Lame-man and Lemuel

The best (only) district I've ever been a part of ;)

So I thought I came to Canada, but we still don't have any snow on the ground. It's snowed a few times, but it all melts pretty quick. So we have the cold without the bonus of pretty snow everywhere haha

Brent was confirmed this week!! It was so cute to look back and see him and his kids and his wife sitting singing the hymns together. The Plan of Salvation is a family plan. If we just do what Heavenly Father asks, he promises that we'll live with our family forever. Pretty sweet deal. Last Tuesday, we had supper at Brent's house and we were talking about church and he brought up the Liahona and talked about how Laman and Lemuel are so dumb and then he said, "it's even in there name! Laman and Lemuel: Lame-Man and Lemuel." It's so cool to see that he's reading the Book of Mormon and praying and coming to church and is planning on going to the temple in a year with his family.

The gospel is so good.

On Thursday, we had an awesome lesson with an investigator who we've been trying to figure out whether or not to keeping teaching her because she's been struggling to progress in the gospel, but we talked about baptism with her and she said that that's totally what she wants. She just knows that she has to make changes in her life before she can do that. She agreed to keep working with us to help her be ready and to read her scriptures and come to church. Basically the epitome of progressing haha What was double awesome about her lesson though is that she brought a less-active member with her to the lesson. AND we had planned to see that less-active as a back-up plan in case the lesson with our investigator fell through. It was awesome. We ended up basically having two lessons. One for our investigator and one for our less active. Our investigator was so involved in the second lesson too, she was practically leading the discussion. So. Cool.

Tender mercy time: We've been trying to meet with an investigator in the other city we cover (Vegreville) and have literally tried by her house every time we're in Veg for the past month (we go twice a week even). Wednesday was Remembrance Day in Canada so just about everyone had work off and we tried by her house, and she was home!! We had an awesome lesson with her, she's already built an awesome relationship with God, and even said she'd be willing to be baptized!

So we have an investigator Roni. I'm sure I've talked about her before but just to recap, she's been investigating the church for about a year, she's been taught every lesson probably three times, comes to church faithfully every week, reads scriptures all the time, listened to all of general conference, but has always been resistant to baptism. She felt like she wasn't sure about Joseph Smith, so she's always said she doesn't want to agree to a church while being unsure about the foundations of it. She agreed to have a blessing since she's trying to decide whether or not to be baptized and blessings are perfect for helping in making tough decisions. It was an awesome blessing and when we were talking to her about it later, Sister Hill asked her if she wants to believe in Joseph Smith. Roni thought about it for a while and then said, "Well, when I think about it, it makes me feel good." HOLY CATS. That's all ya need people! The Holy Ghost confirms truth and one of the ways he does that is through FEELINGS. All good things come from God. Moroni 7: 12, 13. Heavenly Father wouldn't have had Roni feel good about the gospel if it weren't true. We shared all that with Roni and long story short, she has finally agreed to be baptized!!! SO. HAPPY.

Sometimes it seems like spiritual confirmations and impressions need to be like someone shouting in your ear or hitting you on the head, but more often than not, they won't be. They're probably going to be more like that "feeling" right or wrong. We'll be walking up to a house and Sister Hill will say something like, "Nope. Not here. It doesn't feel right." "FEEL." And it's not just general feelings. Galatians 5 says we can know when we feel the Spirit through, "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

It's so important to try and be aware of and follow the Spirit. That's Heavenly Father's way of communicating to us. It's how we know what he wants us to do.

Peace and Blessings

Sister Hepworth

P.S. Remember Apollo? The crazy dog that tried to kill us every time we went near the house? We've been praying that we could find a way to be able to talk to Chris (Apollo's owner and our investigator we haven't seen in a month because Apollo won't let us get to the door). Well we noticed a couple days ago that Apollo wasn't outside, so we took advantage of the rare opportunity and knocked on his door. When we'd knocked on the door previously when Apollo was inside, Apollo would dart out the door, and they'd have to chase him down all over town. So when we knocked and they opened the door Sister Hill immediately said, "Don't let Apollo get out!" To which they responded, "Apollo died today." Oh. Oh my. We killed Apollo. We prayed to be able to talk to Chris and apparently our prayers were answered. Apollo was pretty old so they'd been expecting it for a while. Still sad. And just ever so slightly funny. The Lord works in mysterious ways. (Look up 1 Nephi 4:13 and replace "man" for dog)

Vegreville has a bunch of Ukranians living their and apparently Ukranians have a thing with fancy eggs so there's a giant rotating egg in town. It's seriously probably 15 feet tall.

Another town that our branch covers (Mundare) has a famous meat-processing plant and the town decided to commemorate it with a GIANT sausage-link.