of Service on December 1st we went as a district to Summerside and we helped move a big ol piano from a members house to the church building. The moving process may or may not have taken a small chunk of my pinky with it. Then we went to a used clothes kind of place and helped sort and hang up clothes, shoes, purses, etc.

We taught Khaleb this week, he is a YSA age guy from Rwanda. He is super excited to learn more and has come to church a couple of times. Wants to continue coming but his work schedule is preventing that right now. He really does have intent though, he takes notes and writes down the scriptures that we share so that he can go back to them later. He's concerned that if he gets baptized then it will replace his baptism in Africa though.

On Friday we helped Mckenna at the soup kitchen serving dinner, always fun.

Theron who I taught in Saint John was baptized this past Saturday!! Woohoo!

Also out of the five missionaries in Charlottetown, I am the only one staying. They are all leaving and we are getting three more missionaries here. Which means I will be on the island for both Christmas's. My new companion will be Elder Wynder, who is from McGrath, Alberta. Who knows, he could be my last one.

Love You!

Love,

Elder Ray

Merry Christmas from Chester the scary elf

Light the World

November 28, 2016

Dear Family,

The Watson's had us over for American Thanksgiving Wednesday evening and it was really good, oh it sounds good right now. And Elder Browning shared a message about the Atonement and giving thanks for the gift that it is.

On Thursday we had an exchange in Montague (it was cool to be back there) and we spent a big chunk of the day moving all this guys stuff from one house to another. Then had dinner with Jennifer and James, it was so good to see them again, they go to church fairly regularly now, as often as work will let them.

On Friday morning we did a #lighttheworld booth downtown because it was bumpin with black Friday shoppers. #Lighttheworld is the churches initiative to help people do service for 25 days in 25 ways up until Christmas. It caught a lot of people’s attention, plus we handed out free hot chocolate.

Saturday was a big day! We were a part of, with some members in the ward, the Charlottetown Christmas parade. We walked through the town for just over an hour displaying the light the world poster and a poster for the wards live nativity they do. It was so sick, just about the whole town was there lining the streets to see all of the floats, it was really fun. Our float was a mini nativity where the Arsenault and McGuigan families dressed up as Mary and Joseph, a shepherd, and their kids were the angels and the babies were dressed up as little sheep, so cute.

Right after the parade we booked it over to the church to sing You Raise Me Up at Alan and Kristy's wedding reception, they are both RM's and asked us to sing with them.

Love You's!

p.s. there is about four inches of snow so far and it is still snowing outside. :)

Love Elder Ray

Mini Zone Conference

November 21, 2016

Dear Family,

This week we did some service for a lady named Vonda, and she has MS so she couldn't get done the job she was working on. We helped her scrape off all the wallpaper in her dining room so that it can be ready to paint.

On Saturday we had a mini zone conference and two sisters, another Elder, and I gave a training on how we can work better with recent converts and less active members. It went pretty well. We also were trained on what to do when snow storms hit and how we can still work even when we are stuck inside. The snows coming soon but it hasn't snowed once yet. Still waiting for that day..anxiously.

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

 

Basketball with our almost investigators and other members.

Basketball

November 14, 2016

Dear Family,

After P-Day we stopped by this guy Edwardo, who we had a record of him meeting with missionaries in the past. He is from Cuba and has a lot of interesting beliefs and a lot of his questions can be answered through teaching the Restoration. What was cool though is that he built himself a little basement in his house. So you go through these curtains and in this little hallway you open up a trap door and walk down these small stairs into this little room, so we sat down there with him and talked. The walls were covered with sheets and it was just a little dirt room, almost felt like we were in...Cuba. Haha it was cool.

On Tuesday we had interviews with President Pratt and in it he told me to start looking for a job :( so if you have any ideas let me know!

Thursday morning we helped out at a soup kitchen serving lunch with another church that was also representing there.

Something cool that happened this week was on Friday we had planned a basketball game at the church with a few members, less actives, and potential investigators. It was a huge success, they loved being there and one of the hopefully soon to be investigators said that he didn't know that our church was there and that he likes it better and it is closer than the other one he was going to. Unfortunately he wasn't there on Sunday though. We plan to do basketball every Friday as long as no one is using the building and we will continue inviting people every week.

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

Searching Again

November 7, 2016

Dear Family,

At the beginning of every transfer we have a zone conference, and being at this one was weird, only because most of the missionaries that I got to see at them are all home now and everyone else to me seems like a young'n.

Since its that Fall weather (no snow yet but hoping soon) we helped some members rake leaves for service this week, one yard was like the size of G-pa Schnepf's backyard, covered in leaves. Luckily we had a squad to help out (us and the sister missionaries along with the family) haha it was fun.

This past week has been slow, and this week we will be on the hunt for some gators, because right now we have no one to teach, so it's finding for days. We had one investigator when I got here who likes meeting but we are having a real hard time even staying in contact with. He goes to school during the day and he just got a job working nights. When he's not doing either of those he only has like four to six hours to sleep, soo I don't know how that's going to work out. Pray for miracles.

Work Hard. Play Hard.

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

Anne of Green Gables

October 31, 2016

Dear Family,

Well Charlottetown isn't entirely new to me but now I can explore and get to know it better. My companions are Elder Smith and Elder Browning, they are so fun. I am looking forward to this transfer and what it has in store for us.

For P-day we went to the Anne of Green Gables sight and toured the house and the land and stuff, if was cool just to say that I went, haha. It was the last day until it closed down for the winter so everything was in the process of being put away and we were some of the only people there.

Church was really good though for my first week here. Some people I recognize from most likely seeing around last year. Our ward mission leader was just called last week and he didn't know that he was teaching gospel principles class so we taught on the spot for him. Then the third hour was a combined and it was the missionaries hour. So we talked about the effort of the missionaries and we shared a short Restoration lesson with them and the sisters shared a short doctrine of Christ lesson to help show more of what we do and how they can help. It was awesome, very powerful spirit during that meeting. Charlottetown is a ward and there are about 100 active members, so same as Saint John.

Love You!

Love Elder Ray

Back to Prince Edward Island

October 26, 2016

Dear Fam Jam,

Crazy last week in Saint John. For district meeting I had Elder Johnson do the last training on companionship unity and it was really good. I told him that working on a training was to prepare him to become a district leader next transfer and guess what.. he is. Haha. I knew it was going to happen. As for me I don't have to have the extra responsibilities of a leader anymore, which I like but don't all at the same time.

We taught Theron twice this week, once about Tithing and Fasting, which he pretty much seemed to already know. He is on his second read of the Book of Mormon and he also started the Doctrine and Covenants. The next lesson we talked about the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods and how he will be able to receive those after he is baptized.

On Thursday we helped the Hampton elders investigator Judy pick apples from her trees and stack some wood. It is beautiful out here. The country side is where it's at, we don't see as much of the fall colors because we are in the city and Hampton is just outside of it. Then Judy referred us to go help her friend, Rose, who happened to live in Saint John. On Monday we helped Rose do some yard work and put a bunch of things away for the winter. Then we asked if we could come back and teach her, and she said yes.

During Institute we get a call from President Pratt and sadly it turned out to be what I was hoping it not to be, Elder Sulzen's visa came in. And we got him ready to fly to Salt Lake Monday morning. It sucked that he had to leave but he is where he is meant to be. He is a healthy eater and is afraid that he will gain weight from all the meals in Utah, so I'll just have to visit him and bring him some donuts, haha. He would hate me. But for the past three days I have been in a trio. Again. It's transfer week though so it's ok.

I'M GOING BACK TO THE ISLAND!
I'm being transferred to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I very well could end up dying there (finishing my mission). I honestly thought that I would never go back because there are very few areas there and I was already there for six months. I'm sad and happy at the same time, only because I wanted to stay in Saint John one more transfer because we have about four baptisms planned in the next transfer. But it will be nice to hear that they happen. This could be the last leg of the race for me, we will see. I have loved it here, there has been some crazy and amazing things that have happened since I have been here and I will never forget it. On to the next.

Love You's!
Love Elder Ray

Some Fall Pics for ya

Ammon

October 17, 2016

Dear Family,

With Theron we may have a breakthrough. We were very straight up with him in our last lesson. We asked him what God would want his next step to be and he said, baptism. We said that that is right but that in order to be able to do that he has to be willing and coming to church. Long pause, then he said that he thinks he will just keep doing the Sunday lunch and flea market with his dad and his grandfather... we thought we were losing him at this point and that he made his decision. But then a minute later he was like, but my mom and dad are going to move to Florida in November for six months so I might be able to then. Holy cow, we had been freaking out over this and the whole time there would be an opportunity for him to come, we just have to wait. Once he starts doing that I think he will love it and continue to come even when his parents get back next year. He already comes to institute and our Book of Mormon class, he's never missed a lesson and he retains it so well, can tell you exactly what was talked about in the lessons he has. And he is reading the Book of Mormon for the second time. We had to take him off date for now though until later in the year, but are hoping to help him pick a new date soon.

On Saturday we helped a less active from St. Stephen move into Saint John (btw the license plate on the U-haul was from Arizona) and the sister missionaries there were teaching two of her kids and starting next week we will be teaching them, they are both primary aged girls, hopefully they like us as much as they did the sisters, haha.

We had stake conference this weekend and it took place in Fredericton so it was being broadcast to our chapel. And when we showed up like three taxis pulled up and this group of Mormons got out to come to church, they were from the cruise ship but it was Sunday so they went to church. But they looked bored though, haha I probably would be too. Watching someone else's broadcasted stake conference on your cruise ship vacation. They get points for trying.

Before we went to see Rob, the less active we have been meeting with every week, we didn't have anything to teach him, and had been trying all day to think about what he needed. He was our last appointment of the day and we were on our way, not sure what to do. Elder Sulzen asked me in stake conference a few hours before what we were going to teach and all that came to my mind was Ammon, nothing else, just the name Ammon. But I didn't think that would apply to him at the time. So as we were driving to his house, Elder Sulzen asked me again, and all that came to mind was the name Ammon, but for some reason I didn't say what I was thinking to him. In meeting with Rob, we talked for a bit and then somehow got on the topic of decapitation, then it hit me, yep, we're about to talk about Ammon. Just then Elder Sulzen opens up his scriptures and says that he wants to turn to the story of Ammon where he cuts peoples arms off and why. I am not sure what Rob needed to take from it but we felt that that is what should be talked about. Right after we left Elder Sulzen said to me that even though I didn't say before that I was thinking about Ammon, he knew that I was, because that's what kept coming to his mind too. I love the way the spirit works. We don't always know what people need, but the spirit does. It was a spiritual experience for us both, such a cool way to end the night.

Love You all so much! Keep truckin'

Love Elder Ray

Was wearing this tie all day and no one knew, goes perfect with a sweater

Was defrosting a frozen banana and it was set for nine minutes
but I was going to leave it in their for only one...but then I forgot
about it and seven minutes later I realized, IT WAS STILL GOING! Haha.

Gina Time

October 10, 2016

Dear Family,

When the sister missionaries were here they did something that they called "Gina Time." It's where they went with Gina Crilley, an awesome member in the ward, and they deliver food or treats with inspirational quotes on them to members of the ward. So this week we got to do that. She made cookies and put quotes from church leaders on them and then we delivered them to people and had great visits with them and got to know them better.

Because we were in a trio with Elder Maughan and we had Jake come with us to Theron's lesson, we felt that it was overbearing for all of us to go. So we decided that Jake and Elder Sulzen would go to teach, and Elder Maughan and I would go talk to people on the street. It was probably pretty scary for Elder Sulzen because he has been out for three weeks and I already threw him into leading out the lesson by himself. I wouldn't have done it though if we had someone else besides Jake, because he is a returned missionary, so he could back it up. Heard it went really well though.

On Tuesday we found out that Elder Maughan would be getting a new companion, and is training again. Well, the trio lasted about a week, and now we have to transfer around again. I feel like I am involved in these a lot, haha. So on Wednesday right after district meeting we grabbed lunch real quick and then drove to Amherst, Nova Scotia, to pick up Elder Kyler, and there were a few other companionship's to pick up other Elders as well. It is mid transfer but the reason for it is that these missionaries are also waiting for there visas. We are getting so many of them, it's starting to turn into a visa waiting mission. The three missionaries are all waiting to go to Trinidad, in the Caribbean, that's crazy. And then we drove back here and did a Book of Mormon class where Carol Crilley taught it, it was so good. That took the whole day.

Spent Thursday in Fredericton on exchanges with Elder Breinholt, he's pretty rad (from Gilbert). We had a great lesson with one of their investigators Grace, on Faith and prayer and the nail was hit on the head of getting it across. I even used a pizza delivery as an analogy where you have to work for it, you make the call and ask for what you want, but then there is that waiting period but you know that it's coming, just not sure the moment when, and when it does, then you have your pizza (blessing or answer). I didn't explain it as well as I did in the lesson but I thought it was cool. Then that evening we went to a retirement home with four other missionaries and we sang hymns with them for an hour, that was fun.

All week we have been praying for service opportunities and then our prayers were all answered on Saturday. We had planned to help our ward mission leader paint the windows on his house but then unexpectedly before that the opportunity arose to help his brother move, so between those two things that was half the day. On our way home we stopped by a lady that we are trying to start teaching, Frances, and she was just finishing some gardening and so we asked if we could help her put all her stuff away in the shed, good thing we were still wearing service clothes. The reason we went though is that she had made us a pie for Thanksgiving so we were there to pick it up and that service opportunity arose. Then when we got home there were people moving in next door and so we were going to go ask what we could do to help, but then as we walked outside a member, who takes care of our building, was working on the exterior, scraping, painting, etc. and she needed help moving the scaffolding to the other side of the building and by the time we were finished doing that the people moving in were done as well. I guess when you "over pray" for these opportunities they come in abundance. We had a lot come up and couldn't seem to get to them all, but that was our entire Saturday, it was awesome. Well and then we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Woodruff's, so good!

The talks in church were so good this Sunday, the talks were on fasting, Grace, and Service. The spirit was so strong. The one on service was so powerful that the speaker had most of the congregation in tears, including me. Then Sunday all meetings (not church) were cancelled for Thanksgiving and we went over to the Cosman's for another Thanksgiving dinner, I loved it! If you didn't get the vibe it was Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and today is actually Thanksgiving! Really great week!

Love You all!

Love Elder Ray

Elder Batley going home to get surgery on his leg,
I'll miss him, he was so awesome.

Squad's all here

Conference

October 3, 2016

Dear Family,

Oh My Soul! This past week was for sure an interesting one. Elder Hoole from the other Saint John companionship got emergency transferred to Caribou, Maine because one of the Elders there was going home to get surgery on his knee. :( So they needed someone for his companion. So Elder Maughan was put into a trio with us, so now I am serving with him again, at least for a short time. It's fun though, trios are awesome.

Friday morning we helped a member move, luckily they didn't have a lot of stuff to move, so it didn't take long. And then Saturday morning before conference we helped other members move, which they had quite a bit more stuff, and we still made it to conference on time, which didn't start until one in case you forgot. Our investigator Theron came to both Saturday sessions and throughout I was getting so much out of it, the spirit was so strong. And at the same time I kept thinking to myself, yes, he needed to hear that, sweet, he needed to hear that! It was so awesome! Wanting answers and confirmations for yourself is awesome but wanting someone else to receive answers makes it a different experience because you aren't really thinking of yourself but you are thinking of others, and that's one thing that I've recognized on my mission, is that the person you probably think the least about is yourself, because you are so focused on helping and loving others, but through it you find yourself.

Love You!
Love Elder Ray

Cruise Ships

September 26, 2016

Dear Family,

On Tuesday we drove to Fredericton for a zone training and a lot of it was focused on being more consecrated and becoming spiritual giants. It was sweet. Also a lot of the missionaries there were new or fairly new and I barely knew any of them. I looked at the last transfer list and very few people that I knew towards the first half of my mission are not on it anymore, they are all home. That's crazy, the mission is a whole new place now...I think I'm getting old.

On Wednesday we had a couple of lessons in the afternoon and Jake was planning on coming with us to them, but they both fell through. So Jake told us that three cruise ships were in right now and with him and the other Elders we went downtown to the square and set up a lemonade stand. There were so many people down there. It's hard to find people to teach because they are all from away but we passed out lots of church materials to people so it was awesome.

Our investigator Theron missed the Book of Mormon class this week but he did make it to Institute on Thursday, and we also invited him to General Conference, which he says he wants to go to because now he can since it doesn't start until 1 p.m. We also met with him and taught him some of the commandments, and we knew that he smoked so we were preparing ourselves for his answer to our commitment on the Word of Wisdom, and when we did he said that he quit smoking last week! Miracle! Already started! So we promised him blessings and will help him along.

It has been a crazy week where by the end of it I am just so exhausted, and we went from teaching six people and are now down to one. :(

Elder Sulzen is awesome though, he is learning and progressing so fast, it's crazy. We work hard but both love to joke around. It will be sad when he has to go to Utah.

The phrase "Do not be Afraid" is written in the Bible 365 times. That's a daily reminder from God to be fearless everyday.

Love You! Love Elder Ray

Training Again

September 19, 2016

Dear Family,

For P-day on Wednesday we spent the day in Moncton with the missionaries there before transfers and we went to a place called Hopewell rocks, which has a lot of cool rock formations and it has the biggest tides in the world. Pretty sweet place.

So I show up Thursday morning to transfers and all the new missionaries get off the space shuttle (transfer van) and I'm looking at all the name tags to see which one is Elder Carlson, and none of them were him. In my mind I was like, ok I guess I'll just not have a companion. And then Elder Sulzen comes up to me and says that I am his trainer. Elder Carlson got changed to Edmunston because he is learning French and that is a French area, so I get to train Elder Sulzen. He's a great guy, we already get along well. He is from Vancouver Island but the sad part is his mission is actually in Salt Lake East... yep he's a visa waiter, my second one. Hopefully he stays a while though.

We stopped by Matthew just to see how he was doing and while we were sitting in his yard with him his cat and this squirrel were playing together, rolling around and stuff right next to us, it was so cool. I've never seen that happen before.

Took Elder Sulzan out to talk to people on the street and helping him learn how to talk to people, and we ran into this couple who was on vacation, and they originally speak French but knew some English. So I tried to say something in French and also say Jesus Christ, but I said His name in Spanish by accident, whoops. They looked at me like, what? and then I corrected the name in French. Luckily Elder Sulzen knew enough French to carry on a conversation, haha.

On Saturday we taught our most recent new investigator, Faisal (pronounced Fy-Sell). He is YSA age and he is from Afghanistan. He moved from there to India for two years and his dad died there, and then they converted from Muslim to Christianity before they moved to Saint John. He was super understanding of our message about the Restoration and he said yes to baptism, but then he asked, would it be okay for me to get baptized in my church? So we focused more on Priesthood authority but I'm not sure if he quite understands it yet, but we will work on that. Solid guy though.

We had an Elders quorum activity where we played Bocce ball, but our investigator that we invited didn't show. Oh well. Still had fun.

Remind someone of their worth!

Love You All!!

Love Elder Ray

Hopewell Rocks

Baptismal Interviews

September 14, 2016
 
Dear Family,

Last Tuesday we traveled to St. Stephen and I did a baptismal interview for the sisters investigator,Chris, who passed with flying colors and was baptized this last Saturday. Then yesterday (a different Tuesday) I interviewed the Hampton Elders investigator, Gary, and he will be getting baptized this Saturday. My district is doing awesome right now, the other Saint John Elders will be having a baptism in this upcoming transfer for Mandy. Now if only we could have someone placed in our path, which we may already have. Theron and Matthew are doing pretty good but there are many challenges for them that hopefully they can work out.

At our Book of Mormon class on Wednesday we had four non-members come, it was sweet.

We spent Thursday on exchanges in Fredericton with Elder Evans and Elder Harris. It's Elder Harris' first transfer and he is already good at contacting people, I was surprised. We did a lot of talking to people all day because they didn't have any appointments.

We set up baseball game Saturday morning and invited some members and then some less actives to work on fellowshipping with them, and to have a little fun playing ball of course.

Funny story, yesterday we were walking back to our car from a lesson and then this lady yells to us to come over and asks us if we could give her a ride home (she was drunk, and it was also mid afternoon Haha). She was like, Oh you are gorgeous, and when I told her I was from Arizona she asked if she could marry me, then she tried to give us a hug and we had to run away from her because she chased us down the street. Yep, Saint John never ceases to give me stories.

Well, turns out I am staying in Saint John for another transfer and will be training Elder Carlson, who I know nothing about because he is brand new.

Have a great week. Love You!

Love Elder Ray

This is on the wall in the Moncton Elders apartment

Saint John District

One of these things is not like the other

Leadership Meetings

September 5, 2016

Dear Family,

Another week filled with driving and sitting, but fun and uplifting.

This past week Elder Portellano and I were mostly separated because of a leadership conference I went to in Dartmouth from Wednesday to Friday, it was long but really good. We talked a lot about the missions goals and how we are going to reach those by the end of the year. It seems we are a bit behind but it is definitely still possible to accomplish them. Then the zone leaders and district leaders broke off and had our own meeting within the meeting, meetingception. And in the district leader meeting we discussed how we can improve our district meetings to make them more spiritual and helpful to our districts. While I was there Elder Portellano was with Elder Iacoupucci in the area of Edmunston, which is a French area and he has always wanted to serve there so he loved being there for a few days.

Something funny that happened, well, we kind of did on purpose, but driving home from the conference we had the sisters following us so we could take them around where you have to pay the toll and get by for free. So before we got there they got in front of us but were still going where we were, so Elder Beckman turned on his turn signal as if to get off on the ramp, but he didn't leave the lane, but the sisters saw that and so they went into the lane to get off and we watched them drive off the wrong way, haha it was so funny. Luckily it only took them about five minutes to catch up to us again.

We didn't really meet with many people that we are working with this week seeing as how we were gone for a big part of it but we did meet with Theron and he said yes to baptism, so now the challenge is having him come to church.

I can't believe the transfer is almost over again. But with Elder Portellano going home I feel like I'll be staying.

Love You!!

Love Elder Ray

Got to see my old comp at the leadership conference, Elder Kleinkopf!

There was no male at our dinner appointment so we all ate on their trampoline

England

I think my district needs to learn how to park better.