Elder Rushton with the Vancouver, Canada missionaries.
This week, we really moved the needle. At least, that’s how Elder Higley would say it ha-ha. We had a zone conference with President & Sister Burt on Tuesday that was legit, set a baptismal date with our favorite Native grandma and scrapped together a solid week despite being out of our area for two full days setting up/having zone conference. We will need even more miracles next week to pull together a solid week, because we’ll be doing traveling exchanges all week until Friday. Road trip
So we started off the week with P-day as always, but we spent most of it cleaning in case President Burt decided to do a surprise drop-in on our apartment. He’s done it to other missionaries in the past and we wanted to be ready–”It’s better to prepare and prevent then it is to repair and repent.”–Ezra Taft Benson. So with that counsel, we prepared! We never did get an inspection, but it sure increases moral authority when you’ve got a clear conscience.
Zone Conference was in Duncan on Tuesday, and Victoria zone came up for it as well. It was really good–the focus was, “What can I change now to become a better lifelong disciple of Christ?” Perfect for a dying missionary like myself. (That is what we call Missionaries almost ready to go home) We read a sweet talk by Bruce R. McConkie called, “Obedience, Consecration, and Sacrifice” to prepare for the conference. It was a really great talk; my favorite part was about the law of sacrifice. I learned that when we covenant to live the law of sacrifice, we are covenanting to sacrifice “our character and reputation; our honor and applause; our good name among men; our houses, lands, and families: all things, even our very lives if need be.” I thought that was legit–thanks Elder McConkie!
After the conference, we did an interview for one of Duncan area baptismal dates who got “dunked” this weekend, then cleaned up the chapel and drove home. Wednesday we went hard so we could start making up for the two days lost to the conference. While we were down at the pier contacting, we saw a GIANT yacht with a “For Sale” sign on it and wanted to know how much it was, so Elder Higley called the number to find out. He ends up having a 30 minute conversation with the guy selling to boat, transitions from talking about the boat to talking about the gospel, and now he’s interested in the gospel! Elder Higley hung up the phone and went, “Well, that really moved the needle!” The best part was that we could actually see the guy on the yacht as we were talking to him, and he had no idea. Creeper status, but it was a good laugh. However, we never did find out how much it cost…
Thursday through Saturday we taught a bunch of lessons. We set a baptismal date with the coolest. old Native sister. She has an ear problem from getting hit with a baseball bat (on accident!) as a child, so she can’t get water in her ear. That was really her only concern when it came to baptism, and we think we’ve got it all figured out now. Hopefully she can get baptized before I leave! We had dinner with a family that we’ve done a lot of service for in the past, and they are really cool, but they are really, really hung up on what we believe concerning homosexuals. So that was kind of sad to see that stop their progress, but they are a neat little family. They won on a show called “Dragon’s Den” (Canada’s version of “Shark Tank”) and got funding for their business–which is making Elvis costumes! Apparently, he’s alive! And there are thousands of him everywhere haha. Anyways, they prayed for us in German and stuff; it was pretty cool.
We had some great lessons with our friends throughout the week and they are progressing slowly; we had a part-member family come to church that we weren’t expecting so that was exciting; Nanaimo had it’s annual “Dragon Boat” races in the harbor Friday-Sunday so there were LOTS of tourists in town for that. The last really cool thing that happened was Sunday night right before our ward’s cottage meeting. We were talking to people around the Dragon Boat event, and met a sweet guy . We needed one more baptismal date to hit standards for the week, and he was miraculously prepared to receive the gospel and change his life. We set a baptismal date with him, and hopefully I’ll be able to talk about him more next week! God blessed us a lot this week, as he normally does, and things are going pretty great here on Vancouver Island. We got some rain, which was a very welcome change from the drought we’re in (which doesn’t make sense–we’re on an island for pete’s sake!!) and it cooled down a bit because of that. Oh yeah, Elder Higley did the Tim Horton’s Dozen Donut challenge (eat a dozen assorted donuts in under an hour) Saturday night and failed miserably. Glad I wasn’t dumb enough to try ha-ha!!
Have an awesome week everyone! I love you all and pray for you daily! The gospel is so true, the Book of Mormon is the fruits of Joseph Smith being a prophet–which he is– and it is amazing! God’s greatest gift to us is the gospel, which makes happiness in this life, and eternal life in the world to come possible for everyone; lastly, Jesus lives! Love you all, bye for now!
–Elder Rushton The Third
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