Kirkland Week 6

Sister Howe and Troy (Brother Lallmenet in the backgound being silly haha)

Family,

It was (unexpectedly) my last week in Kirkland! I'm getting transferred already! I'll be going to Montreal East (very confusing but it is not the same as my past area), which covers the whole island of Montreal except the Kirkland area, which, if you've been keeping track, includes the same physical area as Zarahemla and Montreal East, where I spent the first 8 transfers of my mission. I'm going right back! Didn't expect that one! But, we had a great week! Here are some highlights!

Exchanges with Elder Musaalo

I went on exchanges with Elder Musaalo, who is Elder Furness' companion serving in Chinese in our district. We had such an awesome exchange! We saw many miracles which was incredible. We found an awesome Nigerian family with 4 kids from street contacting, and they're super cool. We taught the whole family last week (except for the father who is in Nigeria), and they were very involved! One of the boys who is 11 had some of the best questions I've ever heard in a lesson. It was amazing! I love Nigerians! Elder Musaalo is a super cool missionary and has taught me so many things.

Brother Parsons, our ward mission leader 

We had a cool lesson with Ron again yesterday at the park, but we brought our ward mission leader, Brother Parsons. It was one of the funniest lessons in my mission! They clicked SO well, and seemed to be immediate friends. It was so much fun! They are very similar people, so it was cool to help them meet each other. It'll definitely help both of them!

Awesome's family, who we taught a lot. He's a super smart kid!
(He's the one hugging his little brother with the purple shirt)

Well I don't have much time left, but it's been an awesome week as I said. I'm sad to leave Kirkland already; I've come to love everyone here so much! But I am excited of course to start a new chapter in my mission!

Our district 

I love you all so much, have a great week!

Elder James

Kirkland Week 5

Exchanges with Elder Furness

I can't believe it’s already week 6! This transfer has gone by so fast, and it's almost over! Well, I hope we don't get any big changes, there's a good chance I stay with Elder Jeronimo since this is only his second transfer here. We'll be crossing our fingers!

It was weird knocking doors for something other than the gospel

It's been a great week. A bit different, as we visited three district meetings with the STL's, went on two exchanges, and did a huge service project most of the day on Saturday. It was pretty busy, but pretty fun! Exchanges were awesome, I was able to go with Elder Furness, who came in with me, and who is serving in the Montreal Mandarin area. Sadly, I wasn't able to go to the Chinese area, but we did have one lesson in Chinese nonetheless! It was really weird, but super cool. It was so nice to catch up with Elder Furness, and awesome to see how he's changed since the MTC. I also was able to go on exchanges with Elder Luna, who was in my district my first transfer in Zarahemla. He's going home next week which is sad! It was fun to be with him and catch up though!

Exchanges with Elder Luna

We had a cool little miracle last week. we went to go teach CJ who we've been teaching for quite some time. He plays video games a lot, which frequently distracts him from reading and saying his prayers. When we got to his room, he said through his headset, "Hey guys, I'll be gone for a little bit, the Elders are here." We asked him if he had explained to them who Elders were, and he said, "Oh he knows, he's a member in Idaho." Apparently, CJ had been playing with this member named Joe for years but never mentioned him to us. We asked if Joe would like to join us for the lesson, and he agreed. We then had Joe throughout the whole lesson testify and share his experiences THROUGH the Xbox. It was very interesting! Apparently, he has a goal to get sealed to his wife and two kids (who are active) in the temple, but he hasn't gone to church or read his scriptures in years. Then, since CJ has had troubles reading as well, we made them promise that they would NOT play video games together until they've prayed and read the Book of Mormon, and to check with each other whenever they log on before they start playing. It was a very strange but cool miracle!

Food Drive on Saturday

It's really amazing to see all these miracles; it helps me always remember that this is God's work, and not ours. It really is true!

Well I hope you all have a great week, I love you so much!

Elder James

Kirkland Week 4

Beautiful Sunset by the Riviére des Prairies

Family,

We had a great and busy week! Things are going great over here in Montréal; we've been staying busy and trying to keep out of trouble. We've been finding a lot more Nigerians recently which has been awesome—they have such an amazing culture! Here are some highlights of the week.

Exchanges with Elder Menzel

I went on exchanges with Elder Menzel, a district leader in the zone. He is from Germany and is super cool. We had an awesome exchange, and were able to find an incredible family! We just knocked on their door randomly after having an appointment fall through, and they invited us in! They had apparently met missionaries a long time ago, and wanted to learn more! It's cool to see that although someone might not be ready at the moment, they could be ready for other missionaries in the future!

We've been teaching Ron more and more over this past week, and he's doing SO awesome. He came to church this past Sunday and loved it, and we were able to teach him later that day. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and he said that he knew that it was ALL true. He said it was weird, but that he felt very strongly as if he had already known the whole thing before. We were able to testify to him that the Spirit was only helping him remember the plan that he already accepted before he came here to this earth, and it made total sense to him! It was amazing to see evidence of the divinity and truthfulness of this plan. It certainly was a miracle!

Well we are doing awesome; I'm loving this area more and more! The cold is slowly starting to come back, which I am not particularly excited about! But it'll be fun. I love you all so much, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder James

Kirkland Week 3

We had an awesome lesson right by the river & Elder Jeronimo snuck a photo

Family,

It's been another great week! We've been very busy, which is awesome. We had a lot of cool experiences, here's some updates!

We went on exchanges with the Young Single Adult Elders on Saturday. It was super fun! I went with Elder Poll who has been out for only a couple of weeks. He's doing so amazing! It was an interesting exchange, being in YSA was a little bit weird; we only taught people that were around our age which was strange, but fun! I also got to do a lot of metro contacting which I miss SO much. I got to use every language which was cool! I miss that environment so much!

Exchanges with Elder Clark

We also got to go on exchanges with the Assistants, and I went with Elder Clark (who was in my district in Zarahemla a while ago). It was a super cool exchange! Since it was on Labor Day, we did a lot of pass by's and tried to see as many people who we lost contact with as possible. EVERY SINGLE PERSON we passed by was there! It was amazing! We got in contact with a Nigerian man named Olaniyi who is SUPER cool. We will see him again on Saturday which will be awesome! It was an amazing and productive day!

Us with a little Nigerian boy who is absolutely adorable

We've been working hard and seeing lots of fruits of our labors, which has been awesome! We miraculously found a man named Ron last week because of a short storm that passed through. His motorbike had fallen, and we helped him pick it up. It wasn't that big of a deal for us, but he thought we were angels. We got his information, and then we were able to see him this week. He's super solid! He easily accepted a baptismal date without any problems. He's awesome!

Well, it's been a really good week—I'm loving every minute of it! Love you all so much, I hope you have a great week!

Elder James