Love the new layout of the week!

Good Morning Mommy!

This week was great. Lots of good experiences, I learned so much as well. Lets see, first order of business, we received our transfer calls on Saturday. I will be staying! As for my current companero, Elder Lopez is leaving. He will be going to Ottawa to start a Spanish group, and he will be training. It sad that he will be going, we are great friends, but I am happy for him. (He has been serving in this ward for 11 months). As for my new companion, or should I say old companion! That's right, Elder Fontaine will be joining me once again! Reunited as we embark on a new adventure together! I'm really excited to be with him for the second time. As for my week, it went a little something like this:

Monday:

Preparation day was great, we cleaned the apartment (including the cobwebs in the corner we have been ignoring.) It looks great! It also feels nice to be in a clean space. (Not that it was THAT dirty before). We played Foosball and around the world. It is a fun game involving revolving around a ping-pong table and 6 people. We bought chocolate milk for a dollar at Maxi! Then we had family home evening with a Haitian family, and we made them tacos!

Tuesday:

Tuesday we did our calls with the Zone Leaders, then Elder Fernandez came with me on a companion exchange. We had a great day, which included one of the most interesting and funny experiences on my mission. I'll save this one for in person, but I will tell you that it involves the fire department and an old folks home. That night we visited a different Haitian family,m and the Lungus (the member family from Moldova). Their daughter turns eight in a few months and they asked us to come over to teach her, mostly because her friend comes over as well, who isn't a member and just turned eight. It was a nice visit. I think I mentioned already the Lungus are planning to move to Alberta, and were wondering if they could speak to you for some information. Would that be alright?

Wednesday:

Elder Lopez and I were busy going back and forth with many visits. We also had a neat idea. We were looking at our ward list and realized that there are many people that we do not know on the list. Many of them didn't have current address' or phone numbers, and appeared to be lost. My mentality before was that 'they are gone forever' however, I know that they are still people, and are somewhere. I know the Lord knows. Anyway, we went over to a members house and with them on their Facebook started to look for these "lost sheep". It was amazing! We actually found many of them, and now have a way to contact them. That was really special. I know Heavenly Father loves them still, even if we haven't seen them for a while.

Thursday:

Thursday we visited our friend Sasha, who made us dinner. He was baptized almost one year ago, and he is the best. He calls us his nephews and he is our uncle. Then we went to the family history centre with an elderly lady in the ward. We helped her make her account and start her family history. She is from Guyana, and we put in her parents, first husband and children.

Friday:

This was a good day. We worked on transfers, then our ward had a temple trip, which President approved us to attend. I went with Elder Grant. What a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening.

Saturday:

We pretty much did transfer stuff all day. Although we did meet a lady that hasn't been to church in a while, and we will start to meet with her.

Sunday:

Church was great! Elder Lopez shared his testimony. We taught Gospel Principles class about the Atonement. We had a great ward council meeting afterwards. Then we visited all the families that wanted to say goodbye to Elder Loepz, which continues tonight. Got some really good visits, really taught by the Spirit.

So that was the week. Hope you have a good one!

Love, Elder Heinzlmeir

Short but Sweet.

Hey mom,

Glad you made it safe to Calgary! That's cool they are going to go to EB!(the little kids are going to the same school as the big kids did in Cochrane and some of the teachers are still there and remember us!)  I hope the kids adjust well to their new school.

I don't have time right now to do my weekly report, maybe I will get a chance later. For now, I would like to tell you the highlight of the week.

Saturday, we had an all mission meeting. At this meeting was Elder Neil L. Andersen, Elder Donald L. Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop Caussé of the Presiding Bishopric and their wives. As well as our Area Seventy, Elder Homer. It was an amazing! I can't tell you everything I learned, but I learned so much! We had the opportunity to shake all of their hands. A real live Apostle. Wow. What a cool birthday present for Elder Lopez.

Sunday we had a special Stake Conference. Actually 3 Stakes had them at the same time, each with a different General Authority. Elder Hallstrom and his wife were attending our Stake Conference. I had the pleasure of learning even more. Oh, and I directed a combined choir of youth, YSA, and missionaries as the closing hymn. I spoke with Elder Hallstrom a little more, he asked me where I was from, then said "My wife is from Taber" Cool eh? 

Hope I can get back to you later with the rest of the week. Visits went well, did an exchange, taught the most humble man, so it was a great week!

Love you so much!

Elder Heinzlmeir

BYU it is!

Hey mom,

Moving this week, cool! (on Saturday we are moving down to Cochrane--well we found a little place to rent in NW Calgary so I can get the kids into their schools and Dennis doesn't have to commute back and forth on weekends...when the house sells here, we will make our purchase in Cochrane.  It has changed so much, I want this next while to get the feel of the newness of it and decide where to buy.)  Saturday is Elder Lopez's birthday, and the day the apostle is coming to have a meeting with the missionaries! It was announced that it is Elder Andersen, he is coming with Elder Halstrom of the presidency of the seventy and Bishop Gerald Causee from the presiding bishopric, oh and Elder Homer of the seventy. Needless to say this will be an incredible meeting.

I say hi to Ben!(Ben Nzojibwami--I was chatting with this week and passed along the hello). Ya, I don't think China is a good idea anymore, I'd rather go to the lake. (He was planning on going to China with some mission friends, but glad to hear he'd rather come to the lake with the fam!)

I'm going to BYU! I'm pretty excited about that. (He made his choice after hearing he was accepted!)

I bought some new shoes! On sale of course, 80$ off! From Ecco. About 150$ I bought them to be church shoes, so they should last a long time. Thanks for teaching me to be frugal!


As for needs, I think I'm good for now.

This week was great! Monday we met with a sister that is 89 years old! I'm pretty sure President Monson confirmed her when he was the mission president. Her name is sister Tilden. It was a nice visit. Then we spent some time with the youth to help them learn about missionary work. They are nice kids, slowly being more motivated to share their joy with others. Then we met with a man that is trying to come back to church, we gave him a blessing of comfort and counsel to help him with this great desire. Then we went to the Frimpong family for brother Frimpong's birthday! They are from Ghana, and he was baptized a little over a year and a half ago and they are preparing to go to the temple together. They invited us to come! I'm so excited! Then we had dinner and a lesson with the Moldovan family! We invited them to be baptized, they said they would think about it.

Wednesday it snowed like crazy, but we managed to make some great visits. Then that night we got a phone call from someone looking for an Elder that served here 3 years ago! She asked for someone to come bless her home. We set an appointment for Friday.

I went to Quebec City on exchanges on Thursday. It is a really cool city, I loved it up there.

Friday we went to the appointment with the lady that called, and brought the Sisters that cover that area now. It was awesome, and the Sisters invited her to the Relief Society activity Saturday. Then we visited a family from England that made us a delicious meal! Then we shared a great spiritual thought about doing the little things that matter, like reading the scriptures and praying. The Spirit was so strong.

Saturday, Marline, the lady, came to the activity! And Toshonna, who we visit every week.

Yesterday, Toshonna came to church with her kids for the first time in a while, she said she felt so good for coming to church and felt renewed spiritually. What great blessing from keeping God's commandments. Then we visited older sisters in the ward to bring them the Sacrament.

All in all, super week!

Hope you have an easy transition with the move! Love you!

Today we had a 'chat'.

Today I was online at the same time as Taylor so we were able to chat.  So his letter was our conversation.  I'll just put some highlights:

• when I asked him if he really ate the duck egg, this was his response:  "ya, the whole thing :) you have to slurp the liquids inside first, with a little salt it isn't that bad"
• My response:  "That's sick T."
• I asked if he will stay an AP (Assistant to the President) for the rest of his mission and he said "haha, ya, i'm not that picky anymore, just sort of. I don't think so, President said last week that we probably won't finish as AP's, so I will have one more area, for like a month in the summer."
• He said he has been traveling quite a bit lately.  He went on split offs in Laval and in Ottawa so he was able to attend the baptism of a man he taught when he was there.
• Elder Lopez and I were kept quite busy this week. We made real tacos again, and went to the Moldovan family for dinner. 
• "I have new ideas of what I want to do in my life"...I'm going to start an international non-profit organization to help children and families"
• Then I asked him if he's speaking Spanish and he said "si, un poco, y tu mama, hablas espanol? Sabado, fuimos a una baby shower de una miembro de la barrio espanol. Come muchas commidas."  And I even know what he said as I've been learning Spanish too!

And that was it in a nutshell...she were back and forth with other things like him buying some new shoes and pants etc...which I figured didn't need to be highlighted for this post!  But he is super happy, the weather is warming up in Quebec...it's not 'ben frete' anymore (very Quebecois for very cold outside).  He still speaks all of his languages...and all is well!

A week at a glance...

Hey Mom,

Hope you had a great week! Mine was pretty good. Thanks for Jen's emails, and Bill's email, that was so nice of him! There was a typo on the church website, President isn't leaving. I was fasting about the house too, hope it sells, and you can find a new one. I hope Jamie goes on a mission, it's the best! It is so strange to see Jenna as a missionary, but it is totally awesome! Sister Training Leader, I'm not surprised. She's a champ. Speaking of winter stuff, I will probably send you my stuff when the snow melts. It's all quite bulky. Love the pics! I need to send you more. I have been neglecting my camera lately.

Monday Elder Lopez got his bag stolen out of the back seat of our car. We were parked at the church, and someone came and stole it. It had his camera and his new scriptures in it. Pretty stressful, but we are doing OK. Oh and he just bought the bag too. We went to the Ormeno family for FHE that night, the gave us great Peruvian food.

I've had some inspiration for the future. I'm going to start a non-for-profit organization to help children and families around the world. What would I need to study to do that?

Tuesday I went to Longueuil (just south of Montreal) with Elder Garrett on exchanges. He is a great missionary! He came in the same time as President Patrick, and just got transferred to be a Zone Leader. It was cool, he had many great questions! We taught some Quebecois Rockstars. Lol.

Wednesday we had our Zone Training Meeting, focused on working with members and how to de-stress. Useful stuff. We also had an FHE with Kenny. He is a member in our ward, we are helping him come back to church. He showed us his radios, which was pretty neat.

Thursday, we visited some new members, and some returning ones. It was cool because they both came to church on Sunday!

Friday we had Mission Leadership Council, basically the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders and Assistants all sit in a room with President and make plans to help the missionaries with current concerns. It is always a great time. Then we ate pizza! I went back to Ottawa on another exchange with Elder Pehrson. He is about three months older than me on the mission. We had great discussions about how to study the gospel, and how much it really has helped us. I mean, honestly, people are always wanting their lives to improve. They want to be happier, that is a fact. The thing most people don't realize, is to be happier requires a change, but they are comfortable where they are and are scared to change. The answer is right here, but we get rejected because others can't see that, they just see us as crazy people that want to force religion down their throats. When in reality, we want to help empower then to change their lives, and use the Saviour's Atonement to improve their quality of life. Elder Pehrson is great.

Saturday we had taco night wit the Lungu's, and the family we teach from Moldova. Elder Lopez taught us how to make real Mexican tacos. It was awesome! Then we had a great lesson on the power of prayer. Super night!

Yesterday, like I mentioned, some of the people we are helping came to church! They seemed to have had a good time. Then we had sushi with Victor! We are working with him to get to the temple, so we can go with him.

That's the week in a nutshell. Hope you have a great week! Love you lots!

Love Elder Heinzlmeir

 

Balut is the Filipino term for fertilized duck (or chicken) eggs that contain a nearly developed embryo. They are a common food and are eaten as a snack and prepared similarly to hard boiled eggs, served with salt.  That's what he's attempting to eat...

A cool composition...Montreal from Mount Royal