Bowmanville is just perfect

Howdy folks! Good to hear from so many people, I love weeks with multiple emails! Sorry if this ends up being a bit short- Sister Casner doesn't have a library card yet so we're sharing the time today.

Glad to hear eveything's so well at home. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression of your genealogy knowledge Dad, but if you don't know anything about the Jensens then you're welcome for giving you a good excuse to do some genealogy :) I love how in Canada that seems to be a big focus of the members, maybe this is just a poor reflection on me personally but I feel like at home that wasn't as much as a priority as it is here because so so so many people and families are recent in the church. Someone made a comment in relief society on Sunday about how no one in the room was more than a 3rd or 4th generation in the church and I was like, uhhhh.... Haha but it's cool because I think I'm catching the genealogy bug, hopefully I'll be better at that when I get home. Glad to hear school and work and everything is going well! If you do make it to Utah Dad, tell everyone I say hello and send my love. (As if I don't know you're going to email this to everyone anyways...)

This week has been AMAZING, and this weekend rocked so hard! We started seeing alot of our efforts start to really produce fruit, it's amazing. We found 2 new people to teach. One was a referral from the missionaries in another city, Oshawa, named Kathy. They OYMed her (open your mouth- aka randomly talked to her) at a bus stop and passed on her information to us. She's super sweet and the had already committed her to be baptized before we even met her. So she set a goal for May 13 and is progressing really well, she came to church this Sunday and they announced a single adult activity for that night that she came to. She's a bit shy but I think she loved it. Best lesson with her- we made a puzzle that said "the gospel of Jesus Christ" on it, because we thought an object lesson would help her understand better. So we had her put it together and then took pieces out of it and explained how that's like the great apostasy- after Christ died, pieces of the gospel were lost over time so while people still had the general picture, some crucial points were missing. Then we put them back in and explained how that's like the restoration- God put the pieces back on Earth by calling Joseph Smith to be a prophet. We also talked about how prophets and scriptures are like the picture on a puzzle box- they give you an outline to follow so you can know how to put the pieces of your life together. It was sweet, even if we made it way harder than we meant to- we thought it would be too easy so we added random stars and colored half the letters different colors so you wouldn't think they went together. So now it takes about 4 adults working on it if you want it to take less than half an hour. And the elders that referred her to us gave us another contact last night, so we're hoping she's equally as prepared!

We're also teaching someone named Adam. We OYMed his roommate, Max, but when we came by to see him he was a sleep and Adam opened the door. He said he remembered going to our church for youth activities as a teenager, and invited us back to tell him about activities his kids could go to. So we went back the next day- again to see Max, who again was asleep- and Adam invited us in to talk. We had the puzzle we made for Kathy with us, so we gave it to the kids to do. They gave up after about 5 seconds, so again it was 4 adults, us and Adam and his girlfriend/wife (not sure yet) Tasha, putting it together. it was perfect though, because Adam started asking what made our church different and since we were sitting there doing a puzzle we had a  good excuse to talk. We ended up teaching them all about the restoration and committed Adam to be baptized. We don't know yet if Tasha is super interested, but she was definitely listening- I didn't think she was until we talked about baptism and why we don't baptize until the child is 8. Then she made a comment about how she'd heard that because then they're old enough to choose. She was talking to the kids when we committed Adam to be baptized and set up a return appointment, so we're praying she'll be there and interested as well but we're not sure. But I'd be so excited to teach a family! Dream come true for missionaries! So yeah, the Lord is amazing how he sets things up for us. I don't know how else Adam could have gone so perfectly, I love it!

Other than that, Bowmanville is just perfect. Gloria is still good, though she again wasn't at church which was too bad, she would have loved it. We had ward conference and just talked about the temple basically the whole time, so the Spirit was really strong. Made me miss the temple, the missionaries had a trip last weekend but Bowmanville is too far away by about 15 minutes so we didn't get to go! So sad. But every time I think about the temple I think about what one of the Assistants told me my first night in Canada- "at this time in our life, our work is among the living not the dead, so don't miss the temple too much." For y'all though, that isn't true, so you better be taking advantage of the temple for me!

Sister Casner continues to be hilarious and fantastic, I want you to meet her so bad. Family trip to Nevada and Canada when I get home!!

That's about it. I love you all bunches and bunches! 

Also, it's probably about time to start arranging this: Mother's Day call! Any request for best time to call? I believe I get to skype again :)

Pictures of the week: 

Sister Casner and I, after accidently eating blue jolley ranchers right before an appointment

With our pet, Rufus. He was hanging on our fridge when we came. Silly Elders didn't want to keep him!

Gas station graffiti is the best!

White washing after Elders means buying aLOT of stuff- our cupboards were empty! So our shopping list was the size of me.