Calling home for Mother's day and other assorted miracles

The most exciting news from Katelyn over the past few weeks was when she called us on Mother's day.  Actually, she was able to Skype so that we could see her and she could see us.  It was great!! The whole family was here, except for Katelyn obviously, and we well all able to talk to her.  We set the laptop up so that she could see all of us sitting around the family room.  We talked about the weather, we talked about all of the news from home and we talked about the people that she is currently teaching and her new responsibilities as a Sister Training Leader.  It was great to hear from her and she really looks good.  Having missionaries out in the mission field makes Mother's Day and Christmas the best holidays of the year. 

After having just talked with Katelyn on Mother's Day over Skype, we didn't think that we would hear from her again for at least another week.  But just two days later we got another email from her.  I asked her why she was emailing that day since we had just talked over Skype a couple of days before.  She told me that in the last couple of days she and her companion had some great spiritual experiences and they just needed to write home and tell us about them.  I can't really get into the details here of what Katelyn told us but basically while they were tracting the previous day, many different things came together all at once which allowed them to come in contact with some wonderful people who are very interested in learning more about the Gospel.  In fact these people have already had a lot of contact with other members of the Church in the area and love and respect many of them.  Katelyn described this whole experience of meeting these people as probably the best missionary experience that she has had so far.  She was just so excited to write home and tell us about it.

Things just keep moving forward for Katelyn in Spruce Grove.  In one of her most recent emails she told us that when she first arrived in Spruce Grove just a few weeks ago. They really didn't have anybody to teach.  Now just a few weeks later, they have nine new investigators and a ton of teaching opportunities.  As Katelyn put it:

"So we have found all these people to start teaching just in the past couple weeks! It has been so amazing. Seriously so many miracles are happening everywhere in the mission. Missionary work is blowing up! The work really is hastening! I love it here! I love serving in Spruce Grove! We have been so blessed! And so many people are so prepared for the gospel."

 It is amazing just how fast time is flying by.  Many of Katelyn's friends who have gone on missions are now coming home.  Some of her other friends are getting married and Katelyn is coming up on her one year mark on her mission.  It was only just a few weeks ago that she was transferred to Spruce Grove and now it is time for transfers again.  Katelyn told us this week that they received the transfer calls and she will be staying in Spruce Grove but her current companion will be moving to another area.  Katelyn referred to her new companion as her Grandma.  That sounds a little strange for missionaries and no her new companion isn't a single older sister.  What she meant by "Grandma" is that her new companion was the trainer of Katelyn's trainer.  So Katelyn's first companion, who was her trainer is referred to as Katelyn's mother.  And her trainer's trainer would be Katelyn's Grandma.  Got it?  Ok, it still sounds a little silly but hey, they are missionaries and that's the mission tradition.  So I guess Katelyn's Grandma (new companion) only has a couple of months left before she returns home.  This will probably be the first time that Katelyn actually sends a companion home.  The crazy thing is that by the time that happens, Katelyn will only have a few months left before she returns home as well.  Crazy how time flies.

In Katelyn's latest email she again told us about all of the miracles that are happening in Spruce Grove.  Katelyn and her new companion have met a few new investigators and their teaching pool just keep increasing.  They have also spent some of their time doing service for some of the people in their area.  This last week they helped to gut a trailer that will be remodeled and fixed up for one of the members in the area.  Katelyn said that she and some of the other missionaries had a lot of fun tearing out walls and ripping everything up.  I guess service is service even if it does involve a bit of demolition.

A month full of miracles

There have been some big changes for Katelyn in the last month.  For starters, Katelyn has been assigned to a new area.  She is now in a city called Spruce Grove which is just west of Edmonton.  On top of that, Katelyn has been called as a new Sister Training Leader.  This is actually the second time that Katelyn has served as a Sister Training Leader.  If you recall, Katelyn was called as an STL during her short time in the Provo MTC.  If you are not familiar with what a Sister Training Leader is, it is basically the equivalent of a Zone Leader except that a Sister Training Leader has a responsibility for the Sisters in the Zone.  So this is a pretty big responsibility for Katelyn and her companion.  Her new Zone in Spruce Grove extends northwest of Edmonton up to a town called Grande Prairie which is about a 5 hour drive.  This means that at least once a month, Katelyn and her companion will be driving to Grande Prairie to meet with the Sister Missionaries there, go on exchanges and do some training.  She will also be responsible for participating with the Zone training each month as well.  Even though this is a great opportunity to serve as an STL in the mission, Katelyn will really miss all of the people that she has come to know and love in the Panoka area.  She spent basically half of her mission in this area, serving in Red Deer, Panoka and Lancomb.  It will be hard for her to leave.

In the past few weeks, Katelyn has written us about some of the most spiritual experiences that she has had on her mission.  I will try to retell the stories here and hopefully my version of her stories will come close to the impact that we could feel through her emails.  The first story starts out with Katelyn and her companion going to Edmonton for a training meeting.  While they were in Edmonton, they got permission to attend a temple session.  Since they still had a little while before their scheduled session time, they decided to go to the mall to take care of some errands that they need to do.  On their way to the temple after leaving the mall, they both noticed that somewhere along the way they had misplaced their cell phone.  They searched the car thinking that maybe it dropped out on the floor but the phone wasn't there.  Then they started to retrace their steps through the mall hoping that they would run across the phone, but no luck.  It was now getting very close to their temple session time and they knew that they had to hurry.  Finally they got the idea to check with guest services at the mall and sure enough, somebody had turned in the phone and they were able to get it back.  They raced back to the temple but unfortunately they missed their session by about 10 minutes.  So rather than actually going through a temple session, they decided to do some initiatory work.  This is where the exciting part happens.  As Katelyn was going through the initiatory session for each of the names that she had been assigned, she noticed one name on the page who was from Ecuador.  If you have read this blog for very long, you know that Katelyn has a very close tie to Ecuador after having spent several months working in the orphanages in Cuenca.  Upon reading the name, Katelyn started crying and got an over whelming feeling that the sister for whom she was about to do the work, was right there with her.  At that moment Katelyn knew why it took them so long to find their cell phone and why they ended up missing the temple session.  Katelyn knew that she needed to be doing the initiatory work for that Ecuadorian sister at that moment.

These next stories came from Katelyn's most recent email home.  This email just started out with one word: MIRACLES!.  Katelyn and her companion had made the 5 hour drive to Grande Prairie to go on exchanges with the Sister missionaries in that area.  The sisters from Grande Praire had another meeting that they needed to attend so that gave Katelyn and her companion a little bit of time to go tracting.  The way that Katelyn usually goes about tracting is that she first starts out driving until she feels like they should turn or stop and this time was no different.  After driving around for a few minutes, Katelyn finally felt impressed to pull the car over and start knocking on doors.  Since Grande Prairie isn't their normal area, they both decided to try a few different kinds of door approaches.  The first house that they went to, nobody answered.  But the second house was a different story.  Katelyn said that a nice lady answered the door and immediately called them, SISTERS.  This took them by surprise and they thought that maybe they had tracted into a member's house without knowing.  They asked the lady if she was a member of the church and she responded, no.  But she knew some people who were members of the church who had sent some of their kids on missions.  So she knew about the Elder missionaries but was surprised to see sister missionaries.  The lady invited Katelyn and her companion in and ended up listening to the whole first lesson.  What are the odds that these Sister Missionaries would park right in front of this lady's house who was willing and ready to listen to a gospel lesson, if they weren't actually being lead by the spirit?

The next story happened the very next day while Katelyn was on an exchange with one of the other Sister missionaries from the area.  It was getting kind of late in the evening and they figured that they had about 10 minutes before they needed to get back to the apartment.  So again Katelyn suggested that they just do a little bit of tracting for the last 10 minutes.  They parked the car near their apartment and then started walking down the road.  They passed the first house and knocked on the door of the second house on the street.  A man answered the door and told the Sisters that he really wasn't interested.  So the Sisters wished him a good evening and decided to knock on one more door.  This time a lady answered the door and immediately invited the Sisters in.  They talked for a while about Jesus Christ and the missionaries shared the first lesson with this lady.  They even showed a video to her using her own laptop.  The lady loved the video and they all talked a little bit more about the plan of salvation.  As they turned to leave, the lady invited them back to talk some more.  Katelyn said that it was just an amazing experience.  When they got back to the apartment, they shared their experience with the other sister missionaries.  As it turned out, the other sisters had also gone tracting down the same street.  Except they tracted the first house and then decided to go somewhere else while Katelyn and her companion tracted the second and third house not knowing that the other sisters had been on the same road.  Again, what are the odds?

Needless to say, a lot of great things have been happening with Katelyn.  She is loving her new calling, she is loving the work and she is loving the people.  What more could a missionary ask for?

Just a few pictures to enjoy!

Happy 21st Birthday

 

Just enjoying a little birthday cake

 

 

Hamming it up with the Sista's

 

Katelyn and her companion outside of the Edmonton temple

How great is missionary life...

   Oh, life as a missionary.  Let me start this entry out by talking about the little annoyances that missionaries have to put up with once in a while.  One of those little annoyances is ants.  That's right, I'm talking about the little creepy crawling things that usually don't hurt you but when you see them crawling around, they are just annoying. 
    Katelyn wrote us a few weeks ago and told us about the ants in her apartment.  The weather is still cold in Canada but warm enough for the ants to start moving again.  Of course just like every other living thing, they want to get warm too.  So the warmest place around is inside the missionary's apartment.  Katelyn and her companion have been keeping their apartment really clean, but the ants don't seem to care.  A few weeks ago Katelyn and her companion got home from an all day training meeting and interviews in Red Deer only to find ants all over their apartment.  The ants were crawling all over the floor, on their desk and who knows where else.  Katelyn has been spraying ant killer around the apartment to see if that will take care of the problem.  But there seems to be more ants than killer.  So these sister missionaries have just had to get inventive.  Everybody has been telling them how to get rid of the ants but nothing seems to work.  Therefore, turn it into a game.  Whenever you enter the apartment, go on an ant hunt.  Ants are pretty easy to hunt.  The only problem is that there are too many of them.  The good news is that spring is coming, the weather is warming up and soon the ants will like it better outside rather than inside.
    Now that we have started with a funny story, why not continue.  Katelyn told us that not long ago after a missionary meeting that they had, they went out to their car to find a sticky note on the rear-view mirror.  The sticky not said, "Gal. 1:8, Read it".  This scripture says something about being cursed if you preach any other gospel.  Since the sisters didn't know who left the note, they got a little worried that somebody might be stalking them.  Then it dawned on them that it was probably the Elders just playing a joke.  When they confronted the Elders, of course they denied doing anything.  A little later on, the Ward mission leader found out and was just about to report it to the housing coordinator for the mission.  Well, this scared the Elders a bit, because obviously they did it, so they fess'ed up and came clean.  I think that you would have probably had to be there in order to get why this story is so funny, but Katelyn assured us that it was and everybody had a good laugh over it. 
    Sticking with the funny story stuff, this one is sure to make you laugh.  Here is Katelyn just cheesing it up for the camera.

Yes, those are cheetos in her mouth.  I'm not sure what possessed her to make lips out of cheetos but she said that it took her quite a while to find the exact size of cheetos to fit just right in her mouth.
     Have you ever seen a video or wondered what happens when you take a cup of hot water and throw it into the air in -40 degree weather.  If you haven't ever seen this, well here is your chance.  Or you could just Google it, there are plenty of other videos on the Internet.  But we kind of like this one because it features someone that we love.

    Katelyn wrote us a week or so ago and told us that the primary had asked her and her companion to play two different parts in a little skit for the primary children.  So one of them dressed up as a Nephite and the other one dressed up as Mary Magdalene.  During the skit they had to play their parts as someone was narrating the story.  Katelyn played the part of May Magdalene seeing the resurrected Savior.  Basically, their customs where made out of some table clothes that they wrapped around themselves.  But nevertheless, Katelyn said that it was really a spiritual experience playing these parts for the primary children.

    Even though these Sisters are having a great time serving the Lord in any way that they can, not everything always goes their way.  Katelyn told us in her latest letter that she had kind of a tough week.  She told us about some of the struggles that they have been having with the people that they have been teaching.  She also told us about some of the struggles that some of the members of their Ward have been having due to health issues and other things.  A mission is a growing experience.  Sometimes the experiences are great and sometime they are not so great.  Either way these experiences make you a better person.  Katelyn has and is finding this out on her mission.  Her older brothers found this out while they were serving as missionaries not long ago and hopefully her younger brother will also come to find out just how much a mission can serve him while he is serving others.

Serving the Lord at 40 below

First of all, we need to start out this blog entry with the fact that Katelyn is now famous.  Well, maybe she is famous if you are visitor to the Canadian version of LDS.org.  But hey, famous is famous right?  Take a look at this article that was recently posted on the Canadian LDS.org site.  It is an article that is all about the increased number of missionaries in the Canadian missions.  Just click on this link to read this article.  It is called "Responding to the call for more missionaries".  This article not only talks about Katelyn's mission but several other Canadian missions and missionaries.  So out of  all of the missions and missionaries now serving in Canada, Katelyn was one of the few chosen to share her story about why she decided to serve a mission.

Over the past few weeks, a new opportunity has come about for Katelyn and her companion.  Just a few weeks ago, Katelyn and her companion were trying to find different ways in which they could serve the community of Ponoka.  Their main idea was to call around to different community centers and other similar places to see if they could volunteer in any way possible.  They quickly discovered that volunteering to work and serve, although counter intuitive, was just about as hard as simply finding a job.  The problem that they ran into was that many of the places wanted volunteers but they required a background check and a commitment that the volunteer would be around for a certain period of time.  As missionaries who are constantly changing areas every six weeks, by the time they completed a background check and started their volunteer work, it would be time to move to a new area.  But after a lot of calling and talking with people, they were able to find a great opportunity.   They will be volunteering at the local hospital every Tuesday morning, helping to organize and lead a multi-denominational church service.  So far they have only be doing this for just the past couple of weeks.  Katelyn hasn't really told us a lot about what they have done yet, but she said in her latest email that they had a really great discussion with one of the Pastors of a church there in Ponoka.  She really feels that this opportunity will yield a lot more great experiences and I'm sure that as those experiences come, we will hear more about them.

There seems to be a lot of opportunities in Ponoka for service.  Everything from visiting people in the hospitals to working as a volunteer to shoveling snow and helping others move to new locations.  Recently Katelyn told us a story about how she had over heard a lady talking with someone at the library and saying that she needed help moving out of her house.  In the conversation she said that she would even be willing to pay someone a hundred dollars if they would help her.  At that point Katelyn jumped into the conversation and told the lady that she would be able to find a truck and a group of people to help her move and the lady wouldn't even need to pay them.  They were willing to do the work for free.  A few days later, Katelyn was able to coordinate with Branch President and the Elders quorum to help the lady move out of her house into a nearby apartment.  After the work was done and everything was moved, Katelyn told us just how grateful the lady was for all of the help and how much she wanted to stay in touch with the missionaries.  Who knows if this contact will go any farther than that, but at least Katelyn, her companion and the other volunteers were able to leave a good impression on this lady of who they are and what they stand for.

Katelyn and her companion spend quite a lot of their time visiting less active members of the church in their area.  As Katelyn has explained to us on several different occasions,  some of their visits are great and very inspiring and others are just strange.  But for the most part, Katelyn is very happy with every opportunity to serve, no matter how big or small the task.  She has told us that since her area is so small, trying to find new people to teach is challenging.  Over the past several months they have been able to find new investigators and done their best to teach them the Gospel, but it has been difficult to actually get some of these people to come to church.  Katelyn knows that they feel the spirit when the missionaries are in their homes and teaching them the lessons.  She knows this because the people have told them so and are usually very excited to have the missionaries return.  But when it comes to taking the next step, that is when the feelings start to weaken and things don't quite come together.  One thing is for sure however, Katelyn is learning a lot, serving a lot and very happy with what she is doing.

Spring, or anything close to it, has definitely not yet arrived in Canada.  In Utah the temperatures have been hovering in the 40 and 50 degree range which is a bit warm for this time of year.  But in Ponoka Canada and every where else in that area, it is still the dead of winter.  Katelyn has told us several times that they wake up to -40 degree temperatures almost every morning.  In her email last week she said that they had been helping several people move in -38 to -45 degree weather.  The snow just doesn't seem to quit either.  Katelyn said that they just got a few more inches of snow the night before.  Having to spend even one winter in Canada really makes you appreciate the fact that even our coldest winter days are nothing like Ponoka.  If nothing else, be grateful for that.

Finally, Katelyn related to us a really neat story about a lady that she had met in Red Deer.  This lady had been through some very trying times and just before Katelyn was transferred from Red Deer to Ponoka, the Elders had given this lady a blessing.  Katelyn said that the experience that evening was very powerful and she had thought about this lady many times and had wondered how she was doing.  This last week Katelyn had the opportunity to see and visit with this lady on a chance meeting while waiting at the church building for the Zone Leaders to arrive.  This gave Katelyn the opportunity to learn a little bit about how this lady was doing and also to tell this lady just how meaningful she had been in Katelyn's life.  A little later as Katelyn and her companion were driving home, they were listening to some church music when the hymn "Be Still My Soul" started playing.  There is a line in the song that says, "He'll guide the future as he has the past".  This line hit Katelyn really hard as she thought about this lady and all that she had been through in the past and what she will be doing in the future.  Katelyn said this line in the hymn was the perfect thing to hear and it was very meaningful to her in that moment.

To finish off this entry, here are just a few pictures that Katelyn sent home over the last few weeks. 

Trying a little too hard to take advantage of the grocery store coupons, these two sisters went a little overboard on the Rice Krispy treats.

This one is a bit of an inside family joke.  Katelyn is referring to this place as the recommended Bed and Breakfast when we tour her mission in a year or so.

Receiving her Valentine's Day package from home.

Fun in the Canadian snow with the whole district.

A little snow and a little service brings opportunities

Katelyn is doing well in Canada but she is growing a little tired of the short days and long nights.  Luckily the Winter Solstice has passed and the days are slowly getting longer instead of shorter.  But the weather has still been very cold and snowy.  Katelyn sent us a few pictures recently of all of the snow.  Some of the snow banks are taller than the trucks that are parked next to them.

In fact, the Edmonton area gets so much snow that snow plows alone don't really cut it.  The snow banks pile up so high that they literally have to truck the snow away.  Check this out.

If you can't quite tell what is going on in this picture, there is a very large snow blower mounted to the front of a tractor which is blowing the snow into the back of a semi-trailer.  Somewhere outside of town there must be a very large pile of snow where it gets dumped.

With this much snow you would think that just shoveling your driveway would be a large task.  Well it is. But for the missionaries it is also a big opportunity.  Katelyn told us a story about going out to help some of their neighbors shovel their walks as a service project.  On one occasion as Katelyn and her companion were going to borrow a snow shovel from a church member, they came across a lady and her kids out shoveling their driveway.  So Katelyn and her companion took that as an opportunity to stop and help out.  While they were all clearing the snow off of the driveway, they took the chance to talk a little bit about the church and found out that this lady and her family were very interested in knowing more.  So from a little hard work and a bit of service, a little more missionary work was done.

Katelyn and her companion have also been doing a lot of visiting with some of the less active members in the area.  Some of their experiences have been good and some not so good.  I won't go into detail about the visits here but I can say that in some of there visits, aliens and outhouses seemed to be prime topics of conversation.  But never the less, Katelyn was still able to share a few scriptures and thoughts and sometimes that is all that can be done.  At least for now.

It is transfer time again so as soon as Katelyn had a chance to email home to tell us about it, she did. But when we got her email, she started it out with "We got transfer calls this morning... and...", and that was all that the email said.  Oh great, she is going to leave us hanging.  Then she followed up with another email that said that she would be staying in Panoka but her companion was being transferred back to Edmonton.  I asked Katelyn what was going on with her and companions.  This is the third companion she has had since moving to Panoka.  Is she just working them so hard that they are getting worn out or what.  No, actually her companion was being transferred to Edmonton because she had been called as a Sister Training Leader.  This meant that Katelyn needed to stay in Panoka to train another companion on the area.  So Katelyn told us a little about her new companion and that they are getting along really well.  Katelyn has really been blessed with great companions and she has been able to do some great missionary work with them all.

Katelyn told us a story about how they were having dinner at one of the member's houses and the member asked if the sisters had gotten their flu shots yet.  Apparently the availability of flu shots is a bit scares in their area so they would have to travel to a clinic in Red Deer to find the shots.  This member was going to go the early the next morning so that they could get a good place in line at the clinic.  Katelyn and her companion cleared the flu shot trip with their mission president and the next morning they were on their way.  When they got to the clinic, Katelyn told us that it was like Black Friday before Christmas.  People were lined up around the block waiting their turn to get a flu shot.  Being early in the morning, the sky was still dark and the temperatures were still extremely cold.  Like -25 degrees cold.  So they got in line and waited outside in the cold for about 35 minutes.  Katelyn said that by the time they got in to the clinic, they were all frozen.  Katelyn doesn't really do well with needles and getting a flu shot was no exception.  So after all of the little kids had already gotten their shots and were doing great, it was Katelyn's turn.  The little kids rallied around Katelyn and told her to think about unicorns and puppies and that everything would be fine.  Well she got through the trauma of a flu shot and they even gave her a juice box to make her feel better.  Here they are standing outside of the clinic waiting to get their shots.

   
  Katelyn included a little poem that she likes so I will include it here.

"Faith to be faith must be centered around something that is not known.  Faith to be faith must go beyond that which there is confirming evidence.  Faith to be faith must go into the unknown.  Faith to be faith must walk to the edge of the light and then a few steps into the darkness.  Strive to gain greater faith this week by taking a few steps into the darkness.  The Lord is with us, he loves us and will not let us fail."

Christmas time in Canada

It's Christmas and guess what that means?  Well besides the obvious which is what Christmas is all about, it also means that we get a call from our missionary daughter.  This is actually the fifth Christmas in a row that we have received a call from one of our missionary children and this year it is Katelyn's turn to call home.  But rather than just calling home on the phone like her brothers did, we got to skype with her on Christmas which meant that we were able to see her as well as talk to her.

As I mentioned, this is the fifth Christmas in a row that we have received a call from one of our missionary children.  This also means that we haven't had our entire family physically together for Christmas in five years either.  But, through the miracle of the Internet and skype, we were all able to be together virtually.  This year for Christmas two of Katelyn's brothers were here at home, her other brother was in St. George and of course Katelyn was in Ponoka, Alberta, Canada.  When Katelyn finally skyped home on Christmas afternoon, we conferenced in her brother from St. George which allowed us to all be together for Christmas.  Well, at least on the computer screen.  Katelyn is doing very well and was just as excited to call home as we were to hear from her.  She told us all about some of the people that she and her companion are currently teaching.  She talked about how cold it is at this time of the year and how little sun light they get everyday.  Here in Utah during the winter we average about 9 1/2 hours of sun light.  But since Katelyn is much further north, the sun goes down at about 3:30 pm and they average about 7 1/2 hours of sun each day.  That makes the days short and the nights long and cold.  Also during the call, we told Katelyn all about some of the things that have been going on at home and laughed and joked just like we were all sitting around the dinner table.  It was a wonderful Christmas present for all of us and a great time to be together as a family.

Transfers came and went a couple of weeks ago.  Katelyn was sure that she and her companion would stay together for another transfer but to their surprise, her companion was asked to move to Edmonton.  This meant that Katelyn would be staying in Ponoka and would be getting a new companion.  Not long after that, Katelyn's new companion arrived and they immediately hit it off.  Katelyn told us that they are so similar that it seems strange some times.  Katelyn told us that they have some new ideas for moving the missionary work forward in their area.  But unfortunately on her companion's first night in Ponoka, they had a bit of an unpleasant experience with some of the people that they had just started teaching.  I won't go into the details here, but it was kind of an uncomfortable way for Katelyn's companion to be introduced to a new area.  Well, so goes missionary work.  You never really know what experiences you are going to gain each day.  But fortunately after that experience, things were all uphill from there.  Katelyn told us about some great lessons that they taught to a family that they had met not too long ago.  She was so excited about the progress that they had made and the changes that they were making in their lives. 

Just before Christmas, Katelyn and her companion got the opportunity to travel up to Edmonton for a few days.  Katelyn said that they stayed with some of the Sisters that were assigned to the Ellerslie area.  This is the same area where Katelyn's MTC companion was serving so Katelyn was able to talk to her and catch up on some of the experiences that she has had since the time that they both arrived in Canada together.  They also attended a Zone Conference while they were in Edmonton and got the opportunity to go to the temple as well.  Because their day was so full, they didn't actually get through until about 8:30 pm which didn't really give them enough time to drive back to Ponoka.  So instead, Katelyn and her companion ended up staying in the mission home with several other Sisters who were also assigned to areas outside of Edmonton.  Katelyn said that it was a lot of fun to be around some of the other Sisters in the Edmonton mission.  Since she and her companion are the only two Sisters serving in Ponoka, they don't have a lot of opportunities to interact with some of the other Sister missionaries.

Overall, Katelyn had a great Christmas.  Obviously it was a very different Christmas in a very different area of the world and very different experiences and circumstances as well.  But that is what makes life and missions interesting.  Katelyn's Mom sent a few packages containing Christmas presents for Katelyn to open on Christmas.  And in addition to that, the member of the Church in the Ponoka and Lancomb area were very good to Katelyn and her companion as well.  Katelyn sent us a picture of their tiny Christmas tree in their apartment with all of the present beneath it.  Many, if not most of the presents that they received this Christmas were from the kind people in their Ward.  Thank you all for taking care of our daughter and making sure that her first mission Christmas is one to remember.

Katelyn's little Christmas tree in the corner of her apartment.

With the help of her Mom and the Church members in the area, this is what Katelyn and her companion's Christmas tree looked like on Christmas day.

 

Take a look at the temperature.  -37c is actually about -35 F.  This is cold, but very useful when it comes to baking cookies.  See below...

Katelyn explained to us how they bake cookies in Canada.  12 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees.  Then chill for 30 seconds in the snow at -35 degrees.  Mmm... perfect!

Here is Katelyn at the Lancomb library emailing home.  What would a library be without a library cat?  Apparently this cat just wanders around the library and greets the patrons all day.

Katelyn and her companion building gingerbread houses at the community center.  This has been a Christmas tradition since Katelyn was a little girl. 

Wild adventures in the Canadian wilderness

It is Christmas time here in Utah which usually means that winter has arrived and everybody is hoping for a white Christmas.  But in Ponoka Canada where Katelyn is serving, winter arrived about six weeks ago and there is no sign of it letting up anytime soon.  Katelyn has sent us several pictures of all of the snow and cold weather that they are getting now.  So just to give you an idea of what a short fall and a long winter is like in Canada, take a look at these pictures.  Also, in one of Katelyn's most recent letters home, she told us a great story about a car, a snow packed road and a couple of moose that you aren't going to want to miss.   But I'll get back to that a little later.

 

Every week Katelyn writes home and tells us all about how crazy her week has been.  She and her companion have been visiting people in the hospital, working with some of the less active members of the church in the area, helping out with service projects and teaching lessons to people that they have met.  Katelyn told us about a recent experience that they had in Edmonton a few weeks ago. 

Recently they got a call from the Sister missionaries in Edmonton who had been teaching a lady from Korea.  This lady had only moved to Canada a few weeks before and must have been struggling a bit with having to learn English.  Since Katelyn's companion is also from Korea, the Edmonton Sisters wanted Katelyn's companion to help teach this lady just to make sure that she was understanding everything correctly.  So Katelyn and her companion traveled to Edmonton to go on splits with the Edmonton Sisters.  While Katelyn's companion went with one of the Edmonton Sisters to teach in Korean, Katelyn and the other Edmonton Sister went to a dinner appointment with a member family nearby who had invited some of their friends to listen to the missionaries.  After teaching a great lesson to this new family, they went on some other visits and then ended up doing a little tracting just to finish up the evening.  Katelyn and her companion ended up staying in Edmonton that night and then going on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders the next day.  It turned out that the Ward where the Sister Training Leaders were assigned is also the same Ward as one of Katelyn's friends from Ecuador.  So this gave Katelyn an opportunity to stop by and catch up with one of the girls that Katelyn served with in the orphanages of Cuenca just last year.  Katelyn told us just how much fun it was to see her friend again and to catch up on some memories of their time in Ecuador.

A few weeks ago, Katelyn and her companion spent the day in Lacombe which is a few miles south of Ponoka.  They spent most of the day visiting with some of the elderly sisters in the area which Katelyn said was super fun.  While they were in Lacombe, the young women leaders in the Ward asked if they would stay and help with a young women's activity that they were having.  Apparently this activity was a blind make up/spa night.  I'm not exactly sure what that means but when you see the pictures that Katelyn sent home, they might lead you to believe that maybe it had something to do with doing your makeup with your eyes shut or something like that.  Take a look.

 

Katelyn's Raggety-Anne look.

Now I said previously that this was a young women's activity yet none of the women in these pictures look like they are part of the young women organization.  Well, since some of the young women didn't have their Mom's there, they invited a few others to help fill in. 

In addition to everything that they have been doing in Ponoka and Lacombe, Katelyn and her companion were also suppose to go back to Red Deer for Stake Conference over the weekend.  This is where the snow comes back into the picture again.  The day that they were supposed to go to Red Deer, it had been snowing so much that the Mission President told them to stay in Ponoka.  Then the next day (Sunday), they were going to try again to make it for the Sunday meetings.  But again there was too much snow.  So they ended up just going to the chapel in Lacombe to see if they could listen to the broadcast there.  Unfortunately, the audio was so bad that after about 30 minutes the Bishop there in Lacombe turned it off and decided to just hold a testimony meeting instead.  Apparently fast and testimony meeting had been cancelled just a couple of weeks earlier due to the snow, so this gave the Ward an opportunity to make up for that.

OK, here is the story that you have all been waiting to hear.  This is the story that I mentioned at the beginning about a car, a snow packed road and a couple of moose.  So this last week Katelyn wrote home and told us about a little adventure that she and her companion had.  It all started out when they drove down to Lacombe for a dinner appointment.  They got to Lacombe a little early so they decided to go and visit a few of the less active members of the Church there.  No one was available at that time of the day so they next decided to drive out to a smaller community called Morningside just to see what was there and maybe do a little tracting.  One their way to Morningside they turned off of the highway where their were a few homes.  They drove past the homes to see if there was anything else.  That was their first mistake.  As it turned out, there really wasn't anything else beyond the few houses that they saw and by this time they were really out in the middle of no where.  So they decided to turn around and go back, but when they did, they made their second mistake.  They underestimated just how soft the snow was on the side of the road and ended up driving their car right in to a ditch.  Obviously with the roads being as bad as they are in those little rural areas, they were really stuck good and not getting out anytime soon.  But the two Sister Missionaries pulled their little red shovel out of the trunk and tried to dig themselves out anyway. 

Since nothing was working and they were still stuck, they decided to call the Elders for help.  Right about then Katelyn looked over her shoulder and saw two big moose.  That is when Katelyn freaked out and made her next mistake.  She had heard that moose can be extremely aggressive and so rather than just getting back in the car for protection, Katelyn started running the other way and shouting back to her companion, RUN!! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!!!  Katelyn's companion just froze right there but at least she had enough sense to try to get back in the car.  Meanwhile Katelyn is still running down the road yelling back at her companion to run.  Right about that time a truck comes driving down the road and it just happens to be one of the members of the Ward in Lacombe.  They didn't have a rope that was heavy enough to pull the car out and the rope they did have just kept breaking each time they tried.  Not too far down the road there were some men working on a gas line working, so they finally drove down and asked them if they could borrow a chain or something to pull the car out of the ditch.  Well, before too much longer, all of the gas workers were there helping to pull the car out as well.  So after all was said and done, this little dinner appointment in Lacombe turned out to be an adventure that involved two young Sister Missionaries, a stuck car in a ditch in the middle of no where, a couple of huge ferocious moose and a group of gas workers donating their time to help out the two stranded missionaries.  If that doesn't make your day, who knows what will!  Check it out.