August 7, 2017 - Lake of the Woods

From Mom:

Dear Josh,

I'm sitting in this little tent trailer trying to compose a letter to my missionary son. The tent trailer is parked at the old homestead in Bergland, Ontario. I can hear someone playing the accordion, the clink of a horseshoe game, laughter and the wind in the trees. There is something magical about returning to ones' roots; to realize that our genetics are from pretty resilient stuff.

Steph flew in a few days before we left and she submitted herself to the drive across Canada. 🇨🇦 It was a little cramped and required intense stretching at ever stop. Lol.

But now we are here, learning about our ancestors. I heard an inspiring story about your great-great-great Grandmother Kristina Olson. She was a midwife for the area and helped over 200 babies be born. She didn't lose a single one, which was remarkable for the time. The particular story I liked was one where she was called in the middle of a winter night by a feverish and desperate father. She bundled up in the -40 weather and arrived to a home that was devoid of food. She helped the mother give birth, then stayed to nurse the family. Somehow her husband, Peter John, showed up with 100 lbs of flour, which she made into bread. She didn't leave until they were fed and healed. She was known for her patient and sometimes miraculous healing. Kristina attributed all of her success to heavenly help. (She also smoked a pipe until she was 97, when she died. But I actually love that because it makes her human.)

What a legacy of service. 

I also learned that your great-great grandfather Godfrey had a sister who died when her youngest daughter, Lilian, was three. They took her in and raised her in the Gospel. Her descendants (my fourth cousins) who were at the Reunion made a point to say they would be forever grateful for that, otherwise they wouldn't have the Gospel in their lives at all. It was a service that expands (and continues to reach) four generations. 

We are planning to fish and spend the day at the lake. The nights are already turning cold. We are bundled in our sleeping bags and Steph wears a toque at night. On Wednesday we are leaving for the canoe trip. My first time. Wish me luck!

Benson and Cody are here. Cody will come with us on the canoe trip. Benson made a point to ask if you could say hi to him and to tell you that he misses you. 🙂

Here are some other pictures of the Reunion...

Playing a Swedish points game called Mölkke ... It's a cross between bowling and Koob. 

Slip and slide baseball

Mark and I were polka-ing. He was whipping me around so fast I had a hard time keeping my breath. So fun!

Also, just before we left for Ontario two things happened...

We got a kitten which Abby named Hawk because she insists on climbing up your body and perching on your shoulder.

And I did my yearly mountain summit hike. I got to the top of Bertha Peak in Waterton. It took us 12 hours when it should have taken us five or six because we lost the path. There is a Gospel analogy in there somewhere I'm sure. Stick to the path otherwise the journey is longer, harder and full of burrs that get stuck in your shoes! Ha!

Whenever I summit, I think of the scripture in Isaiah 58:13-14 about the Sabbath...

13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

I've often considered what riding "upon the high places of the earth" means. It's a promise for keeping the Sabbath Holy. When I am at the top of the mountains, I can see everything, everywhere 360°. So I think a promised blessing for keeping the Sabbath is perspective. And having a good perspective in life is something I need. 

Anyway, I love you so much, Josh.  And I'm extremely proud of you. I'm fully supportive of your choice to seek out an extension. Be accepting of whatever your mission president says. You're always in our prayers.

Love you forever,

Mom

From Josh - "Don't rush into things...":

This week I seem to keep learning not to rush into things, I have seen what happens when we rush into teaching when we rush to an appointment, when we rush district meeting, it all seems to go to one place, confusion, and misunderstanding. 

So the Mission is really caught up on what is called "Mission Math" it is a statistical report from Salt Lake telling us what happens in our mission on the numbers side, so when I first got into the mission we were getting 32 new investigators for every person baptized, and now we are getting 17 new investigators for every 1 baptism we have in the mission, the problem and the difference is people were so concerned about the numbers back then that they didn't care about who they taught as long as they could get a prayer, some doctrine, and a return appointment then they could "technically" be counted as a new investigator, so what missionaries changed is that they are really focusing on teaching people and not lessons. 

The other day, we taught this one girl the restoration and we said a prayer and everything, and set an appointment for the next day, as we walked away my companion and I did the high five for a new investigator but I was without hope, for while she was paying attention I knew that she wasn't into it, and would probably ditch on the next appointment not to mention we hadn't met her family, and so the next day we went by and met her mother and her mom told us that she wasn't interested and did not want to meet anymore, and I walked away not surprised because even thought we may have been able to count her as a new investigator it was meaningless and superficial. We have been called to find those who will receive us, if they aren't going to continue meeting with us after the first lesson then they didn't really want to receive us in the first place. 

We seemed to have been passively bashed all week this week, maybe it didn't help that we knocked a lot near a church known for anti mormon sermons, there was this guy who tried to convince us that the bible is all based off of evidence there is no such thing as faith, another told us that only Christ teachings were correct and all the prophets and apostles were just men, many people just spouted out the same lines I have heard throughout my mission, and I realized that a lot of these people are spoon fed these lines and a lot of the problem today is that people are just too comfortable to change, and what happens to people who are spiritually lazy, they will often spend more time trying to justify why they are comfortable and not willing to progress then the original work it would take to step out of their comfort zones. 

There will be times in your life that will extremely test your faith, and everything will seem bleak, but don't let your doubts overcome your faith, because in the end your life will be blessed by your decision to stay, 

when I lost my testimony in the beginning of my mission it is because of things I didn't know, and I let those things get blown out of proportion, and even now I don't know about some of those things that I struggled with, but recently something that I really stuggled with has recently been brought to an understanding, been brought to light, and I was blown away that it was so simple, and I am ever grateful that I chose to have faith rather then to give up. So don't give up if something you hear or something happens tries to knock you off your course, because somewhere down the road things will be revealed and if you are faithful you will be blown away by the great glory of God, if you are not then you will regret the lost time. 

I love you all, things are good, I ran out of most of my food this week, luckily I still have plenty of money to last through the month, I have been really trying to be more thrifty with my money, and it takes a lot of self control, (which I don't have much of) i have been learning to develop a little more of it little by little. 

I am down to 3 more pares of pants that don't have any holes in them the rest are trash, that included the 4 pairs that i bought 6 months ago now. they are gone, the ones I have left are my suit pants, my gray pants I brought out with me and one pair I bought for my other suit, my shirt are in great condition though the collars are started to ware, my shoes look like they have definitely been worn for two years. I have been listening to all the horror stories of returning home and I am a little anxious, I checked with my mission president and I can extend for three weeks, but that would mean a trio and president would rather not, so I will be coming home on time, I am kind of glad, after really considering it, I kind of felt selfish and wanted to be home for Christmas.

I recently got a super bad sore throat and couldn't yawn without feeling excruciating pain, and it hurt to eat solid food, I have been taking a lot of vitamin C and have taken Bucklies twice, didn't help too much but felt good once I got over the flavor. Any suggestions?

I love you so all so much, I don't know where I would be without my family and my friends, my leaders and most importantly the gospel. 

Stay safe. 

Josh