Week 7--General Conference is great!

On Tuesday I had P-Day, because Monday was part of the Easter weekend and no libraries were open and I couldn't email. So, on Tuesday after e-mailing I had the pleasure of going to the CN Tower. That was really fun and I'm glad we went when we did, because it was super clear and beautiful and warm out, but today is snowy and cold and wet. It was so cool looking out of it, seeing the city all around, and the great lake too. The lake is huge! I got to shop later and then be serenaded by my companion with the piano. After a good deal of P-Day tasks, we made it to a member's apartment for a dinner and lesson. His friend who is less-active was also there. The member is silly so he told us to come with a candy object lesson, which we kind of did, and it went well, we just didn't have candy. Luckily he did have candy there.

Elder Blanscett overlooking Toronto with great love for the city.

Random shot of the city.

Elder Martin looking through the clear window floor.

Elder Martin is finally comfortable with the clear floor.

Wednesday was the most spiritual day of the week, let me tell you. It was great. At the beginning of the day we had our last district meeting of the transfer (my last district meeting in the mission). We studied the sacrament prayers and how we can use them completely to renew our covenants each week. We also talked about Sabbath day and how we can help our investigators attend sacrament meeting. We ended by each of us bearing testimony, and then singing 'If You Could Hie To Kolab'. Many sing 'God Be With You Til We Meet Again' for their last meeting, but our district leader said, "That song makes it sound like this is the end, but there's is no end." It's funny if you know the lyrics to the epic song we started to sing which says, "There is no end to priesthood, there is no end to love, there is no end to wisdom, there is no death above," or something similar. It was a great. We later visited a Turkish member, and her best-friend's son which is practically her own son, so I'll just refer to him that way. We went over to teach him the restoration and invite him to baptism, as he is willing. He doesn't really speak English, so his "mother" translates for him. We didn't always understand each other, but the spirit we could feel was so strong. The son was saying he prays every day to see Christ, and he loves him. When we were told that, we were blown away, and I knew he was ready to be invited because he had been prepared long before we had arrived in their home. He's a kind young man who takes after his "mother" and it's amazing to see. We set a baptismal date for him, and he said, referring to his mother's dog, "When can Chi-Chi be baptized?" We later went to visit someone who was referred to us by  sisters in the mission, and they found him through a media referral. He had requested a Book Of Mormon about a year ago. He has read things from inside the Book of Mormon to the Pearl of Great Price and has watched the district videos, read in Preach My Gospel, and several other things. He even bought an LDS produced book explaining almost everything he needed to know. We were excited to teach him the restoration, but he already knew it, so we encouraged him to read more in the Book Of Mormon and pray to know from the Holy Ghost if it is true and if Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God. After that beautiful appointment, we traveled to the family we always visit. The kids have warmed up to us which is fun, and even though we're both leaving in a week, I don't want to have to say bye to them cause they're so awesome. Anyways, the girlfriend of the father's brother was there and we got to talk about the plan of salvation. Where we were before this life, why we're here, what we'll be doing afterwards, and eternal families. She was receptive as always, and we discussed how she can work around school and her job to pick a good baptismal date that she can work towards again, because she's busy but she just needs a goal to keep her focused. After the lesson we said goodbye, and we'll only have one left so I can't wait for that one.

Thursday was mostly a day of weekly planning at the house, and we did that for a while, and then we visited one of the recently baptized families. The dad was wiped from working 24 hours at the bakery so he slept. We talked to the kids about Sabbath day and that it's a commandment to go, so we know that it will bless us as we do so. We discussed what it means to make the Sabbath day a delight and to attend sacrament meeting and also how that affected their personal conversion. Afterwards we went to a nice Pho place to eat. Pho is Vietnamese soup with beef and noodles which was really good. They tried serving us tea to start but we weren't going to drink tea. After we came back from eating our amazing dinner we went over to a returning member. He's really cool and I probably mentioned before, his wife isn't a member, and he's returning to church because he knows it's whats best for his daughter. He's been on a mission but he hasn't been active for about 8 or 9 years. That was great, and we talked about the restoration while the wife sat in. We then began our exchange.

Friday was the day of yet another exchange, and it was intense too.The craziest things happen in these elders' area. For basically the whole day we were dropping by less-active members homes. Drop-bys are a common thing to do when we need an effective meaningful activity each hour but we have no appointments. So, we started in this one area and the woman was busy, then we went to a next and the man was also busy, but his neighbour was interested in what we had to say to him. He also agreed to have the companionship visit them when they come back to see the member next door. Later we went to a really rich neighbourhood. It was wild. There were a bunch of young adults driving really expensive cars and living in really expensive and nice houses, one even looked like a temple. After going and finding that the member didn't live there at the time, we went to eat lunch. After lunch we went to do some more. On the way, there was this old man yelling at us while my exchange companion was on the phone trying to report to the zone leaders. This guy kept yelling things like, "Latter-Day Saints? More like Latter-Day Satans!" Or he would say some other things, until this goth-like guy came from the other side of the bus and started telling this old guy off. He told the old man to leave us alone and that anyone can believe what they want. The old man started calling him a devil, and then we arrived at our destination.That was exciting, and at the place we arrived at, we ran into a member from a different ward. We left to do another drop-by, and there was this lady calling herself a Huna or something, and she said her dog is Anubis, and a bunch of weird things, which make you wonder how people get to believing some things. I mean, that's probably how people look at Mormons, but that's usually the case when they don't know much about us. Anyways, that was another interesting situation, and after all the drop-bys were accomplished, we went to a member family's home to eat and talk with them. It was actually a birthday dinner, which was sweet. We eventually were brought home and stayed another night during that exchange, but planned to exchange back first thing in the morning.

Conference Weekend: I went to General Conference, of course, and the messages were amazing. Every time I watch General Conference, I learn to love it even more and I learn so much. Something I really appreciated was how much the people talked about making the end the goal, and that's especially true when we help investigators and members reach things like being sealed or going to the temple. I also really liked a quote from the priesthood session of conference from Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He said to the men who are looking for the perfect girl, that if there was truly a perfect girl, "do you really think she'd be that interested in you?" I love it when apostles diss people, it's hilarious. Anyways, I really appreciated Conference weekend, and aside from the interference with the audio at the chapel during president Monson's talk, everything was great.