September 24, 2012

Hey Family and Friends!! Oh my goodness I had such a GREAT week...even though not a lot happened and basically all of our lessons canceled...but I will tell you more about that as we go! So Monday was p-day...we had a good day...but we didn't do a whole lot. We were really tired. So we did run lots of errands...including getting our hairs cut...and then we just went to our apartment and chilled. We painted our nails really cool...they are tie-die...they are really cool! Then our dinner appt canceled...but oh well. So we spent our evening doing stop-bys and delivering Temple invites! Tuesday we had our DDM's which were a complete gongshow. They have been getting progressively worse as the transfer goes on. After our meeting we went out for lunch and then had a lesson with Tammy. She still hasn't been to church since I have been here and we are a little bit worried. So we had a lesson on Families and the importance and blessings that come from our families. After our lesson with her we delivered lots of temple invites. We sure are learning where everything in our area is...after awhile it was time to go to dinner. So that night we had supper with the Terner family. They are really sweet and we had a great gospel conversation with them. Then we went to ESL. It is so fun going to that class. There is one girl that comes every week that I just love. Her name is Nana. She is from Korea. She is just so happy all the time and gives us big hugs when we see her! I love meeting all these people! Wednesday was supposed to be a really busy day....but we had some appts cancel. So we followed our back-up plans and we delived lots more temple invitations. We have been praying for opportunites to give these out, but we have had a crazy schedule for the last few weeks that we haven't had much time...but obviously there is someone the Lord wants us to see and invite to the temple. Because he is definitely giving us time to do this now. Then we had a lesson with Carmen and drumroll.....we FINISHED the book!! It is all edited and is now ready to be published. She is so excited and we are too because we finished it before the temple!! Then we had supper with the Walton family. They are really nice and are actively doing missionary work! Then we had a lesson with Christy. She is good,but has been slacking on her prayers and scripture study...so she is struggling a little bit. But we are still working with her. Thursday we had our weekly plannin and it was kind of difficult because we have a crazy temple schedule for next week and it is still a little bit up in the air. So it is going to take lots of careful planning to be able to teach as many lessons as we can in our off time. All the Sisters in the mission moved to the NW of the city...where the temple is...and we live the farthest away. We stayed in our apartment and we will drive there everyday...it takes us about 25-30 min to get there so we will be driving lots over the next few weeks. But it is all worth it. Anyways after our planning, we did some service for Tammy and we cleaned out her flower beds and cleaned up her back yard. It was a very hot day for Sept....35 C....but we are grateful for the warm weather! When we were done there I bet you will never guess what we did....delivered Temple invites! We want everyone to know about it! That night our dinner canceled again, so Sister Batty and I went out to dinner because it was my 1 yr anniversary of being in Canada!! Time has flown by. After dinner we went to have a lesson with the Ford's. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with them and created a BINGO game for them to play while they watched which made them listen better. They are still preparing for their baptism on Thurs!!! We are really excited! We got the program all organized and Daniel asked his dad if he would say the opening prayer...he actually said yes. We were all shocked but are grateful that he is supporting them. Friday was a day for the History Books in the great Canada Calgary Mission!! So we had some visitors from the MTC here and they were here to create a training program specific to our mission. So on Friday President Nicholas was told to hold a special ZLC...zone leader council...and he could invite a few other companionships if he wanted. So he invited 2 District Leaders and their companions and 2 sets of Sisters!! Sister Batty and I were invited to go...as well as Sister Hoyt and Sister Newby...So it was a really neat experience. First we had breakfast at the mission home and that was when Sister Newby and I realized that it was exactly a year from the first day we had breakfast in the Misson Home when we first arrived in Canada. It was crazy!! Then we had some training and counsel, then lunch and more training. It was really neat to go to the meeting, but it made me really grateful that I don't have the responisbility to train all the missionaries about the things that were discussed! Then we did some service for Sister Hobbs. She is so sweet and I feel bad that she is so sick. But she doesn't let that get her down and she is still a great missionary! I bet you would never guess that our dinner appt that day canceled as well...Well it did! So did our other lessons that night...so what did we do?? Yep. Delivered Temple invites! The Lord really wants them to get out to the people here!! Saturday all of our appts canceled again!! So all day we delivered Temple invites. We reached our 1/2 way goal and have delivered just over 200 of them!! Around dinner time, Sister Baker took us out to dinner at a restaurant. It felt really wierd to be in the world on a Saturday night. Sunday was kind of a gongshow...but good too. So we received our temple schedule and we were supposed to go to church with all the Sisters in the NW and then we were supposed to have training all day...so we canceled all the appts we had set up for the day...well guess what most of our trainings were canceled. So we got the the church at 9 and nobody was there...well they forgot to give us the memo that church wasn't until 11. So we chilled with some of the Sisters for a little bit until we went to church. Then we had a training with the Temple Committee and they basically just explained what our role in the open house is and trained us on what we are supposed to do. After that all 900 tour guides were supposed to come in 2 different shifts and go through the temple....well guess what...the temple is still NOT finished and has lots of work to go...The temple is still under the Contractors and The Church doesn't have it yet, so those trainings were canceled. They were even given permisson to work on the Temple on Sunday because it is that far behind. But it is the Lord's house and everything will work out! So since we canceled all our lessons and our dinner appt. we were a little bummed. And all of the tour guides are going to be doing tours of the temple without ever seeing it for themselves. But like I said everything will work out. Then we were talking to Sister Thomas and she found out we didn't have a dinner, so she invited us over because she was having the Elders over too...the YSA elders....aka the Assistants....and we had so much fun! I love those Elders! They are great and basically they were teasing us all night long. But mostly Sister Batty. She doesn't know left and right...so they like to make fun her for it. She grew up with North, South, East, and West. So it is probably pretty funny listening to her giving me directions! She is great! I love her! And then after dinner we actually had the Baptismal Interview for the Ford boys. They passed with flying colors! Life is great here in Canada! I am so excited for the coming weeks with the Temple Open House as crazy as it is going to be! Sage is such a stud! Tell him to keep up the great work! Well I sure do love and miss you all!! Have a great week!! Love ya!! Love, Sister Kaitlyn Marchant