Smoke from fires in Nanaimo, Canada
Hello everyone! It was a pretty eventful week! We had Canada Day July 1st, a baptism in Courtenay on the 3rd, America’s Birthday on the 4th, a giant forest fire sometime on Friday up until… well, now, and a whole ton of smog here in Nanaimo due to fires! So, like I said, eventful. It was also insanely hot again, but that has been helping with my weird missionary tan, so that’s not all bad. Also, we got massive T-bone steaks from an investigator for the 4th of July! Just another awesome week here on Vancouver Island!
On Canada Day, all the neighborhoods of Nanaimo were like ghost towns, so we started asking everyone where all the people were. Apparently they were all up in Parksville (which is sadly out of the ward boundaries) for fireworks. It is not at all like the 4th of July–not a single person was having a BBQ! That sorely disappointed me and made us rag on Canada, forgetting that Elder Bonfield is actually Canadian ha-ha. There is definitely a cultural difference between here and America. For example, nobody ever knows their neighbors–not even their neighbor’s names! Maybe I just took that for granted living in Utah, home teaching our next door neighbors, knowing even their dogs names–but I would like to see a little more neighborly love up here! Anyways, back to the story (kinda) we got some dollar drinks from McDonald’s and hit all the parks around town to look for families to teach. We scrapped together a pretty good day by the end.
One investigator got baptized in Courtenay and while I didn’t go, the pictures on this week’s newsletter were super cool. She was one of my favorite people to teach in Courtenay when I was there, but she would just never fully give up coffee and smoking. When I got to go back there on an exchange, we taught her and I asked what finally did it for her. She said, basically, “I decided that I wanted to get baptized and feel God’s love more than I wanted to drink coffee and smoke.” Short, sweet and to the point. Much like the gospel itself! Also, the Muslim dude I baptized in Van YSA just baptized another one of his Muslim friends! Middle East, here we come!
The 4th of July was a big miracle for us. We weren’t looking so hot for hitting standards until Saturday. Then God decided to open the windows of Heaven and bless us out the wazoo! We got a new investigator family from this guy we split wood for, and taught a boat load of lessons–what I like to call MMPL’s (“Miracle Member Present Lessons”). They really were all miracles and we ended the week very, very nicely. We got a new part-member family to teach that are from New York on the 4th as well. Literally the only reason our visit with them was a success is because we were all American’s. Well, minus Elder Bonfield, but he’s a hoser anyways ha-ha. Alright alright, I’m just kidding about that, he’s pretty sweet. Then the only other big event is the forest fires all around the province right now. I’ll include a picture, but there’s a big one right outside of Nanaimo and there is smoke EVERYWHERE!! We got home from church and there was ash all up and down in our apartment. We left the windows open because it’s insanely hot (and nobody in this province bothers to put in AC) but that turned out to be a big learning experience.
Well that’s it for my week folks! I hope you all have an amazing week and keep being wonderful Disciples of Christ! Ta ta for now!
–Elder Rushton The Third
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