This week was pretty long...mostly because I was living off of bread and oatmeal. I only had $10 to spend last week, and here in Ontario that won't get you much more than milk and bread. But it's a new month and I don't think I've ever been this excited to go grocery shopping. I never realized how grateful I was for food until I had to go without it. I think a lot of things in life are that way. I probably could have just used my funds from home, but I don't think I would have learned as much. We had a mini-zone conference this week; it was pretty much a combined district meeting but still really good(The mission president and his assistants, etc weren't there, just us normal missionaries). The theme of the meeting was the standards of excellence, which are basically mission-wide goals for the key indicators(Key indicators are things like number of baptisms, church attendance, lessons, etc.) It's pretty much the Lord's pace for the CTWM, and the only people that achieved the standards of excellence last month was the zone leaders. I know that personally, when I look at the standards of excellence I have a tendency to think, "Yeah, that would be cool. But...." I look at them more like a wish than a goal. But our district leader taught us that this is the Lord's pace for us. This is what He would have us do. Those thoughts that make us think that we won't be able to achieve that are not from the Holy Ghost. Because when we have faith the Lord will prepare the way for us.
This is probably my last week with Elder Eatchel, and I don't know what's going to happen next transfer. But I'm excited for it. This transfer was actually 7 weeks instead of the usual 6 weeks because of Christmas or something. It's getting cold now. And of course missionaries feel the cold a lot more than most people do because we are out in it all the time. I'm probably in the warmest part of Canada and that's a real blessing, but it's still Canada after all and Canada is cold. This past week we were preparing for the Christmas devotional. We probably invited like 40 people to come to it but the only people that came because of our efforts were a couple of less-actives. I enjoyed it though.
Last night we had an interesting experience. We walked out of the apartment after lunch and due to a scheduling error we didn't have anything planned for that hour so we just started walking. We talked to the first guy we saw and he was helping his mother-in-law out of his car. He told us he wasn't interested at all and we were about to go on our way when his mother-in-law lost her balance on her cane and fell over backwards off of the curb. She was pretty big and older; it was a very dangerous situation. We offered to help and the man and his wife, who rushed out of the house to help, were ever grateful for us being there. The old woman wanted us to call an ambulance, but with everyone's combined efforts we didn't need to and everything turned out ok. I thought this was a pretty interesting situation. Before the woman fell over, we were rejected--I'm sure that they didn't care for a second whether we were there or not. But in their time of need they become ever-grateful for us being there. Everything reversed so quickly. Emergencies tend to change peoples attitudes; they make people forget previous relationships or disputations and charity and love take over. If only people knew of the spiritual emergencies they were in!
I love you all and I hope that as you enjoy this Christmas season you will remember the gifts that Christ has given us. And like the fish and the loaves that fed thousands, our gift, the Gospel, will never deplete no matter how many people it is shared with. I love you all!
--Elder Wade
