November 13th, 2013

Hey family,

Everything is going great here in Calgary!  I'm so sorry to hear about what is going on in the Philippines.  I'll keep Chris in my prayers and also his future wife too.  Me and Brother Deranciang (one of our ward missionaries) have been praying for each other at the moment because we both have people we know in the Philippines, even though I don't really know Minerva, I still think of them a lot, so that's one more thing I will keep in my prayers.

That's so exciting that Jay got called to be the stake president.  I knew he'd get called to that calling. Too bad no one is serving in Champion anymore, I would have somehow got a hold of the missionaries there and told them to tell the people there about that.  It's funny, so far every Mormon I've seen from Champion knows about Jay.   I'll see if I can get a hold of the Shultz family from Magrath and tell them about that.  Oh and was Brother Shultz at the funeral for Jay's dad?   Just curious.

The weeks have gone a bit slow the past little while because we've had quite a bit of investigators falling through with their appointments but we still try to be patient with them because patience is pretty key in missionary work.  Chee Wee also got the priesthood a couple weeks ago but I'm not sure if I told you that at all.  We also picked up an investigator we had to hand off too East Calgary who actually found us because he took our parking spot at our apartment complex and so I left him a pass along card saying this is the missionaries spot and if you're ever interested in LDS teachings call our #.   But that was like 2 months ago and he called back this past week and we taught him the 1st lesson.  He said he'd love to attend church so we got him hooked up with the East Stake YSA.  We still haven't heard anything from Marima in a while but we're hoping to start teaching her soon again. We've also been trying a new finding tactic where we're posting stop smoking flyers in our area and so far just by posting them we've managed to find a couple people intrigued at what we were doing so we managed to get some people's contact info, so hopefully we'll be picking up a couple new investigators.

As far as Christmas goes,  I heard that the new scriptures came out a while ago and I've been reading my companion's for awhile and I would like a set, if that's ok.  I would just like the triple combination and the Bible to be separate and in blue if that's possible.  But if it's not, then the black is good and if I can get them in miniature size that would be good as well.  I think that's the size just smaller than your quad combo.  But if you can't find them separate in that size then the regular size is good.   So.... first choice: mini, separate, and blue. Second: mini separate and black,  and last:  separate regular size lue or black (blue is better though).  If you can find them in blue get them, but only in regular and small sizes.

Well can't wait to here from you guys next week.

 Love you guys!

 Elder Justin Gagnon

November 4th, 2013

Hey family!

Everything in Calgary is doing well.  We got a new ward mission leader because our old one moved out to the Panorama ward, but our new one seems like he'll bring some new things to the table.  We also developed a new ward mission plan where we give all the ward missionaries assignments to visit families of the ward and help them develop a family mission plan.   Instead of just us doing all that stuff we also got ward missionaries out there as well and so far we got one family who we're going to meet with their friend this Friday.  We also got another guy who we're meeting with this Tuesday. His name is Terry and he's a referral from one of the less actives we're working with.  He seems super open and hopefully we can get him progressing as soon as possible.  Our investigator Marima also just out of no where went to Edmonton for 2 weeks, so that was a bit of a downer, but hopefully we'll pick her back up soon because she's a solid investigator.

So the next little bit we need to focus on finding because that's something we've been really struggling with. We still haven't been able to get in contact with the man who scanned our flyer but we keep trying. We've also been trying to talk to more people every day and working with families and their missionary work.

That's cool that youth conference was in Quebec City. I know the church is even smaller there than in Montreal, I think all they have is one ward and one branch out there.  In Calgary the church is really big.  I was suprised that Montreal got a temple first though.

Oh and speaking of temples, just this past Saturday we went to the Calgary temple to do some temple cleaning and it was super cool.  The celestial room looks like the one from back home and it's nothing like the Cardston temple.  But it was still really cool cleaning it though. There are a lot of pictures in the rooms of Waterton and Chief Mountain down in the south, which was pretty cool.  I would still like to go there for a session though because I heard that there's a new temple video and I haven't seen it yet.  Have you seen it yet?  I heard it's pretty cool.

Well that's all for this week and can't wait to hear from you next week.

Love Elder Justin Gagnon.

October 28th, 2013 - Happy Halloween!

Hey Family,

I had a feeling that President Jarvis would get released pretty soon because he's been in that calling for a long time. We're still trying to get to see his mother and law but she's super busy and it's hard to catch her.  But we'll keep working with her because she's super nice so we'll see what we can do when we start inviting her to keep commitments.  We actually just picked up a family the other day and they seem super solid.  The mother is super nice.  She's a non-practicing Muslim from Africa and she speaks a bit of french because she lived in Quebec City for a little while. She has one 15 year old son and I can see them both joining the church in the near future.

We also got a huge dump of snow the other day...It was crazy!  In the morning it was super nice out and it was actually raining a bit and then it started snowing and didn't stop all day. We walked though that day and it's always nice to be out of the car and meeting all kinds of people throughout the day. That's how we met Chee Wee actually, we just street contacted into him.  It's funny because I always remind him of that day and he always tells me how crazy it was.

Oh and the members are feeding us really well in this area, we actually have a member that calls members of the ward to feed us and fills our calenders with meeting members of the ward and helping them with their missionary work. Of course there are the occasional few who don't want anything to do with missionary work but we just keep inviteing them. So far we have one solid family that help the whole stake out with missionary work.  Arbour Lake ward actually baptized a family because of this family in our ward which was exciting to hear.   But overall the work here is moving along and this other member helped us out with this cool finding tool that we actually found one man with it but we just need to get back to him.  The tool we used though was a flyer that we placed all over our area and it has a scanning code on it and when they scan it it brings them straight to our phone number and calls us.  So we got a call from a man named Matthew and he told us he'd be interested in our message.  We're also going to start making another flyer that has our stop smoking program on it so we can help people and maybe find some new investigators.

Well that's about it for this week!

 

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

October 21st, 2013 - Almost one year in the mission!

Hey family,

Well I haven't hit a year yet, in three days I will though. Me and my companion (Elder Renshaw) plan on burning a shirt though since I'm hitting a year. There are a couple of shirts that the past missionaries left here, so we'll burn one of those. I'll see if I can get a video of it and get one of the members of the ward to send it to you guys. Elder Renshaw is great though, we have a lot of fun together but we still work hard.  Oh we were also told to go to down town Calgary to teach a French man the other day but I found out that his English was super good so we handed him off to the Calgary 5th ward Elders. He is so ready to be a member though and this is the second time we had to hand off a super solid investigator. Oh well, he's in good hands though and I'm sure he'll be baptized  pretty soon I think.  Catherine sent us a message on the phone and told us she didn't want anything to do with the church anymore and that she'll be saved by grace.  That's too bad, but I hope she'll find her way back some day.  Georgina is doing well, but I'm not sure how far she'll go because she hasn't been very good about keeping appointments lately.  But we are picking up a new investigator tomorrow,  his name is Terry and he seems to be very open minded which is good.  So hopefully we'll see some progress with him.  The district leader calling though is nothing too special, I just have a bit more responsibilities like gathering numbers and sending them to the Zone leaders and preparing weekly trainings. Oh and for your talk, one thing I like doing when I teach about sacrament is going over the sacrament prayer. One thing I found out in personal study one time was trying to read the sacrament prayer in the first person. It makes it really personal when you read it that way and I get more out of it when I think of it that way. Try it out and tell me how it goes. That's something cool you can add in your talk. Oh and our apartment is nothing special.  It's just like any old apartment but I'll send some pics next week of it. Oh and have I told you that it's right across the street from the McMann stadium and so some nights are a little crazy when there are football games and stuff happening. That's about it for this week. Can't wait too hear from you next week!

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

October 15th, 2013

 

Elder Gagnon's district before they split off

                                                    With Elder Mooney on transfer day

                                                 With his new companion, Elder Renshaw

Hey Family,

It's nice to hear that Chris is back home now and that he's got some church callings.  Yea, that must have been weird for him seeing leaves again after not seeing them in almost 3 years!   He sent me an email before so sorry if mine is a little short this week.

Well for transfers I didn't end up getting transferred but I did end up getting a new companion.  His name is Elder Renshaw from Turlock California.   He's actually my first kill in the mission so he's going home this transfer.   He just came from High River as well and said that the work had been picking up quite a bit in the past while. I can definetly see how a lot of the hearts in High River have been softened.  He's also really open to talk to which is good.

We also managed to pick up a new investigator this week.  Her name is Catherine and she told us that she was looking for a good church to go to and regain her faith in Christ.  Hopefully the Lord has prepared her to receive our message.

We also went to Sonia Nicholas' place for dinner on Thanksgiving so we had a good Thanksgiving this year.   She also gave me some pictures to sent home so you should expect to see some pictures in the mail soon.

Well nothing much else has happened this week...

Love you guys

Elder Gagnon

 

October 8th, 2013

Hey Family,

Sorry about that speeding ticket, I tried paying them in cash but it didn't work out, so if you pay for it I'll just put the money in my card and you can take it out. 

Well this week has been pretty good, we picked up a new investigator, her name is Georgia and we're going to show her how the gospel can help her in her life.  We've also been working with a lot of less active members because there are a lot of them in the ward.  It also looks like I'm not getting transferred, but I will be getting a new companion and not training.  So I'll probably just be senoir comp for the next transfer.  I also got a message from President saying that the mission is getting 35 new missionaries!  We also had dinner at a member's place and President was there and we were just talking about mission business and he told me that Magrath will be split into two areas this transfer, so there'll probably be a Magrath North and South areas which is crazy because just a little bit before I came out Magrath and Raymond were one area, now there are four areas between the two!

 

I also loved conference this week, a lot of the talks were really inspiring.  I left my note book at the apartment but I did love a lot of what was said though I took notes mainly on the sctrptures that were used and now I'm just trying to find them because they mention them but not where they are so I'll be doing quite a bit of searching this week.  I've also been reading the Ensign quite a bit this week and I love the stuff they post about missionary work.  It's really inspiring.  I love the whole article about being a successful missionary.   It made me think a bit differently about what I did in my past areas because I felt a little unsuccessful coming out of Cardston, but then I thought of how small our teaching pool was when I got in there and that seemed to be good when I saw that our planners started beginning to be full every day with meaningful activities.  So even if I left with no baptisms or reactivations, I feel like I left the future missionaries something to work with. But overall this week was a good week and I can't wait for the changes this coming week.

Love you guys

Elder Gagnon

September 30th, 2013 - Che Wee's baptism!

 

Elder Bennion, Chee Wee and Elder Gagnon at Chee Wee's baptism

 

Hey Family,

The baptism this week was great!  Chee Wee is super excited to start doing his family history and we're also getting a snowball effect from our efforts. Chee Wee has also been working really close with us and working on all of his friends, so were going to start working with some of them soon.

 

Well it looks like I'm getting transferred pretty soon because Elder Bennion is almost done with his training, so I'll have to hand off the area to him and they'll move me wherever the Lord needs me.  I just hope the area keeps the momentum it has because right now it's picking up like crazy. We actually picked up a Muslim family this past week and at first they were a little scared and hesitant to learn about us.  They told us the story about Mohammed and how he was the last prophet and so we ended up teaching about the restoration and the father felt something because he said it would make him happy if there was a prophet today.  He told us that whatever Mohammed left was the last revelations by prophets and we told him how much God loves us that he'd send more.  So we invited them to attend general conference and they said yes.  So I know the prophet will soften their hearts in letting them know that there is a prophet because right now they believe that Christ was a prophet and nothing else so we try teaching them keeping it very prophets based.  Then we will probably get into the atonement and how we don't do sacrifices any more. They're a really nice family though :)

        

This week has been good, and I'm happy that Andrew's been doing well in seminary.  Tell him to keep up the good work and to keep Moroni's promise in his heart because it's the best way to get the most out of the Book of Mormon.

Well I g2g so I'll talk to ya next week!

 

Love Elder Justin Gagnon

September 23rd, 2013 Justin didn't receive our email on time for some reason this week, so he didn't have much to say :(

Hey Fam,

I didn't hear from you this week.  I hope I have the chance to hear from you the coming week though. Oh and we are so far set for Chee Wee's baptism this week.  We've been discussing family history work with him the last little while and him going to the temple and he's so ecxited to go to the temple and do the work for his ancestors.

Well hope to hear from you next week!

Love Elder Gagnon

September 16th, 2013

 

Meeting up with Tyler Paxman (an ex-LaSalle ward missionary) at Stake Conference

 

Hey Family

Everything is going well here in Calgary and Chee Wee is getting baptised on the 28th!   I will also be baptizing him so expect a picture of me and Chee Wee dressed white in about two weeks :)   I'm super happy for him!  He's made great changes in his life and really humbled himself before the Lord. He's also been sharing the gospel with others which is really good. My companion and I also got him a triple combination and a bible with a case and we're also planning on ordering a preach my gospel as well because I lend him my big one once and a while and he really likes it.  He says it's very well written and the principles are very well taught and the sciptures at the bottom of each section complemented it well, so we're going to get him one because he likes it so much.  He'll probably be someone I'll be visiting after the mission.

This week was also stake conference and it was really good to hear all the people talk about their experiences with service since the flood.  I remember helping out that one day at High River and just seeing the people there softening there hearts towards us and them knowing that we are normal people that love helping out our fellow man was so great.   I can definitely see good things happening in High River the next little while because the people there now love the church and the service it provides for everyone.  They also of course talked about member missionary work and so far we've been doing pretty good with keeping members on top of missionary work.  We've been giving out family mission plans to each member family that we visit and they so far seem open to do missionary work.   Some families have been doing well with it and asked us to set a date with them to follow up to see how they're doing.

That's good that Andrew is studying the Book of Mormon this year. You can tell him it's my favorite book and that before he studies it each day to take the promise in Moroni 10: 3-5 into account and pray about it every day.  He'll get a more clear understanding of the message it contains.  I always try to do that every day when I do my personal study and it does make quite a difference. But yea, it's crazy that I'm almost a year out and that I'm one of the old guys out in the mission because everyone is just super young now.

Well I can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love you

Elder Justin Gagnon

September 9th, 2013

Elder Gagnon and Elder Sorenson

 

                                                 Elder Gagnon and Elder Cole

                                          New personalized scriptures :)

 

Hey Family!

 

I had a funny feeling Chris was going to get married soon, it sounded like she was on Chris's mind for a while.  So am I going to be home for the sealing or is that coming up pretty soon?  O well if I don't come home for the time of the sealing at least there will be pics of them coming out of the temple. I'll probably get sealed in the Cardston temple if anything just because it's my favorite temple and I don't think anything else will beat it,  just because it's so unique compared to every other temple I've seen. ( I haven't been in the Calgary Temple but I doubt it stands a chance)  But the week has been good.  We street contacted into someone the other day and said he has a problem with smoking, so we told him we'd love to share this stop smoking program we have with him and he accepted and gave us his number. Oh and you wouldn't believe who I saw last night.  I saw Taylor Hudson when we went to a dinner appointment with one of the less actives were working with.  They're preparing to enter the temple some time soon so we shared how going to church is one of the first steps you need to do before you enter the temple. We also challenged them to read the Pearl of Great Price because everything will make sense when they go to the temple if they read it.   We're also working on finding a lot this week because our teaching pool is a little low.  We're also working with this less active man who's looking to get back and we've been working with the members a lot as well.   Overall this week was a good week.

Love you guys

 Elder Gagnon

September 3rd, 2013

                                          With Owen Stanford

                                         With his new companion, Elder Bennion

With Sister Gonzales who used to attend the Montreal YSA and is now serving a mission in Calgary.

                                                 The zone in Banff National Park for Pday

Hey Family,

Well I finally stopped by Best Buy and picked up some device that can read the memory card, so now I can start sending the pics. So Chee Wee has been doing good, he pretty much completely stopped smoking and he gave up coffee, but now he just has to wait till the end of the month for his baptism. This week we're probably going to do a lot of finding because our teaching pool is a little low, but that's ok because we have lots of potential investigators.  We're also working with a lot of less actives because that seems to be a big thing around here.  We're also working with a man who got baptized a long time ago but never got the priesthood, but he's a faithful church attender.  We're also working a lot with recent converts that we need to get ready to enter the temple.

Oh, cool story this week!  We went to a dinner this week and their name was the Stanfords and they had a big family party this week and one of the members of the family came up to me and said that he had worked with a Gagnon in the past. So I asked him what her name was and he said Theresa, and I was like "Oh my! That's my Auntie Theresa and he described her so well and her personality was spot on. I laughed and took a picture with him, so I need you to send some pics to Theresa.

We also met a couple of less actives that are preparing to go to the temple this week, and they know Elder Hudson.  They said that he is like best friends with them and was the best man at their wedding. I might be seeing him soon because they're going to bring him to the ward some time.

But yea that was the week this week and not too much else happened, but we set some good goals for the coming week and are looking to pick up some new people to teach. 

 

Have a great week!

 

Love Elder Justin Gagnon

 

August 28th, 2013

                                                           With Sister Sonia Nicholas

 

Hey family,

 

Everything is going well over here in Bow Valley!   Our investigator Chee Wee ended up pushing his date a little further because president had to interview him, so now he's set for the end of next month.  But hey, I don't think I told you but I met Sister Sonia Nicholas this past few week and she told me on Sunday that she had a surprise for me and I had no idea what she would show me. I felt like it would be something from home, but it was something better!   It was a photo of me, Mark, Cedric, Chris, Andrew, and you and dad at our baptism and I flipped out!  It was super funny because she showed everyone at the ward the picture of us at the baptism and everyone said I should grow the hair back out again and that they'll get permission from president to do so, but I told them no because trying to wash that hair was a pain!

Transfers are also this week and a whole bunch of the zone seems to be leaving.  One of our zone leaders also went home this past week because his 2 years were up,  so we're going to get a new zone leader.  Right now we have Elder Staley who moved from the south to the north with me and we both served in Cardston so we talk about that area quite a bit.  I also sent out a mass email to everyone I met in Cardston and Magrath.  They're all doing well and miss me lots but I'll probably end up serving in the south again because there are a lot of areas down there.  The Fort Macleod zone got split the last transfer because of the amount of missionaries that are there, so now there's a Cardston Zone and a Fort Macleod zone.  They still didn't open back up Jay's home town which is in the Fort Mac zone,  but I think they'll open it back up again.  Well overall we had a good week and Chee Wee is not mad at all about pushing his date a month.  He actually likes president and got his email so he'll start writing him.

Tell Dad Happy birthday and Granny as well and that I love them both very much!

Love you guys

Elder Gagnon

August 19th, 2013

           Elder Gagnon with Cody Bass, an old LaSalle Ward missionary


Hey family,

Dang!  I keep forgetting to get one of those memory card readers so I can send pictures, but I'll try and get one next week for sure this time.  Yea I probably wouldn't have seen Jay and the Glowas because they were probably in Champion or Vulcan which are quite a ways from here and are not part of the mission at the moment because they shut down about a year ago.  I hope they'll open up soon because right now Alberta is really softening their hearts to the gospel because of the High River and Calgary floods. But if the Glowas are here for a couple of weeks send me their e-mails and I'll tell them to meet me somewhere or something.  Oh did they also see the Schultz family while they were there?   I miss that family and Magrath in general.  But if anyone comes and visits Alberta tell them to ask the mission office which is located at 7044 Ferral RD SE.

Oh, I did end up meeting someone this past week though. Funny story...the Zone Leaders asked me and my companion to go to the Foothills Hospital to give a man a blessing and I had to meet a man there by the name of Cody Bass.  So we went there and I was thinking "that name sounds familliar" and so the doors to the Hospital open and I see Elder Bass walk through and take off his shades and says "Freaking Heck" and so I jump at him and gave him a big hug!  It was funny though!   I think I have had at least one connection from home in all my areas, lol.  Oh and another funny thing is that Sister Jarvis's parents are in our ward.   We're still visiting Chewie and making sure he stays focused because he really has the desire to make  changes in his life.  Oh this week he was also being a good missionary and invited one of his friends to one of our discussions and now he's reading and praying and said he wanted to come to church this week.  We're thinking on setting a baptismal date with him as well.   So the work is picking up like crazy in the area.  So many solid investigators are just coming from being here in the area and finding is just coming really easy.  We also have a bunch of potential investigators that we'll start focusing on soon. Overall, it's been really good this week!

Love you Guys,

Elder Justin Gagnon

August 13th, 2013

Hey family,

Everything is doing well here in the Bow Valley ward.   I think I'll bring that up to Chewie tonight about the Caf Lib stuff you drink.  He came to church this past Sunday though and saw a farewell talk and our gospel principles class was on the atonement which was good because he was participating really well.  He really loves the gospel and knows it can make great differences in his life.   We got a bunch of referrals from people who filled out forms at the Calgary Temple visitors center, so we might have a bunch more investigators soon.  There are so many people going away for the summer so teaching is beginning to be a bit slow right now.  It will probably pick up a bit once school starts again. Yesterday we went to Banff National park and it was huge compared to Waterton.  There's just so much to see in one day.   There's just a branch in the park and a pair of sister missionaries cover that and Cochrane.   Banff used to be it's own area at one time but apparently the missionaries were being disobedient and got kicked out.  But it seems like there can be so much work to do down there and its opened all year round.  That apparently happened to a lot of areas in the mission.  Jay Glowas area is shut down because of disobiedient missionaries and apparently the ward members wanted nothing to do with missionary work.   But the area I'm serving in has quite a good history from past missionaries.  I love the area I serve in and there's so much stuff happening in it which is nice.   I can definitely see the Lords blessings for serving in the areas I served before. 

So, was Universal Studios as good as the MGM Studios.  I loved Disney, it was so much fun.  But we should definitely try out Banff one summer or winter because it is sweet up there!  Banff was apparently the start for Canada's national parks.  I remember going there and hearing a lot of Quebec french speakers there, which was funny because I thought I would never see any Quebecois for two years but they hang around up here all the time.

Well I probably should get going!

Love you Guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

August 6th, 2013

Hey family,

Well I just found out that these computers in the library are not too good so it might be a while till we see some pictures come in.   I know it stinks.  But overall the area is doing great.  One of our investigators, Chewie is super excited about the church and we set a baptismal date with him.  Now he just needs to give up coffee and read the Book of Mormon and he'll be ready pretty soon I think. He's a super solid street contact that me and my comp ran into a couple of weeks ago.  We also got a couple of media referrals this week which are really solid.  We are pretty close to the temple and the whole High River and Calgary clean up is getting a lot of people interested in the church. So we're probably going to contact them ASAP.  The ward is also super great, we helped a young man move the other day and he was kind enough to give us some nice church music he used to listen on his mission.  We also had dinner the other night with a Collete family,  but they had no connection with Elder Collete, they are a super fun family and they told us their house is open to any of the missionaries that want to go over and abuse there board game collection!   I was happy to hear that, there's also been some changes to the Missionary dress.  The Elders are now able to wear just a sweater in the winter and we don't need to wear our suit coat all the time any more.  They're also getting rid of all back packs and just going to use shoulder bags which ticked off a lot of missionaries, but I had a feeling that they would get rid of those some time soon.  We can also wear light colored suits and pants that are grey, black or brown.  So I've been looking a lot in the cheap clothes places in stores and found a really nice pair of pants for 2 $ at a Bargain Barn.!  It was crazy when I found them; they were like new and they fit perfectly and needed no alteration!  They also match great with those grey socks you gave me when I left so I started wearing those now.  But it's crazy how this summer is already coming to an end.  We really didn't have much of a summer this year.  We did have a total of like three really hot days this year and the rest has been pretty normal. But the weather here is super great, I love it.  The winter is not too cold and the summers are not too hot.  I'm also really happy to be serving at this time because there are so many different changes happening in the mission.  Like this past week I was really suprized to hear that the indian resurve was opened up to a missionary couple as a new area in the mission.  But over all all is going well and we're seeing lots of success in the area.

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

July 30th, 2013

Hey Family,

Everything is going really well here in the area.  We picked up 2 investigators this past week. One of them being Aireen who is about 90 years old but still pretty healthy for her age.  But we challanged her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and she accepted and we also told her if she finds out if it is true will she get baptised and she accepted!  So we're going to be working with her for the next little while.  We also have another investigator, his name is Chewie and he says he's the only Chewie in Canada.  But he said he will also read the Book of Mormon. We're also meeting with him tonight so we might just extend a date for him and also get him coming to church.  He's a really funny guy and reminds me a lot of Cedric Phan.  He's just a lot of fun and we actually street contacted into him and just told him about the church and he said he had been looking for a job so we're going to get him in contact with the employment specialist in our ward.  Oh and that's one thing I like about serving in a ward is that you get to know the members a lot better and you work more closely with your auxillaries in the ward.  I still miss Cardston and Magrath though, but at the same time I know that the Lord sent me here for a reason and that those areas really helped prepare me for these types of areas because finding is a lot easier in these areas since I'm not trying to figure out who is a non-member and who is a member because non-members are everywhere!  

Love you guys a lot!!!

Elder Justin Gagnon

July 22nd, 2013

Hey Family,

 

Everything here is going great!  My new area is...Bow Valley in north west Calgary.  This area is huge compared to my other areas.  The roads are also really weird as well because almost nothing is on a grid like in my old areas.  But now I'm actually serving in one ward instead of 7 wards which is a relief and the members here are super supportive over missionary work.  The apartment that we're living in was trashed though.  The past missionaries were actually killing themselves (meaning they were both going home) and the area book was a wreck, so we're trying to pick up as much as we can from when they left off, but overall we're pretty much starting from scratch.  The area is nice though but when I got here it was really weird because I'm in a city again and I haven't been in one for 9 months.  But in the end the Lord did bless me because finding investigators is a piece of cake.  We've been working closely with the one ward mission leader and one bishop and they've just been pumping out names of people for us to teach, so we expect to get some new investigators this week.   We also went to PEC this week before church and developed a ward mission plan to help the growth of the ward.  I definitely see a good future for the area.  My new companion is Elder Bennion from Arizona and he's fresh from the MTC, so I am training again.  I'm also still district leader and in my district we have a couple of Spanish speaking elders which is cool.  They cover the Spanish ward and they're a fun bunch to work with.  The Calgary temple is also really close to our area and it is a pretty nice looking temple.  I also noticed that Calgary looks like something out of a doctor Seuss story because a lot of the homes here look identical to one another.  I'll see if I can get some pictures of that for next week.  But overall I love the area.  Oh we also helped out at High River this past week and it was crazy how high the water rose.  Some water damage went almost to the roof in some houses!   But I know that this will soften the hearts of a lot of people in that area in the end.  Our area didn't get hit at all though because we're pretty high up.  Well that's about all for this week.  Hope all goes well for everything back home and can't wait to hear from you guys next week.

Love Elder Justin Gagnon

July 16th, 2013 - Transferred to the North!

                                           Saying good-bye to the Gibbings family....


Well I got the transfer call today and I'm getting transferred to the north.  So I'll probably be in Calgary, and yea I've been in Cardston for 4 1/2 months.  It took a while getting this area back on its feet again and gaining member trust, but I'm happy where the area is going. We've also been saying bye to a lot af members the past little while cause I'm gonna miss Cardston and all these little Mormon towns cause all the history that surrounds me is just so cool. Oh, I also left Heather with a bunch of books that I've acquired over the past little while. I also decided to get myself some new scriptures because a member came up to me and my companion and gave us $50.00 each which was a crazy amount coming from a member.  I've never got that from someone. That was just insane.  But I got nice new scriptures out of it with a nice scripture case and I'm planning on getting my name on them as well while it's our P-day.  Sorry if there are a lot of typos in this e-mail because just the other day my middle figure got badly hurt  from helping someone move.  Cardston also is getting a second set of sisters so there will be 4 sets of missionaries in Cardston, and there's only like 4000 people who live here so I'm not sure why they're opening up another area here.  I mean Chateauguay has like 200,000 people and there's only one set of missionaries there.  But I believe that stuff will still get done around here because there's lots of work to do. Oh and with the person's heart we softened, she's still super nice to us and lets us in often but she will not accept messages from us. The husband is pretty open to talk about the gospel, so if we bring him back I think she'll listen too.  Well I better get going. We have lots to do today!

 

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

July 8th, 2013

 

Hey family,

The work here is going really well.   I'm not sure if I told you about one of the great service experiences we had the last couple of weeks ago but what happened is that there was this family we saw outside our apartment who was shoveling some rocks out and just placing them out on their lawn.  So I told my companion to get in his service clothes and we went out and got some shovels and a wheelbarrow and just walked over and helped them out.  The mother then told us that she has been inactive for many years and she told us that she usually doesn't let missionaries over ever, but she said that we were an exception and that we can visit them or come over for dinner whenever we felt like it.  It just showed me how the Lord can really soften people's hearts just by doing service.   We also might check with president if we can go to High River this week and help out in the clean up cause our stake is doing a stake trip up there this week.  So if there's any more news on it don't forget to watch for me! LOL!  One of the sister missionaries was also sick this week and asked me if I could give her a blessing, so I did and now she's feeling a lot better which is good cause I still got a little bit of the sniffles myself cause the weather has been changing back and forth pretty quickly. I just showed me how much the Lord cares about his missionaries.

We also had a hail storm not too long ago.  It wasn't as bad as the famous Cardston hail storm but it was hailing about the size of small marbles.  The power also went out for a little bit and the ceiling was leaking like crazy in our apartment so the mission is going to be moving us out pretty soon.  I also got an e-mail from Brother Bernier and did you know that his parents got sealed in the Cardston temple, I found that pretty cool to hear that. I also heard that Chris met Elder Jackson which was pretty cool.  We used to take him out on splits when I was serving in Magrath.  Overall the week was really good.  Transfers are also coming up and it looks like I'm moving on to somewhere else cause I've been in this district my whole mission and I'm pretty sure the mission president will want me to have some experience covering a ward.  Oh and I forgot to tell you that one of our Zone leaders got called to be Assistant to the president so Elder Jones is now the Zone Leader over the Fort Macleod zone. It's pretty cool to see my daddy again!  Well that's about it for this week.

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

July 2nd, 2013 Happy Canada Day!

Hey Family,

Sorry to hear that you've got all scraped up this past week.  I miss going on bike rides down that way though and seeing all the nature and riding through swarms of mosquitoes!   I also wrote Elder Bernier and he told me that his parents were sealed in the Cardston temple.  Cool huh?  Did he tell you guys about that at all because he just told me about that today.  We've also been having some success these past few weeks.  One of them being that there was this less active boy who hadn't been coming to church for weeks on end and his parents were really concerned for him.  So we would go over there and teach him pretty often and eventually, he told us that he wants to serve a mission.  So we got the bishop involved and got him back to church which was so great to hear.  On our last P-day we decided to hang out with him for a bit and play some Monopoly for the day which was really fun. He ended up winning in the end but it was still super fun to play again.

We've also been trying different ways to fellowship our investigators. Like we might be picking up an investigator through our ward mission leader who's going to invite us to play golf with one of his non-member friends.  We've also started a weekly service activity at a senior's center here in Cardston.  We just help with their bowling activity and the bingo they have once a week.  We've also been helping out at the handicap center twice a week as well and help raise money for them.  We've also been helping out with a member's roof which got destroyed from the hail damage a year ago.  The Members have also been keeping us busy the last while as well with their non member friends and picking up new investigators that way.  We just have to focus on which investigators we want to focus on who seem the most solid.

But overall the area is doing really well.  Still no sign of Robby from Magrath going to the temple though.  I'm probably going to call Magrath and see what's up with that cause now I'm worrying a little bit cause when I was there I grew to love the man and his wacky sense of humor and how he was going to the temple soon.

I hope everything is going well at home though and congratz on the diploma!  Now you done did gradgeeate from Concordia Eh! LOL!

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

June 24th, 2013

Elder Gagnon with the goat at the Leavitt rodeo

Hey family,

Everything is going great in Cardston.  The flooding never hit here but we did get a lot of rain the past few days.  Right now it seems to be a really nice day.   But Calgary got hit hard.  It was so crazy! Cochrane and High River got shut down and had to evacuate everyone because of all this.  But I'm not too worried because our area is where the temple is which is on a hill, lol.  But I am worried about the other missionaries in the north.  It was crazy some of the footage that the members showed me of what happend.  I'm not sure how much you saw but the stampede might not happen this year because of this.  Oh and this week we went to help out at a rodeo in Leavitt which was fun.  We got to chase sheep into their cages so kids can ride them and we had to time them to see how long they stayed on.  It was super fun!  We also picked up a lot of potential investigators.  We're also going to be working a lot more with the members since that confrence last night. Did you end up watching it? I found it super cool and gained a lot from it.  There was also a big announcement saying that there will be more missions using facebook to proselitize.  This was a pretty exciting announcement.   Not much else has happened this week.  The flood was probably the biggest thing that happened this week.   Oh, before I close can I get Cody's e-mail I would just like to send him a little something and tell him how important this work is to the Lord.   I just love him so much and I don't want anything to happen.   But other than that I hope all is well.

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

June 17th, 2013

Hey family,

 

Everything is going well, I thought dad might have liked that. Tell him I said Happy Fathers Day and that I love him so much. Oh, and that wasn't alcoholic it was just that sparkling stuff.  But me and my boy are doing good he's doing really good.  Extending the invitation to the Olsen family kids was not too hard we just set a goal for the 29th for them to be baptised and they said that's a very reasonable goal that they think they can achieve. They already knew that the church was true so they were just really dry Mormons. They're a great family though...I think this might be my last transfer here in Cardston and I'm really going to miss it.  I loved serving in these little mormon towns and I'm just scared that when I'm done here that I'm going to serve in just a ward which is going to be really weird.  I've been in a stake my whole mission and always covered 8-9 units, so covering one is going to be super weird.  I guess in some ways it's going to be easier because getting to know all the members in the ward will be cake compaired to knowing a whole stake.  But this week we ended up picking up a new investigator in the Leavitt ward.  Her name is Trina Eagletailfeathers and she's native of course. She lives way out in the sticks though in the middle of nowhere.  She's a really nice lady though and is really open to be taught the gospel.  We're also still teaching Joseph and he just got a job working at the temple so I'm pretty sure he'll receive his answer more quickly because he says he feels something whenever he goes to work. Oh and he works on the exterior of the temple if your wondering.   The temple actually might be closing down for a little while.  I'm not sure why but I just hope it doesn't stay closed before I leave Cardston because I would like to go through it again.   Well that's about it for this week.   I hope everything is going good back home and I can't wait to hear from you next week.  Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

June 10th, 2013

Saying good-bye to Elder Jones (he's going home), one of the first missionaries Justin met when he got to the mission

                                         Waterton park

 A can of Spam for Jason Glowa (because he knows Jason will get a kick out it...!)

 

Hey family,

Not much happened this week, only that Cardston got it's own set of Sister Missionaries which is pretty cool, we got Sister Long,  Lanham, and Stucki.  They're all from Utah and they're working great here in the area.  We had to hand off a lot of our people that we were teaching to them but now we're going to try and find more people to teach.  Oh and also the district ended up splitting, so now Magrath, Raymond East and Raymond West are now their own district and Cardston West, East and the Sister Missionaries in Cardston are going to be their own district.  Before they were combined in one, so now there are three districts in the Fort Macleod zone....the areas include: Clairsholm/Champion, Fort Macleod,  Pincher Creek.  The three areas in Cardston, Magrath, and both areas in Raymond.   This is just crazy because now there are 19 missionaries in the zone and soon they might be splitting both stakes in Cardston and possibly splitting the zone into two zones. One being a Cardston zone and a Fort Mac zone.   Lol!  It probably sounds like I'm speaking chinese!  But this is super cool how the mission is just growing like crazy.  Oh and we might be getting a couple of baptisms pretty soon.   It's the Olsen family who have been less active for years and we got them to start coming back to church and a couple of their kids are interested in joining, so tonight were going to set a date for the end of the month for a baptismal service. There are also a lot of investigators that are going to start progressing pretty fast....one of them being Joseph H., who just needs a confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true.   He told us last time that he wants it to be true and that he would like to be sealed to his wife  because so far he's been seeing the blessings of living gospel principles.   Oh and tell Andrew I hope that he passes everything.  That would be nice.... just tell him to work hard and to set goals and make plans.   Tell him to read the quote on page 146 of Preach My Gospel.  It's something I wish I had known before my mission because it is such a good life skill that's just great, if mastered.   Tell him to read a lot of Preach My Gospel because there are so many life skills that are outlined....it's crazy!

 

Well I better get going....

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

June 4th, 2013 - Happy Birthday Elder Gagnon!

Justin's favorite birthday cake made by Sister Tanner...Thanks for the cake and pictures Sis. Tanner!

                               Opening his birthday gift from home

                              Excited that we sent him "Loups Garous"!

              Some of the necessities for a missionary....razors and a new tie :)

 

Having a Happy Birthday thanks to caring church members...a candy tree from the Tanners!

 

Hey Family,

The work is going good here in Cardston!  We managed to pick up some solid investigators this past week.  One is a family that moved here from Spain so their English is not too good, so we got a Spanish person to translate for us.   We also picked up a less active family who want us to come over to teach their kids because their almost all over 10 years old and not baptized and they told us that they would like to get sealed in the temple.  One of the less actives I was working with (Robby) from Magrath also might be going through temple this week and he wants me to be there.  I find it so cool that he's going through the temple because he's made some major changes in his life and I'm super happy for him!   Also one of our other less actives,  Leah is also going to be going to the temple pretty soon because she told us as well that she wanted to change as well and that was her goal.  Oh and we just came from the temple today and it was great, as always.  But other than all that, nothing else really exciting happened this week other than my birthday!  Oh and the cake was great and I love the tie as well...I'm wearing it right now and it's probably my favorite tie.   Right now it looks like we're going to try and grow our teaching pool in Waterton just because everyone goes there but the past few days have been pretty crappy.  But right now it cleared up quite a bit and we'll probably be going there a lot this week by getting rides with members just because its hard on our kliks.  Earl is going good,   he's been coming to church the past couple of weeks and our activity in Waterton was really fun as well.  Well I should probably get going because the zone wants to use their zone P-day, so we have a lot of Elders here in Cardston.  

 

So love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

May 27th, 2013

Elder Gagnon with his companion, Elder MacDuff on his birthday at the Olsen's house....Sister Olsen sent me the picture with the following message: 

Today I met your son Elder Gagnon!! And here he is on his Birthday for you to see! He says to say thank you for the birthday present...the Werewolf Cards!!, He was looking great, seemed very happy and excited for his birthday. I told him had I known I’d have baked him a cake, but he said they just came from another family who had a birthday cake for him!

He was shocked when I told him I had talked (emailed) with you, he said you know my mom????

Haha, I reassured him that us missionary mom’s look out for each other and our missionaries!!

He is a great young man, had a super spirit about him and he and his companion seem to be content with one another.
I was excited when I saw his name tag, and I recognized it right away!! So fun to make these connections!!

He’s doing well and he is happy and healthy, and I’m looking out for him for you!!

Love

Jeanine Olsen

Cardston

 

Having fun at the Tanner's

Hi Family!

Sorry, but I have to get going soon because the zone leaders told us that we're going to go to Waterton Parks with the whole zone!  So sorry if this is going to be a short e-mail.  Well we're doing good this week.  We managed to pick up a new investigator, his name is Earl Cowan and he works for the fire department and loves having the missionaries over. We also started a thing where every week we're going to go to the Temple Street Villa (a senior's residence) and share spiritual thoughts. (kind of like what we did at the Diamond Willow at Magrath).   I love doing that because you gain a relationship with a lot of the seniors and some of them end up giving you referrals.  I still remember sharing my last spiritual thought at the Diamond Willow in Magrath and how many of them told me that they were going to miss me.   It was a emotional day lol.  But things are really moving along in Cardston and we might actually start going to Waterton to start teaching some people because a lot of people go there at this time of year.   The past couple of days the weather has been a little bad as well but it clears up pretty fast.  Actually two weeks ago was pretty weird, we had winter, spring and summer all in one day!  It started off pretty chilly out, then out of nowhere a giant blizzard comes over us for like 10 minutes, then it cleared up and the sun came out and melted all the snow away!  It was super weird!   Well I better get going, the ZL's are texting me like crazy!

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

May 21st, 2013

Fudge shop in Waterton....apparently it's the best!

 

                 Visiting a senior's residence in his old area, Magrath on splits day

                                         Mountain goats in Waterton Park

                           Having fun on "plasma cars" at Sister Swift's house - check out the video below!

 

 

 

Hey Fam!

Things are just getting better every day here in Cardston.  We've been finding a lot more people to teach which is good and we've been trying to gain back member trust in the area because that seemed to be a big problem in this area in the past.   No one really liked the missionaries too much,  but a lot of people like us now which is good and people are starting to trust us with their referrals.  We just picked up a new investigator last night.  His name is Earl Cowan and he lives with a member family. He's a really nice guy and loves having the missionaries over.  He told us in the beginning that he was not going to listen to spiritual thoughts if that's what we came there for, but we did a subtle spiritual thought anyway and committed him to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and pray about it and he said yes!  This was a suprise because in the beginning I thought we were going to go nowhere with him but we tried to focus a lot on listening to what he had to say and the spirit just did the rest!  We also got a new ward mission leader in 1st ward which is good because we've been without a ward mision leader for a while in that ward.   We also got a new ward mission leader for the Mountain View ward too which is good.  This past p-day we ended up going to Waterton Park and it's super nice up there and it's part of our proselyting area because there's a branch we cover up there that's only open in the summer.  We're not allowed proselyzing up there though because the park is scared that people might not come back if we start approaching people.  So we'll start going up there and just walk around all dressed up and see if people approach us instead because theres a lot of people that go up there in the summer.

But that's cool that Elder Bernier came back to visit.   Did he give you guys his e-mail?   If so what is it?    I would like to start e-mailing him once and a while. Did he also end up visiting Nancy Taylor? If he's still there tell him I said hi and that I miss going on splits with him and Elder Holm.   We had so much fun together!  Tell him that I also thought that we rolled dice and that he couldn't visit Montreal till I came back.   Tell him he should fly up to Alberta one of these days to visit because it's super cheap to fly from Utah to Alberta (people here do it all the time).  Tell him also that I love him for being the great Elder that he was.   Well,  hope everything is going good back at home and I hope to hear from you guys next week.

Love you guys!

Elder Gagnon

May 13th, 2013

Hey fam,

It was so nice to talk to you guys yesterday and to pull that trick on you guys the day before, I found that very funny!  But yea I'm not too sure what to write about and I don't know why the SIN # is not working. That's funny but I'll just send a pic of my SIN card just so you have picture proof that that's my #.   But yea last night that new investigator ended up bailing on us but he said he would like to reschedule which is nice.   We also picked up a new investigator, her name is Masumi Quinton and she's originally from Japan so she doesn't speak English very well, so what we did was we got a returned missionay to speak Japanese for us and the husband who is a member translated what she was saying to us which was really cool.  The husband is a less active member though but he's planning on coming back to church and getting married in the temple.  We also visited Lance a couple times this week to help him out and he seems to be progressing pretty well.   Well that's about all for this week.

Love you guys

Elder Gagnon

May 6th, 2013

Hey family,

Everything is going a lot better here in Cardston, we're pickin up lots of people to teach, One of them being Brother Shewchuck.  He's a member but has some things he wants to work on. But it's super good working with less actives.  We also have another person who wants to know if the church is true, but he's super busy and hasn't been able to meet with us.  But he will probably find the truth for himself and we told him when we saw him on the street that we see you going to the temple with your wife and getting sealed and he told us that he would really want that so badly for them, so I can't wait to see him again.  We're also working with a family that just moved in the stake. They're the Daychief family and they're native. The father was apparently exposed to Mormons his whole life and he's really open to learning more about us which is good. We're also going to start teaching a family that has some kids that want to be baptized but the father is on and off about the church.  I'm pretty sure he'll come around to coming back to church though. They live out in a town called Leavitt which is part of the Cardton West Stake, it's just a small town though and not many people live out there.   But yea the missionary work is going good. I can't wait to skype you guys for Mother's Day!. O and I'll send that SIN number to you ASAP.

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon

                                          Cardston district missionaries

               Elder MacDuff and Elder Gagnon in front of the Cardston Temple

April 29th, 2013

Hey fam,

Everything seems to be going well here in Cardston!  We're setting up tons of lessons now with less actives and we might be picking up a new investigator this week. His name is George and he's a native that just moved here from the Kieni reserve. He seems pretty solid and he likes us a lot. He lives with his sister right now who is a member of the church but has just gone a bit less active. But she came up to us on the street and told us that she was trying to get back in the church. It's pretty exciting.  My companion is from Quebec city so we're working on his English, but my mission president said that we shouuldn't speak french because it's not part of our mission language.  But our studies in the morning are extra long now, we now have an hour of language study, one hour of comp study and one of the 12 week program.  It's long, but we manage!  Oh and I thought I told you that we live in an apartment now, lol.  I guess I didn't.   But yea for my birthday I was wondering if I can get some "loups garous" cards because there's a YSA here in Cardston and they're looking for more activities for family home evening every week. That's just somthing we used to play at the YSA in Montreal and I thought I would bring a bit of the French culture here to Cardston.  It can also be something we can do for a p-day.  Oh yea, there's also a member here in Cardston who might hook us up at the gym every morning at 6 AM so we can work out every morning, so tell Dad I'm gonna get bigger then him this transfer so he'd better start getting serious or I'll beat him at wrestling in 18 months!  lol just kidding!  Just tell Dad I'm gonna start working out again every day.  Well that's it for this week and Veronique Jensen is going to post some pics on facebook in the next little while of me and her baby cow they have. I took some pictures this week but I left my camera at the apartment. :(  Darn,  because I took some good ones.  I can't wait to send them next week though.

Love you guys

Elder Justin Gagnon