Finding the Prepared - October 24, 2016

So this week was a pretty good one as far as numbers go for us, our zone as a whole had a pretty bad week honestly but for our companionship it was a good one. On Monday we had a funny meal appointment. We were going to a members home and as it happened the wife got caught up at work so the husband ran to little ceasars and bought 3 pizzas and that was that. It was just so funny because he was a little upset but it was just so funny. The members here in Brandon are THE BEST! I honestly just don't want to leave. It is too good here! 

We did an exchange with one of our district leaders again this week. I was with Elder Bloammart who is from Edmonton and was actually in my district when I was in Thompson. He is a very good District leader. We had the opportunity to do many many hours of finding. We are striving to be more creative with our finding but what we have found is that aside from using members and the rescue initiative lists the best way to find is to tract so... we tract... a lot. It is fun though especially when you get to go with other missionaries. THat is one reason I love being a zone leader, exchanges every week! On the exchange we found and taught a man named Drew who has lost many friends and family members recently and his faith is a little iffy. We taught him on his doorstep about the Book of Mormon and briefly about the Plan of Salvation. It was really good. We agreed to go back on Sunday after church but he called us to reschedule because he got called into work. I don't know if anyone understands the significance of this but when someone calls instead of just leaving us out to dry like an old towel you know they are solid. We are excited to teach Drew.

We went to our recent convert Mickaela's house for dinner one day and it was great. She said she could not decide what to make so she made 8 different appetizers.It was amazing!! She is such a good cook. She is doing well but it is honestly amazing and terrible how hard Satan works on converts. It is hard to watch. 

We had stake conference this week and it was super uplifting. Elder gay from the 70 was there and gave some good talks. It was almost all missionary work! That was good to see because members are VITALLY important to the work. President Craig spoke so that was amazing as well! 

Update on Joseph, so sorry for the confusion there was no trial, there was simply a court date but he did not make a plea of guilty or not guilty so he was just remanded. he goes back to court Monday Nov 7th. I also got a guge thing in the mail updating me on everything. He is no longer in custody but has a bvunch of conditions of not contacting me or coming near our apartment, church, or workplace. He also can't have any type of weapon or a bunch of other stuff. He is not allowed illegal drugs (I thought that would be implied because they are... Illegal). I feel safe and and really hoping to stay. If he pleas not-guilty on the 7th then he will most likely have a trial in Brandon and I will be called to testify. That would be soooooooo neat. That is what I am hoping for but I will not be mad if he just pleas guilty and gets deported. 

Anyways love you all

Elder Stewart

Elder Stewart and some unnamed Elders.

Elder Stewart

Elder Blommaert and Elder Stewart

Elder Stewart

A very creative pumpkin!

Zone Training and Exchanges - October 17, 2016

This week was a fun  one but we are STRUGGLING with the new investigators! We have only found one in the last two weeks and we find for 7 hours a day at least. But hey after tribulation cometh the blessings. Monday Night we taught a lesson with a member present and set 3 new baptismal dates BUT they did not come to church so those dates are no longer standing. We also had the opportunity to go finding. I actually really enjoy meeting everyone and I don't mind getting yelled at or doors slammed. I would have that happen 100 times over if it meant finding someone prepared but we find that most people do neither, they just don't give a care about whether or not God is Real. Super sad.. On Monday we also spent longer than I care to admit at staples printing a bunch of talks for ZTM. We had to print 18 talks for 22 missionaries. It was give or take 2000 pieces of paper. 10 cents per piece really adds up! So mom if you are wondering why I used my home card for this week because my allotment is gone! It will come back from the mission but for now I am broke. 

Tuesday morning we went back to staples to print the remaining 8 talks at 8:00 when they opened and from there headed to the church. We had our Zone training meeting at 10:30 that morning. We did not feel that we were overly prepared for our portion so we continued preparing that morning as we set up tables and chairs. The Sister Training Leaders Sisters Bevans and Harris came in from Winnipeg to help train. There were 4 portions given, so we gave two and they gave two. Before any of the portions we showed a funny video from Safety.lds.org called Rhonda Rhino-virous. Go check it out, It is not technically a missionary video but because EVERYONE in our zone has been sick we showed it to help them lout and break the ice for the training. The Sisters trained first on the 12 Weeks booklet. It bis a booklet that the trainers use when they are training a new missionary. (I know that book like the back of my hand at this point haha). Anyways the whole mission is going back to it because the most important thing in anything is the fundamentals. President Craig is a genious! We then gave a portion on Remembering the mission wide fast that we did. We started with an exponential graph. For some people the mission veil is so thick that they could not remember what exponential means. Thank goodness for the greenies that just graduated. we labeled the Y-axis miracles and the x-axis unity to show that through fasting as an individual we can see miracles but as we unite together like we did as a mission we can see exponentially (there's that word again) more miracles. We then had a discussion and shared miracle stories. We concluded that portion with the story of Namaan. He was asked to do something so simple that he thought that it was pointless but when he did wash himself he was clean. That same principle is truwe with the fast. We need miracles in missionary work and often times we look beyond the mark. President Craig prayed about what we needed to do and so we did it. Miracles will follow. Next was the Sister training leaders portion on families. It was really good, we have been training on families since I became a Zone Leader so it is getting really familiar but that is ok because learning is spaced repetition. We then had the portion that I was most nervous for out of any training I had ever given. We trained on the Atonement. We started with a discussion and listed a bunch of words describing what the Atonement can do for us. We also showed the "None Were With Him" mormon message. It was super good and again we are going back to the basics, it is so easy to take the atonement for granted but when we really appreciate it then the charity follows.  It was a super spiritual portion and everyone contributed. We did cook soup this time because some people were whining last time so we all just went out to eat instead. 

We had exchanges with the Thompson Elders that day. I was with Elder Gee who is a brand new missionary and he is the most curious person ever. "What is it like being Canadian?" "What is is like being a zone leader? Do you like it? Do you just rebuke people all day??" It was pretty funny. He is super good and it makes me miss training a little bit! We taught a few lessons.  Wednesday we found and thursday was our exchange with the assistants. I exchanged with the new assistant Elder Griffin. He actually came into the mission at the same time as me. It makes me feel old that someone who came out with me is already an assistant. I am so old. we tracted for 8 hours and got nothing from it except cold hands and a good feeling because of didligence. No investigators though haha. Saturday I skyped into a baptism in Thompson for Nyssa and Franky Merasty who Elder Low and I had taught up there, they finally got baptized. The neepawa Elder Baptized the Yambao family as well and they are moving to Lethy this week. (that is Manitoba Mormons biggest pet peeve, They all move to Alberta so the church here does not grow.) They will be on the North side apparently. Make sure they connect with someone so they don't get lost in the transition. 

Church was good this week! LLove you all! Pray for new investigators.

Elder Stewart

Ps Joseph is in court today! Hopefully they don't screw this up!

Remember the Fast and One Month since Ookarudu - October 10, 2016

This week was one of the fastest weeks of my entire mission. I swear every week goes by faster than the last especially when you are enjoying yourself! This week was a really good one but we struggled with the actual missionary side of things. 

Monday we began our exchange with the Elders in neepawa. I actually got the chance to exchange with Elder Santos, He is from the Philippines and is like 24. He is very mature but has only been on his mission for like 6 months. A bit of a neat connection that we have is that when he came in the mission I was his first district leader over in Regina. He was trained by Elder Bennett so he is very diligent! We had the opportunity to do a bunch of route tracting. This is an idea that Elder Olcott and I had. We were thinking about how we do SO MUCH tracting and we meet thousands of people but and sometimes people even say they may be slightly interested but it is easy to glaze over those people and focus on the "golden family". While that is important it is also important to not look past the small tender mercies of the Lord. So to put it briefly we decided to go through all of the old tracting books (most of which are from Elder Moojalsky I believe) and write down all of the potential people from those books and organize the city into 5 areas and make routs of people to stop by who at one time for one reason or another were interested in the restored gospel and stop by them all. Sadly Elder Olcott got transferred so he will never see the fruits of our organization efforts. To be brutally honest I haven't seen any fruit from it yet either but we will eventually I know it! Elder Santos and I did a bunch of those stop by's and that was good. We also taught a less active guy named Brad and listened to J.Devn Cornish' talk. Straight fire that one was! We also exchanged all day tuesday and taught a few good lessons. One of the best was with a part member families where we read the story of the brother of Jared with them. It is a personal favorite because there are so many applicable principles for everyone. Wednesday was going to be finding all day! Not a single lesson planned or really even looking possible at first but then something crazy happened. Elder Morales (One of the spanish elders) Busted his knee and had to stay in on wednesday so Elder Wintle myself and Elder De Leon had to take shifts with him inside. I hate staying inside... (nothing has changed there). ANyways Elder Morales lived and I got to know him better so that is nice. Probably the biggest struggle of the week has been the weather. It is cold here and all of my winter stuff is in Alberta because I sent it home... Rookie mistake. I am just wearing a sweater and a rain coat and going for it. Don't be surprised if you hear a report of a frozen Elder in Brandon! But Hey the work must go on! I will note though it is 100% my fault because I had all the intent in the world to ask for my stuff to be sent back last week but did not because I am forgetful. 

Friday was MLC and that is always a blast! We had to skype in which isn't as good but it is still good to counsel together as mission leaders. President Craig is so inspired. I am not sure if I mentioned it or not but last week we did a mission wide fast for baptisms in every area this transfer. We are now focussing on remembering the fast and uniting faith as a principle of power with faith as a principle of action to see baptisms. It is working. Two people I taught in Thompson are finally getting baptized this weekend and I got to interview 3 people from Neepawa for baptism too! Maybe Brandon is next?!?!? We are giving a zone training meeting tomorrow on the Atonement. Can you say overwhelming?? We are asked to train on the most sacred and the most important thing in all the church... In all the world sorry. Thank goodness for Russel M nelson and David A bednar in past conference talks. They are clutch. Our baptismal dates did not come to curch so right now we are back to having 0. More to come though! Have a great week and whatever you do make sure you are warmer than I am! ;)

Love Elder Stewart

Eating Balut. He said it wasn't that bad! :)

Week One of Transfer - October 3, 2016

This week was a pretty good one as far as teaching goes. We have been really putting a focus in the mission recently on finding families! We are really striving to find a family to teach. I was talking to one of the members we take to lessons all the time. He is preparing for a mission and has worked with a bunch of missionaries. He made a comment that really struck me. He said "Elders in all of my time teaching with you and other Elders I have never taught a proper family unit" I examined my mission and in all of my time I have only taught two proper family units. I believe that Satan works hard to break down family units within and without the church but I have obviously noticed that the families in the church are much stronger. I also feel that Satan works on proper family units outside the church and puts pride in their hearts to think they have it all. It is so sad when families reject the restored truths because they are not in a crisis. 

This week we experienced miracles though, we were able to teach a family from Nigeria, there is no father but there is a mother and two children age 15 and 10. They are very religious and faithful and seemed very excited about the Book of Mormon. Definitely the biggest struggle is the language barrier. We are teaching the mother through her 15 year old daughter. The mom Abosede can speak English but not 100%. We were able to set a baptismal date but we will really need to work with them to help them understand the covenant. It is one of the biggest struggles of Brandon, it is so diverse and there are so many people that don't speak english. We were also able find a family of 8!!! A single mother with 7 children between the ages of 1 and 13. She is so solid and 4 of those kids are baptismal age. The hardest part is teaching them because the range is so big. We taught them once, the father passed away 6 months ago and that is obviously hard. We are praying for them big time!

We again did a ton of finding! We street contact and tract at least 6 hours a day! It's a grind but it is fun sometimes. SOmething I have learned is that you need to make things fun otherwise they just stink. At the beginning of my mission I did not enjoy finding at all. It was just not fun but as you learn to love it you get batter at it and then you do less of it because people will actually listen to you. It is pretty neat. 

General conference was super exciting. It goes by super fast on the mission. Those days are tiring though, spiritual marathons. I think one of my favourite talks was President Eyrings in Priesthood and Elder Nattress' in the last session. Elder nattress' son went home from this mission the day I got into the field so I met him once. Crazy how small the mormon community is. 

Love you all

Elder Stewart

I Am A Giant! - September 26, 2016

So as the title shows I am getting huge... Actually I am not but I am 2 inches taller than my new companion! I am loving Brandon still! I think there is a good chance that I will be able to stay here for a very long time but we will see. It was very hard to say bye to Elder Olcott but I am glad he left for his sake because Post-kidnapping Brandon was hard on him. I talked to him last night and he LOVES the the reserve and Elder Quinton despite being from Cardston. (Jk don't put that on the blog). Elder Quinton and I have had 4 of the same companions, it is kind of wild! 

Elder Wintle and I have been working very hard and are determined to draw on the powers of Heaven and Baptize this transfer. We are praying for it in every prayer and are really striving to find the prepared because honestly I feel like the Brandon Area is kind of becoming stagnant. We are tracting so much and we walk around the university so much. It is weird because lots of university students are a year younger than me. Many of them are from out of town or even out of country so a bunch of them have never seen missionaries before. 90% of them still are not interested but hey there is lots of potential. 

We were able to find a bunch of people and set lessons with them for this week so pray for us that we will be able to actually teach them. I am very happy to report that the Lords tender mercies are real and we are still teaching JohnKennedy who is a Nigerian with the same build as OOkarudu. It is just a testimony to me of the Lords care for each of us. Missionaries could have met JohnKennedy at any time but the Lord Knew that I needed it now to protect myself from racism so we met him less than a week after the incident. Miracles have not ceased. Thursday was transfer day and being the Zone Leaders in Brandon we were in charge of the Brandon drop off and pickup on the way east and on the way west. It is amazing how efficient it is. The whole transfer is done in 1 day with a few exceptions but it travels from Saskatoon to Winnipeg and back in like 1 day. It is amazing and we have to be like Nascar pit workers as we unload and reload the luggage. It was crazy because Elder Wilson (Elder Birchalls trainer) went home. It is starting to get real and I am legitimately an old missionary now. Scary stuff. Elder Wintle is enjoying being zone leader. He got a little baptism by fire as we received a text friday night from the Assistants saying "All of the Elders in your zone need to be in Winnipeg at 5:00". But there is a twist... No one has km's to drive in so we need to find everyone a ride in. That was fun but we did it. We had a meeting with all of the priesthood leaders from all of the wards on reworking member missionary home teaching. It is going to be so good. We should get like 4 route assignments each (cross your fingers). 

Mickaela is doing well but is still having some struggles. Keep her in your prayers. Satan is the worst (like you didn't know that already) but he comes from places you never see coming. We did teach a guy named RJ from Mauritius. He came to church and that was great, he is reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. We barely ever teach white people, they are so incredibly prideful, it makes me sad.  It's like "I don't need Jesus, I have money". I am not sure how well that works but people from literally every other part of the world are great and very open. Anyways have a great week. Love you

Elder Stewart

September 19, 2016

This week was an interesting one but compared to last week it was like running around in Wonderland. First things first we did not get kidnapped this week. Second there are a lot more juicy details than there were last week. 

Monday we volunteered at a funeral for a long time member who was the first convert ever in the Brandon ward I believe. Tons of support! So much that it doubled our sacrament meeting attendance. It was good to see lots of less active members in the church even if it is for a funeral. I exchanged with Elder Little that night and that was fun. Stewart-Little hahahahah. Best part is that he is 5'4. We taught a man named Sunil who is Hindu but he is interested. We will see what happens there. One crazy thing that happened was that we set a lesson with our recent convert Mickaela and she shows up with... a 6'2 Nigerian man! I am not racist but it caught me by surprise after last week. It is a good thing the Lord knows better than us because that was a definite tender mercy. The guys name is John and he and Mickaela are friends. He is a GREAT guy and helped us realize that there were two bad people that happened to be Nigerian but that Nigerians are not bad. 

Speaking of last weeks encounter though we got to go do the photo lineup. It is not like the movies, the cop even said so. It was neat though, they took us in a room one by one and had 10 pictures on paper like the size of recipe cards. It was done by an officer who knew nothing about the case and had no clue who did the crime. He shows you one picture at a time and you say either it is or is not the man. You can see the picture as many times as you want but you cannot see two pictures at the same time. I was able to identify both of the suspects. I later learned that the police only had the two suspects. So they had a picture of Joseph and 9 distractors and a picture of Ookarudu and 9 distractors. After identifying them they said thanks without telling us if we were correct or if they believed that they had the right guy. Later that day we got called back in to see Constable Johnson who has been with us every step of the way. The craziest part of the whole thing is that we found out their names. It turns out "Joseph" who ended up standing up for us a very little bit at the end is actually named Ookarudu and that the unnamed man is Joseph. No clue why they changed names. They have the real Joseph in Prison and likely we will be back in Brandon to testify in court next summer. Crazy stuff!

Transfers are this week and the craziest thing is happening, Elder Olcott is leaving Brandon and I am staying. He has really loved Brandon but the whole kidnapping is scary and I guess the Lord needs him Elsewhere. I am sad but I an=m going to train Elder Wintle to be a new Zone Leader. Elder Wintle came ouyt with me and was trained by Elder Olcott. Elder Olcott is going to serve with Elder Quinton on the CTK First nation reservation. He is really sad but he will do great!

Love you all

Elder Stewart

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