email + pictures | October 29, 2013

Interesting Week...


Okay, so I don't know where to begin. First of all, thank you to everyone for the support you show to me in your emails, letters, and other messages. I love everyone and it makes me happy to know that you are thinking of me.

Soooooo..... I don't know how to put this lightly, so I'll just say it. My companion went home. It doesn't matter to you why, he just did. The Zone Leaders and I passed him on to President on Sunday and he flew home Monday. Since Sunday, after Sacrament meeting, I have been staying with the Zone Leaders. During the day I kinda just change hands every once in a while, depending on when my appointments are and when other Elders' appointments are. Like for dinners, I take some YSA Elders that don't have dinners. I'll be honest, it kinda sucks but it's getting better. Just to stem the tide of questions here is all I know. Right now, I don't really have a place to be and so I'm staying wherever I want (always with other Elders though). I don't know when or if I'll get a new companion this transfer. President might just put me with a set of Elders and we'll be a trio for the rest of the transfer. Then again, I could be transferred early if a spot "opens up" somewhere else. Basically, I have no idea what's going to happen to me and so I take it a day at a time.

Now that I got that out of the way, I'll share the other big news. It snowed!!! And not a little either, like 6 or 7 inches. It snowed all day Sunday and Monday morning. The high for today is supposed to be -3 Celsius, but later in the week it's supposed to warm up to as much as +7 degrees. It is beautiful to see all of the snow but the cold kinda sucks. Luckily I have a car now, kinda. The Zone Leaders have a car and since I'm with them I get to be in a car! I'll include some pictures in this email.

As for the work, we picked up a new investigator!! His name is Chris and some members "found" him. He is a very good handy man and so this family called him to see if he could help install a dishwasher. He came and helped and they became friends. Then the family gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to read some of it. We had dinner and FHE with the family and Chris last Monday, and taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was really receptive and understood everything. Hopefully this weekend we can meet with him again and have another lesson. As for Randy, he hasn't changed, so not much to say there. Then there are the boys. Their mom keeps cancelling our appointments so we haven't met with them in quite a while. Every time she actually responds she ends up cancelling the appointment she sets up. Plus they are moving soon, so we will not be teaching them for very much longer.

And I guess that wraps up my week. Sorry it's shorter than usual, or maybe that's a good thing, but I don't know what else to say.

I love you all and hope that your week is warm and fun and exciting. Be safe on Halloween and don't be afraid to send me some candy :)

Love,

Elder Wake

Elder Wake and Elder Foster in the snow

So much snow!

email + pictures | October 21, 2013

Week 14


How's it going y'all?

So this week was super good in some ways and kinda sucked in others.  Investigator wise we didn't do so hot.  Randy is outta town, so we knew we wouldn't see him, but Nicole and her kids cancelled our lesson on Thanksgiving and didn't respond to our texts to reschedule until much later in the week.  And then she said we could meet on Tuesday, so we didn't get to meet with them.  Plus they went to church in another ward, which is better than nothing but once again, we haven't seen them for a while.

As for our two referrals, one was baptized into the "River of Life Church" the day before we contacted them and the other hasn't been home.  The first one said they'd call if they need any help with anything, so hopefully if we get a chance to serve them their hearts will soften.  I think they aren't truly converted to their church because they just moved from a refugee camp in Nepal 3 weeks ago and they don't really speak good English.  I think that if we get a chance, they won't be very attached to their "church" and they'll listen to us.  Then again maybe they are truly converted and it will be very difficult. 

We also had a kinda sorta appointment with a former investigator.  It was more of a scheduled stop by not a hard and fast appointment lesson.  Anyway, he wasn't home but we are going to keep trying because his teaching record looks promising.  

However, on the Less Active front we did awesome!!!  We surpassed our goals and got in with some people that are presumably difficult to get in with.  One of the people was someone that I think the ward forgot about because only the Bishop knows him and he didn't even realize he lived in the ward.  I've been trying for the past 2 months and finally he was home.  Also, a family, that a couple of weeks ago kept cancelling on us, told us they want to meet every week so we can teach them the missionary lessons.  They are all struggling with almost everything.  The son believes in science not religion, the daughter doesn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith and the mom has her own struggles.  But now they are showing renewed interest and are striving to keep commitments.  

But the biggest story of the week is a less active/recent convert family.  I'll call them the "C" family.  I guess I already talked about them in my last email, but they were baptized in February and almost immediately got a hold of some anti and fell away.  The mom contacted some sisters in the ward and is starting to talk to them again. On Saturday morning we went and, with the help of about 9 members of the ward, helped her clean a house that her mother-in-law is trying to sell.  It definitely softened her heart and she said that she isn't shutting the door completely yet, which is better than wanting to be taken off the record several months ago. I'm super excited and hope that I'll get to help bring her back.

That is pretty much how our week went.  We also did a ton of service, (almost every day!) and this week we are finishing up several other projects we started this past week.  Speaking of service, I said that I'd probably be doing the greatest funnest and awesomeest service project ever soon.  Well, sad news, we can't go do it.  It's out of the area and since it is for a member and not a Less Active or an Investigator the assistants said we can't go.  If we could have gone, we would have been helping slaughter some chickens and pluck them and prepare them to be eaten or frozen.  The guy even said he'd give us one or two to take home!!  I was so psyched up but I guess now I don't get to do it :(

Oh, it kinda snowed last Wednesday.  It was mixed with rain and was early in the morning, so it wasn't to cool. According to a member, the forecast for tomorrow

 includes flurries, so we'll see.

We had a great week and I hope you did too.  I love you all so much and hope that your coming week goes great and that you remember to stay strong in the faith.  Nothing is more important than this Gospel and how it blesses our lives.  

Love, 

Elder Wake

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Here are some pictures Braden sent us in his email:

Most of his zone from the last transfer

Braden said, "Fall season here is beautiful and I took some pictures of
the local park that I thought you'd be interested in."

email | October 15, 2013

Training!!!!

So as many of you know, I am now a trainer!!!  Basically this means that my new companion is fresh out of the Missionary Training Centre and I get to be his first companion and teach all that he needs to know to be a good, effective missionary.  I'll be honest, it is very overwhelming, especially since I just finished my own training!  It is the visually impaired leading the blind :) (I know, I'm super clever).  So about my companion...

His name is Elder Foster and he is from (drum roll please) DALLAS, TEXAS!!!!!  It's kinda super cool that they put us two Texans together.  However, he spent the last year in Bountiful, Utah doing his senior year (of high school) with his cousin, which is kinda cool because I spent the last year in Provo, doing my freshman year at BYU.  Neither one of us is totally inexperienced with the winter, but we are also totally unprepared.  It's getting really cold and he's at the disadvantage of not having the past month and a half to get accustomed to the weather.  I can handle it pretty well but he is freezing. He feels that he is not a good teacher and that he doesn't know stuff, but if I push him a tiny bit more than usual or wait a little longer for him to think about an answer, he actually is better than I was when I came out.  He just needs to realize that for himself and he will be a great missionary.  I keep telling him and I've already seen growth in his knowledge and confidence.  I have a really good feeling about these next 3 months.  

Well, mostly good feelings.  Transfers weren't all good news, because they took away our car.  Before you panic, we didn't do anything bad or against the rules.  They just figured that since our area was smaller and technically "walk-able" we didn't need a car.  I personally disagree because when we have back to back appointments we can't teach all that we need to.  We may have a small area but it still takes 20 minutes to walk across and that is 20 less minutes we have to teach sometimes.  Most of the time we are fine and have enough time but tonight for instance, will be very hard.  Hope isn't all lost, rumour is that there are 17 new cars sitting at church HQ and our District Leader is petitioning to get a couple cars sent down here for us. (They don't have a car either and neither does the Copperwood Ward Elders, and both of them actually need one because it takes an hour and a half or more to walk to some parts of their areas)  Honestly, the leadership made a mistake because only one car, ours, was supposed to lose their car and three were taken.  No one seems to know what happened, so they are taking it back to the drawing board and re-deciding who gets cars and who doesn't.  I'm praying that they have sympathy on us Texans and that they send us a car.

Speaking of "Rumours"  the newest rumour in the mission is that we will get to use Facebook and will get our iPad's this February.  I think that this is very likely for us.  The other rumour is that every missionary, not every companionship, will get an iPad and that each companionship will get an iPhone.  This is not very likely, I think, but all things are possible I guess.  I'm excited to know for certain when we get our new "tools" to do missionary work.  It's going to be exciting!!!

We had Thanksgiving Dinner last night, which wasn't like I expected.  I guess the family doesn't like turkey because we had pork instead.  It was great though and I loved it.  We already have a family lined up to feed us the Sunday after American Thanksgiving so we can have both.  I'm super excited.  

Speaking of excited, we may have the greatest service project happening in the near future.  It will be freaking fantastic but I going to leave you hanging so you keep coming back to read my emails.  Just prepare yourselves for some awesome pictures and cool stories... If we get permission, because it's outta our zone.  But we will and we will have a great time :)

As for the work, lets see.  We finally got in with a less active sister and have set up a regular time to meet with her each week.  We taught our investigator kids only once because they canceled yesterday for Thanksgiving.  We've made a lot of progress with our former investigators and have an appointment with one of them and a time to stop by for another.  Hopefully they will turn into new or progressing investigators.  We've also contacted a few other former investigators but they mostly don't want to talk to us or they moved.  One was really promising because her mom said she would be interested in talking to us again, but she moved in with her Grandpa so we won't get to teach her.  

We taught Randy again, but he tried to drop us.  Silly Randy, he still hasn't learned that when we come we bring the spirit and he always ends up inviting us back by the end of the lesson.  The problem with it is that every lesson is the same.  He tries to drop us, we read a scripture and exhort him to actually read and pray and then he says yeah, he will, then we set up a return appointment (which he cancels) so we drop in when he's back in town and find out he didn't read and pray, so he tries to drop us and the cycle continues.  Next time we will be taking the big guns, Elder Rasher.  Elder Rasher is the most bold missionary in the Zone and is the one that Randy first talked to.  Randy mentions Elder Rasher in almost every lesson so we will bring him along and he will make sure that Randy actually starts making progress.  In the words of Elder Rasher, "We are going to spirit punch him in the face super hard".  

Some of the best news of the week is that we actually got referrals!!!  We never get referrals from members but somehow we got two this past week.  We haven't had time to contact them so we will be doing that this coming week.  The other great news is that a less active/recent convert family is starting to come back.  They were baptised this last February and very quickly got a hold of some anti and fell away.  They told the Bishop that they wanted to be listed as Do Not Contact.  Then this last week the family called Sister Wolsey in the Primary presidency and said that it sucked that friends from the ward stopped talking to them.  Sister Wolsey explained that when you are listed as a DNC that means that there is no contact, so the members were just respecting the family's wishes.  But now they want to be taken off of the DNC list and that means that soon we may be able to get in there and bring them back.  They are one of the happiest and saddest stories in the ward this past year and it is HUGE news that they are starting to come back.  I'm so excited!!!!

Yesterday we had the best Zone Training Meeting yet!  We learned about a lot of things and I got a lot of personal revelation on how I can be a better trainer and missionary.  I also thought of some ways to make my personal study more effective and now I have no time to do all the things I want to do!  One thing I learned that I thought I would share has to do with being a purpose driven versus a task driven missionary (although it can apply to any calling or occupation).  A purpose driven missionary knows their reason for coming to the field.  They care about the people they teach and want to help them.  The spirit works freely through them as they invite others to come unto Christ.  A task drive missionary cares more about the numbers.  They just do things as if it is a checklist, with no real conviction behind their actions.  The spirit does not work through them.  In life, we can chose to be purpose or task driven.  Do we do things to get good stats and just because we are told to do so, or do we do things because we truly want to help?  In your callings at church, as home and visiting teachers, quorum, group, or class leaders, or any of the other callings you may have, resolve in yourself to let the spirit work through you to touch the lives of those around you and become a purpose driven disciple of Christ.

Have a great week and remember to show love to those around you.  I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful Columbus day weekend.

Love,

Elder Wake

email (plus a picture!) | October 8, 2013

Crazy Week!!!

Seriously, this week was crazy!!!  First of all, we started a long term service project with someone in the ward.  They are building a path down the side of their house so that the basement tenants can have something besides grass to walk down.  It is a lot of digging and stuff.  The cool thing is that they don't really know too much about what to do, so they are listening to my suggestions and advice.  I like critical thinking stuff like that so it's nice to do the service and help them make plans.  It took up like two of our days, and we are no where near finished.  I'm worried we won't finish by the time the ground freezes, but we will try.  

Then, Thursday morning I got a very interesting phone call during Breakfast....  I'M TRAINING!!!   In other words, tomorrow I will get a new companion fresh from the MTC and I get to show him the ropes.  I'm so excited and happy to have this opportunity.  Plus, a bunch of us from the MTC District are training too.  I'm most excited for Elder Jacobs (my MTC companion).  We've become such good friends and I love that we are serving here in the same zone, and are both training at the same time.  It's super cool.

Because of the training call, we had to go to Calgary to go through some training.  There is a new stress program that new missionaries are supposed to utilize to endure the stresses of missionary work.  I'm excited to use it in my training.

Obviously Saturday and Sunday were General Conference, so they were the highlight of my week.  Every talk was awesome.  I especially liked Elders Bednar, Holland, and Dube's talks and President Uchtdorf's talk.  It was perfect for Randy.

Speaking of which, the investigator front was very bipolar this week!  First the good news.  We had a great lesson with Randy, during which we talked about the pro's and con's of joining the church.  By his own declaration, there are no significant con's to join the church but there are a lot of pros.  Most of the time we talked about specific tangible blessings we've received from being a member.  Then we found out he actually read his Book of Mormon and listened to most of the Conference talks on the radio!!  I am so happy for him!!

Now for the bad news.  We found out that Nicole and her kids are moving to the other side of Lethbridge later this month!! So in other words, we won't be teaching them for much longer and won't be able to see them get baptized.  I'm really bummed but if it is the best option for them I guess I shouldn't complain.

Other news, Elder Henderson is going to be a Zone Leader in Calgary for the next little bit.

As for just random things:

We had a Chinook come through (which is basically a really warm wind off of the mountains) so it "warmed" back up.  It's still chilly but not to bad.  No snow yet though.

I've decided to try and include more things about Canadians and Canadian culture in my emails, since that stuff is interesting.  I think that the most interesting thing is how similar Canadians are to Americans.  They follow US news and events and sometimes speak like we are all the same country.  Also, there are a lot of Native reservations around here and so I've learned some stuff about those cultures.  As for the white people, a lot of them are kinda intolerant to the Natives.  It was kinda surprising.  Oh! and I found out that Alberta is a "rat free province".  Basically the provincial government exterminated all the rats and if you see a rat you have to call the government organization and they come out and kill it.  It's kinda weird but kinda cool.

And I don't want to bore you to much, so I'll end it there.  I love you all and love hearing from all of you!  Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love, 

Elder Wake

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Here's a picture of  the missionaries in Braden's zone, taken at the end of August.

Also, Braden asked me to let everyone know that this Monday (tomorrow) is Canadian Thanksgiving! He's pretty excited about it.

email | September 30, 2013

110 km/hr winds...... need I say more?

Yup, that is the forecast for today.  Also for the coming week the high is 14 degrees.... so yeah, it's getting cold.  Actually it's not too bad yet, especially since it's supposed to be minus 30 on a frequent basis.  I'm both nervous and excited for the coming winter.

First off, I apologize for a shorter email, I don't have too much to report.  The update for our investigators is that Randy was out of town the entire week and Nicole kept cancelling our appointments, for very legitimate reasons.  But her kids are reading and praying so it's not all bad.  

As for less active work, we got in with a family that always cancelled on us before!  Its been months and a half dozen no show or cancelled appointments since we last taught them, but this time they were actually home!!  We also met with another less active that is tough to meet with.  We had a nice lesson with him and he had some questions/concerns that we are going to get to answer next appointment.  Then, we met with the main less active family that we teach frequently.  They are going through some super hard trials and yesterday we gave them our suggestions on how to get through them.  They definitely seemed to get something out of it and I hope that it helped them.  They both said that they'd make it out to General Conference so that is good.

If any of you are keeping detailed track of time (which I suspect isn't very many people), this week is board week.  Pretty much everyone, including myself, is expecting me to get a training call.  I'm super nervous but for not the normal reasons.  I think that I can train well and be a good first companion to some missionary, but I am super scared to lead the area.  I don't feel "old" enough to be the missionary in charge of 12th ward.  To make things more scary, there is a slim (and I mean very slim) chance that I could also be made district leader too.  They normally keep one area as a district leader area, so if I'm training and the area doesn't change this transfer, I'll be district leader.  Like I said, that is very unlikely but the possibility is still there.  I really just want Wednesday to come so I'm not in the dark.  

On a happier note, if I'm training, that means that my first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's will be spent here in Lethbridge.  I'm super excited for all of those, especially Thanksgiving, which is in like two weeks.  That's right, be jealous!!  And according to other missionaries, if you are American, other American members will invite you over for U.S. Thanksgiving too.  That means two Thanksgivings!!!!!

That's pretty much it.  Like I said, I don't really have to much to say.  Hopefully next email will have a ton of stuff going on!!  In the meantime, have a great week and keep being the best that you can be.

I love you all so much and your support and prayers mean everything to me.

Love,

Elder Wake

email | September 23, 2013

"Winter is Coming"

So first off, I hope someone get's that reference.  I know that Colton will.  But seriously, winter is coming on fast.  The first sign that our ward mission leader told me is basically how seasons work around here.  Basically it is summer.  Then it gets super windy.  Then it is a long cold, snowy winter.  Then it gets super windy. Then it's summer again.  Today the forecast is 80 km/hr winds sooo.... yeah.  Plus the high for at least most of this week is 18C, which is like 60F.  That with the wind chill is kinda cold, at least for me.  Soon, I'll tell the tale of Wednesday which is the final confirmation of the approaching winter.  But first, I need to switch computers so I'll be right back.

So, I guess some updates on my investigators are needed.  B & K's mom now has to work and go to school.  Her ex moved to California and stopped paying child support, so she is often not home until 1:00 am.  As such we haven't been able to meet with them.  We have an appointment with them on Tuesday though, so that's good.  They are reading and praying and still want to be baptized but for reasons I can't say, the baptism may be in the quite distant future.  But we are obviously going to still work with them and help them be completely ready for whenever they get baptized.

As for Randy, the other investigator, Elder Henderson met with him while on exchanges.  His problem, as he puts it, is that when he's out trucking he feels he can't be baptized.  But anytime the missionaries talk to him or are even around him he feels like he should.  I have some very bold yet loving, words that I want to say to him the next time we meet that will hopefully give him a spiritual slap in the right direction.  He is so close to being a good solid investigator and I just want to "nudge" him onto the right track.  But we'll see.  He's now gone for another 7 days, so hopefully we'll meet him next week sometime.  We will be texting him a lot though :)

Now, let's see.  Last Monday was a great P-Day.  We played dodgeball and aside from the fact that I was sore for the next two days it was great.  Dinner was very irritating though.  It was with a part member family where the husband is the non-member.  He just, ugh.  I just wanted to yell at him and scream and forcefully baptize him because he knows how important it is and just won't commit.  For example, he said that the Terrestrial Kingdom would be just fine.  We asked, don't you want to be with your wife?  To which he replied, "She can visit me".  AHHHH!!!  The whole conversation didn't seem to go anywhere.  There was some good though, because the wife opened up more than she ever has before (and he has been taught a lot before).  Plus, for the first time he opened up in front of his kids, so some little bits of progress may have been made.

Tuesday was kinda uneventful, just normal stop-by's and a lot of cancellations.

Which brings us to Wednesday.  Oh Wednesday.  Imagine, if you will, a rainy day.  All day, nonstop rain.  Then imagine it being windy too.  Finally imagine that the warmest it got was 5 degrees Celsius.  You have what Wednesday was like for us.  I had to pull out my sweater and thermals and my coat to keep warm.  Man, it was crazy!!  Since we decided to drive, we pretty much finished everything we had planned in an hour and a half, so we struggled to find stuff to do.  Dinner was nice, but crazy.  It was with an active family with a less active husband.  So we ate, and then he got distracted by a lot of things.  So he is a super crazy and awesome dude.  He has like the highest gun and explosives license possible pretty much.  So he has body armor and guns galore and tones of explosive stuff, like det cord and such.  Now, he's NOT a terrorist or anything, he does firework shows, like intense firework shows.  He covered one of the 5 firework stations during the Calgary stampede so he needs all the stuff he has.  So, back to dinner.  First he shows us a video of his station at the Stampede which was awesome.  Then he goes out to his driveway and blows up something.  Then he spends 15 minutes looking for the connector thing that you use to fill up car tires from an air compressor.  Then he says he needs to go, so we couldn't share a lesson.  So Wednesday kinda sucked.

Thursday we met with a couple of families and taught them some cool stuff.  I'll share one thing at the end of this email.  The first was apprehensive because of something called the 7-day challenge that was mission policy a year ago.  Suffice it to say it was the worst idea and most members didn't want missionaries to come into their homes for the longest period of time.  But at the end they said that they really appreciated us coming over and told me to tell everyone that she thought we were very good missionaries.  So that's the bragging I'm going to do for myself.  But I guess you could say mission accomplished.

Friday was exchanges and just a normal day and Saturday was full of Stake Conference, two sessions of it.  It was the best Stake Conference I've been to, and that includes the Sunday session.  Sunday we had a nice dinner, did lots of service, mainly cleaning a less active's house.  The less active family was going through a hard time and just needed some help.  His daughter, from a previous marriage, had a grand mal seizure and actually had to be resuscitated.  So he was in Calgary all weekend.  She's okay now, but they are struggling financially and spiritually.  So we helped clean and then shared a message later in the evening.  I really think that they got a lot out of the message and seemed more hopeful.  The message was on prayer and how to pray effectively.

And that was my week.  I just want to thank everyone for emails and letters.  I got a letter from Allisyn so tell her that I really liked that.  Plus a package and letter from Dad.  And I got a ton more emails this week!  Thanks to President Lauck, Hayden, Dallin, and Katie!!!  I love hearing from you and everyone, even (and I would say especially) when it's just little things from life back home.  I love you all and hope you are doing well.  Have a great week and remember to make good choices and stuff.  Oh and a special shout out to Dylan Christie for getting his mission call to South Africa, even if he didn't share any details in his email....  I'm super excited for him and hope that someone punches him for not sharing details!!

Finally, a quick thought.  In the lesson I mentioned above with the member family we talked about the atonement.  I'd say that for the most part we think of the atonement as a something we use to repent.  We also think of it, though a lot less so, as something to lean on when you go through hard times.  I think that I would like to float this idea that I kinda thought of by all of you and hope that it isn't sacrilegious.  I think that the atonement is simply about change.  Change from sin to righteousness, from sad to happy, from anger to love, from pain to healing.  These are common I'd say but it doesn't stop there.  It can also be used to change from good to better.  From love to true love, from magnifying your calling to magnifying it more.  It can also be used to change from good to equally good.  When we make any sort of change, like moving, new classes, a new job, etc. we can lean on the atonement of Christ to help us.  I think that it is something that we forget sometimes.  Not matter what we are going through no matter what change we want to make, whether from bad to good, good to good, or good to better, Christ has been through it and will help and lift us up.  Try to use it a little more and it will draw us closer to Christ and help us in all aspects of your life.

I love all y'all and look forward to next week.

Love, 

Elder Wake

email | September 9, 2013

Week 9

So this has been a good week for us, but at the same time it's hard to remember what we did.  The main thing that happened is that we set up a lot of appointments with members and less active members for the coming weeks.  But there were three things that happened that are CRAZY!!

First, we finally met with a less active, Ryan.  His wife and kids are active but he has his struggles.  We've been trying to meet with him for the past month or more but his work is crazy so we haven't been able to.  But we finally did and we had a lesson that went pretty well.  Now we are going to teach him regularly.  

Next, Randy almost dropped us!!  He texted us and basically said that he couldn't picture himself being an active member of the church,  so he didn't want us to waste our time by meeting with him.  We texted back and said something like, "you know that this is true.  And though it may be difficult, if it is true it is the most important thing you'll ever do.  Make the decision of whether or not the church is true first.  Then make your decision".  He replied that he'd keep reading and praying and that he'd "see us around".  So we are going to stop by and see what's going on.

But the best news is that we've started teaching a less active, Nicole!!!   We've been stopping by the past several days and on Tuesday we finally made contact, kind of. Her boyfriend answered the door and gave us her phone number and asked us to call her.  We thought that she was still avoiding us, but on Wednesday we called and she answered and agreed to meet with us that night.  She's gone through some tough stuff the past several years and wants to turn her life around.  Then on Thursday she wanted a blessing and so we went over with the ward mission leader to do that.  He talked to her for awhile and let her know that he was there for her if she needed anything and that the ward needed her just as much as she needed the ward.  She got emotional and said that she knew that it was the right thing to do, so she committed to come to church.  She came with her kids and they all had a great time at church.  She already made friends with the Primary President and she has gone to Nicole's house multiple times already!  I'm so proud of our ward for stepping up and fellow shipping her.  But the main reason I'm excited is that she has three kids (12 and 9 year old sons and an 8 year old daughter) all of whom are not baptized!!  Which means that we could have two new investigators!!!!  I'm so excited to start teaching them tomorrow :)

Other than that, the week was pretty normal.  Today we have the Ward Corn Bust which is like a ward picnic with an emphasis on Taber Corn.  

Thanks for all the news.  I'm really excited for Alicia and Lindsay!! [Note: Alicia and Lindsay are Braden's friends who were both called to go on mission to the same place- the Philippines Cebu East Mission. They are also both reporting to the MTC on the same day.]  Maybe they'll be companions in the MTC!!  And I'm also super happy for Megan!!  That's crazy awesome!

I love you all and want you to remember to be the best you can be.

Love,

Elder Wake