March 6/2017 - A Baptism!

This week was one full of odds and ends that filled our time quite nicely. 

Monday we went to a dinner appointment that we had on Sunday, she is named Sister Demarchi and she and her husband feed any missionaries in the city that don't have another appointment every Sunday. Last Sunday not that many missionaries showed up so there was a bunch of left overs so she had us back on Monday to polish off the rest of the food. We also went to go teach the Wastesicoot family. It was good to work with them  this week. That night we were supposed to have a turnover lesson with the Dalhousie Elders but the guy was not there so we did not teach him.

Tuesday we actually went to our District Meeting. That was only the second one this transfer because we were out of town for one, had a zone conference, had to go to Kenora and something else. I felt like we were guests in our own District haha. After that something crazy happened, I had called a guy whose number was in our phone as an investigator. I set a lesson with him at 2:00. On the way to 49 Scott street we got a call from the Regina ZL. They had received a call from a guy in their ward who was friends with a guy named Lewis wh had a lesson with the missionaries an wanted this member to come with them. Long story short Lewis lives in Regina and somehow his number was in our phone and somehow both Cities have a Scott Street and the Regina Elders found out about the lesson. The stars aligned that day.  We got lunched a lot that day.

Don't put this day on the blog. This is for my "Journal" Wednesday was a day in the office. Last week we did not step foot in the office once and this week we did... Big time. Wednesday we Transfer planned with President and Sister Craig. We started at 10:00 am and went until about 5:00 pm. We had some big things to discuss. To start we President asked Elder Griffin where he wanted to go because you get to choose after you leave the office. Elder Griffin had weighed his options and decided that he felt best about either going to help a struggling missionary or going with a particular zone Leader who is great but certainly needs the right to companion to keep the zone from having issues. In the end Elder Griffin has chosen and been assigned to go to Saskatoon as a Zone Leader. He has been in the MLC since his 4th transfer so about 16 or 17 months now. That is unheard of. Not to mention the 4.5 he has left after leaving the office. Next we moved to my next companion and after much debate, thinking, praying, and weighing the options we felt right abut Elder Wright. He was my cops ion when I was called to be the assistant. We will be serving together for a second time. After that we identified the 4 new STL's and the 3 new Zone Leaders. The MLC is very old so it will be interesting to see the very fast turnover when everyone goes home. Sadly, I will be part of that everyone. The rest of transfer planning is like a puzzle. You leave those on the board who will stay together and then take everyone else off who will need to be transferred and then you start mixing and matching. You have to account for mission experience, character/personality, diligence, and about 100 other things. It is interesting how we council together. President could do it himself but that is not the Lords way, He works in councils. Overall it was a good meeting. President bought us some sushi and we munched and council led the day away. Very neat experience. A few people requested certain things. It is difficult to decide which ones to honour and which not to because you need to know the motive. If it is so that they can work harder then it is good but if it is to get with a friend then that is not ideal. President and Sister Craig are amazing people.  That night we had a lesson with the Wastesicoots and one other one. 

Thursday we had to prepare for MLC the next day. We were given an assignements to train on obedience. I didn't know that this was coming but at District Meeting on Tuesday I had given some training on the same subject so that was nice. Anyways Elder Griffin and I made a short portion. We only had 20 minutes to cover a lot of things. I will attach a copy of the portion because I want to keep some things but I suck at a journal haha. We also had to update all of the documents relating to the responsibilities of An Assistant, A zone Leader, a Sister Training Leader, a District Leader, and a trainer. The grammar on those things was pretty bad so we fixed it all. That took a while. That night our Elders quorum president took us out to a place like "HU HOT" to discuss home teaching assignments I wish every ember meeting was like that haha. 

Friday we had MLC and we gave our portion on obedience. It went great! We took like 30 minutes but that is ok because I think we cracked the whip enough without going too hard and making people hate "the big bad assistants". That night we had a bunch of things to do to prep for transfer week. Last transfer week we were like always an hour behind where we wished we were so we took caution and are now ahead so that we can actually proselytizing a little this week. 

Saturday we had the baptism. It is really sad because Jade is just dying quite fast. I baptized her and Elder Griffin baptized Natalie. After the baptism we had to continue prepping for transfers. We had to travel plan with ELder Smith Sr to work out all of the missionaries as well as the cars for transfers. We just draw up a map on the whiteboard and account for every missionary in the mission. It takes a long time. Fun Stuff. 

Sunday I got to confirm Jade a member of the church! Eider Griffin did indicators with me for the last time. Time to show Elder Wright the ropes now. Crazy that it has already been 3 months here in Waverley ward. 

Love out all,

Elder Stewart

Elder Griffin, Natalie, Jade, Elder Stewart