Week 95 - I Blinked and now I'm in my last transfer
Oh hey. Sorry I haven't emailed in a bit. It's just been so busy, and there's so many things I could talk about that the idea of trying to put it all in one email is kinda overwhelming. So, I've been putting it off. I finally decided not to do it, and to instead just share a bit about the area and some highlights.
Things to Know About Thompson Manitoba
Thompson is a very interesting place. It's quite far north, so Winter ended like… a few weeks ago. That's a bit of an exaggeration but the snow finally all melted a few weeks ago, so that's still Winter if you ask me. And the trees got their leaves back just a couple weeks ago.
Another thing to know about Thompson is that it's surrounded by First Nations Reserves (more commonly known in the states as Native Reservations). So, there's a LOT of First Nations people here. Probably like 80% of the people we meet with. There's a really big reserve called Nelson House about an hour out of town that we visit once a week. We have some members of our church that live there, as well as a lot of friends that we are teaching. Culturally, they are very spiritual, and very open minded. They also aren't afraid to just hand out their personal information to people.
Us: “Hey we'd love to come back and talk more about what happens after we die. Could we get your phone number?”
Them: “I don't have a phone number.”
Us: “How about Facebook?”
Them: “Oh yeah, here you go.” proceeds to add us on Facebook
Us: “Sweet! What's your home address?”
Them: “[Insert Address]”
Us: “OK thank you! We'll stay in touch. Have a great day!”
And that's how all of our conversations with new people end. Literally every time. We have not met a single person who's not willing to just hand out their address to us despite us being complete strangers they just met on the street. They also never have a working phone number for some reason. We meet a lot of new people and a lot of them are very willing to learn! The challenge is finding people who will commit to anything like reading the scriptures on their own or coming to church. First Nation culture is very loose, and they don't really keep track of time. They just go with the flow and things happen when they happen. So, we don't bother scheduling appointments for anything, because it doesn't work. Instead, we just show up at random, and unless we catch them at a bad time then they're happy to see us!
Also… Rez Dogs. I love them. The laws on reservations are different than the rest of Canada, and they have a Chief that runs the place. One big noticeable difference is that dogs don't have to be leashed and are allowed to roam free. And basically, every family owns a dog. So, walking around in Nelson House, there's just dogs chilling everywhere. Most are very friendly and will walk up to you and politely ask for pets. Some are a little skittish. Others are a little territorial, but as long as you stay out of their territory (aka the front door of their owner's house) then you're chillin. It's pretty fun. It's a little sad too because a lot of the dogs don't seem very well cared for and are basically strays. But I think the majority of them live pretty good lives. Plus, I get to pet a lot of dogs.
Some other fun notes:
- The roads are terrible, so we get to drive a truck
- Our assigned area might be one of the biggest single companionship areas in the world
- Some of the reserves aren't friendly to missionaries, so we don't get to go to those ones
- The water is bad, so we need a water filter
- We average 20 lessons a week, and get members to join us for about half of them
There's a good-sized Pokémon and Magic the Gathering community here!
Some Highlights
The members here are amazing. They're super friendly and supportive of each other. And they help us with our missionary work a lot!
The Flin Flon fire ended, and during it me and Elder Majeau were probably the most secluded missionaries in the world. The Flin Flon Elders had to evacuate to Prince Albert, so that left us as the only companionship in our district, 8 hours away from the nearest missionaries. It was kinda weird. But we didn’t linger on it too much and just kept working. Oh, and while it got close, the fire did not reach the city, so no serious damage was done.
We have like 5 people who might get baptized in the next couple months which is pretty wild. One of them is Dayton and he is amazing. He's crazy committed and is very actively working to overcome an addiction he has so that he can be baptized. He's almost there and will probably get baptized at the end of this month.
We had a branch bowling party (very fun)
We had a branch BBQ at Paint Lake (also very fun)
One of our members, Abel, is our best friend. We hang out with him on p days, and he joins lessons with us on workdays. He even bought a Magic: The Gathering Deck without us knowing, and one day he just pulled it out and was like “aight let's play.”
Our reaction:
Pretty legendary. But it gets better. Another one of our members, Brother Gutierez… HE PLAYS MAGIC TOO. We found this out a couple days ago and he might join us and Abel today for a couple games.
Oh also, my previous companion Elder Felix is in Flin Flon now. So that's pretty cool, it'll be fun seeing him again. And he has a pickleball net, so that'll be our district p day activity 😄
And there's a new Senior Couple in Thompson. They're missionaries like us, except older and they have slightly different responsibilities. They're awesome though. They are Elder and Sister Taylor and they're really into video production! So, we'll have some fun doing that kinda stuff with them
Oh, and final silly highlight: we made a silly song about how it feels to need to stop teaching a good friend. It's a really really poorly made song, but that was intentional for comedic effect.
I'm in my last transfer 😵💫
Yeah, that happened pretty quick. I only have 33 days left as a missionary. I have to do this thing called “My Plan” now. It's a program where you set goals and make plans for stuff to do when you get home. Like pursuing education, continuing spiritual growth, and finding an eternal companion (aka a wife). Kinda weird to think about, and I kinda hate doing the My Plan courses, but it's also easy to realize that they're important and will help a lot when I get home.
Wrap up
That's all I have the mental capacity to write for now. It's a tiny fraction of everything that's happened in the past 5 weeks, which have been insane. But, oh well. I'll try to include more next week. Maybe I'll try to share more of the miracles we've seen in the work because man. There's a lot of them. 20 lessons per week should give you a good idea of what I mean. Most areas in our mission are excited to have 5-10. I don't mean that to sound high and mighty, or like we're the best missionaries ever. We're not. But God has blessed us, and our friends, immensely. For which I am very grateful.
As you can see, it's a great day to be a missionary!
-Elder Hays