January 9, 2017 - Happy 18 months to me :(

This week was quite possibly the best week I have ever had numerically. We just had so many things that fell into place. 

Monday we taught the Hamiltons, they are a part member family and the 2 nonmembers are getting baptized next Saturday (January 21st). We have been seeing them a lot to get them prepared. They are doing so well and I am so excited to see them baptized. 

Tuesday we got the upper body work out for the ages. We got a call from a member who asked us to come shovel for her. We said we would do it and it was great. It did however take us 4 hours to do. They were kind of in a corner and their walkway had drifted more than 4 feet high. After we finished the from we shoveled her back porch. Her porch is like 4 feet off of the ground and the snow is piled up higher than the porch. It reminds me of Waterton except that there is no mountains. After that we had to go do some office work for a little bit. We also taught Emmanuel who is the son of a recent convert and that was nice. 

Wednesday we had ZTM. It was so strange to not b the one presenting it because for the last 8 months I would have been giving the ZTM. Elder Quinton was one of the ZL's and he did a good job though. That was a long day because after the ZTM we had to give training to a brand new District Leader. We then got to meet with President Craig about a few things. He is the perfect example of benevolent leadership. He asks us our opinions and actually takes them to heart. I love that man! We again saw the Hamiltons. 

Thursday was an interesting day, I exchanged with Elder Quinton in his area. We had a bunch of lessons set but they all lunched us, even the members lunched us for our dinner appointment. We tracted all day but we tracted inside apartment buildings for part of it which is WAY nicer than outside. It is fun to be able to talk with him and get along well. He and I are becoming pretty decent friends. We play ball every morning with his companionship. It is always fun to conduct an exchange with the zone Leaders because they are all such solid missionaries and I learn so much. 

Friday I exchanged with Elder Truman Moore(currently the Saskatoon ZL), he was my MTC companion. We split our area with Elder Griffin and Elder Francis. We found all day and it did our area a super nice favour becaue now we are busy! 

Saturday we taught african families all day! It was great.

Sunday is always a crazy day with meetings and indicators. Overall it was a good week! 

Love you all

January 2, 2017 - Happy New Years!

So this week was quite the adventure! It all started on Christmas day! As I as Skyping my family Elder Griffin checked the weather and decided that for us to make it to Portage for the tourney we needed to leave that day. So we packed up and called the other Elders and hit the road. It was not a very nice drive. I drove and Elder Lee drove the other vehicle. On the way there it was blowing snow like crazy. Part way there there was a Semi-truck with two trailers that had tipped over and was in the ditch. We made it unscathed. We billeted with the Portage Elders that night which was nuts because there was like 12 of us in an apartment. 

Monday we woke up to 18 inches of snow but it had all drifted and hardened. Long story short the highways closed and we were the only team that showed up for the tournament.... It was still fun because we got to ball with each other but the tourney did not happen. I don't want to be a downer but it was pretty disappointing. Certainly not worth taking a high school team to haha. We were fed by the member that organized the tournament that night and then the roads opened so we took off to Brandon for exchanges. I exchanged with Elder Ence who is a brand new ZL. That was fun to be back in Brandon. With the Christmas season not many people were in town but we taught one guy who i taught when I was there. At like 8:00 we got a call from Elder Wintel and Elder Griffin. They had gotten their car stuck because there was like 2 feet of snow everywhere. On the way to help them we also had to help 2 other people who were stuck. Earlier in the day we had helped others. We found so many people to teach by pushing them out. They are humbled and can't say no! We tried to push the Elders out but no luck. So we had to go to buy a tow rope... Canadian tire closed 12 minutes before we got there so we had to drive across town to go to walmart where we bought a heavy duty ratchet strap. Pulled them out! Might just have to start a tow truck business on the side! 

Wednesday we woke up at 5:30am and hit the road for Winnipeg because we had MLC and we did not want to skype from Brandon. Did you know that you can pre-order subway?? That was breakfast as we came into Winnipeg. MLC was supposed to go for 2 hours. It took 5 because we were making the new CANWIN mission Inspired plan for 2017! It was so neat. We also taught a few lessons that week. 

Friday we also had MLC in preparation for the ZTM's this week. It will be weird not to prepare a ZTM. How it usually works is that the assistants train the ZL's and the STL's in MLC and they model that training in their ZTM's. We related the new inspired plan to the Title of Liberty and the ZL's to the Moroni's in their zone. It was pretty good. It also went long and since President Craig was going on exchanges with the South Zone Leaders (One of which is Elder Quinton) he had to leave early so he made Elder Griffin and I in charge so we finished it up. Like a lot of things in life there is not much preparation, you just jump right in!

Saturday was a late night because we picked up 2 Elders from the bus depot around 10:30 that night and one stayed with us that night. Sunday was good! We had one investigator come to church. That night we had the departing missionaries dinner and testimony meeting. It was great! Sad to see these three go though. They are going 3 weeks early for school. The sister is from my MTC group so that shows how ancient I am. Scary stuff. Last night was late too because Elder Malin and Elder Nicholes Stayed with us and we had to do indicators so it was after 11:00. We woke up at 5:45 this morning to get headed to the airport. We dropped the missionaries off and then did our studies. No rest for the wicked! I LOVE IT!!

Love you all

Elder Stewart

December 19, 2016 - Sleep is a Crutch!

SO my first week in the office was CRAZY BUSY but it was so good! 

So Monday I met the Assistants and left with them while Elder Wright joined a spanish companionship. I spent that night with Elders Omer (who i replaced) Elder Griffin (who is my new companion) and Elder Nagtalon who is  visa waiter who left this week. On tuesday we gave training to all of the new DL, ZL, and STL's on principles of effective leadership. I was assigned t prepare one on how to conduct an effective exchange. I enjoy exchanges so that was pretty easy. I do feel a little bit out of my league here though. We also gave training to the trainers for th upcoming transfer. Elder Bennett is the only Elder training so he was there. We also had to conduct with President Craig and the senior missionaries to review the plan for this week as it was transfer  week. There is so much to remember but it is all coming to m slowly! 

Wednesday was crazy as well, it started a little before 5:00 am when we woke up with Elder Nagtalon to help him catch his flight. Then we had to be at the office like all morning adjusting stuff for transfers. We are responsible for making sue every missionary gets tlo here they need to be. There is a "transfer train" that comes from Saskatoon through Regina to Winnipeg and back. We are in charge of making sure every one gets in the cars they need to be in and that everyone always has a companion and that any cars or phones that need to get transported get transported. It is a ton to think about. hat made it fun was that some members were going to take a Sister from Saskatoon to Regina because She was the only Sister in Saskatoon getting transferred. A member got sick so we had to redraw the whole sisters transfer train and through a series of unfortunate events one sister was given the responsibility to be the driver from Saskatoon to Winnipeg and back! Poor her. That Wednesday afternoon we met President and Sister Craig at the airport and picked up the new missionaries. We then went back to the mission home which we had helped prepare for that night. We had a huge meal with the new missionaries and the senior couples. We also had to copy and organize the legal documents for the new missionaries. Lucky for m there was only 2 this time. 11 next time though. We then had a testimony meeting where I was asked to go first because I am the new assistant. After the meeting we Helped the new Sister find the Sisters we had arranged for her to spend the night with. After that we went to the chapel to set up for transfers and the new missionary orientation the following day. We returned home around 11:00. 

Thursday we went to the office to make a few more preparations prior to going to Presidents for Breakfast with the New missionaries. From there we took the New Elder to the Chapel to begin the meeting. We gave a bunch of training. I felt so bad for the new missionaries, they are just wiped out and shell-shocked. That first day is TOUGH. We gave a bunch of training and helped with transfers. Transfers happened partly during the meetings.When we got out we had to get the transfer train on the road so they could get to Regina before 9. Only problem was that the Thompson keys got on the train too. Lucky for us we worked that out without too much difficulty. That was a relief and a half. Elder Omer then left us, made the ceremonious I-pad hand-off and left to Thompson!  Getting the train away on time! But wait there is more! We spent that evening with the departing missionaries at the mission home. We are pretty much just in charge of doing all the things that need to be done so President can focus on important things like interviews during transfer week. One thing that threw a wrench in things was that a sister got sick and went home this week so we had to do a little transfer call changing. I got to make those calls! That was fun. We had a great meal with the departing missionaries and then had another testimony meeting. That night there was only one departing Elder So he came back to our place. Got to bed way late that night too. 

Friday began at 4:40 am when we got up to go to the mission home with Elder Coleman (departing ELder) and then went took all of the luggage to the airport where we met resident and President and Sister Craig and dropped off all of the Departing missionaries. That was weird! After we got them off President Craig took us out to breakfast at denny's. When we left Denny's he instructed us to take the much awaited recovery nap. That is the only time we get to nap on a mission. It was great! 2 hours later we woke up and hit the streets! I LOVE TRANSFER WEEK AS AN ASSISTANT!!! It is the most tiring thing ever but is so much fun and so good! Working with President is amazing! He asks for our thoughts a lot more than I realized! Hope everyone had a great week! 

Love Elder Stewart

December 12, 2016 - Big Week...Assistant!

This week was Very Good! It was super exciting and full of adventure!

Monday we taught Sheku and Bax and actually Sheku's son Tyrell joined. he is 10 and hopefully all 3 will get baptized! for the remainder of that night we kind of just tracted and froze to death.

Tuesday was a big day for us here, we had our Christmas Zone Conference. It went from about 10:00am-9:00pm. There were so many good training portions and Elder Wright and I feel that ours went very well. We had the pleasant surprise of President Craig joining our zone and listening to our portion. That was fun! Everyone really liked the practice that we did that I described last week. President Craig was laughing pretty hard. President and Sister Craig and the Assistants all also gave portions and it was very spiritual. President Craig asked everyone to prepare a talk so I did that Monday night but lucky for me I did not get called on to give it. He called probably around 15 missionaries to give a talk on the spot. It makes you glad that you prepared one when you are called on. That night we watched the Cokeville miracle. It was a pretty good movie I think but I haven't watched one in over 17 Months so I may not be the best of all judges. It was a great day overall.

Wednesday I exchanged with Elder Romeril and it was great. We absolutely froze. We definitely stood awkwardly in a Tim Horton's for a bit to warm up but we found 2 new investigators which was great. We taught Sheku again and I love that man so much!

Thursday we had our exchange with the Assistants and I was with Elder Griffin. We had a bit of a slow day but taught 1 family. We also had ward correlation.

Friday and Saturday are kind of as blur. We taught a bunch of Lessons which was nice because lessons are better than tracting in -30.

Sunday was a bit of a sad day because Sheku, Bax and Tyrell were not abler to make it to church so their date will need to be moved back but they will still be baptized for sure! Sunday was also the day that Everyone has been bugging me about for a couple transfers. it is the night that President Craigs new assistant would be called and some people thought it would be me. I was super nervous and so was elder Wright (probably not quite as nervous) but at 10:23 The call came and President Called me to be his New assistant so I am being transferred to Waverly ward in Winnipeg and will be with Elder Griffin. I am pretty excited but sad to leave Bax and Sheku.

Love you all

Elder Stewart

December 5, 2016 - Good Week in Gateway

This week we were able to have a lot of things happen. My motto for this week was "focus on the one". the Gospel is so much about the one! Christ ministered unto the multitude but he also ministered unto the one. Often times missionaries look for quantity in those they teach and forget about the quality. I was certainly guilty of that earlier on in my mission! This week we taught a lot less lessons but we were able to set 2 new baptismal dates with these friends and roomates. They are from Sierra Leon and are both Muslims that have been converted to Christianity but have no one church! They are honestly THE BEST! Their names are Sheku and Bax. Sheku also has a 10 year old son and he is the best dad. Their dates are for Dec 31st and we are really looking forward to that!

We did not really have much else happen this week. It is really cooling down for us so we are having to bundle up while we find! On Tuesday we had the chance to visit via Skype Elder Romerils District meeting. He is one f the District leaders in this zone. He gave such a good DM! I really wish that I could go back and do District meetings over again because I would have made them so much better.

This week we have a Zone Conference where a little over half of the mission will be there. We will also have interviews which are always great. Elder Wright and I have a portion on the role of the Holy ghost in conversion and we are excited for it. We are going to make it fun because a lot of missionaries don't like meetings like this because they can be somewhat dry. We are going to do a demonstration where we practice teaching someone quickly and they bring up a concern about how their wife just died. naturally you would testify about the plan of Salvation. Elder Wright will begin to do that but I will interrupt him and constantly just teach about the book of Mormon. Every time he says anything I will just talk over him and not teach to meet needs. We will then ask for feedback and I am curious as to whether people will tear us apart of if they will be scared to offend us. The point we are trying to make is that you would not interrupt your companion why would you ever interrupt the Holy Ghost. the role of the Holy ghost in conversion is to be the teacher, we are simply vessels. We should never be a barrier for the holy ghost. We will also read a story from the bible to help prove this point. it is Numbers 22:21-33. The angel will represent the Holy ghost and the Donkey will be the companion who is in tune with the Holy Ghost and Balaam will be the companion not in tune with the Spirit. Should be fun! Transfer calls are this coming Monday! I should stay but we will see.

Have a great week!

Love you all

Elder Stewart

November 28, 2016

Pretty good week this week here in the North End!

We have been doing mainly finding because the people we were working with just were not going anywhere. It is amazing how different cultures all mesh here in the north end. I would say it is 30% phillipino, 30% white, and 25% native and 15% other. Let me tell you, if we could spend the whole time in the other category we would be quite happy! Last transfer Elders Wright and Tippits worked like all with the Phillipino people and now we have a bunch of super nice people who love Jesus but are very stuck in their ways and often times will not convert because of social reasons. White people are just mean haha, they are the only race that will slam the door in our face. In my whole mission I don't remember getting it slammed by anyone else. It is interesting! Anyways this week we started working with a ton of African people! We have a few from the Congo, some from Sudan, some from a country that speaks Swahili. It is so nice, now that is definitely not to say that we don't work with the other races but most of the time they don't let us in!

Monday we had the chance to do a bunch of tracting! We had a lesson set but her husband was not home so we could not go in. That makes for an extremely awkward conversation but we had to do it! We rescheduled with her. To make it even more awkward the next day on exchanges Elder Wright accidentally called her thinking she was someone else. Thankfully she did not answer but then he texted her and introduced us. It is just so awkward. If we get to teach her then she must be solid because at this point we seem like such awkward little boys haha!

Tuesday we had exchanges with one of our DL's. They are in a tripan so Elder Wright took the DL Elder McCoard and I took his Trainee Elder Magleby and the other missionary Elder Nagtalon! I always use the phrase exchange magic because it always happens! Elder Wright and McCoard took all 3 or 4 of the set lesson s that day and the other three of us tracted... All day! Jokes on Elder Wright though because they got lunched all 4 times! My tripan tracted into this lady who was white! She said to come back at 5 when her husband is home. We were pretty excited! We went back and taught them and they fed us! That is my first meal appointment in Gateway! That was also the first time I have been fed by an investigator on a first lesson! We are seeing that family again tomorrow!

Wednesday was a good day but not much to report.

Thursday was one of the longest but also shortest days of my mission. We had MLC and all of the Zl's and the Sister training Leaders came in! It is a little crazy because there are so many new zone leaders that out of the 10 I am the 3rd oldest. Pretty crazy. I feel like a greenie but in reality I am ancient. We discussed the mission plan for baptisms, the mission goal for 2017, the standards of excellence and received training. It started at 10:30. We were out of there by 6:30. It was soooo good but so spiritually draining. Good times!

Friday was the start of the Christmas initiative. We are going pretty ham on it this year. If you haven't see the video go watch it and send it to everyone! It is really good!

Saturday we taught a few lessons and one of our investigators moved to the Philippines so that was too bad.

Sunday we got to give a bunch of the Christmas initiative cards to members and committed them to hand them out. Not sure if the missionaries there did that or not but you should get some and share them. Everyone needs to see this video!

Overall it was a good week! This coming week will be a good one for this area.

Elder Stewart 

November 21, 2016

This week was a good one! It is really starting to cool off which I definitely have mixed feelings about. I really got used to this warm weather and now even though it is only like -2 we are dying haha. We found quite a few new investigators this week so that was really nice! 

Monday night we found 2! One of them was a YSA native guy named Darien. He is religious but not established at a church which is nice because that way he does not get blinded by his relation to one specific church and is open to receiving the truth. It is too bad because later this week he texted us and told us that he left to Thompson for like 3 weeks. We are trying to set him up with the Thompson elders so we will see what happens there. We also found the best person ever! His name is Goodly, he is a 75 year old Jamaican man who is very converted to Jesus but not to one church either! We taught the Restoration and he just had he biggest light bulb moment I have ever seen! When we taught about the apostasy he just knew it was true! He had us write it down for him and and he was like this is true! I don't want to get ahead of myself but he seems really solid. He was busy this wee so we are seeing him Tuesday hopefully!

Tuesday we had District meeting and we were supposed to have our assistants exchange but since we had bed bugs they said that we would reschedule it! It may never happen but we will see.  We tracted almost all day and we gave a blessing to an old man who was baptized a few months back. He will most likely pass on in the next couple months so his timing was spot on to get baptized!

Wednesday was a bit of a blur as well, we tracted a ton and prepared for our fumigation which was on Thursday. Our apartment consists of everything in big plastic bags; clothing, food, appliances, everything! 

On Thursday we had a meeting for all of the Zone, District and Sister Training leaders in the mission which had never happened since I have been in the mission. It was for the introduction to the Christmas initiative! The video is SOOO good this year! It will be released to the public this Friday! Share it with everyone! I feel like Christmas is our way in, we can get everyone excited about Christ at Christmas! The hashtag is #LIGHTtheWORLD. We also found someone on Thursday that I am even more hopeful for than Goodly! His name is Adonis, he is from the Congo. Do you see a theme of us not teaching any white people hahah. It is by choice but not our choice, they choose to slam the door every time haha. Anyways Adonis is searching for a church and said he asks himself everyday "why are they so many christian churches hat disagree?" We hit him with that restoration and boom baptismal date! Hopefully he holds it. We are meeting with him on Tuesday as well! We will see what happens. I kind of feel like all of our eggs are in two baskets with Adonis and Goodly but I guess 2 is better than 1! Pray for us on Tuesday, It will be very make or break! 

Friday was a slow day filled with Tracting and some recent convert lessons.

Saturday we taught some lessons and got lunched 7 times I think. It was a good time! Sometimes it can be overwhelming because we have 200 000 plus people living in our ward boundary and there is no way we can meet them all so we need to find by the spirit. I am trying to do that but it is not easy! 

Sunday President Craig came to our ward! That was a pleasant surprise! We also had a pot luck!

This coming week we have an MLC in which everyone will be in. We will set a mission goal of baptisms for 2017. It will be wild! I look forward to it! 

Love you all!

Elder Stewart

November 14, 2016 - Polka dots

This week was definitely a slow one here in the new area, it was whitewashed just a few transfers ago so we are definitely in the beginning stages of missionary work and getting members to lessons is almost unheard of. However one of the counselors in the bishopric gave a pretty great talk calling everyone to repentance and just telling them to invite us to come to their house for dinner and give us referrals. He kept saying "it is not the missionaries job to find investigators, they will do it but their job is to teach our investigators" I liked that. We did find a lot this week though. 

We found someone on Wednesday I believe and his name is Dakota, He is a YSA guy who is very well versed in the bible from 100% his own study and it is amazing how accurate his beliefs are. People often say that the bible is so flawed and all and they have a point but the bible is true and if people study the bible they will come to know what the truth really is. It is so sad when we meet people who just say that they believe in the bible so they cannot accept us or the Book of Mormon when in reality most of them have never even read the bible. Satan is good at what he does. We meet SOOO many people who are blinded by the craftiness of men. sometimes they just believe their pastor or minister in stead of actually reading and asking God. I have learned that often times Satan keeps people from the truth not by making them criminals or terrible people but by making them so set in their ways which are good but that keep them from the better and best. Anyways that was a rant but Dakota knows his stuff from the bible and we taught the restoration and he ate it up. Elder Wright taught him again on exchanges on Saturday and apparently it went great. trick is he is moving to medicine hat on dec 4th so for us to baptize him it will take a miracle. We will see though.

One of the crazy events of the week was that we exchanged with one of our didtrict leaders this week in Selkirk. I was in Selkirk with our DL Elder Bassett and Elder Wright and Whetman stayed here. In Selkirk we actually went to see a PM/RC family in fisher Branch. It was good but kind of took all day. When I returned home that night i had a few weird looking bug bites. Long Story short we now have bed bugs and we spent $30 on laundry this morning to wash everything. We also have to get our apartment and our neighbors apartments fumigated. Somehow Elder Wright either is not getting bit or does not show bites but i have 150 bites all over my whole body. I look like i have chicken pox. lucky for me though i only have a few on my face! It is a crying shame but such is life hahah. 

Love you all!

Elder Stewart

November 7, 2016 - Welcome to Gateway

So this week felt like an eternity for some reason. Transfer weeks always do because it seems like you have a week in both your old area and the new. I am now settled in with Elder Wright, he is from Oregon and is tall, Ginger and good at basketball. He came out with Elder Low and has been a zone Leader for 1 Transfer before this one. He is very good and I think we should get along well.  

Saying Bye to Brandon was quite the challenge to be honest, I love the people there so much and am going to miss them so much. I am really looking forward to getting to know the members here better. I was hoping coming in to the area that there would be a huge family waiting to get baptized and I am sure there is but currently our main people we are teaching are the "knocking on door family" and the "street contacting family". It is fun though because there are probably 100-150000 people that live in our area so running out of doors to knock will not be a concern.

We had a ZTM this week in Brandon which was interesting because transfers were the next day. It went really well, I love giving ZTM's. (Zone Training Meetings). We trained on Family Home evening and also gave the same portion on relationship with the bishop from MLC last week.

We had a north America wide stake conference this week so I met like barely any members of our ward but it was really good, there were a few talks given mostly on temples and their importance. It was very fitting because Winnipeg temple is supposed to be less than 2 years away. We shall see though. I like Winnipeg, it is a little overwhelming but I think I will grow to love it!

Love you all

Elder Stewart

October 31, 2016

This week was a good one as far as missionary work goes for the most part. We had a lost of success and taught quite a few lessons. We had the chance to exchange with the Winnipeg Spanish Elders. Thank goodness this transfer the exchange was in Brandon so we spoke English. I was with Elder Bateman who is newly in the mission. He is in his 6th week. We got to teach a few good lessons and one of them was really awkward. We were teaching this guy named David who is like 19 but living at home. Part way through the lessons his mom walked in and told him that we had to leave so we got cut off short. It is sad that we can't teach him any more because he seemed solid. That is OK though. 

On wednesday we got a call from the assistants asking us to give a portion at the surprise MLC on Friday. We were not supposed to have one but president wanted one so we had one. It is for all of the Zl's an the Sister Training Leaders but usually just the Assistants and President and Sister Craig train but this time we gave training too. It well! We got to drive in instead of skyping so that is the best! We gave a portion on how to meet with the bishop and get the rescue initiative going. We got like half an hour but it was not nearly enough time. I feel like I always go in thinking that I will have a hard time filling the time but it flies by. "time flies when you are having fun" and giving training is fun. We have another ZTM on Wednesday which is crazy because transfers are on Thursday. Speaking of Transfers I am being transferred to Winnippeg Gateway ward as a Zone Leader still. I am excited but SUPER sad to leave Brandon. Brandon has been my favorite area so far i think. Even more than Thompson.  

Saturday night the ward put on the best ward party I have seen here in Brandon. Problem was we called 18 member families to give a ride to our investigators and no one could except for our ward mission leader who was working. long story short we showed up late to pick them up and because of that they dropped us and their baptismal date. SO SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully they can see that the Gospel is perfect even when the messengers are not.   

Church on Sunday was really good! It was fast and testimony and we as the missionaries sang in church again which was good. It was a very powerful testimony meeting. 

Love you all!

Elder Stewart

Brother Hernandez Ward mission Leader

Brad Peters Less Active

The Torres' Sr

All Torres

The District