What a Week!

So this week we had the opportunity to have all of the missionaries in the whole zone here with us for a ZTM. That is where we as the Zone Leaders give training as well as the Sister training leaders. So on Monday everyone drove into town from near and far (mostly far). We had a ward corn roast because it was labor day so that was fun and we had lots of missionaries there. Elder Coleman and I split for that night and did a ton of tracting. That was fun. 

ZTM was a great experience, President Craig missed a large part of it because of a medical appointment and terrible construction on the road between here and Winnipeg. We started by training on a talk by Tad R Callister called "becoming a consecrated missionary". It is super good! I loved it, we just had a big discussion about it. I used an analogy that I was honestly pretty proud of (righteously of course). The whole talk really talked about how we could not do it alone. In the talk he makes short reference to Roger Bannister but does not really do the story justice. So I drew a diagram on the board and did some inspired math. I explained that his goal was to run a sub 4 minute mile. I said a mile is 1600m (it is 1609 but that would have made my inspired math more difficult so i left that out). I drew a track that is 400m. If you divide 1600 by 400 we get 4 so he had to run 4 laps. If he had to run 4 laps in under 4 minutes then he had to run each lap in less than 1 minute on average. If he did this then he would be sub 4 if he did not then he would not. Simple as that. Then we posed the question, Do you think he knew this? Did he know what his splits had to be? Obviously he did. We compared running the 3 minute mile to being a consecrated missionary. He had to study and he knew what he had to do. That is why 8-10 am is so vital. He also had to actually go and do those plans. But wait it gets better!! We then wrote two names on the board. Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway. "Why are these names important?". We asked. No one knew so we explained that these men were his pace makers. They knew their splits and they hit them. Bannister knew that if he stayed with those men he would break the record but if he did not then he would not. We opened it up for discussion and a lot of people believed that these men could represent our companions. That was something I had not thought of. But it is true, we cannot become consecrated missionaries without our companions. If for no other reason than obedience to the white handbook. My idea for the analogy of the two Chris' was that they are like the spirit. The spirit will not slow down for us or adapt to our stupid behavior but it is that constant that if we stay with we will become consecrated. We can always catch up if we fall behind but without our personal effort the spirit will not dwell with us. It turned out really well and President Craig was listening in over the phone. The sisters then trained and we gave some more training. We had planned to surprise President Craig by asking him to demonstrate a 30 second street approach. He was not there yet so we were having to either do it our self or ask someone else. Right on cue President walked in so I asked him and he complied. No rest for the wicked haha. He is a great man. After ZTM Elder Olcott and I went to the kitchen and got the soup we made and the bread bowls and fed everyone! Delicious and Cheap. Like 40 bucks total to feed 22 people. 

I then exchanged with Elder Maciel and had my quarterly interview with President Craig. I love him. The rest of the week was pretty average until Saturday. 

Love you all!

Elder Stewart

With Pres Craig's encouragement, tis is what he sent for everyone regarding his experience on Saturday night. Pres Craig called Dave on Sunday morning to let him know that Matt was okay, had experienced a terrible experience and had spent the night in the police station. Pres Craig had been at a Stake Conference in Saskatoon. He had to be pulled off the stand to take the call from MAtt and Elder Olcott. We were able to skype with Matt on Sunday night which was awesome. He said, "The good part of this is that Christmas came in September!" It was great to see him smile and to see his eyes.

Hey so since everyone is asking I will just clear up the details and eliminate any rumors. We did not get killed so that is nice! On Wednesday Elder Olcott was exchanging with a missionary in our zone and they were street contacting and met this big black Nigerian guy. He is named Joseph and said he was interested. We called and set up an appointment for Saturday at 6. On Saturday we got there and he invited us in and we sat at his table in the corner. Another black guy came in and started getting aggressive. They trapped us in the corner and assaulted us a little bit. We are not physically injured though. They cut up our stuff and stole my watch off of my wrist. They also rubbed oil all over us which was scary because they had a lighter. After yelling at us and threatening us the one guy took my companions camera and took a picture of each of us and then threw it at the ground and it shattered. Finally one of them got in the other ones face and said chill. They took their eyes off of us for about one second and we took off and ran at the door. For whatever reason they just yelled at us but did not pursue out onto the street. We got in the car and went to the police station and were there until 2 am. It made me really appreciate the spirit. It really constrained us from fighting back. I firmly believe if we would have fought back we would have been seriously injured or even killed because they had scissors and likely more weapons concealed. We learned that night at the police station that after we left these men strangled a young women so they could have very well done that to us! I am also grateful for the spirit confusing their minds as they took their eye off of us for long enough for us to escape and the also left one door open. Miracles have definitely not ceased. The Lord protects his missionaries. We will be going to identify the criminals on Wednesday and they will either have substantial jail time or will be deported back to Nigeria. Hope you all have a great week without any stories. Love you all. 

Elder Stewart 

Brandon Olympics Results

This week we had the Brandon Olympics. It is a find off that Elder Olcott drew up wih different things being worth different amounts. Last Sunday was the Opening ceremonies and every night we would have the companionships in our zone text us their total points for the week to date. We would then send out the top 3. It was a huge success. We felt that our effort was there in the zone but that we needed to increase our attitude so we did this. Here are some numbers to explain how it went. Last week we had 8 new investigators among the zone, this week we had 37. Last week we had 3 total baptismal dates, this week we have 7. Every single key indicator was up significantly except for less actives at sacrament meeting. I honestly am so glad we did it! We did have some heartbreaks though with the girl from last week who had met missionaies in the past. She is like 22 but is living at home and her mom told us that she is not allowed to get baptized so she is currently not meeting with us. Clifford who is supposed to get baptized next weekend is out of town because his brother got murdered. It makes me super sad but maybe it will help Clifford see again why he needs so badly to change his life! 

With the olympics on we were all going very hard. Elder Olcott and I had the chance to exchange in Winkler. I went with Elder Barney and we found 6 new investigators. Winkler is typically the slowest area so no one expected them to take the early lead that they did but good for them. Ultimately They ended up in second, Thompson won it and we got third. It was a great week. We have a ward corn roast soon so sorry for the pathetic email but I love you all. Elder Stewart

August 29, 2016

Just look at the name of this weeks email, it has been a good one! So Monday and Tuesday we did a ton of finding and at this time of the year especially during the day tracting is a joke so we just walk and talk to people and it is SO much more effective. It has worn my shoes out like crazy, we are taking like 25000 steps a day. Wednesday we had a few great lessons and believe it or not did.... (drum roll please) street contacting! At the beginning of my mission I really dreaded finding because it is boring and hard and awkward and talking to people is uncomfortable but believe me once you see someone change from your efforts your perspective changes. I like it now, the fact that it is not -40 may contribute but I think my perspective has too. I will let you know during the winter if I am delusional or not. 

There is a lot to say this week so I will just break it up.

Sleep Walking has been a real thing lately, ever since Elder Olcott got here actually. Not for me but for him and it affects me haha. He has not slept walked since he was a kid but on like his second day here he woke up at 1:00 am turned on the lights and went to go exercise. I woke up because of the lights and made him come back to bed. 2 days later the same ting happened at 4:00 am. A few days later he asked me when i got up to pee about the asian missionary that served in our mission in the year 2000. We still have no clue what that was about. The best one yet though is still a few nights ago while we were billetting in Winnipeg we were sleeping on these missionaries couches and I guess Elder Olcott was sleep walking. He eventually decided that he wanted to go back to bed but he walked to my couch instead of his and reached for his blanket but instead he got a fistful of my face. I must say it woke me up real fast. He then proceeded back to his couch but walked into a barbell and destroyed his shin. It was so funny. moral of the story; don't sleep walk. 

MLC- We left to go to MLC on Thursday but we left early so Elder Olcott could go to court and fight a $400 ticket he got a week before he came to brandon. He got it down to $250. MLC was with Elder Von Keetch of the 70. He is a very interesting man, He is a lawyer for the firm that the church uses in Salt Lake City and he had worked with President Craig on many law things in the past. We received great training and then he opened it up to questions. Elder Lee who is now serving with Elder Timms was serving with Elder Kiriaka when he went home. Elder Lee Asked how we can best help those missionaries in our zone or even our companionship who are struggling. I really appreciated it and in 4 letters the answer he gave was pretty much love. Love them enough to help them, love them enough to seek help from President Craig and love them enough to stay in touch with them after you are not together anymore. After MLC we all got our picture taken with them and sent to our Parents S'cute. It is kind of a secret because only MLC members got that opportunity so keep i on the down low. 

Zone conference was great as well, I got to billet with Elder Birchall and Elder Timms and their companions so that was fun. The training was amazing and something neat was that he said President Craig was straight up the best mission President in the world. No just like he would say it to every mission but he had 3 members of the quorum of the 12 approach him before he came to say that Elder Keetch was not coming to fix anything because it was not broken so "Don't mess it up".  President Craig really is the man.

Miracles- We had two, we have this guy named Clifford who we are teaching who kept coming to church reading and praying but kept wanting a dream to finally make him commit. On Wednesday we committed him to accept the answer even if it came as a thought and feeling. he committed to that and two days later he had a dream that made him say "I KNOW that I need to be baptized". The next day a man approached him who he had never seen and said "the dream is true" Clifford has not seen him since. He is now on date for September 17 for baptism.

The second miracle is that we were tracting and we felt that we should go one specific way so we did and we met someone who said we could come back. We did not think much of it but now we do. We went back, she has been to church 4 times and has read a large part of the Book of Mormon and the reason she didn't get baptised is because she got admitted to the hospital and lost contact. The Lord has been blessing us big time! 

Brandon Olympics- This week is the Brandon Olympics. Last night was the opening ceremonies. We had a conference call with all 10 companionships and we sang the national anthems (Star Spangled Banner, Oh Canada, and God Save the King) so everyone in the zone was accounted for. We also had an opening prayer. The Brandon Olympics happen every year... this is just the first year haha. It was an idea I had to help motivate our zone so we have some prizes and We drew up a scoresheet so different things are worth different amounts of points and it will last 7 days. I am excited and the whole zone is riled up and ready to go. I am excited to see the end result of our labours this week. My only question is "who will come second, who will come third??" haha jk. 

Oh also we put a fake turbo on our Nissan Rogue so it sounds like we drive a Camaro. It is fun, I don't get road rage when we hit a red light anymore haha

Love you all, have a great week!! 

Elder Stewart