Missionary Letter #26 - Transferred!!!!

So, besides the fact that this week I hit my six month mark nothing really interesting has happened......

Just kidding, you didn't believe that did you?

Anyways as my family has emailed me about nothing else this week I will now eased their troubled hearts. My bestest parents sent me a pizza on bump day after a tiring day of hunger. If I had to quote from the words of one who is much more articulate I would quote: D

But that's not even the best part of the story.

9:50, it's that time of the day for a missionary, I've just finished writing in my journal and am relaxing and having a great time when our landlord calls. (He's a member) "Hey elders there's a pizza delivery guy here for Elder Wolford."
Me: "wow the Macrae's really are sad that I'm leaving." (I'm really quite full of myself)
I go to open the door and meet the guy, our conversation goes something along the lines of this.

Him: Pizza delivery for a Stephen (before you comment he said it with a ph, I could tell)
Me; Yep, that's me.
Him: Well it's from you parents.
Me: Wow all the way from Utah?
Him: (Chuckles) yeah I guess so... Are you a Mormon Missionary?
Me: Yes, yes I am, are you a member?
After talking with him a bit I learn that he used to be a member over seventeen years ago and that he used to be a Branch President. I didn't hand him a book of mormon or a card or even invite him out to a lesson but I did tell him how much he is missed and how we hoped he came back.

I don't believe in coincidences, I know the Lord sets up things so that others can eventually come back into His fold.

In other news I'm getting transferred, to one place that I think most Americans actually know about. I'm going down south to Niagara falls mission. I've heard a lot of good things and my new companion is an Elder I know pretty well so I'm very excited (also very sad) that I'm leaving.

Hear's my ode to Belleville. It's  been a blast serving here for the first part of my mission. I've met so many wonderful people that I'll remember forever (some for different reasons than others) and I know that in a small way I've helped the work in Belleville progress and that I've helped it to do that. The first area I've heard is always the hardest to leave. I don't have enough experience to say if that's true or not but I'll get back to all y'all on that later.

I've got a favor to ask, recently I've been asked to give a series of  jokes but unfortunately I've got no sense of humor.  Please save me by sending your funniest joke....

You're Canada Toronto's only hope


Elder Wolford

Men on Missions Episode #26

Men on Missions - Episode #25

Missionary Letter #25 - Can we squeegee your driveway?

Let me first start with a picture of what Canada normally looks like.

Normally mind you....

However as of late we've been having a heat wave making it a whole 3 degrees Celsius. (Perfect weather for freezing rain). Which means either one of two things for missionary work.

1 That the Lord really does have a sense of humor because we skate more than we walk
or
2. Our plan to go do snow shoveling service was a bad idea. Because as soon as we made that plan the snow stopped coming down...

I guess it's back to the drawing board.

Anyways as far as what we actually did this week we've had a lot of success. President Shields came down this past Sunday when this happened. First off we get a call from him, which is a very rare occurrence by itself. What happened next was even more rare because he said.

"Hey Elders can we stop by your apartment later this evening???"

Luckily due to the amazing cleaning skillz (skills with a 'z')  my mother has given to me we were well prepared for his arrival (still a little bit scary though)

When he came he bore a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. He echoed the promise given before that the Book of Mormon has a power in it. It is the word of God and as such when we read it we are opening our hearts and minds to Him. I've given myself a challenge to study and ponder over it continuously. Not just for studies in the morning but throughout my day in hopes that the Lord will bless the people we're teaching with a desire to read.


Loves!

Elder Wolford

Men on Missions #24 - Sick Day

Missionary Letter #24 - Facebook from beyond the grave

To answer the question that I know is plaguing everyone's mind about Canada. Yes, everyone does joke and tease about the unfortunate things that could happen on that special day. To describe to you who may not know Friday the 13th is unlucky because of the day and the number. The number 13 is the number of rebellion and Friday is an unlucky day (for everyone who doesn't have school) because it's supposedly the day when everything bad happens. For the majority of my life I either A. didn't know it was Friday the 13th, or B. didn't especially care.

Until this past Friday.

The day went fine, we had quite a bit of success and were able to accomplish a lot of wonderful things. Nothing weird or strange happened. We ran into a few questionable characters but they were super nice (or at least indifferent). To describe to you why Friday made me a little uneasy I need to tell you about what happened behind the scene's. We have a member named Jen who recently lost her husband (Doug). It's been really rough for the past few months although she has been doing much better as of late.
Now skip over to our Branch Mission Leader. Who (on Friday) checked his facebook page to see if anything new was happening in the ward.

One new message...

Doug wants to be your friend

He thought it was only kind of funny. We're not sure how but I guess on the other side of the veil they have facebook, or Jen was just checking facebook on his account.
We may never know.

Anyways you don't want that you want action packed stories about the thrills of Canada. Well this week Jack Frost decided to take a minor holiday so we've gotten a heat wave where all the snow has melted and created rivers down the streets. Luckily it dried up pretty fast or else we'd have to consider breaking the 'no swimming' rule just to get around town.

I'm only mostly joking... mostly.

To close off with at a spiritual thought I would like to leave you with a commitment, you're free to accept it or not but I really enjoyed it. I read this week in Mosiah, chapters 23-24 (give or take) where Alma and his people are imprisoned. Notice how in verse 29 Alma and his brethren deliver themselves into the hands of the Lamanites. Does this seem familiar? When I try to imagine it in my mind all I can see is Joseph Smith delivering himself into the hands of his enemies.

The true church has been apart of this Earth from the beginning, and because God is and always has been the same there are times when history repeats itself. To make it a little more joyous the people of Mosiah were delivered and became a great service to the Lord by bringing more souls into his fold. Alma went on to be the ancestor of every prophet afterwards and thousands were brought to the gospel because of his sacrifice.

I love this gospel, nothing else is like it.

Elder Wolford

P.S Thanks so much to all of you that have given so freely to me in your prayers, I feel them and love you all so much.

Men on Missions Episode #23

Missionary Letter #23

So as we are covering three area's (and my companion is the district leader) we got to stay over at the Napanee elders place. Where we shared a couple of interesting stories about our area's.

Here's the favorite: When the church was first being built in Napanee it cause a big commotion. So much so that the other churches in the area combined forces and money to pay for a giant sign that stood by the highway that said "Keep the Mormons out of Napanee!"
This didn't really concern anyone to badly for about a week, then a storm blew past and lightning struck the sign, lit it on fire and burned it to the ground. After an accusation was thrown that a mormon must have sabotaged the sign an investigation was put into effect where they learned it had been struck by lightning and that had caused the fire.
The newspapers headline the next morning. The Hand of God!

In a slightly less humorous tone we discovered this week that the Mission President is coming down in the next few weeks. I have no idea why but I feel terrified about it. It's almost like a General Authority is coming down to see how your work is going.

I feel like our conversation will go like this

President: "Hey Elder how've things been up here in Belleville"
Me: "Great President, there have been a lot of miracles up here recently."
President: "Hahaha awesome!" Pause to let the tension build "You have failed this city"

It won't go like that but it's fun to fantasize. Luckily when he comes to our sacrament meeting my companion has been assigned to speak before him so I will remain in the safety of the chapel pews.

Anyways I know I've shared a bunch of stories but here's one more to uplift you all a little bit.

We were talking with an investigator and she mentioned she was having a washer and dryer moved in. Immediately we offered our assistance and with a little string pulling managed to get our BML to bring his trailer and wisdom to help out. She was so shocked when we got there. She didn't realize that people offered that kind of help.

To end with a spiritual thought. There are so many people in this big bad world that many of them go unnoticed, or unappreciated. Since everyone is unique there's a lot that they have to offer to the Kingdom of God. Remember how Ammon, before doing any teaching or preaching, offered his life and love to those he was serving. He went out and served with all his heart and the people were so shocked by his acts of selfless service that he managed to teach them by example.

Anyways I love you all and hope you have a fabulous week!

Elder Wolford

P.S : If you could go back in time and meet one person (no language barrier) who would it be?
P.P.S : Don't do drugs and stay in school.😁

Men on Missions Episode #22

Missionary Letter #22 - New Year's Resolutions

The new year here in Canada has begun with an exciting plot twist.

A little geography lesson about the area where I'm serving. So me and my fearless companion Elder Cruz serve in a little town called Belleville, which has been previously stated is about halfway from where you are reading this message and the North pole. So it's pretty amazing. Which unfortunately for some of the mountain dwellers in Utah means that we get a little airsick because the altitude is super low.

We call them airsick lowlanders

So I didn't get sick, but a sister from Provo who was, as of a few days ago, was serving in Trenton. (Right next to Belleville, a little farther from the North Pole than us). Got incredibly sick with a bout of whooping cough. So (as they were the only sisters in our zone) the President decided to send her home a month early because she wasn't healing. Which meant that the nearest area, (that's us) would need to temporarily serve as a substitute.

So when I heard this I was very excited to go and serve there because it's a whole new area and Elders haven't been there in years. It's super funny because there haven't been Elders for so long that the members might have forgotten that they still send Elders to places.

So anyways that's what's been happening this week.

My new years resolutions follow as is. (in no prioritized order)

1. Become a consecrated disciple of Christ.
2. Work out hard in the mornings and evenings.
3. learn how to do that one handed clap thingy that everyone seems to be able to do.
4. Study Faith and Repentance every day.
5. Finally get around to improving my reformed Egyptians into normal English handwriting.

Well I'll keep on trying. Thank you all so much for your prayers and your emails. I'm so happy to hear from you and I keep you all in my prayers and I hope and pray that you're being blessed. I know that as we continue to serve the Lord with everything we have we will be blessed. Even and especially when we are weak.

Onward ever onward!

Elder Wolford