Never a Normal Week–June 8th Email

Elder Skyler Rushton with his companions.

Hello everyone! It was one of those weeks where every day seemed to mesh together and I am just pooped! One of my comps (Elder Swallow) always says, “Oh, poop!” And the other (Elder Higley) says, “Aw, Frank!” When things get real; and this week, things got real! Oh, poop!

Haha alright, just kidding. But it was a pretty legit week though! On Monday we got to help an investigator tear a TON of ivy off of his fence (it grows like crazy on the island) but that evolved into us doing some demolition on his fence! It was awesome! Nothing like a judo kick to a fence to end your P-day! Tuesday, I went to Port Alberni on exchange with the Elders there. They were kind of in a rut, so I went there to try and break them out of it. We decided to try some store contacting in Wal-Mart and that worked out pretty good. I got into a discussion on water filters with somebody that thought I worked there, and after about 10 minutes of me trying to bring up Jesus Christ in the conversation, she finally realized that I didn’t work there. Classic.

So the exchange was great and they are doing really good now. We had a zone meeting on Friday too that seemed to affect them a lot, so hopefully they can just go out and be real people as well as disciples of Jesus Christ this next week. (That was what a large chunk of zone meeting was about–being “real” and being a missionary at the same time. Good practice for when we all get home one day!)

After that exchange, we had a missionary from Courtenay–Elder Salazar–come down and be with Elder Swallow and I on Thursday. He is from Guatemala originally, so we obviously took him to every Spanish investigator/less-active family we have! It worked out really well and had some success come from it–I got to practice my very little Spanish too, so that was good! We took him back that night and got Elder Higley back. Then the very next day, we had to do an emergency exchange with the Duncan Elders because one of them had/still has severe vertigo. We’ve been dealing with that all weekend, taking turns being with the sick missionary. The doctor they finally saw today said that he might be out of commission for 10-14 days. Oh, Frank! That will be rough and we will have to figure out what we’re going to do about that. We were down in Duncan this morning with them and drove back this afternoon. It is probably the most beautiful hour drive I’ve had on my mission, so I made sure to get lots of pictures. Duncan is definitely a place I would come to visit post-mission–the scenery is gorgeous!

Hmm, what else happened this week…. We got a cool guy (investigator) to church and have a couple baptismal dates, but they are all for the 4th of July (we did that on purpose because we are in Canada so that’s a little ways out. One investigator who I taught in Courtenay, is getting baptized next Saturday so that will be great. Almost everyone I taught this week is on “disability” so we had some pretty crazy lessons. Literally. But that’s about it for the week! I love you all so much! I love Nanaimo, I love Canada as the 2nd best country in my book, I love the people here, the weather, the scenery–living on an island is the bomb. Have an awesome week everyone; talk to you later!

–Elder Rushton The Third