AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week has been SO good!!! But I'll talk about that later.

It's super funny, because it got SUPER warm here, and then it snowed again. I'm SO happy that Olivia's making this decision. And I'm SO jealous of you all. I would kill to be there. Enjoy WOW.

Mother, life is too short to not be enjoyed. If you're not enjoying life, change it. At this point, the only decent things that this job is giving you is money and experience. If you really need those things, great, keep working. If they're really not that important, stop torturing yourself. I love you so much, Mom, and only want you to be happy. Like I said, and I'll say it a hundred times, Life is too short to not be happy.

But enough about you. Let's talk about me. ;)

Tuesday, we had a great dinner with an awesome family from Nicaragua/Costa Rica/Colombia/Venezuela. They're daughters are adorable and make me trunky. Enough said. Then we were supposed to have English Classes that night, but no one showed up. So we went and supported a youth in the Ward who opened his mission call and is going to Dominican Republic, Santiago Mission. So that's super exciting!!

Wednesday we offered service at this place called Knight's Table. It's a fun place. A lot of really nice people. We had dinner with a Peruvian Family later that night and then we stopped by a woman, a Mexican Investigator who's going through a really hard time with a divorce right now. We read Alma 7 with her a bore strong testimony that Jesus Christ loves her and he understands what she's going through, and is there for her. By the end of the lesson, she was in tears and I started sweating from my eyeballs. So the Spirit was definitely there. :)

Thursday we met with our solid investigator; met with an older member lady and encouraged her to share the Gospel with her family; cleaned out and closed down a missionary basement (and got a lot of free stuff from it); and had an awesome dinner with a family (from El Salvador). 'Twas an exhausting day.

Friday, I gave a District Meeting. It was pretty average all-in-all. It got really intense because I had to crack down on some rules (and I subliminally rebuked some missionaries), but I made Chocolate Chip Muffins, so all went well. :) Later, I went on exchanges with Elder Skartdstedt. Cool last name right. Guess where he's from.......UTAH!!! Who knew?? But his ancestors are from Sweden. We had a good dinner where Nicaraguans gave us Chinese food; then we had an incredible lesson with a Part-Member family. The Spirit was so strong and while we were talking about the Golden Plates, the eight year old son was like "I know something more about the Golden Plates." And then he went on to tell us, in detail, the story about when Martin Harris lost the first 116 pages. 'Twas intense.

Saturday. I made pancakes. I've probably made 100+ pancakes on my mission. There's no probably about it. I have. But they were good and had chocolate chips in them. We later had English Classes that morning, and two new Indian Students came. THEN we studied and planned for the next week. Then we had a funny dinner appointment with a Peruvian family. Last Thursday, the wife had texted us to confirm the appointment (for Saturday at 6:00 PM), and we confirmed it. Then on Friday night, I tried to call to re-confirm it, but she wouldn't pick up her phone; but since we confirmed on Thursday, I though it'd be fine...it wasn't. They TOTALLY forgot, and thought the dinner appointment was supposed to be for Sunday. The funny part was when they were set on proving us wrong (on the fact that the dinner appointment was scheduled for Saturday), and I could have easily pulled out our phone and showed them the text, but I let the wife pull her phone out, read the text, and then the whole family got pretty embarrassed. So they bought us pizza. :) Of course, we were super nice about everything and enjoyed talk and pizza with them. But the whole situation made me chuckle.

ALRIGHT! Enough of the boring stuff. So, this whole week, we've been in contact with the Hermanas (Spanish Sister Missionaries) in Black Creek (one of my old areas) because they just had an Investigator, who had a baptismal date for this Saturday, move from Toronto to Brampton (our area). So we had gotten in contact with this investigator, but we couldn't get an appointment with her all week, until Sunday. The dilemma was that she hadn't been taught the Word of Wisdom yet, and if she was to get baptized, she would have had to leave coffee (something she drank) seven days before her baptism. In addition to that, she wanted to have her baptism in the Black Creek Chapel, in Toronto, and wanted to get baptized into their Ward; which would have caused a LOT more problems and difficulties. Yesterday, she said she was going to go to church in Black Creek, but we find out later (from the Sisters) that she wasn't at church at all. :| So we frantically try to call her and text her and, thank heavens, we get in contact with her and set up an appointment. Before the appointment, we are having dinner at the Ward Mission Leader's House (Libardo Bernal, Colombian) and the member we had asked to accompany us cancelled, so we asked a Brother to come with us. And he did. So....

We get there and we find out that she's very adamant on getting baptized this Saturday, so I say "Okay, but there are some regulations and things we have to teach you first." So we teach the Word of Wisdom and when I bring up coffee she says "Yeah, I'm pretty bad with coffee, but it was a good thing that the last time I drank coffee was last Friday. So it won't be a problem." It was SO awesome!!! We committed her to leaving coffee completely that night and we pray that she sticks to that commitment. BUT, she was still pretty set on getting baptized at the Black Creek Chapel. So, while riding the elevator with her, from her apartment room; our Ward Mission Leader, being the charismatic, smooth man he is, says to her. "Sister, I would invite you to think about being baptized at the Chapel here in Brampton. It's bigger, it's RIGHT by the temple, and whoever you want from the Black Creek Ward to come, we can get here." And she was like "All I really want is the Sister Missionaries, the Bishop, and the Ward Mission Leader from Black Creek to be there." And we were like DONE!! We'll get it done. And she was like "Okay, let's do it."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what the Sisters and we said when we called them last night to tell them the news. We were (are) SO happy and SO excited for her baptism. Please keep her in your prayers, especially that she can leave coffee and not have any withdrawals that she can't handle.

Also, later that night, we stopped by one of my Best Friends. He was also someone going to Black Creek that moved up here to Brampton. We had been in contact with him for a few weeks, but we were finally able to actually meet with him. A funny thing about that was that he's living with a Colombian, non-member, single mother who had referred herself online and asked for a Book of Mormon, a few hours before we went over. We got the referral through text, while at dinner, and we both burst out laughing because we had already met her and knew all the information on there.

So all in all. Life is great here. I'd share another Spiritual Though, but there's plenty in this email and this email is long enough. I love you all and hope you have a rockin' week. Expect Baptism Pictures next Monday!!!!