Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Hello from Hali!
Hey everyone! How's it going? So transfer call came in last night and....drumroll.... I'm staying in Halifax but I will have a new companion, Elder D. Hansen (there's like 4 elder hansens in the mission). I hear he is a great missionary so I am excited.

We've been working hard to get investigators to church on Sunday and finally we were blessed with not 1, not 2 but 5 investigators at church. That was more then a quarter of the zones for the week. It was good they all really liked it. There is a young couple who came. The guy doesn't really have a belief in God but we had a great lesson on prayer in the Elders Quorum and he really liked it. We showed them around the church afterwards and they said they wanted to come again next week! Hurray! We see them again tomorrow and hopefully they will start praying soon and be getting some answers to their prayers.

Last week was an extraordinary week. I went on a few exchanges because my companion is district leader. During one of the exchanges we decided to focus on a prayer a lot. We prayed all day wherever we went and we blessed to find people to talk to. We went to this one area to knock that we had prayed about. We didn't have the chance to because everyone we had talked to on the street was great and listened. When it got later after our tea appointment (dinner appointment), We had a little less then an hour. We weren't sure to do so my companion for the day Elder Laine, said lets pray again and pray so we can reach our goals that we had set for the day, So I said a prayer that we would know what to do so we could reach our goal, which was to find 2 more investigators so we would have 4 for the day. Well afterwards we both felt like to start walking to the flat (we were in Town Centre which is empty at night) and just talk to everyone we see. Before we even got around the corner we met a couple who we spoke to, Shared a lessona nd got a return appointment. We said a prayer right there with them and boom! Our 2 new investigators! It was great.
Another time was the next day. Me and my normal companion, Elder Eggleston were leaving the flat in the morning to go street contacting. I got the distinct impression to walk down to Town Centre instead of taking the bus which was only a minute away. So we walked down instead. As we did we found 1 new investigator and we ran into an old investigator who we had not been able to get a hold of for quite awhile. We were able to talk to her and see how she was doing, hopefully we will be able to see her again soon.
Things have been great in Halifax. We had 5 investigators at church this week. A young couple who are really nice and are going to come again next week. The guy doesn't have a belief in God yet but he feels there something there. He really enjoyed the more discussion type format that our Elders Quorum and Gospel Principles classes are.
As far as me, I'm doing fine. Really getting into the work and getting excited. Not gaining any weight yet. Still not able to go running but we have the bench in the flat still and so I work out every morning. Hopefully my new companion will go running with me. Oh and we are no longer in a 4 man flat. The other 2 elders moved out and went to other places so Halifax is down to 2 Missionaries again.
Thanks for everyones support and letters. If you sent any recently I won't get it for awhile due to the volcano in Iceland and planes not being able to fly. Darn. So boring here without post. But I love everyone! Cheers!


Elder Dudgeon

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Happy Easter

Hey everyone!



Happy late Easter. How was everyones? Ours was good because of conference all weekend but just not the same with out a big family dinner. Wish I could have been there. But we've had an ok week. We didn't get to see the last Session on Sunday because of time difference. Also none of our Investigators came out so we were pretty bummed about that. But we're printing out talks today and bringing them by so that they can still read them.
We didn't get to email yesterday because it was a bank holiday. But they allowed us an hour this morning so sorry about that. Yesterday for P-Day we played some football. Like real football. We found an actual full sized pitch to play on and the rain held off. So with almost all the missionaries in the zone plus a few members we had a full game going. I played goalie for a third of the time and did well. Then the rest of the time I was just playing mid. It was so much fun, but now I'm really sore. It's all good though becuse I've been working out and stuff every morning like the white handbook says to and it makes me less sore. I recover a lot quicker.
On the spiritual side of things, we found a couple good solid investigators this last week that we will be seeing this week. One we met while walking up to our flat for lunch. We were street contacting in town and were finishing up. We had the choice to walk back up or to take the bus like we usually do. I felt like walking so we could keep talking to people. And thats when we ran into a guy named Mark who already has a Book of Mormon and said he had been feeling like reading and getting into it more.
The other one is a man we knocked into named Jock (yes Jock). He's an older man but very smart. He likes to learn things and study things. He grew up Catholic and is very confused about his feelings of God because of the things he and his family has experienced growing up. He had lots of questions for us. I prayed in my had to give him answers because at the time I only had a Book of Mormon that we give to people. So it's not marked. He asked like 3-4 big questions and each one a scripture just sort've popped out at me that was a perfect answer. We gave him that Book of Mormon and we commited him to read it. We should be seeing him tomorrow (Wednesday), and see how it's been going.
A third one is a man we've been teaching. We've seen him a few times. We taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation and he's liking it all. Says it makes sense to him. We even committed him to pray about things, about anything. He's started to pray a lot he says at work. He works at a machine shop and he says it has been very stressful for him because of quotas and deadlines they face from the buyers. But after he started praying they have been meeting their deadlines and the quality of the work has really impressed the buyers. In our last lesson he started bring up issues like gmabling, drinking, smoking, tea and coffee, and chastity. Things we never had talked about to him before. He says he is not ready or able to get married right now because he does have a partner (a partner here is a girlfriend who's basically their wife just not legally). He was asking if he could go to church even with that problem and we were so happy to tell him yes. So hopefully this Sunday we will get him out to church. We have another appointment with him this Friday.
This week should be a good week. Hopefully we have a baptism scheduled by the end of the transfer which is in 2 weeks. I'll probably be staying here in Halifax and be getting a new companion. We'll see though. I miss you all and thank you to everyone who has sent me letters. Keep sending, I love post! And Pictures too!
Cheers,

Elder Dudgeon