The Canadian jokes are getting REALLY old over here. I used to think that simply “doing as the Romans do” would help me avoid any unnecessary competitiveness between the two countries that both mean a lot to me. But despite me not being super aggressive about my Canadian patriotism, the members and missionaries here still love to push my buttons. I pretty much snapped and destroyed one of the Harrisburg Zone Leaders yesterday and yet now I feel like a jerk. Great.
But despite all that, I really loved getting on the computer this morning only to find a video uploaded from Dad with season's greetings from immediate and extended family members. It really made my technical Canada day. It also reminded me of how much everyone is praying for me. I was actually just glad to hear that people remember me! Only exclamation points can describe my joy and amazement right now. Although I really can't believe how much has changed and how old some of my cousins look, like when the heck did Alexa turn into a teenager?
Elder Swensen and I are getting along fine still, and in the heat of the long summer days, we are actually finding much success. We're hoping to set quite a few investigators with baptismal dates this week. But such is the promised land of Erie. Actually we had interviews with President Topham this week and he said something that kind of scared me; he said that Zone Leaders have an average shelf life of 5 transfers (approximately 7 ½ months) this transfer being my 5th transfer as a Zone Leader... There are of course exceptions, but he said that's generally the rule so that many missionaries can experience being in leadership positions. If that's the case for me, I might be getting moved from Erie after only being here for 2 transfers. I could only protest that he said missionaries are to be in each area for a minimum of 4 or 5 transfers, but he responded that Zone Leader areas are “different.” Needless to say I'm scared. So I hope I can do all I can before I leave, and hopefully it won't be at the end of this transfer...
I'm currently in the middle of putting together the ULTIMATE Plan of Salvation scripture guide. Hopefully by the end of it, I'll have a couple scriptures (at least one from the Bible) for each sentence in the 2nd Preach My Gospel lesson. This spawned from having to teach like a jillion Plan of Salvation lessons to our investigators this week, all of which have been going great. In addition to the eternal investigators Guy and Liam I talked about a couple of weeks ago, their friend Marjory has started sitting in on the lessons with them. We taught her the entire Plan of Salvation with the help of Guy and Liam and she's drinking it all in completely, saying that it makes a lot more sense compared to her original Catholic indoctrination. She actually read my entire True to the Faith booklet I lent to her in about a week and a half; she wanted to understand Mormon terms so I thought it would be a good idea for her. Little did I know that she went to town on it and completely agrees with everything. She came to church yesterday and is truly making progress.
An update on Ed: because of his “spartan” lifestyle, which includes him choosing not to own a computer, TV, cell phone, or car, he rode his bike to Church yesterday for the first time. He said he enjoyed the ride and was planning on doing it every Sunday. I even overheard him talking with the usher in our ward about storing his bike in the winter. It makes me happy that he's making plans for that far off. This is what you would call true conversion. It's wonderful.
The gospel is a wonderful thing. We're happy because of the gospel, and we know the gospel is true because we are happy. (Mosiah 2:41)
Elder Low
P.S. Yeah, having centralized air conditioning here in Pennsylvania saves me. I have no idea how we survive Calgarian summers without it. Maybe it's just less hot than here.
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