Monday, January 26, 2015

January 19th - Kentville, Nova Scotia





Dear Family,

It has been a busy week for me. It is very windy outside today. The weather has been up and down all week. On Saturday it was very cold -16 but yesterday it was 4 and sunny. Our car needs some work done on it so we dropped it off this morning at a auto shop and it's going to take a couple days to get it fixed. One of the headlights is broken so they're going to replace it. So now we have to walk everywhere for today and tomorrow. It's going to be interesting. 

This week I was originally supposed to go on a 2-day exchange with Sackville but it ended up being 5 days because there was a matter in Bridgewater that had to be taken care of. So Elder Hatch and Elder Dupin had to go on a 3-day exchange with Bridgewater after they were together for two days. This week there is going to be two more exchanges with Sackville. One from Tuesday night to Wednesday night; the other one from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon. It's been a lot of back and forth. But we get transfer letters this Sunday and transfers are next Thursday. Elder Dupin goes home that Friday. So all this back and fourth will end in a week and a half and then things will go back to normal. It has been a memorable transfer to say the least especially for Elder Dupin with it being his last transfer.

Anyway, last Monday we met with our investigator and watched the Restoration video. Bradley is a little bit of a rougher kid. He said he wanted to come to Church yesterday. Bradley said he felt happy as he watched the Restoration. So those are good signs. He came to Church yesterday and he felt the Holy Ghost as he went to Church and watched the Restoration. We started teaching the discussions to the Morgans on Monday. They are an older couple. Brother Morgan is the stake patriarch. So we talked about giving blessings and what it's like to give one. It was interesting. He said it can be scary at times to say what he's inspired to say. He said he sits at the Church two hours before he's going to give a blessing to get himself spiritually ready. On Tuesday, we helped Sister Redden shovel out her driveway. In the afternoon while we were street contacting we ended up helping a man walk into a building. He had a broken hip and it was really difficult for him to walk on uneven surfaces. His wife had an appointment that was supposed to be 5 minutes but it went over by an hour so he wanted to walk over to see if everything was okay. It was a humbling experience to be able to help a man who needed help walking over to the Service Canada building (which was just across the street from us). He was grateful for it too.
In Sackville, there not teaching anybody right now. Their only investigator just got baptized a week ago so we did a lot of knocking while I was there. On Thursday while we were knocking we knocked into this one lady who said that she was having a BBQ. I found that a little odd. I've never heard of anyone having a BBQ in the middle of winter. Then later on we actually knocked into Brad Marchand's (an agitator on the Boston Bruins) grandfather. That was really cool. He was an atheist though and he said he needs proof that God is real and that he'll believe it when he sees it. Elder Hansen tried to bear testimony but he wasn't having any of it. 

On Thursday they had a volleyball night where anybody in the ward who wanted to play volleyball could come and play, It was fun. We were actually a little late because we were at a dinner appointment before that. So we didn't have time to change into our gym clothes. There were about 11 people there including us and the Sackville sisters. The week before there was only 7 people there. On Friday, we visited a  member family named the Wright's. Brother Wright is into sports. So we talked about football, and hockey. We also talked about his mission. He served in France. But it was so nice to able to talk about sports again with a member. I really connected with him. 

On Saturday, we don't usually carry a Book of Mormon with us but we decided to that day and we ended up giving it out that afternoon, We knocked into a catholic couple that let us in and was very friendly. We gave a simplified version of the Restoration. They were particularly interested in the Book of Mormon and how it was different from the Bible. So we offered them the copy that we had and they took it. It was cool because I was the one that asked them if they wanted it. I felt inspired to offer it to them. We both felt inspired to have a Book of Mormon with us. It was a neat experience. Their names were Donna and Daley Dill. We gave them a card with our number on it and so did they. But she said to give them time before we follow-up on it. That night I met their recent convert Emile Pineau. We had dinner over at their house. Brother Hass came with us. Brother Hass is the father of the seminary teacher in Raymond, Brother Hass. The one that wears a bow tie all the the time. Small world. He thought it was pretty cool that I knew his son. So yeah he's in the Sackville ward. Anyway, Emile is a nice man. We mainly talked about the Priesthood because he wants to learn more about it since the Bishop has talked to him about receiving the Aaronic Priesthood.
Yesterday was ward conference in Sackville. The Bishop (Bishop Johnson) talked about having faith in Jesus Christ. and our Stake President (President Evans) talked about trials. They were good talks. Funny story though right after Church a little boy took my scripture case by accident because he had similar one. So he mixed it up for mine. So I got kind of worried for about an hour there. But luckily I tracked it down and picked it up last night. So it was all good.
Have a great week!

Love Elder O'Brien

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