Missionary...Monday

"Hi everyone!

This has been a pretty good week! We did some service on Monday for a lady named Natalie, who I think I told you about but I'm not sure. She's Chinese and pretty cool. On Wednesday we gave her an invite to come to our Ward's fall social on Saturday.

Our investigator Rita came to the fall social too, and that was really good! She got along well with everyone there, and there was plenty to eat. Natalie came too, and brought a cake to give to just Elder Villarreal and I, at least I hope that's what the intent was, because we did take it home and not put it on the potluck table.

But it was really cool, because the way things turned out we had to go say hi to a member and her non-member friends right when Natalie showed up and neither of us could get away. She sat by herself at a table and Sister Comb (say Coombe,) came over and invited her over to her table. After that I was able to get away from the first group (leaving my companion to take the floor,) and then the ward mission leader came over and fellowshipped her, so it was awesome!
I am overtime, but I love you guys!
Jason"

For my non-Mormon (LDS) friends, a bit of Mormonese:
investigator = a person learning about (investigating) the LDS church
member = Mormon (a member of the LDS church)
non-member = not a member of the LDS church
fellowship = to befriend
But you probably guessed all of that. :-)

Jason comes home in five weeks! Arriving at Salt Lake International Airport at 2:24 p.m. on October 21! Yaaaayyy!!

Missionary Tuesday!

I was absent from my computer yesterday (Monday), but it turns out that was OK:

"Hi Mom! Sorry I didn't write yesterday, I forgot to tell you that this week P-day is on Tuesday.

This week's been pretty good. We didn't talk to enough people; we have a standard of 140 (non-members) every week minimum, and we only talked to 120. I don't feel justified, but it is offset a good amount because our only investigator accepted the invitation to come to church, and I think she liked it. She did disappear into the washroom really quickly after sacrament meeting, and then after she came out she said she had to go home. She did know about sunday school and Relief Society, but she said she had to go do something.

Levi North got a spot on the email topic because I've developed an interest in him lately, he's the pioneer era North line ancestor. I logged on to familysearch a couple weeks ago and it bothered to tell me that, and I became interested to know as much as I can about him. I can't really learn much about him on my mission, but I learned he was married twice and altogether appears to have about eighteen children. I'm not sure why there's not a lot more Norths running around. 

Brother Shumbusho is a man from the Congo that I met this week. (Brother Shumbusho isn't actually a member of the church, but I'm not supposed to give out first and last names.) He really likes the Book of Mormon (he's met missionaries before,) and the church, but he said he has three questions. The first is Why does he need to be baptized again? Second, Why do we regard the Book of Mormon and the Bible as equal? And the third is Why does the the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints have the only authority to baptize?

We were supposed to see him yesterday with answers, but he went to Vancouver. But he called us back last night and we'll probably plan for another day.

I also met this cool lady named Natalie. She's from China, came over to Canada when she was 22. She was studying to be a nurse, with hopes to bring medical education to the general world, but she got rear-ended a few years ago and has back problems now. We pulled a lot of weeds out of her yard for her, which she greatly appreciated, and we were able to introduce our ward mission leader to her, which was awesome. I think she has a lot of potential we may be able to nurture.

So that's basically how I'm doing. Pretty good. The sun is shining in Canada, at least metaphorically.
I love you guys!
Jason"

I will see him in six weeks! :-)

Missionary Monday!

Brought to you on Monday. :-)

"Hi everyone!
This week has been a week of door knocking and street contacting. I've talked to a lot of people. 
On Friday we had Zone Meeting, and they shared some really cool stuff with us. I don't know if I've ever explained it, but in my mission all the Zone Leaders and the Sister Trainer Leaders will go every transfer to the mission office to have a special training meeting with President Burt. We call it MLC, Mission Leader Council. Then the next week they take everything back to the individual zones for every one to learn the same things. So at MLC someone from the missionary department came and talked about things they learned in a recent survey from our mission and also from things they've learned throughout the world. 
Basically when talking to someone, the first five seconds can and usually will make or break the rest of the conversation or even the relationship, especially as a missionary. People don't really want to talk to religious representatives. So, they told us about two phrases that seem to get people to open up a little. ...one is "We have a book all about Jesus Christ!"
People really appreciate that a lot more. 
I'm a bit over time, but I love you guys!
Jason"

Missionary Monday!

Maybe I should change the name of these updates to "Missionary Wednesday."  ?

Anyway, here's the news from Jason:

"It's been a busy week! Lots of door knocking, and not all in my area.
Before I forget, some people wanted my new address, and I have it.

#110 7425 Shaw Avenue
Chilliwack BC CA
V2R 3C

Note from Mom: If you're reading this, send Jason a letter! ;-)

"I went on exchange with Elder Cloward in Abbotsford on Tuesday, and met a lot of Punjabi people, and on Thursday I was on exchange with Elder Stirland in Mission. Right now I'm in a family history center in Abbotsford with four other companionships. It's pretty hectic. 

"On Saturday we had an awesome conference with Elder Daniel L. Johnson, and that was super good. He does more of a discussion than a talk, but in short the points he wanted to get across the points that making friends is missionary work, and if you open your mouth at all to talk to someone else, God will fill it! Just don't close your mouth when he does! The other point he wanted to get across was that missionaries and members of the church need to be united. I don't know when it was said or who said it, but I heard someone in General Conference say that the work will hasten when members and full-time missionaries come together in a spirit of unity. So those were the big points. 

"Lately (the last few months), I've been working to see how much good I can do independent of my companion. I have, throughout my mission, been one to say that because my companion does not want to move forward or progress in a situation that I do, that I cannot progress. That sounds like false doctrine! So I've been trying to do good regardless of my companion. His bad day doesn't need to affect my good day, and I don't need to wait for him to change my bad day into a good day. It takes a lot of courage though. It's not easy to go forward 'without' as it sometimes seems, any help. But 'Happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose Hope is in the Lord his God.' I am not without help, your prayers are heard by God, and He knows what I need. The same is true for you. Help is there, if you'll notice it, and the same as missionary work, He will often not give you help until the moment you need it. So have faith! You need it. And I do too.

"I have to go.
I love you guys!
Jason"

What I Did This Summer part 3

The day after we got Michael home, Bruce's sister Marilyn and her husband James came out to Vernal for a visit. That Saturday (July 25) they took us to the Utah Field House of Natural History. It was pretty interesting learning a little about dinosaurs and rocks/geology, and stuff like that.

But the real fun started when we encountered dinosaurs!

rraaaawwrrrr!

During the next two weeks we worked on organizing our new home.

This is the front of the house; we Norths live upstairs. We all—both families—cook and eat together on the main floor.

This is my new bedroom. My bed is in an alcove (gable?).

This is our living room/girls' bedroom/sewing room. I have the camera and I'm standing in the hallway, facing east. There's a bathroom to my direct right, and to Bruce's left (my right) is an alcove with the sewing and ironing tables.

We also did some gardening with the Rays

And my kids worked on corrupting the Ray kids with their tablets and iPads.

On August 7 we went back to Salt Lake to take care of some errands and appointments, and get the rest of our stuff out of the house. On Saturday (the 8th) we went to Provo River Falls on our way to pick Lindsey up from Camp Steiner (where she worked all summer).

And on Sunday we had an open house/welcome home for Michael. We headed back to Vernal on Tuesday.

The following Saturday we drove down to Ephraim to deposit Lindsey at Snow College. She is excited to be back there and she's excited about her classes. Yay!

Moving into her new apartment.

Then we had a four-day breather before school started here in the Uintah Basin. 

one teacher, three high-schoolers, and two middle-schoolers

It has been one crazy-busy summer!