January 27th, 2014

Hey Family,

Dang I wish I could send a video but I tried sending videos before and it never seems to work with myldsmail.net.  I'm not sure why but I guess the mission doesn't want us to be sending too much stuff and get a bunch of videos from home.  I'm not sure how Jonathan Kaufman did it for Patrick though. Maybe I'll have to send my whole sd card home but I'm scared of getting the same problem that Chris had where they all got erased.  But myldsmail only allows 3 pictures at a time which is weird.  Oh well I'll make sure to send him something nice before he gets married.  I'm super excited to hear about all the stuff he's been doing and how he has such a strong desire to get sealed in the Lord's house.   I really love how Ephesians talks a lot about marriage and how men must love their wives as Christ "loved the church and gave himself for it" Ephesians 5:25.

But this week has been good.   We set Laton up for a baptismal date for the 8th. I hope it happens because my companion never had a baptism in this area and it seems to be a pretty solid ward we're serving in.  We've been finding a lot this transfer and my comp is wondering what we're doing differently than what they were doing before.  He told me that before he wasn't so focused on the investigators as he was more focused on teaching lessons.  Preach my gospel pg.135 is probably one of my favorite pages in the book because Elder Holland makes this bold and loving statement that has helped me love more the people that I teach and see what they need most.  I've loved learning out here in the mission this far and seeing others grow in the gospel.  It's been such a rewarding experience.  One of my favorite things to do is to treasure up the words of the Savior and see how he loves the people.  Because that's what the gospel is.  It's a gospel of love and if we "Have a love of God and of all men" and "Endure to the end" the Father promises us eternal life which is one of the greatest promises that I've applied in my life.  It's helped me love the people around me more and left me filled with the best spirit you could ever feel as a missionary. It's up to us though as members of Christ's church to spread that love because there are so many people out there that are kept from that love cause they "know not where to find it".

Well that's about everything that happened this week.  Hope to hear from you guys next week.

 

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

January 13th, 2014

Hey Family,

This week was great!  We found this less active family who's looking to get back into the church and said they would like to meet with us 3 times a week. She had broken up with her husband and so she didn't feel to good about the church the past while, they also said that their 10 year old son wanted to get baptized but he was 7 when they were active in the church, so they never got around to it but now he's 10 and he said he still wants to get baptized but he said we should teach him cause he doesn't remember too much about the church.  We found two families like that this week, so our finding efforts are paying off this week.  We've been a bit shaky on teaching maybe just because she has a lot of anti-Mormon room mates that she's living with so that may not be the best influence on her.  If we do get in with her again we'll see what influence her friends will have on her and if she really wants this for herself.  She'll make a great member of the church though if she joins,  so I keep her in my prayers often.  There wasn't too much that happened this week but the computer is probably going to shut down soon because of the crazy hail we're getting out side right now.   The lights are flickering like crazy right now.... not sure how long it will last.

Love you guys!

Elder Gagnon

 

                                                   Bishop Holthe and Elder Gagnon

 

 

January 6th, 2014 - Transferred to Lethbridge!

Hey Family,

I would have liked everyone to guess just to make it interesting but oh well!   Mom guessed Medicine Hat, ask Dad, Andrew and Chris to guess before you tell them where I'm at.  So... I'm in Lethbridge, serving in the west Lethbridge stake in the Mountain Heights ward.  It's a pretty sweet ward.  I'm serving with Elder Eastus and he's from Vernal, Utah.  I'm his second companion and he just finished the 12 week program, I'm pretty close to Magrath as well. I was super excited to hear that I was going back to the south again.   At the transfer station the Assistance to the President asked me if I knew where Lethbridge was and I said "yep" so they handed me keys to a Subaru and told me to get some missionaries and leave.  So I did that really quickly.  We stopped at Clairsholm in between cause they have the missions famous chicken.  It's probably the best fried chicken I ever had!  We got it when I first came out and so we just had to have some again.  The ward is good though.  They're really down for doing missionary work. We picked up an investigator yesterday.  Her name is May and she's from China.  We picked her up when we had our dinner appointment last night and she's super nice.  We invited her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and she said she'll do it.  We've also been praying for her and hope the next time we meet her she found out it's true.  So that was a miracle find this week.  The apartment though is in a basement but not of a members house.  The people who live upstairs are non-members but not interested.  I found it funny because we live in a community called Laval in Lethbridge and it reminded me of the Laval from home.  The apartment gets really cold in the mornings though cause we're in a basement.  But we called the housing people right away to come with an electric heater.  Oh I also found at the apartment a new set of scriptures that my companion didn't want and had no clue who they belonged to so he said I can have them, so I took them and study from them every day.  They're still not as good as those ones that I showed you guys but they do the job and they are like new which is nice.  Well that's about it for this week but don't tell Dad or Andrew where I'm at until they guess.

Love you guys!

 

Elder Gagnon

Hope you like the pics. One of them is of me and Elder Fitamont who just got home to Montreal not too long ago.

 

 

                                                    Chee Wee and Elder Gagnon

                                          
                                                   Elder Fitamont and Elder Gagnon

 

December 31st, 2013 **Getting Transferred!!**

Hey Fam,

I'm getting transferred back south of the mission again and I'm so excited.  I think I might either get transferred to Medicine Hat, Brooks, Taber or BC.  I don't think I'll go to Lethbridge, it's a possibility though.  You should look at the mission map and predict where I'm going and I'll tell you where I am in a week.  It'll be fun!  Just to let you know that south of the mission is anywhere south of High River (High River is not south though) and anywhere in BC, and Med Hat or Lethbridge.  I also got word a couple days ago that some of the investigators that we were teaching in Cardston got baptized which was great to hear!  I knew they would get baptized but a lot of them would just take a while.

I also managed to talk to Minerva for a bit but I couldn't hear her cause I was looking at a screen . But it was super cool seeing her though for the first time.  Me and Andrew hung out for a while though and I tried telling him to take me to certain people but he just stared at me and drooled the whole time.  It was funny though seeing him again and being able to make the jokes we used to make.

The Old Testament is going to be great though,  I love all the symbolism that it has.  Oh and did I ever tell you that one of my favorite books in the scriptures is Isaiah? I also love the story in 2Kings ch.5 where Naaman dips in the River Jordan 7 times to be cleansed from leprosy. Or when Abraham almost sacrifices his son Isaac.  The savior is mentioned almost everwhere in the Old Testament we just need an open heart to find where He is.  I hope you have fun teaching it though and can't wait to hear from you guys next week.

Love Elder Gagnon

Hope you like the pics!

 

 

 

December 24th, 2013

Hey family,

Well I guess I'll answer all your questions tomorrow during the big Skype call, love you guys. :D

Elder Gagnon

Here's some pics though. hope you like them....

 

 

 

December 17th, 2013

Hey family,

Sorry I didn't get a chance to E-mail you the other day, there was a lot of stuff happening the other day.  Like first we had to get our car fixed which took forever because the brakes on the car got shot and the place we took it to was also not the quickest.  When it was all done we then got a call to give a blessing so all of our P-day got shot, we really had no time for anything.  Oh well the Lord blessed us though because as we were going to the hospital we ran into a man who moved her from Africa who we just talked to and said he'd been taught 1 time by the missionaries but he moved here so he hadn't seen them since.  So we asked him if we could share more with him and he accepted!   He also said he has a family and they've been reading the Book of Mormon after their first visit with the missionaries. His name is Chris Ozoh and he's super nice.  We also picked up another guy this week. His name is Amier and he's Muslim but he likes LDS ideas and is happy when we visit him.  One of our potential investigators also found us someone that we're going to meet in the New Year because she said the holidays are keeping her busy.  So the work has picked up a lot in the past week. I'll probably be gone New Year's day though so I might not be around for all the good stuff that's happening.  I've been serving here though for about 6 months now and loved every day of it though. In past areas it was hard to street contact and tract because of all the Mormons that lived around, who knows maybe they'll just transfer me within Calgary so I can get permission to see some of the baptisms that happen after I leave.  Kelsey is also doing well and we'll probably set a baptismal date with him this week.

Christmas is pretty close though and can't wait to see you guys the next week. Today was also district meetings.  Oh and this transfer Elder Fitamont is going home to Montreal and you should ask Patrick or his wife when he'll be landing so you can see him. He is such a great Elder and has developed into a great servent of the Lord as he's gone through his mission.

Love you guys!

Elder Gagnon

December 9th, 2013

Hey family,

This year we decorated the apartment a little bit for Christmas, we have some lights we put in the front of the balcony and we just leave them on. Elder Averett got a small Christmas tree and put it on our eating table. It's a small Christmas tree though, it's like 1/2 a foot, but it does the job.  Unfortunatly there's no choir this year in our ward.  Music is just not as good here in Calgary as it is in Montreal, but there was a stake choir thing the past week at the stake center which was nice. We also had our ward christmas party this past week and there was a lot of members bringing their  friends which was nice because we got to meet a lot of people. The ward has improved quite a bit with their member misionary work.   Oh and we picked up a new investigator this week, his name is Kelsey and we found him through a less active member. He told us that whenever we visit he feels something so we invited him to learn about the gospel and he accepted and came to church and he loved it. We'll probably invite him to be baptised the next lesson because he's so prepared. Right now it looks like transfers are the 1st of January and it looks like my time in the Bow Valley ward is coming to an end. It's been fun though and seeing the people that I've met grow in the gospel.  What's really been fun is seeing the ward's faith in missionary work grow as well because there are so many people that the members are working with.  We're probably going to pick up a couple new investigators this week.  One of them is Amier and he came to church once but the Spanish Sisters in the north stake have been teaching him and he doesn't even speak Spanish.  When we followed up with them it had been about 1 month later and he hadn't been to church since.  So then I was a tad frustrated because they've been teaching him for a month and never came to church.  We'll probably start teaching him this week and get him to church the coming Sunday.  Seems like the work is really starting to pick up again and I'll probably be leaving when everything happens but oh well!  Oh and for the Skype call I'll probably call you a couple days before and set it up for Christmas Day. It will probably be a skype call because that will be a lot better and President doesn't give time limits on skype calls because they cost nothing.

 

Well that's about it that happened for this week.

Love you guys,

 

Elder Gagnon

December 3rd, 2013

Hey fam,

Everything is going great here in good old Calgary!  We're picking up a new investigator today, her name is Mary Marcelin and she gave us a call the other day saying that she wants to quit smoking because she scanned a stop smoking poster or called the number at the bottom and said she'd be interested in trying it.  Can't wait to meet her and help her out.  Oh and we got Christmas all figured out.   We're going to the Stevens family and Sister Stevens is originally a Montrealer and apparently knows Dawn Ross, so tell her she says hi!  I'll try and find out her full name so I'll get it to you for next week.  I'll probably put my package under their tree and open it on Christmas day.  Me and Elder Averett are doing good.  

 

Everything is going good. we have a lot of potential investigators who are pretty close to becoming investigators and there's a ward Christmas party and a lot of members are bringing their friends.  Also there is a person that we do service for who found us someone who might be interested, and another area who handed off an investigator for us so we just need to contact him.  Marima is also hopefully coming back this week and so we'll probably pick her back up soon because she's been gone for a while.  We've also been utilizing our ward missionaries more often and the Lord seems to be blessing us because of it.

 

Too bad the missionaries in our ward have no one they're teaching because our ward seems to be a goldmine for investigators.  I remember when Nancy joined the church and the black lady from Botswana, I won't try spelling her name.  But that was when Elder Holm and Elder Bernier were serving and seemed to know how to find investigators in the area.  Elder Blank was also really good at picking the ward up and talking with everyone he came in contact with.  I remember it was him and that Australian Elder McLain who found Nancy.

Well that's about all that happened that was new and exciting for this week. Hope I'll have many other stories to tell for next week :)

Love you guys!

Elder Gagnon

November 25th, 2013

Hey family,

Everything is great here in the Bow Valley ward.  This is now my 4th transfer here in the ward and it's great because the ward is so great.  Ever since we've baptised Chee Wee the ward has trusted us more with their friends which is good because now there's more unity between us. This past Sunday our ward mission leader told us he had to meet with the bishop so he put us in charge of gospel principles like 1 min before class started and it was on the Sabbath day and it went really well.  The ward mission leader and a bunch of other people came up to us and told us that it was a really great lesson and were suprised we hadn't prepared for it.  It was a lot of fun.  My companion told me he'd probably not do too well in teaching the doctrine so I just had him bear his testimony at certain parts while I taught the whole lesson.  I never thought I was that good of a teacher though.  It was funny, because I've been so nit picky about the way I teach and to have all that at the end of a lesson felt good.

Oh and my new companion is Elder Averett.  He's from Arizona and has been out for 3 months. His first area was Cranston in South Calgary. It was cool because his first name is Sturling and it reminded me of a small town near Lethbridge called the same name and made me miss the south a little bit, but I love it here in Calgary.  The work is a lot of fun.   Anyway, I gave Elder Renshaw a big huge before he left and he told me how much he's going to miss this mission.  I remember as he was packing, he wept a bit about how it was all over.  It was a sad day.  We did get a whole bunch of pics together before he left though. I'll send them to you. Oh and I'm not sure when Chee Wee is going to the temple, but he'll let me know.

We also got another call from Jorgina telling us that she wants to take the lessons again.  So we'll be meeting with her again which is nice because we lost contact with her for a while.

Well that's about all for this week!

Love you guys!

Elder Justin Gagnon

November 19th, 2013

 

 

District Activity

                                                   
                                                     Saying good-bye to Elder Renshaw

 

 

Hey fam,

Yea I don't think I'll need the new scriptures, I read the feedback on them and looked at my comps new scriptures and it didn't look that exciting.  Oh well, maybe the next addition will have more stuff and be actually worth while.  But the ones I got right now are great.  I made some scripture boxes for them a couple of months ago with a bunch of mission and church memorabilia on it.  I'll see if I can send some pics of it next week.  My comp Elder Renshaw is pretty dead right now, he arrives home on Thursday and he's super excited but sad at the same time.  He loved the mission and is planning on visiting in the summer.  Just the other day we went to his final interview with President and after on our way back he wanted to see some of the memories of specific areas in Calgary.  I'll send you some pics of us and our final memories together. It was fun serving with him and we're probably going to miss each other.  We worked though and managed to find a lot of people to teach.

Oh and big news, Chee Wee is planning on going to the temple pretty soon to start doing baptisms for the dead and he wants me to go with him as a witness.   He's progressed so well in the gospel and has been reading the Book Of Mormon every day and has the Aaronic priesthood now.  We've also been working with a recent convert named Gram Padler and he's been a member for about three months but never got prepped to receive the priesthood in the YSA ward he was in and so we prepped him and now he has it and will eventually go and do baptisms as well. We also found this one investigator whose name is Kate and is going to UOC.   But we'll have to pass her off because she's YSA, but she's solid, she really likes what we teach and is pretty ready.  We're going to teach her on Friday and hand her off to the sisters of the YSA ward.  We had to do this to a lot of people and hand them off but it's alright because we're getting a lot of investigators handed to us as well.

About Christmas, I just picked up some socks not too long ago and they seem to be pretty sturdy so I think I'll be good for socks.  Maybe a tie or two would be nice, not sure what else I would like.  When I got to the apartment there were a bunch of study materials, so I think I'll be good for studying.  Oh, did Heather come back from Mountainview yet?  If so, I think she has a bunch of books that I aquired from the members in Cardston.

Well that's all for this week.

Love you guys,

Elder Gagnon

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