Missionary Letter #15 - New Companion and Lumberjack Service

This week was transfers, and in a suitably suitable fashion we drove with a car packed full of brief cases and bags of a thousand different varieties. If I had to describe the journey I would use words like squished, squashed, smashed and discombobulated.  It was awesome, especially changing the music on the cd player, it was like doing P 90 X in a collapsed cave.

Other than that I'll let you in on the det's of my new companion. His name is Elder Cruz. He's 6' 2'', born and raised in the land where traffic lights are suggestions (california) and is 100 percent a missionary. He's pretty awesome. If I had to describe him using a picture it would be this one.
⊂_ヽ
　 ＼＼ ＿
　　 ＼(　•_•) F
　　　 <　⌒ヽ A
　　　/ 　 へ＼ B
　　 /　　/　＼＼ U
　　 ﾚ　ノ　　 ヽ_つ L
　　/　/ O
　 /　/ U
　(　(ヽ S
　|　|、＼.
　| 丿 ＼ ⌒)
　| |　　) /
ノ )　　Lﾉ__
(／___


Some people say it expresses a thousand words but I can only think of one when I see it.

So let's talk about the daring do I managed to get myself into this week. One of things we did was a lot of planning for the week for member service, we figured it would be a wonderful opportunity to help strengthen the members in this part of the frigid north.

Unfortunately we didn't remember that it was the frigid north, and as such the only thing that anyone who didn't live under a rock was doing was preparing for the icy gale of winter. This, by default, meant that we were then assigned to chop down an entire forest, thereby exposing the fluffy woodland creatures to the void of cold that is Canadian winters.

So basically we chopped wood. A lot of wood. With an ax, a wood splitter and yes even once or twice (when we were feeling especially manly) with our bare hands.  If you want a more visual perspective then take the scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Captain America splits a piece of wood with his bare hands, put a missionary tag on him and that's basically what we looked like.

Afterwards I realized a very valuable lesson, all ten fingers aren't really necessary for eternal salvation (justkiddingpleasedon'tpassoutmom)
But 'wood' I really joke about such a thing? I'm sorry I'll just 'leaf' that up to ya'll. Shoot now I'm just 'bark'ing.

Do you wanna guess how I knew the outcome of our presidential election? Well one morning we woke up and we had ten thousand messages from members of our branch all saying the same thing "Guess who your new president is?"
(Groan)

Anyways I'll polish this email off with a scripture.

D&C 124: 106, it's some pretty intensive stuff but there's a lot of good insight that the Lord reveals to the Prophet Joseph. I also think it was a prediction.

And in all his journeyings let him lift up his voice as with the sound of a trump, and warn the inhabitants of the earth to flee the wrath  to come.

Feel free to come to Canada, I hear Alberta's a good place to stay this time of year.

But in all seriousness this week has been pretty amazing because we're baptizing an investigator we've been teaching for what seems like forever. She's finally ready to make covenants with the Lord and she's excited about it. I've come to see her grow and progress so much in the gospel and I've seen her faith increase and that has been both a blessing and a joy to me. I know with all my heart that this church is true and that Christ stands at the head of it.

Elder Wolford