Arrival Home

March 6, 2017
 
Dear Family,

I know you've seen me by now, and this will be the final email. But I just wanted to let you know that missions go by super fast...except for the last week. Holy cow that part drags on, haha. What an amazing experience it was to serve the Lord for two years and to not only see others conversions and testimonies grow but mine as well. Those are experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life and apply what I learned into my life. A mission is like the MTC for life.

This past week as a district we went up to Cavendish and took pictures at the Anne of Green Gables house, got to see it one last time. Then said my goodbyes to Charlottetown and the people here. Thursday night the missionaries going home with me and I had dinner with President and Sister Pratt and a testimony meeting afterwards. It was hard knowing that that was the end, yet I know it's not. We just kept talking about how it didn't feel real, like we weren't actually going home, but we were. Then we played a few wicked games of ping pong and let me just tell you that Sister Pratt is fierce, and she doesn't lose.

Honestly I was more scared to come home than I was going out on my mission. Friday spent the whole day flying, from Halifax to Boston to New York to Phoenix, nine hours total. But seeing everyone at the airport was so cool. I told myself I wasn't going to cry, but that flew out the window. Thank you everyone who has helped me at this stage in my life and for those of you who have influenced me on my mission. I love my mission, the people, the hard times, the spiritual moments, my family and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I love You All!

Love Elder Ray

Lighting up a suit in celebration of my two year mark

Anne of Green Gables house

Farewell

March 1, 2017

Incredible, no real way to describe my time here, I will miss it terribly but don't worry I am excited to come home and see all of your faces!

For the final time.

Love Elder Ray

Two Year Burning the Suit (Don't worry it's an old suit I found in the apartment, not actually mine)

sister Thompson burnings as well, she goes home the same time

Baptism

February 20, 2017

Dear Family,

It's the Final Countdown.

I almost have more pictures for you this week than words in an email, haha. JK.

Great week, slow but fantastic, great way to end my mission, meaning that Mike was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday!! Woohoo!
It was awesome, Tuesday night we met with Mike and talked a little more about Enduring to the End and President Monson and then right after he had a skype baptismal interview with President Pratt, such a long thirty minute wait. And he passed. Most of the week was preparing everything for it and getting the assignments out, which was done on Thursday since we were stuck inside for the day because of a second snow storm. Two in a week is too many, so much snow.

Funny part about it though is that there was no hot water to fill up the font so the whole time it was filling Elder Wynder and I were boiling multiple pots of water on the church stove and dumping them in, haha it took so long but we got it fairly warm. Everything went so smoothly it was nice, and Mike only had to get dipped once, no redo's.

Love You!!

See You's soon!

Love Elder Ray 

Mike's Baptism!

Apparently there is this thing on PEI where if a storm is coming
you go to the store and buy chips to eat while stuck inside.
They are called storm chips. Had to do it, get that full islander feel.

The Dourte's in Montague name their brown baby goat Logan!

Snow Storms and Tithing

February 14, 2017

Dear Family,

Just a wee bit of email time today due to the big storm we had yesterday. We were stuck inside all day, it's the worst, which means all that energy we didn't use will be used shoveling peoples driveways today, haha.

Good week, pretty stressful all around.

I think I'll just talk about Mike since our other lessons fell through this week. We taught Mike all the commandments this past week and he had a big concern on tithing, which made us nervous. Then we had another lesson just on that where we brought Brother Gauthier and he just slayed it. Bearing testimony and giving personal experience of it, it was awesome. Mike said at the end of that lesson that if tithing got brought up he was going to walk out. But we did, and he stayed. I think Brother Gauthier may have saved us from losing Mike and he is fine with it now. phew.

His baptismal interview is tonight and when he passes he will be baptized this Saturday!

Have a great week!

Love Elder Ray

Continuous Miracles

February 6, 2017

Dear Family,

Continuous Miracles!

On Monday we taught Mike and all the week before I was praying to know what to teach him, and I felt that it was either time for him to hear the Plan of Salvation, or if he was ready to hear the Word of Wisdom and neither stuck out more than the other so we decided to do the plan of salvation. Halfway through talking about our life on earth Mike brings up the concern of alcoholics, so we explained it to him and it somehow turned into a word of wisdom mix, which now makes sense to me that I didn't receive a solid answer because we were supposed to do both. He committed to no alcohol and no drugs but we didn't bring up coffee or tea in that lesson. Very powerful end to the lesson, I almost didn't want it to be over the spirit was great.

Right after we drove to Amherst, Nova Scotia to spend the night for a zone conference that we had on Tuesday. We had ten Elders in one apartment and that means that no one is going to be sleeping. Zone conference was great though, a lot of stuff was covered. Usually they go from 10 to 4 but this one started at 9 and it went over until about 5, oh it was long, but good. From the two zones there are seven missionaries going home this next transfer, including my favorite senior couple that I have served around for ten months, the Brewsters. So we all went up to bear our testimonies, hard moment for us all I think. Really gets you reflecting on your time as a missionary.

Right after the conference for the next day we had an exchange with the zone leaders in Moncton. They aren't teaching anyone at the moment so most of the time was spent knocking doors. Classic. Elder Shambrook, my old companion, and I went knocking in the evening and the last house we knocked just before we had to go the guy turned us away. But then a minute later a lady came out wanting to know who we were, so we explained. She gave us the opportunity to teach her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and said we could come back, so I won't be but now the Elders in Moncton have someone to teach. :)

So on Thursday we met with Mike again, I love Mike, and we planned to finish the Word of Wisdom, which was making me nervous because Mike drinks coffee. It was really funny though because a half hour before the lesson Mike calls us up and asks if he could bring coffee into the meeting house, haha awkward. We told him no, thinking in our heads, enjoy it now because it's your last one. He was kind of concerned when we told him but he said that if it's what God wants him to do, he'll try, even though he's not sure if he wants to or not. He hasn't had any coffee since that lesson, woohoo! He said that in his mind it makes sense because it will save him money, do good for his health, and then he said he doesn't even like the taste of it. Haha, everything was pointing to, quit.

Sorry this letter is pretty much all about Mike, but he's all that's happening, and quick too. On Sunday he walked into church and he just looks at us and goes, "yes." We were like, what? Then he says, "I believe it. I wasn't feeling good and so I wasn't going to come to church, but then I got up and started reading the book (Book of Mormon) and a voice inside me told me it was true, so I'm here today." I was so happy I told Elder Wynder to punch me in the face. It being fast and testimony we were fasting and praying for Mike to receive an answer. Earlier in the week he said that he wasn't sure if Joseph Smith was a Prophet, but then at least half the people during sacrament meeting bore great testimonies on Joseph Smith and before he left church he said that he was really glad he came today. I think he received an answer to that too.

It's all coming together so well, at this rate he will be baptized the Saturday before I go home.

Have a non-boring week!

LOVE YOU!

Love Elder Ray

Dave at the soup kitchen bought chef hats and aprons like his for us to use
while we do service there. He's awesome. We are moving up in the world. Haha

Long Week

January 30, 2017

Dear Family,

It was a pretty long week, but also really good at the same time. We had a worldwide missionary broadcast that you may have heard about already since it's probably what every other missionary is going to mention in their emails this week but I like the changes. The First Presidency has given us the opportunity to use our Agency more with things like studies and such. Lunches are only a half hour and P-day starts two hours earlier. Planning is in the morning now instead of at night, and President Pratt now wants us in bed by 10. Reporting key indicators has changed, where we really only report about half of what we used to, which tells us what everyone's focus needs to be on, and it's something that I think will be awesome for missionaries once they get used to it. Fortunately and unfortunately I only have to live it for a month.

Thursday was our first time doing service at the blood clinic, which was super easy, and rather a little boring. We were the servers in the food area so when people were done giving blood we just assisted them in getting anything to eat or drink. We are planning on doing it once a week though. We also taught our investigator Mike, who is doing great. We taught a full Restoration, and committed him to pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and he said that he already prayed about the Book of Mormon. He sponged it all up, the spirit was very present in that lesson and Brother Steen was a great help as well. He's hoping to be baptized at the end of February and I pray it happens before I leave, haha. He came to church again for all three hours and is reading and praying regularly. He is awesome and progressing really quickly. He asked us if when ever we read or prayed if we got a warm or fuzzy feeling inside us. Mike recognizes and feels the spirit and he came to see that for himself as he has kept commitments. Pray for him!

We helped someone move a bit on Saturday, which I haven't helped someone move in quite some time so that was good again, not too many people seem to be moving in the winter. I don't blame them.

This morning we played some pool and shuffleboard with the Montague Elders at the Montague legion, where I used to help do service for an investigator there. Memory flashbacks when you go to familiar places, fun time though.

Love You!

Love Elder Ray

Service

January 23, 2017

Dear Family,

It's the last stretch of the runway.

Short week, seeing as how P-day was on Wednesday. During that day though we attended an online training for the Canadian Blood Services to start doing service there, so that will be good. Speaking of service we try to go to the soup kitchen every Friday evening to volunteer and usually there are three or four of us. That night there were quite a few volunteers, mostly high school students. We had like seven people, it was crazy and the kitchen was not big enough for all of us. More people, less work I guess. Haha.

Friday we had planned a basketball activity but invited people last minute and the only one to show up besides us was someone the sisters were trying to start teaching. So yay for him but it was pretty awkward with just the three of us. We couldn't really play anything so we just shots hoops for like 45 minutes. Oh well.

Church was good, we had Mike come today, the guy who showed up at the church the week before asking to be baptized. We followed up on his reading and he just finished 1 Nephi. Had a lot of good questions and even a lot of good comments during the class. He stayed for all three hours which not a lot of people do for their first time. After sacrament meeting he asked us if that was it and we said there was a class, do you want to go? He was very hesitant and thought for a long minute, then said he would. phew. Great guy, I'm super excited about him.

After church we had a lesson with a member’s husband who is not a member and he had the idea that God was not perfect because he made a mistake in creating non perfect people (he used Hitler for his example). So really we talked about Adam and Eve and Agency, which cleared it up pretty good. He says that he retracts that statement and his new one is that People are flawed, not God is imperfect, interesting lesson.

Love You!

Love Elder Ray

Surge Week

January 18, 2017

Dear Family,

We did what our mission called a Surge week, kind of like the Purge, at least that's what I wanted them to call it. Basically all meetings for the week were cancelled and unless we had lessons, which weren't too many this week for us, then it was constant finding, looking for new people to teach. Typically President Pratt wants us to do a minimum of fifteen hours of finding a week and this week everyone had to hit at least thirty. What hard work but the miracles that were shown throughout the mission this week were incredible. As a mission we found over a hundred new people to teach. Elder Wynder and I found three throughout the week, which is pretty great. Everyday there were different challenges like teaching short five minute Restoration lessons to as many people as would allow you to in the day or extend the baptismal invitation. It sure was a great way to motivate us more to be able to share the gospel with others in a fun and creative way. One of the challenges was to come up with a creative, effective contact. So this week we went down to the boardwalk and we tried what we called picture contacting. I held my camera and when we tried to talk to someone who turned us down right away, we would just ask them if they could take a picture for us. No one really declined doing that and what happened is it gave us a window of opportunity to talk with them while they took the picture, pretty effective, and we got a couple of good pictures out of it.

We served at a soup kitchen this week and put out a small stack of each of the pamphlets for the first three lessons. The fruits of that came on Sunday. We were sitting at the church when the doorbell rings, and we go to answer. An older gentleman was asking if our minister was here and wanted to talk to him about being baptized the proper way, saying that in his church they did it by sprinkling on the forehead. But he was reading a pamphlet that he picked up (the gospel of Jesus Christ) at the soup kitchen and read about baptism by immersion and felt that it was the right way, so he went looking, and what do you know, he runs into just the people he needs to talk to, the missionaries. We invited him in from standing out in the snow storm and only had about fifteen minutes before getting to another appointment. Quick lesson on baptism and authority! Miracles! We worked our tails off and prayed hard, and God placed Michael in our path to as he says, "Make sure he does it right so he can be saved." I know that this is God's work and that if we work hard, he can trust us.

We made a list of people who had met with missionaries before but stopped. But there was one where we had an address for it but we couldn't find the house. One day we were knocking near Bishop's house before dinner and ran into this guy named Raymond, sounded familiar to me. We talked for a bit and shared about the Book of Mormon and he said, "I only like studying from my Bible, it's a beautiful book, here I'll show you." Then he goes to a drawer and pulls out a large print copy of a triple combination, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. What! my eyed got so wide, it caught me off guard, thinking it was going to be some old looking Old Testament or something. He said he had another one that he kept in his car. We went back to follow up on a chapter we left him to read and he didn't understand a thing. He's not very comprehending and just agrees with whatever we say, even if he has no idea what's going on. Haha hopefully we can teach super simply and he can understand something, or maybe he just likes the company, who knows.

Had a lesson with this guy named Paul, who said we were welcome any time. Aaannddd, it turned out a little differently than I thought it was going to. We barely got to teach because he spent the whole time asking us questions, which I guess were good but a lot of it didn't pertain to anything. Nice guy though, gonna go back once more and see if we can teach anything this time, haha.

Transfers are this week and we just got our letters, the last time my name will be on it. :( I will be finishing my mission on... PEI. Yep I'm staying in Charlottetown with Elder Wynder and will be "dying" here, on the island, which is pretty sweet because I love this place. By the time I leave I will have spent almost eleven months, close to half, of my mission on this little Island, love it, will miss it hardcore, and the people here. You grow to love them, even if they are crazy! (I hope some of them read this)

Hope this week has been as awesome for you as it has for me!

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

How many eggs and milk my comps and I have had
over the last three months, we saved them up just to see.

PEI street lights
red=squares
yellow=diamond
green=circle

Learning

January 9, 2017

Dear Family,

On Wednesday we had a mini zone conference in Moncton where we learned more on Obedience and also what the new years mission goals are.

We had a powerful lesson with our investigator Konrad, who is a members father. We talked a lot about the Godhead and Jesus Christ to help him with his concerns. It will take some time teaching him but he is great. Right now he doesn't understand the scriptures at all which doesn't really motivate him to try but we committed him to it still. He can't go to church because of physical injury, and he won't pray in front of us, only by himself. All the basics that will change over time the more he meets with us. It always happens, just takes one step at a time. What I like about him is that he has so much of the same beliefs, but he's not afraid to tell us when he thinks we are wrong, haha, makes for some great questions and discussion.

Not a big week, except for the snowstorm we had yesterday which caused church to be cancelled and us staying inside the majority of the day. No church as a missionary, what is this?

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray

That moment when you are walking down the sidewalk in PEI

We shoveled a walkway into the church

Happy New Year

January 2, 2017

Dear Family,

Happy New Year!

I remember the time when I thought 2017 was so far away, and now it's here, just like that. Seems to happen that way quite a bit.

Wednesday I spent the day in Moncton on an exchange and we taught a few lessons to their investigators.

We had to be in our apartment by four on new years so we weren't out and about when all the crazy parties were happening. There were some early fireworks that we could see from our window but that was about it. Went to bed at ten, Which was actually nice, but got woken up to a bunch of noise and pounding, looked at my watch and it was exactly midnight, typical.

On Sunday there weren't a lot of people at church, probably hung over, haha jk but most likely sleeping. Didn't have to teach the lesson though in second block because no one in our class was there to teach. Nice break I guess.

We did teach our investigator Jordan, who is progressing pretty quickly and is looking forward to baptism. His understanding of the gospel is really good, it does help that his girlfriend is a member and they talk it quite a bit.

Love You's!

Love Elder Ray