P-Day’s 53 & 54 – Lots of Work, The Missionaries Moving Company and Visiting a Battleship...

Elder Perry, Hamilton Ontario

This week has been a busy week for us. 

We have been working on our Ward list and trying to reactivate ward members so that when we bring investigators, the ward is ready to retain them and fellowship them.

President Monson was true when he said "The work of reactivation is no task for the idler or daydreamer. Children grow, parents age, and time waits for no man. Do not postpone a prompting; rather, act on it, and the Lord will open the way."

SO, Let Me Take You To The Gun Show

We were able to meet with a sister who hadn't been to church in almost a year. We were able to give her mom a blessing.After the blessing the Spirit filled the room and tears were flowing and the next thing we knew this older sister grab us and was hugging us.  (Guess the Spirit forgot the rules Sisters don't hug the Elders)  We will be trying to get in contact with some members who we met with last week and we will hopefully be able to start working on getting them back to church.

We have been teaching some members about dealing with stress and helping them overcome challenges in their lives.

Wanna Take the Discussions? Your Place or Mine?

This week as been the week of “drop ins”. We have found over 25 changes that need to be made to the Ward list because they have moved and they have to be contacted at the new addresses. We are trying to do reactivation work with them too. We have about 200 inactive members and we have hit about 40 of them.

We had something great happen this week. We have this investigator who has been having a hard time believing in prophets. He came to church this week. As we talked he said that he had had a "feeling" and he believed in Prophets. If all is well with the other questions, then we can get him on to a baptismal interview. We had taught him about Prophets 6-7 times before. It was good for him to finally get it. The Spirit is amazing.

Elder Perry in the Radio Control Room...

We were able to talk to a family who is inactive and the member was really nice. She brought us to the backyard to meet their whole family and we got to visit with them. Her son did Scouting before they moved to Canada and it was awesome to talk to him. We walked back and the garage was open and inside were two Lamborghini's. It was awesome! She said maybe in a few weeks we could return and ask her husband for a ride. (Pray that that promise transpires. What missionary doesn't want to ride in a Lamborghini.) 

We also have a Ward member who has a Mustang Bullitt. He gave us a ride and drove it like he stole it...FUN!

We stopped by a Sister’s home who was on our Ward list. When we knocked on the door, she opened and explained that she was hoping that someone would come and give her mom a blessing. She is going into a long-term care facility and we were able to set a return appointment with her. 

We have also been able to make big strides on helping the members with Missionary work and giving them commitments that we will follow up on. We also have been able to teach some of our investigators and had one come to church. We were able to teach him the plan of salvation and it was clear to him. He felt the Spirit.  We hope to be able to see him this week and share more about the gospel with him.

While we were visiting members, we were able to meet a new investigator called Madeline. We talked with her and she was looking into other religions. We were able to talk to her about the Restoration of the Gospel. She committed to come to church and read the Book of Mormon.

We have also been giving blessings all over the place for people who need blessings of comfort. We gave a blessing to some sisters in our district and also to a couple members.

Home, it’s called the Bat Cave. 

We have three places in the mission designated by names. The Bat Cave, The Mansion and The Ice Castle. They were named due to the Batman Trilogy being filmed nearby. I have had the fortune of staying in all three thought my time on the mission

Sister Stahler lives in the downstairs (1^st floor) part of the building. We have the second and third floors for the house since we have 2 sets of Elders here. Sister Stahler has done the laundry for all the Elders ever since I’ve been here. We get them back washed and folded. She is a true Missionary Mom and we appreciate her so very much!  The Lord loves his missionaries. 

Zone Conference was good. We mainly just talked about using our time effectively and setting goals.

We loaded an entire shipping container full of stuff for a lady. I had to lift the heavy stuff because Elder Garrett has a hernia. She was getting a divorce because the husband was abusive. As we were taking apart stuff, he would be rude with nasty comments and gestures and continually say "Don't scratch the floor" ( we weren't even scratching the floor). I finally looked at him and said "It's Ok, we won't scratch your floor" and he just walked away. I am so thankful that the Lord blessed us by having him walk away.   It was good because we also got to talk to her about the Gospel. She asked us to stay longer because she felt safer if we were there and she wasn't alone with her soon to be ex-husband. So, we got to be bodyguards and "keep the peace". That project made me sore for 4 days. She was very nice though and we may be helping her this week with the rest of her things. She isn't in our area so we would have to pass her off to one of the other Elders and they would have helped her move. But the elders in the other area can't because one of them has a hernia or stomach pain also. The doctors can't figure out what’s wrong with him. ( please pray for them) This service project is from a local city group that gets volunteers from the community and gives people aid, it isn't affiliated with the church. However, It’s a good way to find investigators.

I Want To Be That Guy....

So, Elder Garrett and I got to see a Battleship. Yea Buddy, it was pretty cool. Every time I saw the big cannons and where the gunner would sit I would think, “I want to be that guy”. The ship was cool though and we got to see some torpedoes and big shells. It was free since it was Canada’s 150-year anniversary! Just the right price for missionaries.

I got your box this week. Thanks to Brother Jordan for shipping it. The candy didn't go to waste between us 4 elders, Ohhhhhh Yesses. There was definitely no problem with the chocolate. The chocolate didn’t melt.

Everything else is great. I am doing good on all my clothing and I have enough thermals to supply a Mormon Battalion in the Winter.  I am not complaining one bit. The winters can be brutal up here.

Skeet Shooting Anyone????

Elder Garrett is doing great. He is still trying to figure out the District Leader assignments, so I am helping him the best I can.

We got to see the BUY-I Dance Alliance and watch people dance and tell stories to cool music that we wouldn't normally be able to listen to. That was really fun. 

So, in summary, can you tell we’ve been pretty busy? I don’t think we could have done any more in the 2 weeks time we have been given.

Love You and remember, I pray for you every night and day!

Elder Perry

Hamilton Ward

Hamilton, Ontario

Canada Toronto Mission