Sorry my email was so crappy last week! We had some crazy meetings in Edmonton and a broadcast where our schedule had some minor changes and meetings with Elder Echo Hawk of the 70 and his sweet wife! I learned so much. It was spiritually exhausting! Then on the Friday morning, we rode tripped back the 5 and a half hours with the Elders again. They stopped at every touristy thing. They are good eggs though. We like 'em!
I guess I'll be better about this week and tell you about our lives...
So on Tuesday we had exchanges with the Valleyview Sisters and I got to go with sister Brooks. She is an incredible missionary and I always love exchanges with her because she is a fellow Canadian. And what's better that two Canadians hitting the streets together? So that's exactly what we did! The temperatures dropped again this week and its been cold, but Sister Brooks and I tracted our toes off and met a lot of awesome people! While we weren't super successful in finding those prepared at this time, it was and experience that helped us grow. As President Pattison says "tracting is good for the soul!" and it is. Fun fact... we had pizza three times on Tuesday. In Costco all of the samples were pizzas, then the Elders made us a pizza while we played board games with them during PDay, and then our dinner appointment gave us pizza! It was a good pizza day! Wednesday was mostly full of, you guessed it, tracting!
Thursday morning we drove to Valleyview with the Browns, the senior couple serving here in Grande Prairie, for a district meeting and to exchange back! It was a fun meeting. Then we stopped and got Crooked Creek donuts on the way back. I was pretty happy! Sister Romney and I went to our dinner appointment at our ward mission leader's home and brought him some Crooked Creek donuts. We also cleaned their chicken coop with them and helped to feed their horses. They are a fun family!
Sister Purnell tried to cure sister Romney's hiccups too. It didn't work though. Fun fact: Sister Romney has had incurable hiccups since she was 13! She asked a doctor about it once and he laughed at her. But seriously, every hour she gets at least a couple hiccups. They are so cute, but they get louder when she's hungry. So, solutions for eternal hiccup are welcome here! Haha!
We also had English class Thursday night and for the first time ever we had a student! Yay! Vivian is from Mexico and we tracted into her a while ago and invited her but she never came. Then a member who works at her daughters school told her to come and she did! It was awesome! Members really are so crucial to missionary work. Basically nothing happens until members do something. Then we - you guessed it, tracted. It was pretty cold.
Friday we did some weekly planning, then we randomly got the go ahead to move. The Elders came over and loaded things into their temporary truck and we got a lot of the big things over to our new apartment! It was super good! We got to see a less active member and talk to her about Christ-like attributes, I love studying those! Then we had a yummy dinner out in this little place called Bezanson. We then went back to our apartment to get the Elders to help move us some more. They brought the Tagalog Elders along too. It was awesome! We owe them all brownies!
On Saturday, we got to go to this super cool YSA activity and it was Harry Potter themed. Fun fact... neither I nor my companion has read the Harry Potter books or even seen a whole movie, so we were so lost! But we got sorted into Gryffindor, ate a yummy lunch, made wands and had two non members come! Then we went and did missionary work for a while before going back to the church for a missionary correlation meeting! It was good! We had dinner at this sweet family's house. Then we went tracting because we still had time. We were so not dressed for tracting. It was super cold. We knocked on a lot of doors though, and even got a return appointment out of it! Then we went home and soaked our feet in warm water because they were literally frozen.
Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and I realized it was my last fast Sunday as a missionary! So crazy! We had some great testimonies and lessons at both wards we attended. Iit was good! Lots of people randomly offered to feed us dinner too so it's been a good meal week! We had some lessons fall through, but we had a yummy dinner with an awesome family who gave us more elk jerky! Yum! So good! Then we tracted, we were better equipped this time but it was still cold and most people were watching the Super Bowl so they got a little mad at us for interrupting them. The Elders were invited in by someone so they watched the last bit between teaching this man about the gospel. So I know that the Patriots won through a huuuuge comeback in the final minutes of the game! Tell me if I'm wrong.... haha! We had Sisters stay with us for the night and I felt bad because we literally had zero furniture. It's all at the new place!
Monday we helped this sweet lady clean her house and ate lunch with her. Then we called some people to stopped by, tracted an entire street and actually had a lot of success! Then we ate dinner and had a really good lesson with some awesome investigators, Breanna and Kyle.
I'm working through "my plan" which transitions missionaries back to normal people, apparently, so that's a bit sad. I am going to miss my mission so much! You learn a life time worth of lessons in such a short, short period of time! But on the bright side, I shouldn't be too big of an awkward cat when I get home!
That's really all that happened this week. It was -42 yesterday morning, and today there are extreme cold warnings, but that's about it!
Today I think we are eating Baloot. It's a Filipino food. A half developed duck egg. Should be interesting. Then we are having a taco party though, so that will be fun!
Have a good week! Remember your worth!
Sister Jessica Baker ❤️🍁🇨🇦
