September 16, 2013

It's getting a little nippy up here!!!

Hey all, things have been starting to cool down up here. Not fun. It's September 16th. We had frost a few mornings ago, and it rained on us for about 3 hours Sunday night. fun! 

Things are going great up here in Petawawa though! We have a few people who we are teaching, not a lot, but we are trying to do a whole ton of Less Active work right now! It's hard, but some of the most fulfilling work you can do. We are leaving the 99 and headed out for the 1. We have lots of people who we see regularily also, so that makes things easier for us. 3 or 4 lessons a week just with Less Active members, and they all are so awesome! Things are just so different up here in Ontario. I don't want to admit it, but it's kind of the truth. 

Elder Wright and I last week were part of a Home Show, where businesses from the community come and set out booths and all the new military families come and see what the community has to offer. It's a great program! We were signed up by a member, and she didn't really explain what we were going to be doing there, so we were completely unprepared. We spent a solid... 9 hours there, and talk to like 5 people, and gave away NOTHING. =) But we enjoyed ourselves, and got invited to the Presbyterian Church's annual fall dinner! They were right beside us the whole time, and about 4 of the 5 people we talked to were working at their table. 

All in all, a great week! I love you all, and I can't wait to tell you about all of my shenanigans this week!

Elder Oviatt!!

September 9, 2013

OK, I'm here this week.

So, like I said, I am in Petawawa. I don't know how far north it is, probably honestly not that far north. OK, I just looked it up. It's not far north at all. Not even as far north as Quebec City, so I should be in for a mild winter (not really, apparently they are calling for a loooong, cold winter this year). There is a great little branch up here, about 60-70 members. The two main towns we cover are Pembroke and Petawawa, both with populations of about 15000-16000. Its tiny. Both towns put together is about the same size as Alma. I love it, I'm back at home! People here all hunt. It makes striking up a conversation way easy. 

Me: Oh, did you get that white tail there on the wall?
stranger: yes...

Me: I go white tail hunting almost every year, I'm from Alberta. We have also done mule deer, and moose and I put in for Antelope. My dad was a guide in the Northwest territories... 

Stranger: No way! What do you...

And off it goes. Until they realize that I'm wearing a white shirt and a tie and they have to ask why I'm here from Alberta, or why I'm dressed like that, then BAM! Hit em up with a dose of spirituality. I'm here because I'm sharing a message about the purpose of life, and how you personally can find out where we are going after this life, and why on earth we are here, on the earth, in the first place. 

Honestly, people react completely differently than they do in the Province of Quebec. Which is strange, because I can see Quebec on the other side of the Ottawa river. 

My new companion is actually my old companion. Elder Ryan Wright. We were together in Ste.-Foy! We are so pumped to be together again. He has changed so much. He was so young when we first were together, and now, he is so different! The change is actually astonishing. I hope, truly, that he has noticed in me HALF of the change that I see in him. 

It was so hard to leave Pascal and Brother Roy in Lemoyne. Brother Roy will be baptized This Saturday, the 14th, at 4:00 and Pascal Next Saturday, the 21st, probably at 12ish. But I know that Elder Echeverria and Elder Malone will continue to take care of them. I left my address for them, so we will be keeping in touch, I can't wait to get some pictures of them dressed in white. The Sunday before I left, we gave brother Roys daughter a blessing so she could stop smoking. This is now the third person in his family who is going to stop smoking. The whole family is kind of coming together thanks to the incredible change experienced by their father. it is incredible. I had many many crazy experiences with giving that family blessings. And, Pascal is living with his uncle and aunt and their family, and as we were leaving their house the last time, I asked the family if we could come back and talk to them, to share our message, and they said, well, we are busy this week, but if we coe to church, can we talk there? I have no idea if they made it to church or not, but Woah, if they did, that is so cool!!! Miracles my friends. The Lord is watching over his work.

Other than that I will just send you pictures of the corn bust we had in Lemoyne before I left. You will see that I am still having tons of fun with face paint. =)

Brother and Sister Roy. She has been a member for 36 years, he now has the faith of a member of 36 years. Incredible.

This is Pascal. What a boss! 

 This is Elder Echeverria and I at the corn bust. I need to stop letting the 7 year old girls in the ward decide what is going to get painted on my face... 

September 3, 2013

Hey!!!
 I am so sorry, but we really don't have time to send emails.... =( I got transferred to petewawa Ontario!! English speaking. Sad. Haha, nah, it's OK. I'm excited. I will tell you more next week. I will have way more time. I promise!

Love ya!

Elder Oviatt

August 26, 2013

Hey everyone!

This week was great! We had a Zone conference, where the mission president and some of the office missionaries come down and give us trainings! It was great to see President Patrick, but pfhew things are going to change around here! In a good way, don't worry!

First off, he want's us to have 20 lessons a week. Thats huge! Its going to be a big change, but really, it will be for the better. I mean, how many missionaries want to sit around and teach less than 4 or 5 lessons a week? Man, that would be brutal... Haha, actually, now that  Ithink about it, we were teaching about that many up in Alma. Good weeks we would have 6 or 8, but still... President Patrick wants us to work with the less active members a bunch. Rathar than knocking doors, we are going to talk to all of the members! Revolutional!! Who woulda Thunk? Nah, it should be great, there was a team that was regularily getting 10-12 lessons a week, and they followed our mission presidents advice, and the next week got 19 lessons, but that was only because they had a lesson fall through Sunday evening. It was cool! There are a few other changes, but really not anything huge. Just, everything is by the White Handbook exactly, nothing big, just things like we can play sports, if we have everything else done on MOndays, and we aren't going to do something that will hinder our working ability during the week. 

Also, we were teaching our Friend Pascal again, and we taught about Jospeh Smith, and he said that he did know that Joseph's name is actually Joseph, but just that after so many years of studying about Adam Smith and other economists, he accidently mixed up the names. Which, I mean, makes complete sense. After all, Mom and Dad, you had kids for the past... 40ish years, and you mix up their names all the time, even though its just the same 9 the whole time. ;)

We had a member of the Spanish ward call us up and tell us that he had a "prospective" for us. So we headed over to his house, and he walked us to his neighbors, who were Haitian, and proceeded to say "Hello, you remember that I promised you a book in French. Here it is. Also, these are my two friends, they have left their houses for TWO YEARS to come here and to talk about god and to do service. They are missionaries. Also, they have a quick message to share with you right now if you have 5 minutes, is that OK?" And then they said Yes and the member left and we walked into the house, talked to the couple and their friends, and got a return apointment with them for Tuesday, Invited them to our English Class, gave them two copies of the Book of Mormon, and met four super cool new friends! Thanks crazy member from Victoria (he is kind of crazy, but in a good way, not a bad way)!!

But in a nut shell, that was our week! We have transfer calls THIS Saturday, and we have no idea what is going to happen!! AHhh!! Have fun, stay safe, remember who you are, don't do anything I wouldn't do, And, last but not least, as our sunday school teacher said yesterday, If you spit straight up, its going to come straight down!!

Elder Oviatt

August 19, 2013

Hey hey hey!!

So, I`m going to start out by telling you how great of a P-Day we had this week. We went out and played some tennis this morning, then we did shopping and were done in like 20 minutes, then we came home and dropped the food off, then we went to the Church building because our mission president just allowed us to play a little bit of sports!!!! We have played basketball and soccer for like the past 2 hours.... Ahh... it was awesome. Next week we hope to have some other teams with us so that it isn;t just the two of us. One-on-one basketball is only fun for so long when both of you are so out of shape and suck at basketball. =) But now here I am, ready for email time|!

We had a fun week. I had to give a baptismal interview for an investigator of the sisters in our ward, and it was awesome. But, unfortunately for the other missionaries, she was a talker. And for every question I had to ask her, she had a HUGE story to tell, and then a question to ask me back. So it ended up taking like 2 and a half hours. That is RIDICULOUS! that should never happen folks. My bad. But, on the good side, she "Passed" her interview (there really ins`t any way to pass or fail one of those. its just a way to see how the investigator is doing, and how we can help them out before and after their baptism.) with flying colors. The bad news is that she didn't get baptised like she was supposed tothis Saturday because of a few last minute switch ups with the spouse. So, she is still doing well, but we will see when she will finally get baptised. Great experiance none the less.

Soo... We were teaching our investigator, Pascal, and it was really funny. he is an economy major, trying to get his masters here in Quebec. So anyways, we were talking about Joseph smith, and the restoration of the church and we were trying to see how much he really knew about the church and the doctrine to see how much we would need to see him before his baptism. AAAAaaaannnnd, we found out that he really doesn't know a whole lot. that was evident when he started talking about how 'Adam Smith' very well could have been an inspired man and he wants to know if he really did start a church. Weeeell Pascal, first off, 'Adam Smith' didn't start a church. Adam smith is an economist, not a prophet. But we can definitely help you out to find out if JOSEPH SMITH was on the ball with the whole Inspiration from god stuff. =) He is going to need a bit of instruction before his baptism.

Anyways, I love you all, have a fantastic week!!

Elder Oviatt

August 13,2013

So... Let me update you on our awesome week, Aight?

First... Monday, we met with Brother Jean-Claude. The husband of the member. It was a great lesson. Well, it was a great meeting. His home teachers were there also, because he really has a great respect for them. one of them is the Temple president, and the other is just a good friend. We set up a few base ideas, taught the restoration of the gospel, and then told them we would come back on Thursday. We went back Thursday and had an INCREDIBLE lesson on the plan of salvation. He grasped the principles of the plan in the book of mormon so well when he read it (twice) that we basically didn't even have to teach him anything. He was even explaining things to his wife, who has been a member for 36 years. I was impressed. He was at church on Sunday, for the first "official" time. He loved it. He was walking around talking to people, and we had to bring him to Gospel Principles class, and he was telling all the members that he passed that he had to follow us, his "two angels". he was telling us how he is going to be going up north for work at the beginning of September and if we get transfered he is going to be so sad and how we have to be there for his baptism and how he just loves us so much already. It was really incredible. I'm so excited for this man, his life has so completely changed in the past few weeks. It's really amazing to see the joy the gospel brings, to everyone.

Next, we went to a less actives house that the sisters are teaching and helping come back to church because she wanted a blessing, and so Elder Echeverria and I headed over and we gave her a blessing and it was really awesome. She had really bad back problems, and she was having troubles standing up and walking, and sitting in her chair, and basically doing anything. And after the blessing, we went downstairs to grab her mail for her and when we came up she was fine. She was actually bending over and touching the floor, and leaning up against the wall, and sitting in her chair and getting out and getting back in it. It was really special. We went back on Sunday and are going back on Tuesday, because she is trying to quit smoking and wants a blessing as often as she can. She was also calling us her "little angels". That is something that hash't happened many times on my mission, but everytime someone calls me an angel, I feel so touched. 

Thirdly, we went and visited a guy named Pierre (the French Equivalent of Peter), who is from Haiti. He was baptised 3 years ago in the Dominican republic, and then went to school in Germany for a year and a half, and has been here for a bit longer than a year. But he never made it to church because he didn't know where it was. But he and his cousin, Pascal, were on the Metros in Montreal one day and they ran into the missionaries, gave them their phone numbers and their addresses and they live in our area. We visited PierreSaturday, and he asked if we had visited his cousin, Pascal, yet. We said no, we didn't think he lived in our area, but he did. So we gave him a call and asked if we could go over and visit him. He said "Uh, not right now Elders, I'm actually at the store right now buying a shirt and pants to go to church tomorrow. But come over in a n hour of something." So we went over, thinking this man was a member or something, but it turns out he isn't! He went to church almost every Sunday when he was in Haiti, but never was baptised. He told us that his only goal right now was to get baptised. He will probably be baptised before Kaden hits the MTC. Which is crazy. Anyways, Pascal was at church sunday (12:30 - 4:00), then went to a Single Adults activity (4:30-9:00+). He said he loved it though, and we are going to see him Tuesday. Things are going very well with the area right now. We are teaching a few people, and talking to members and passing by less actives the rest of the time. It's pretty crazy. We are always tired, but in such a good way.

I will toss in a few pictures but I love you all, and I shall talk to you next week!

Elder Oviatt

1. Elder Hansen wrapped his head in a blanket and used two toilet paper rolls as eyes and a banana as a mouth and walked around the apartment for probably about 30 minutes the other day. It was hilarious. We think he looked like The Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch had a baby. 

August 5, 2013

Hey,

 I am super sorry, this week, we were driving to the mall to do our emails, and we hit trafic so bad that we literally have enough time to tel you that I donèt have time to do emails. We are headed out to visit the husband of a member, who, after 36 years of being married to a Mormon woman and not wanting to know anything about it, decided to read the book of mormon and now wants to get baptised. We are so excited we can't even really explain ourselves. When they called us to let us know that they wanted us to come teach him and his wife, they said "My husband smokes, do you want him to stop smoking before we meet with you, or will you be able to help him out with that?" Well, He will have to have stopped before his baptism, but we would love to help him quit smoking. I have yet to have an investigator like this on my mission, but I am so excited to teach this man, and his family is so excited also. I can't wait!