Week 42 - 1st Transfer in Ottawa

Already another 6 weeks come and gone! Thankfully both of us will be staying in Fallowfield. It's really weird though because this is our Mission President's last transfer before he goes home! It's going to be weird and cool having two mission presidents during my mission. 

Anyways, this week again was filled with a lot of service. Painting, building garden boxes, walking dogs, mowing lawns, etc. It's enjoyable! We learn a lot of life skills/tricks and we are able to share a message before we leave! 

A cool experience I had this week was when I was on exchanges with Elder Ferrier. We were passing by a member and while I was grabbing my bag out of the back seat of the car he walked up to the lady that lives next door, she was just standing on her porch, and he started talking to her. In my mind I'm thinking, "Oh no he thinks that's the member! I gotta stop him!" So I walk up next to him and whisper "Wrong house" and he turns and says "Yeah I know." Lesson 1. Talk to everyone regardless. He then continues to ask her about her faith and whether or not she believes in God and Jesus Christ. She tells us a bit about her Roman Catholic background but how she turned away from organized religions because of things that happened in her past. So Elder Ferrier asks her what she believes in. She said she believes in an energy that is in everything and that surrounds us. He then responds and says that we believe that energy is God and that He is our Eternal Father, and he continues to go through the basics of the Restoration, had me introduce the Book of Mormon, and we gave one to her and she said she would read it. (For those who may not have found that as funny/crazy as the four of us Elders did afterwards read Alma 18 when Ammon teaches King Lamoni. It was pretty close). 

Other than that we had several good lessons with investigators and recent-converts who were engaged and asked really good thought provoking questions. It's hard sometimes to have good lessons especially when the commitments fall through or they won't even agree to the commitment but baby steps. Little by little they are opening up and being more involved and Christ is beginning to work miracles with them. 

Love you guys! Stay safe! Stay faithful!

Love,

Elder DiReda

Photos:

Garden box before and after + the second one we made

What our investigators called a minor meal (steak, fish, steamed vegetables, couscous)

More barbecue photos