Happy New Year!

Hey Everybody!

I hope everybody had an awesome Christmas. Elder Yan and I had a great week and truly realized how blessed we are to be missionaries. People reached out and showed love for us in so many ways it was crazy.

On Christmas Eve we ended up helping a Sister fix her tempo (temporary shed thing) since some of the poles had collapsed from all the snow. That night we had a dinner appointment with the Morin family and extended family. It was a fun environment with good food and good people. After we ate dinner and the family passed out gifts, we shared a message from Luke chapter 2 about the shepherds' reaction to learning of the birth of the Savior. It's interesting how sharing the message was one of the first things they did. On the 25th we had a couple visits before going to the Lambert family's to skype and have dinner. We also played some card games and after dinner played some hockey in the road. Although being American and not Canadian is an automatic disadvantage for me, I still managed to score some goals.

On Friday we had a really cool opportunity. There's a recent RM in the branch who got home just the week before Christmas, and he's the only member of the church in his family. Before he left on his mission, his parents had met missionaries but never really had any visit with them. On Friday we had dinner at their house! They were an awesome family and really enjoyed talking about our mission experiences since we are doing the same thing their son had been doing for the past two years. His mom even asked us if we have a lot of investigators haha. They were super cool. Hopefully they will start opening up to learning about the gospel soon.

I loved seeing the family and a few of the grandparents through skype. I'm grateful for all the support from everyone and the love that's been shown to me! Love you all, and Happy New Year!

Elder Oxborrow

Happy Holidays from Trois Rivieres!

How's it going? I hope it's nice and cool down there like it is up here. That cold wind of humidity bites hard up here. At least I'm in a car area unlike last Winter (knock on wood since there's a transfer coming up in January). I'm really enjoying the Christmas season this year though. It seems to be easier to forget yourself during Christmas and desire joy for those around us. This week we were able to visit a lot of less-active members and share a message reminding them of the "reason for the season". While we were watching 'Mr Krueger's Christmas' with one family I was reminded of the importance of spreading love to those around us during the holidays, and it's certainly not hard when so many other people are doing it for us.

While we were doing some home teaching with a brother in the branch, a less-active lady pulled out a loaf of homemade bread and a box of cookies for each one of us. Every Christmas I find myself wondering why we don't show the same love throughout the year, and then as I think about it I realize that some people do. Some people never stop loving, giving, and acting with charity; we just have to decide to be one of those people.

Yesterday we had a huge snowstorm so there weren't a ton of people at church. It was hard to see where the lanes were on the road but for the most part people were driving pretty safely. The worst part is that we have a Chevy Malibu (commonly referred to as 'Maliboat' among missionaries) which is pretty terrible for snowy conditions. I miss that little green pickup truck.

Elder Yan and I have been playing a lot of Christmas songs-him on violin, me on ukulele. We're going to try to record some at a member's home. I'll try to send you some if it works out.

The picture was taken and edited by one of our less-actives Frère Paquin.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Happy Winter

Hey everybody!

It's starting to feel a bit like Christmas... Just got a French Christmas album today so that will help set the mood. Sounds like it's been pretty cold back home. It actually wasn't too bad up here this week. It stayed above freezing a couple days. When January and February come we won't want to step outside though. Our branch Christmas party is going to be the 20th and we're getting a song ready to play with one of the members we visit. I'll try to record it so I can send it home.

This week we had splits with the zone leaders and I stayed in my area with Elder Stillwell who was actually in the MTC with me. I hadn't seen him much since then so it was cool to catch up. We had an appointment with our investigator Jean-Phillipe. At first it was kind of hard to read him and we were having a hard time getting the Spirit into the lesson. We kind of stopped talking and decided to ask him about his life a bit and he started opening up a little bit about his trials and what he was going through. It turned the lesson in a good direction and the Spirit became more present. Marcel Croteau is one of our other main investigators we've been working with. He's actually and excommunicated member who has been working super hard to get back. He's so close! He's already met with the Stake President and is awaiting the date for his disciplinary council. We see him a couple times a week. The only thing he's struggling with a bit at this point is smoking. He's trying so hard but he has a puff here and there. Be sure to pray for him.

So we've already received multiple invitations for dinner around the week of Christmas so we'll be well taken care of!

Love you all! Enjoy the snow!

Elder Oxborrow

December in Trois Rivieres

Hey everybody,

Sorry I didn't have much time to write last week. I guess the first thing I should tell you about is transfers. So of the four of us who were in the apartment, Elder Willardson finished his mission, Elder Francois (my old companion) got transferred to Hawkesbury, leaving Elder Yan and I as companions and working the two areas into one. We've had a lot of appointments and stuff to keep up with but it was a fun week. He loves basketball so we talk about that a lot. He's a stud. The apartment is a little more quiet now but it's nice to have more personal space. The investigators are doing well. I'll write more about them next week. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and watched some football for me!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everybody!

Don't you know Thanksgiving was last month? Happy American Thanksgiving!

I'll write more next week but I don't have much time today. I'm alive and well. Love you all!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Another week

Hey everybody! We decided to drive up to the chapel today to do e-mails to avoid having to pay at the library. Took some of our kilometers, but worth the drive... especially since there's a ping-pong table here! I'm excited but a little nervous since we've got Elder Yan who is Chinese and says when he was young he had some training in ping-pong haha. We'll see how good he is.

This week was refreshing because we were finally able to see some of the people who had been unable to meet with us during past weeks. Gabriel was the first one. He's from Rwanda and has a Michael Strahan type gap in his teeth. It's pretty classy. We had a good lesson with him but we were at a cafe with music playing so it was kind of hard to really concentrate and get the spirit there.

Freddy and Claudia are a couple from Columbia who we found about a month ago and we had only taught them once. Freddy had been out of town for a while so we hadn't been able to teach them both until this week. We were over there on Friday and as we were starting the lesson, their friend (a lady whose name we couldn't remember) came up and sat at the table with us. Turns out she had been reading the Book of Mormon which we had left a few weeks earlier. She spoke very little French and no English so I practiced the little Spanish that I know. After the lesson she asked us if we could teach her English so we asked them if we could come by twice a week: once to teach English and once to have a lesson. They agreed :)

So I had a couple cool learning experiences this week:

The first one came from doing home teaching with Brother Jordan (recent convert). We are his companions to teach all the people who know English here since he doesn't speak any french. We were visiting a Sister and at the end of the visit he asked her how she was doing meeting her needs and stuff. She mentioned that she was pretty tight with food and wasn't sure how she'd get through the holidays. When we got back to Brother Jordan's to drop him off, he invited us to stay for dinner. He told Sister Jordan about the Sister we had visited and without a second's thought or hesitation they both started getting bags and food from their freezer. I was worrying because the Jordans have had some tight times with money as well and they aren't super well off themselves. They didn't think about themselves at all and they were just willing to give. It was a great example of selflessness.

The second lesson that I learned this week was to follow the Spirit more. I told you about my interview with Nic last week who was scheduled to be baptized. The interview had gone super well and afterwards I had a bit of an impression to warn him that the week before his baptism would be a crucial one because of the added temptations that ALWAYS come when people start making positive changes in their life. I took the prompting lightly and didn't say what came to my mind. Everything was going well until Thursday when I got a call from the Sisters telling me that they had received a text from Nic that he wasn't sure about getting baptized anymore. Turns out he had come across some anti materials. When I realized that I had received a prompting to warn him and didn't do it I was kicking myself. We did a lot of praying for him that day. That night the Sisters were finally able to see him and talked to him about it and just reminded him of the spiritual experiences he had already had and the answers he had already received. He realized he already knew what he needed to do and the baptism went through on Saturday. Phew. Moral of the story: do what the Spirit tells you to do without doubting that it's the Spirit!

Anyway love you all!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

P.S. One picture is from the service project of raking leaves a while ago and the other when is when we went Cois (as in Quebecois) Bowling!

November in Trois Rivieres

Hey everybody!

Hope you all had as good of a week as I did! Sorry for the unexpected change of P-day this week. We had a conference yesterday from 8:00-16:00. It was pretty long but awesome and I learned a lot. We had Elder Peiper from the 70 come and train us (parents: he told me I have to thank you from him for raising me right).

So last week we did service at a family's house where we raked and moved like billions of leaves. While we were having lunch the sister said how she thought it was so cool how we do the same work that the apostles did in the time of the New Testament. Her sincerity and conviction touched me and it reminded me what an important work I'm involved in.

On Thursday we had interviews with President Patrick. He came to our apartment (we were sure to clean it) and used one of the rooms to interview us. He always has good insights. I think he'll be a general authority one day haha. On Friday night a member had set up a time when we could go play basketball with his son who is inactive in the church. It was cool and we got to know him whereas in another situation he may not have been as open to spending some time with us.

On Saturday I had the privilege of interviewing Nick, who is an investigator from the Phillippines that the sisters have been teaching, for baptism. It was cool how he had had experiences which helped him gained a testimony for nearly every baptismal question. He's been being prepared for a while. His baptism is this Saturday. It will be awesome.

As for weather, it snowed for a couple days straight but then it had crept back up above freezing. Today it is very cold but no precipitation.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

News from Quebec!

Hey everybody!

We had an awesome week this week full of miracles and awesome contacts! Last Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving (Action de grâce in French) and one of the sisters in the ward prepared an awesome meal and invited a group of people over to enjoy it. On Wednesday we contacted a guy on the street named Gabriel. He's from Rwanda and is here for studies. We set up a lesson with him on Saturday, and on Sunday he came out to church! It was awesome. He seemed to enjoy it. It was the primary program and some of the kids were a bit misbehaven but he seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. There were a total of 11 non-members as well as a good amount of less-actives at church on Sunday. The work here is going amazing. Through the members as well as our own efforts, we've been finding some really cool people who are interested in learning. It's awesome how the Lord has been preparing the hearts of the people in our area.

This morning we got up a half hour early and went to the park by our house to play tennis and basketball and it was a balmy 36 degrees. It's starting to come haha. I'm not sure if it's better or worse this year knowing what to expect of winter. No snow so far though, just cool winds and frosty mornings. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

October News from Trois Rivieres!

Hey everyone!

This was a pretty awesome week. We stayed pretty busy. I went on splits with the zone leaders up in Québec City so it was cool being next to my old area for the day. I was with Elder Olsen from Idaho for the day. We actually both had the same trainer so that was fun to talk about. Plus I trained his MTC companion back in Ottawa so we have a lot of mutual companions. On Friday there was a meeting in Montréal for all the trainers. It was pretty good but a lot of driving. I think Saturday was the biggest day this week since there was a... baptism! The other elders in our area had been working with an excommunicated member and his daughter and they were both baptized on Saturday... but it was no everyday occurence... After he was baptized, he got out of the water, was confirmed, ordained a priest, then he got back in the water and baptized his daughter! It was sweet! That night we had transfer calls (I can't believe it's already been 6 weeks!). Our whole 4 man apartment in staying the same so I'm pumped for that. Our district is awesome. This morning the four of us went bowling. I was a little rusty but happy to say that at least I scored over 100 both games.

The work is going well and we're finding some cool people! Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

News from Quebec!

Hey everybody,

Not much time this week to write. We did have a great week though. Two less-active members we've been working with made it out to conference! I loved all of the sessions. We mostly watched it in English but watched one session in French at a member's home. I took a lot from it and ended up with a lot of notes. It was Elder Francois' birthday on Saturday! He got like 3 cakes all from different people haha so he was well taken care of. We also did some service this week. I'll write more next week, but I'm doing well and enjoying every second here!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

News from Quebec!

Dear everyone who reads this,

We had a fun week this week. Time is going faster than it ever has for me on my mission so far. It's crazy. I feel like I just found out I was coming to Trois Rivières and now transfer calls are a week from Saturday. It's probably because it's an awesome area and I'm in a 4-man appartment with 3 other awesome missionaries.

This week was good because we met a few of the people that the sisters had been teaching who we had previously had a hard time getting a hold of. We also had some great lessons with a member who is returning to activity (and I gave him a haircut haha). We did a lot of service this week which was good. Sometimes it scares me when I see how quickly my mission is slipping away. Time flies.

So I think my favorite story from this week comes from when we were doing service in our branch mission leader's yard and these 2 little girls from the neighbor's house came out and started pestering us. Their main target quickly became Elder Yan. After trying to attack him for a few minutes, they went home and came back out with some combination of water, soy sauce, and who knows what else. When they got to where we were they said "Où est le Chinois?" which means where is the Chinese one? When they found him they started trying to throw the Soy Sauce concoction at him and even though he's quick he wasn't able to avoid the flying sauce. After they left, he said in anger, "They attacked me with my own food!" Haha it was pretty hilarious. To make matters worse, he is a germophobe (or as he calls it, "cautious") and since a couple drops of the stuff got in his mouth, the whole way home he kept telling us he thought he was sick. After reassuring him that he would be ok, the last thing he said was "Ok, maybe if I survive this then I will feel safe washing my hands a little bit less frequently." Haha so that's my story for the week. Hope you're all enjoying fall! Canadian fall colors are awesome.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

News from Trois Rivières

Hey everyone!

It was a pretty intense and exciting week. Last Monday night I ended up getting food poisoning so that was no fun at all. It was the first (and second) time I've thrown up on my mission. I was feeling quite a bit better in the morning though. We saw some really good progress from our investigators this week and two of them came to church. A large majority of our investigators are Africans and they are awesome. They all have such strong faith in the saviour. We had a ward acivity on Saturday at the chapel (L'Épluchette de blé d'inde) and we had our investigator from Madagascar there. On Sunday all the missionaries sang "Come, thou fount of every blessing" two verses in english and two in french. I sang base, and I had to practice a lot to get it down ha. The finished product sounded pretty good though. We had two investigators at church, the one from Madagascar and the other one is from Martinique. Tonight we've got a dinner appointment and a FHE planned. It's starting to get cool again... today is a jacket day (I'll probably have to buy some winter gear soon just so you know). Hope you're all enjoying school and stuff! I'll try to make another recording next week.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

September News

Sorry this e-mail is a day late, p-day got pushed again due to labor day. Transfer calls came in on Saturday and... I'm leaving Petawawa! It gets better though... I'm flushing into Trois Rivieres (French) with a greenie! I'm super excited but a bit nervous. It's been a few months since I was serving in French. I'm pretty sure I will be in a 4 missionary apartment. That should be a good time. It will be a challenge knowing nothing about the area but that's how we learn. I've said goodbye to a lot of good friends this past weekend. We're heading for Ottawa today so we can be at the train station in the morning. I've gotta finish preparing to go so that's about all the time I have I'll write more next week. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

P.S. Photos are:

Brother Andrews!

Stevenson Family

Stevenson Family's awesome cat

August News

Well hello everyone! Ready to go back to school/work? I think the best thing about not having a summer break is it can't end if you don't have one! :) Last week we left for Ottawa after P-day and stayed with the Fallowfield elders. It's always cool being back in my old apartment and remembering being a greenie! We woke up at 5:30 Tuesday so we could make it to zone conference on time. Zone conference lasted 5 hours! We were trained a lot about working with the ward council, working with less active/part-member families, and having charity for those around us. It made me realize we (missionaries AND members) have a huge role to play in helping people come to/back to Christ, and it is an awesome feeling when we're blessed with success in our efforts. We also found out on Tuesday that we are now allowed to play basketball!!! You know what I'll be doing today. The rest of the day Tuesday was splits. I was with Elder Laouto from Vanuatu! He's the man haha. On Wednesday I saw the mission doctor in Ottawa to talk to him about my feet. He pretty much just said I don't have enough time left on my mission to make it worth seeing a specialist so basically I'll just keep doing what I've been doing. Thursday was Elder Wright's year mark! That was quite the day haha. When we went home for dinner I decided I'd make him some brownies. I mixed the sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs in a metal mixing bowl. There was no room on the counter so I set it on the stovetop. Elder Wright put some water on to boil but he accidentally turned on the wrong burner... when I went to grab the metal mixing bowl it was very hot haha. It was pretty much ruined and to make matters worse, I had used all of the remaining butter for the recipe. By this time I had realized that if I started over we would pretty much lose our whole evening of proselyting time so we just left to go to work. On the way home that night we stopped at the grocery store to buy some butter. I hurried and busted out the brownies before bed time. So, despite his best efforts of stopping me, I made Elder Wright some year-mark brownies haha. It was a good day though. On Saturday we visited our less-active Steve and had peanut butter sandwiches and tomato soup. Pretty weird but not bad. You should try it. Yesterday was the Whitaker's (family from Idaho) last Sunday up here so I had to get a picture with them. Today we're going to dinner with James Carlson from Spanish Fork and then he's coming to a lesson with us. Hope you all have a good week! I'm gonna go play basketball :)

Love, Elder Oxborrow

News from Canada

Hey everybody!

Elder Wright and I had a lot of fun this week. We were able to finally find some new investigators (after a draught of a couple weeks)! It's always a relief to expand the teaching pool. In other news, there's a family from Idaho staying up here because of a work contract and their job is paying for them to stay in a beach front cabin on the Ottawa River. They had us over for dinner on Tuesday and I didn't wanna leave. It was fun talking to them about back home (the mom used to live in Garland). How I miss that accent haha. Transfer calls are a week from Saturday. Transfers go faster and faster every time. Today we've got some car cleaning and apartment cleaning to do since we'll have car inspections at zone conference tomorrow. We're heading down to Ottawa tonight and staying at the Fallowfield apartment! Oh the memories haha. I'm thinking about maybe stopping by some of my old investigators and converts over there if I get permission... it would be good to see them. Hope you're all enjoying the final phases of Summer! Winter comes fast haha. Ayez du fun!

Elder Oxborrow

News from Canada!

Hello everyone,

We had a pretty good week, nothing too out of the ordinary this week. We finally were able to go out to Ottawa since we had splits this week. Seeing other missionaries is something I took for granted the first half of my mission. It gets lonely out here sometimes haha. Our investigators are doing pretty well though. We did a lot of tracting this week but weren't able to find anyone new to teach. All we can do is keep pushing forward. Not too much to report on but I'm still alive and kickin'. :)

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

News from Petawawa

Hello wonderful family and friends! Pretty good week this week. We had a good lesson with Judith last week on p-day evening. Resolved some of her concerns as well as taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She's pretty cool and has a lot of potential. On Thursday I was sick. :( That kept us in the apartment most of the day but after some crackers and ginger ale I felt better in the morning. The weekend was where things really started to happen. Friday we taught JP (investigator) and Brandon (recent convert). On Saturday we saw two less active members and our investigator Tanya. Tanya hadn't made it out to church for a while so while we were there with her we called a member and asked if they could give her a ride haha. She ended up making out and loved it like usual. She makes friends with members every time she comes. She just needs to keep coming. On Sunday we saw three more of our investigators. It was a pretty fruitful weekend. I'm hoping the air stays nice and cool like it has been. I don't like 100 degree weather with humidity. Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Oxborrow

I get tired of trying to think of subject lines...

Hello everyone!

We had a pretty good week this week and talked to a lot of people. We had a bit of a break through lesson with one of our investigators this week. She wasn't quite grasping why she needed to get married before she could get baptized for the past couple months, but for some reason when we saw her this week it just seemed to click for her. That was a big hurdle to get over, so hopefully she'll start working towards a marriage soon.

I think last week I wrote about Judith a little bit. This week we went by to teach her again and she totally opened up to us about basically her desire to come unto Christ. She came to church on Sunday, but we were stuck passing the sacrament (we shouldn't be the backups), and since she wasn't exactly sure about whether or not she should take the bread and water, and we weren't there to explain it to her, she left early. :( We're seeing her again tonight though so we'll be able to clear all that up and hopefully next time she comes she'll be more comfortable. She's solid though so I think she will make it out again.

Today we were planning on going for a hike but all the trails are closed since so many trees blew down in the storm so we're not sure what we'll do today. Hopefully we can find something exciting. I've been finding it challenging to be in an outside area where we rarely see other missionaries. You start to go a little crazy. We've been trying to think of good ways to make it exciting.

Time is flying by! I hope you're all enjoying the warmth of Summer.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Stormy Week

Hello everybody!

At the beginning of the week we were dealing with some high temperatures and humidity which is never fun to do missionary work in, but on Thursday and Friday a cold front came in, which meant storms, which are also not fun to do missionary work in, but despite all that, we had fun doing missionary work this week! The storms got pretty scary. On Thursday we were talking to a guy on his porch when we heard a very loud bang as a tree a couple hundred feet away got struck by lightning, and I saw a big chunk of wood shatter. It was probably the coolest thing I've seen. Friday the storm was even worse. There were just sheets of rain smashing down on us as we drove around. Luckily we were indoors until it stopped. The aftermath was the craziest part though. Tons of trees lost limbs, snapped in half, and some even got ripped right out of the ground. There were leaves plastered to everything around town and some places were without power for over 48 hours. It was pretty crazy.

Saturday was transfer calls and Elder Wright and I will be staying again in Petawawa. I was pretty happy with it since I feel like there are a lot of good things startin to happen. The mission is receiving 21 new missionaries this transfer. That's a lot haha. Not too many in our zone though. My trainer is going home on Wednesday! That's pretty weird. He hadn't even been out for a year when we became companions. Time flies. Sunday was a pretty good day (church was almost cancelled due to the loss of power). After church a member came with us to pass by some investigators and less actives. When we finished that, he decided he wanted to come tracting with us. He suggested the area and we headed over. After knocking just a few doors, we came to a house where 3 girls (about the age of 11) were out playing in the sprinkler, so we asked if their parents were home. One of the girls went to fetch her dad. After talking to her dad, the girls as well as a younger boy nearby took an interest in the fact that we were going around knocking on all the doors on the street and they started to follow us. For about a block and a half we were knocking doors and having to explain to everyone we talked to why 4 little kids in swimming suits, as well as 3 guys in shirts and ties were standing in front of their door haha. It made for some interesting contacts. Despite all this madness, we found an awesome lady who told us to come back in twenty minutes. When we went back, she let us in to talk with her. Turns out she met some members in Jerusalem while she was living there, but since it's illegal over there, they weren't able to discuss religion. Basically, she was prepared to hear our message. We taught her about the restoration and left a Book of Mormon. We'll be returning on Thursday. It was an awesome end of week miracle. Hope you enjoyed the river trip! Enjoy your last year of not getting pulled into the water by your son, dad!

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

The Heat is On

Hello everyone!

It's been very warm and humid lately. Muggy is the right word. We had a great week though. On Monday we set a goal for baptism for our investigator JP which was awesome. That night we got a call from the zone leaders telling us that we had to be in Ottawa on Wednesday morning for and interview with President Patrick. No problem except now we're super low on kilometers for the month which means riding bikes, and as previously mentioned, it's hot outside. So basically, July is going to be a sweaty month haha. As uncomfortably as it is sometimes though, it feels good to just get out and work and not worry about yourself. A cool thing happens when you stop being concerned with yourself and starting just focusing on the people around you. It was a bit of a revelatory week for me. I love when I can look back and see the important lessons I've learned. Sometimes they come little by little so they're harder to see but sometimes they come in bigger portions.

The interview with President went well. By the time we got back from Ottawa I think we were both tired of being out of our area. On Saturday we passed by a family Elder Boehme and I had met and we were able to give them a back of Mormon after we visited for a bit (and saw some awesome card tricks from their son). They are a super cool family and are always super kind to us.

Yesterday was a farewell for the Browns in the branch who are leaving for a mission in Winter Quarters. So after church there was a potluck as a final goodbye. We are going there for dinner tonight so we haven't had to truly say goodbye just yet. We'll miss them though. They were a huge help for us in our missionary efforts. Anyway, the work is going great and time is flying by.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

P.S. Congrats on the wedding Alyssa :) step it up Tyler and Brighton...

Living in the Car...

Hello everyone!

It was a very fast, out of the ordinary week. After Canada Day on Monday and P-day on Tuesday last week, we left for Ottawa so the Zone Leaders could go on splits with me Wednesday. The Elders we stayed with have a tennis court right outside their door so my good friend Elder Prawitt and I used our exercise time in the mornings to go hit some tennis balls. Splits on Wednesday was fun. I was with Elder Fronk who runs cross country and track for BYU, so we didn't have a hard time finding something to talk about. It was fun working in the city for a day. After being in an outside area for a couple months I forgot what it was like to have people to talk to all around me. It's hard to find a lot of people to talk to in a smaller area, especially when no one's home. In the city areas you just walk outside and can start talking to people. Thursday was zone study and we only got about 1/3 of the way through before President Patrick (who none of us had met) walked in and basically took over haha. He said something like "Hello everyone, I'm President Patrick. I'll be taking over the rest of your zone study." He has 4 kids who will be living in Montreal for the next 3 years. The rest of his kids are on missions or in their careers. Sister Patrick made a delicious batch of cookies and shared a strong testimony. Afterwards, we all ate lunch and then it was off to Val d'Or, Quebec! We left around 3:30 and got there around 9:30. It was quite the drive but it was beautiful. Literally thousands of lakes spot the whole area on the way up. Friday we were working in their area. I was on splits with Elder Smith from Lehi, Utah. He and I were in the MTC together and we had a lot of fun talking about all the common friends we had from Lehi. Saturday morning rolled around and it was finally time to head back to our area. it was about 300 miles from Val d'Or to Pembroke. If you're thinking we spent a lot of time in the car this week, you're right. Pembroke, Ontario--Ottawa, Ontario--Val d'Or, Quebec--Pembroke, Ontario. I'm not sure exactly how many miles we went but I do know it was a lot ha. I enjoyed the beautiful views though. Saturday and Sunday we were basically trying to play catch up with everything and everyone. This week we should be able to get back into the swing of things. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Happy Canada Day!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a happy Canada Day yesterday (that's why p-day is once again today instead of yesterday)! We had a good day and heard fireworks going off around 10. Unfortunately we couldn't see them from our apartment.

We had a great week this week. I can't believe it's July. It's insane. Staying busy makes time fly. We've been finding a lot of great potentials through knocking as well as some a great referral this week. We had a member bring a friend to church and say "Here you go here's an investigator" (she's not very tactful haha). We'll start teaching him soon. We have a crazy week ahead of us. We're leaving for Ottawa tonight for splits with the zone leaders tomorrow. Then we have zone study Thursday after which we will leave for Val d'Or Quebec so that I can go on splits with both of the other missionaries in the district. That will be about a 500 kilometer trip, then we'll finally come back home on Saturday so we'll basically be out of our area all week. It will be fun though. It's gonna be a beautiful drive through forest and lakes up to Val d'Or.

It's been weird watching so many good friends finish their missions. My trainer goes home in three weeks! He hadn't even been out a year when I became his companion. I can't keep up anymore haha. Well I'm doing well. Love and miss you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Good Week!

Hello everyone!

P-day got changed to today this week due to a Quebec holiday. It was an awesome week this week. The conference on Sunday was awesome! Brandon was confirmed on Sunday and he's been assigned home teachers. The branch is doing well with him. President Cannon is leaving on Friday about that same time President Patrick will be arriving. Remember the Stake President from Florida you saw on the broadcast on Sunday? That's president Patrick. It was fun getting a quick sneak peak of what he'll be like. The days are flying by quickly... missions are like rolls of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. We also saw a deer in someone's back yard as well as a chipmunk that ran into a family's house while we were over there. Canada... the rumors and stereotypes are all true... Love you all! I'll write more next week.

Love, Elder Oxbrorow

Full Week

Hello everyone!

It was a full week. On Tuesday We had a few lessons in the afternoon before heading out to Ottawa for the transfer. I enjoyed seeing everyone in the zone. Sometimes it's lonely serving in a far away area ha. On Wednesday I said goodbye to Elder Boehme and then we went and worked with some of the Ottawa elders until the incoming missionaries showed up. When they showed up, Elder Wright and I headed back for Petawawa. We had a dinner appointment and a couple appointments Wednesday night before heading back to the apartment. Sunday was Brandon's baptism! We were super excited for that. On Saturday night we were hammering out some final details when we found out the branch president had injured his achilles tendon so he wouldn't be able to baptize Brandon. I ended up baptizing him as well as leading the music and saying the closing prayer. I felt like I was on the program way too much haha but it's all good and it was an awesome experience being able to baptize him. The sad thing is we forgot to take pictures. :( That's ok.

So my new companion is super cool. He is from a lot of places since his dad is in the Air Force. Most recently he's from Alaska, but not the same place I was in.

We're losing President Cannon at the end of this month. That's going to be super weird.

The pictures are:

The wedding on the 8th

A failed ad we got in our mailbox haha

Elder Wright's birthday!

Eventful Week

Hey everybody!

There was a lot going on this week. It was a bit stressful. That's life. On Monday after P-day we drove down to Ottawa for zone study on Tuesday. Zone Study was in the morning and after that we had a contacting activity planned. Basically all of the missionaries in the mission were teaming up in the big cities and just talking to as many people as possible. I was assigned to Gatineau which is a pretty French city so I got to brush up on my French so that was good. Elder Keenan (my companion for the day) and I contacted 235 people. It was awesome haha. As a mission, we contacted over 10,000 people all in one day. It was pretty sweet. On Wednesday we had splits with the zone leaders so they ended up just coming to our area and spending the night at our apartment. I was with Elder Gamez (Gameth) for the day. He's from Spain so I had him help me out with my Spanish while we were knocking doors. They left for Ottawa Thursday morning.

We ended up having to push back Brandon's baptism so it's scheduled for this Sunday. He's been doing awesome and should be ready. We still had the wedding on Saturday though. It was pretty cool. They're looking forward to being married in the temple a year after his baptism. I'll be finished with my mission by then so I may just have to come back for it.

Saturday night was transfer calls... I'm staying in Petawawa and Elder Boehme is getting transferred to Alma, Quebec (look it up, it's way out there haha). He's looking forward to a good 11 hours of transportation. I will be the new district leader here and my new companion will be Elder Wright (don't know him, just know of him). I'm excited for the change and am Grateful for everything I learned from Elder Boehme.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Humidity...

Hey everybody,

It's been a hot, humid week here next to the Ottawa River. It's like instant sweat right when you walk outside. Riding bikes makes it even better. Eventually you just accept that your shirt is going to be wet and stay that way. One night we helped a lady in the branch mow her lawn since her husband is away on a military assignment. I've always wanted to mow someone's lawn in proselyting clothes haha. It was awesome. We've started a little service project of garbage cleanup, and we found a frog while we were doing it (see photo)! He was pretty cool but he was scared of us so we let him go. One of the cool things about this area is that a lot of the members have beautiful homes on the river or lakes. This week we had a dinner appointment at one family's place with a beach on the river (see photo). It was pretty sweet. It seems like everyone here lives in vacation homes haha. The mission has been focusing a lot lately on the amount of people we're able to contact each day and one thing Elder Boehme and I have found is that if we go somewhere like the park, we can talk to a lot more people in a lot less time than if we were knocking doors. Sometimes, we happen to be at the park right when the sun is setting which makes for some beautiful views (see photo).

Our investigators are doing well. Brandon is getting married and baptized on Saturday! And then we have transfer calls that night haha. That's going to be a crazy day to be a missionary. We're excited though.

We're heading down to Ottawa tonight for zone study tomorrow. I'm excited to get mail and see the other missionaries. I've been spoiled in my past areas since we were always around a lot of other missionaries. This is my first outlying area. Oh yeah, one more story from this week. So we were knocking doors one day and we knocked on this door and a 20 something year old girl came out and told us she wasn't interested at all. We kept going. A couple days later we went to her neighbor's house (an investigator) to teach him. Part way through the lesson, she happened to show up at his house so we invited her to sit down. She ended up being super cool and down to earth and we have another appointment set up with her. Just goes to show how finding through friends is a lot more effective than knocking doors haha. It's easy for people to shoe us off even if they might have some interest, but when it's a better situation they're usually more willing to chat.

Anyway, I'm still alive and doing well. Oh and you don't have to feel bad about not sending me something last week it's not a big deal. It was just another day like any other.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

To mom...

Thanks for the chords. a member in the branch was putting on kt tape when we went over for dinner last week due to plantar fasciitis. I told her I have it to so she brought me some to church on Sunday. Wade must not want to drive too badly haha. I wonder if kt tape would help me be able to run. That would be cool. I shaved my ankle haha. Does it seem like it's been a year since you dropped me off? It's funny how time works. Love you

Brenden

ps who else is gettin married and stuff?

Hi :)

Hey everybody!

Great to hear from you all this week. Sorry to hear about Sam. Hope he's doing ok.

It's been another great week here in the heart of the Ottawa Valley. We had a lot of fun and a lot of success this week. Our investigator Tanya made it out to watch the baptism of a girl in the ward and she really enjoyed it. She was pretty neervous about getting baptized but I think that helped her a lot. She's been progressing very well. In the nearer future though, we've got Brandon who's getting married and baptized on the 8th of June. That night is also transfer calls so it's going to be a crazy day to be a missionary. Yesterday we had a bit of an adventure. A guy from Toronto was up visiting so he showed up to our church. He's the only member in his family, who all live in our area. We went by to try to visit his sister after church where he was staying. She wasn't home but he came out and talked to us for a second then asked if we had a minute to go meet his cousin. We said yes and we got in his car. We drove through the small town (some would say hick town) of Chalk River, Ontario with him and stopped at a house in the bush. We got out and met his aunt, uncle, and two cousins. They were all super nice and were kind of red necks haha. We talked and got to know them for a bit then he drove us back to our car. It was cool to see a member, not even from our branch, jumping at the opportunity to introduce us to people. That's what the leaders of our church are talking about when they discuss member missionary work. We can knock on doors all we want and maybe meet some interested people occasionally, but if we had member missionaries like him more often introducing people to the missionaries, the missionary work everywhere would explode. Anyway, I'm done with my rant haha.

I'm picking up a bit of a Canada accent up here. I need to stop serving in English areas haha. Transfer calls are already coming up again a week from Saturday. I can't believe how fast this transfer has gone. I guess it's cause we've been busy. Oh man, and with it my year mark is in a couple days. I'm not sure what is happening to the time. I used to think a year was a long time but now I'm not so sure. Well I'm doing well. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Good Week in Petawawa

Hey everyone!

I don't have much time at all but I just wanted to send a quick letter to let you know I'm still alive. Elder Boehme and I have had some pretty good success these past weeks despite some time out of the area. The investigators here are doing really well. We should have a baptism coming up on the 8th of June. We had splits this week from the other Elders in our district. It was a fun opportunity to work with them. Our district right now consists of 2 teams of elders and a senior couple. All four of us Elders were in the MTC together so it's pretty cool. I'll write more next week. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Happy Mothers Day!

Hey everyone!

It was great to Skype home yesterday! Seems like the family is all doing well. It's funny how people don't stop growing just because I'm away. This week was very fruitful with a couple of cool stories as well. The first success of the week was we found a lot of future service opportunities. President Cannon has really been pushing for service in the smaller towns like ours and we had been struggling to find it. We'll probably start volunteering at a soup kitchen and a couple other things pretty soon.

On Wednesday we went to pass by a family that we had met a while a good. We just dropped in and they happened to be getting ready for dinner. As soon as they opened the door they invited us in to eat with them ha. Usually when we pass by someone it's just so we can set up another time to come by since they're usually busy when we pass by. We were completely unprepared to be invited in for dinner haha. It was really awesome to meet such a caring family. So we had burgers with them and we found out they when they used to live in Virginia, some of their best friends were members. It's ALWAYS a breath of fresh air to meet people who have already known members in the past. We gave them a Book of Mormon and bore testimony of it. They invited us over for dinner again next week.

The other really cool experience from this week was yesterday before we skyped home. We drove up to a little town called Chalk River since there was a less active member listed on the ward list up there. We figured we'd try to go meet him. When we got to the town, we realized that his full address wasn't even on the list. We tried to call the number but there was no answer. We started knocking doors for a little bit but few people were home. Elder Boehme and I took a pause to evaluate the situation. Something drew us down the highway that ran through the town. As we were walking, a group of 7 or 8 kids came towards us. They were kind of a troubled looking bunch ha. Baggy clothes and cigarettes. When we got close enough they slowed down to talk to us. Sure enough, one of them was our less active friend that we had gone to visit. We talked with them for a few minutes. One of the friend's mom is also a member and has known a lot of missionaries in the past. We took down their info and we'll go pay them a visit again in the future. It was super cool. Sometimes following the spirit makes you feel pretty sheepish and you realize afterwards what you were being led to do.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

New Area!

Hey everyone!

It was a really good week this week. Wednesday I left Quebec at 8 a.m. and got to Montreal around 11. I saw three past companions there which was super cool. The best thing about being transferred is seeing all the other missionaries who are there. We were supposed to catch the bus for Ottawa at noon but everyone wasn't ready so we didn't end up leaving until 2. We got to Ottawa at about 5 where Elder Boehme and Elder Moolenbeek were awaiting my arrival. We had to leave right then since we had a dinner appointment an hour away to get to. Elder Boehme was in the MTC with me so I already knew him, but Elder Moolenbeek is actually from Ottawa and he's been here waiting for his visa to go through (serving in California), but he's leaving tomorrow so it'll be just down to two of us.

The area in Petawawa has been full of success lately so I came in at a good time. It's a small town feel and it reminds me of home. This week was stake conference for the Ottawa stake which means I saw tons of people from my first area. It was pretty cool but pretty weird at the same time. I got to see Zoe! It was super weird since she got baptized while I was gone so she's a member now. It was super cool. I also got to stand in the circle to give a young man from Fallowfield the Melchizedek Priesthood. It was a good day. It's been a super busy week and I'm excited to get back up to Petawawa to get more familiar with it. I'm short on time today but I'll write more next week. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Transfers

Well another week has come and gone, and with it another transfer call which let me know that this would be mine and Elder Leon's last week together. :( It was a good week though. We worked hard and saw a lot of success. We met almost all of our goals for the week too. It always feels good to end the transfer with a good week. Our miracle investigator Mireille accepted a baptism date, as well as Sada one of our other investigators from Nepal.

Saturday was a big farewell dinner for one of the guys in our ward who's going into the MTC on Wednesday. We went to that, but had to leave a lit early for transfer calls. We had to be in our apartment at 8 but the call didn't come until 9. I found out I'm being transferred back to the Ottawa zone haha. The area is called Petawawa and it's purely English. It's the furthest West area in our mission. My companion is going to be Elder Boehme and he's from the same transfer as me (3rd time!). I'm excited to go back but I'm worried I'm going to lose some of my French. I'll have to make sure to always speak French with Elder Boehme.

Sunday after church I took some pictures and said goodbye to the members of the branch. That night we stopped by Shun (recent convert) and Bin (his dad who is an investigator) to say goodbye, then we stopped by a former investigator and he ended up feeding his snake a live mouse while we were there and he let us record it. It was pretty crazy but it ate up all the memory on my camera haha. He also has like 3 mountain bikes, one of them is worth like $9,000. He let me take some pictures of those too.

Today Elder Leon and I are planning to visit some of the shops in Old Quebec that we've been wanting to visit for a while. I hope you're all still alive and doing well! Happy birthday to three of my grandmas!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

< 3

hi mom! Hey I heard Ashley Warburton is going to serve in Canada. Do you know which mission? Also, Just thought I'd tell you my companion and I have been cooking our meals out of the snow cookbook :)

Love Brenden

April 22

Hey everyone!

We had a really awesome week this week with a couple cool miracles. On Tuesday we didn't have any lessons planned for the afternoon so we decided to go tracting, even though afternoons aren't always the best time to knock. We knocked a building of eight apartments and no one was home in the whole building. We stepped outside and started discussing what we could do instead to be more effective with our time. We were about fresh out of ideas when suddenly a guy walked approached us and in English asked if we were from Utah haha. I told him I was, but Elder Leon was from California. He said "Well I'm not Mormon, but I like Mormons, could you guys come by sometime?" Turns out he used to live in Western Canada so he speaks good English and teaches at one of the few English schools here in Quebec. He's really into camping so he's been through Utah a lot to visit the national parks and stuff, so he's met a lot of members in his travels. He knows a lot about the church and is very open to learning more, so that was one of our cool stories from this week. The next one was Mireille. Last Monday we were just wrapping up our p-day at the institute center when a lady walked in the front door and started asking us what we were all about. We gave her a tour of the chapel which she really enjoyed and we set up an appointment with her for the next day so we could teach her more. The next day we taught her with the St. Onges, the senior couple here, and it went really well. She was very open to our message and seemed very excited about the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets we gave her. We invited her to come to church on Sunday. She showed up early and stayed nearly for all three hours. She's planning on coming to English class this week as well so we have high hopes for her.

The missionary work is going well here and the weather has been more bearable although the wind is still pretty chilly usually. Today we're going to check out a waterfall so I'll include those pictures in next weeks e-mail. Love you all and hope you're doing well!

Elder Oxborrow

P.S. Tell Nathan Eggli hi from me! I'd love to hear from him!

April 15

Hey everyone!

I loved hearing about Morgan's baby blessing! Wish I could have been there but it was good to see a lot of the family was able to make it.

It was a bit of a slow week accompanied by two days of snow storms. It's quite a bit warmer today though which is good. I've decided it's just a bad idea altogether to guess when the last snowfall is, because you're always wrong haha. We had a hard time seeing our investigators this week due to finals coming up and stuff.

On Friday we gave blood which was fun. It's a good way to do service while still having opportunities to talk with people. Saturday we didn't have a lot planned so we had a good three hour chunk of knocking time. This morning we played some Risk at the Elders quorum president's house and then he took us to lunch at the restaurant at the army base. It was pretty cool. Not too much to report this week and I don't have much time but I'm doing well and love you all!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Happy Conference!

Dear family and friends,

Hope you all enjoyed conference as much as I did! It's great to have men leading this church who are so close to the Lord. Plus, I hear a got some airtime during a program in between sessions. I though that was pretty cool. Our district watched the clip this morning, and I think Sister Landeen is probably feeling like a celebrity by now haha. She's an awesome missionary who likes to have fun and work hard. It's awesome they showed the story of her and her family.

Last Monday some members in the Quebec ward took us all to a Cabane à Sucre which means "Sugar Cabin" and basically it's a place where you go to eat an unlimited amount of food with an unlimited amount of homegrown Canada maple syrup! It was delicious. It's pretty cool the way they harvest the maple syrup. They tap into the trees and hook up hoses between them all (see photos), then boil down the liquid so it thickens to the point where it's syrup. Delicious all natural syrup that I never even knew existed before I got here haha. The rest of the week also went well. On Tuesday our English class students brought us donuts as a thank you which was super cool. Most of them are at least in their 50s and very kind. We also had splits this week with the zone leaders which went well. I worked in their area for about a day and a half. Friday was Zone Study which means there were some other missionaries staying at our aparment Thursday night. We also had interviews with president as part of Zone Study. We didn't talk about too much other than him giving me some stretching ideas to help out with sore feet. I feel like I'm probably not the funnest person to interview since I don't always have too much to say haha.

Today we hit up Costco for our groceries and stocked up. We don't have too much money left for the month but we're hoping the masses of food we got will carry us through haha. Doing well and having fun!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

P.S. Here's the link to the clip that showed after conference in case anyone missed it:

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=24703772&nid=295&title=a-mighty-band-of-youth#ooid=BrbWdzYTqRgAX_72ObMv7bnqBuvTT1sA

Happy Easter!

Happy birthday Dad! Happy Easter everyone! Other than that, this week wasn't too out of the ordinary. One big event this week was I switched from my big coat to my lighter jacket. That's always a good sign. Today I'm back to the coat though since it's gotten a little colder outside. It's warm enough to be raining today though. We had a beautiful day for Easter, and good church meetings as well. The family we usually eat with on Sundays wasn't at church so we weren't going to have anywhere to eat (which isn't a problem except for the fact that our fridge is empty), but one of the single brothers in the branch happened to invite us over for dinner so we had a great easter dinner with him. The biggest miracle we saw this week was from one of our less active brothers. He has been struggling for a while with smoking, drinking, and some emotional problems. In the past he has only accepted visits from the missionaries, and turned away a lot of the members. The miracle was that this week two members stopped by and he let them in. Their visit with him changed his whole perspective on things and helped him gain a desire to quit smoking and drinking for good. He was reminded of the great spirit that was in his life while he was active in the church, and he realized he needs to do whatever he can to get that feeling back again. We taught him about applying the scriptures and taking things from what he reads. The spirit was strong there.

Happy Easter again! At this time I've had opportunities to reflect on the resurrection of our Savior, and remember all that he has done for us because of his love for us. Our goal should be to share that love with those around us in any way that we can. Love you all!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

P.S. The photos are from a couple weeks ago when we took the boat across the St. Laurent on p-day.

On the Rise...

Salut mes amis et ma famille,

It has once again started to get a little bit warmer and I think we might be really on the upswing for good now... I hope. I'm excited to go outside without a coat on, And I can only imagine how beautiful Quebec will be in the Summer. It's been a long Winter haha.

This week was good because we were able to sift through the investigators we had been finding and really figure out which ones are going to progress. One of them is Pierre-Luc who is in his 20s, is into boxing, and is super cool. We gave him a book of Mormon 2 weeks ago and stopped by again this past week with a member who is preparing for his mission. We had a good lesson teaching the Restoration, and when we asked him what he thought about it he said if it wasn't something that interested him, we wouldn't be there, so that was pretty cool. At the end of the lesson we committed him to baptism and he accepted it. We're super excited to work with him.

Our second success this week was Jean. He's from Rwanda and was referred to us by a member in Montreal. He grew up Catholic and has a strong belief system so that's super cool. A large majority of people in Quebec were baptized Catholic but don't necessarily have much of a belief system, or even care much about religion, so it's always good to find people who realize the importance of beliefs. We taught him about the Book of Mormon (he already had a copy from his friend) and the Restoration. He was really open to the message and shows a lot of potential.

Yesterday was a bit of an interesting day haha. We kept finding random items throughout the day... The first thing was while we were waiting at the bus stop I found a box of matches on the bench, and there were three left so I figured, hey, they might come in handy in the future, so I put them in my bag. Later on during the day, we got on the bus and sat down and Elder Leon sat right on a box of cigarettes that had been dropped by someone... We opened it up and there were no more or less than 3 cigarettes in the box! It was like Satan was trying to tempt us or something haha. It was pretty funny. So we threw them away, and went and did some door to door for a while until we were ready to head home for the night. We started walking up the street toward the bus stop and Elder Leon bent over to pick something up. I just kept walking and didn't think anything of it. A few seconds later he caught up to me and said "Elder, you'll never believe what I just found." Then he pulled out an iPhone from his pocket! It was pretty crazy. We decided we'd hold onto it so no one else could find it and steal it (I was a little worried they'd think we were trying to steal it). We stayed in the area where we found it and we figured when the owner realized they had lost it they'd call it from a friend's phone and try to track it down. A few minutes later it started ringing so we answered it and told them we had found it and wanted to return it. We met at a grocery store nearby and returned it to her. She was pretty relieved, and she asked us is she owed us anything. We thought about committing her to baptism haha but we didn't. So it was a pretty interesting day.

I hope everything's going well back home. Everything's in ship shape up here in Quebec. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Cold Again...

After a good stretch of lukewarm temperatures, it has dipped back down again. Last night it reached about -17. I'm excited for summer ha. It's not as bad now though because we've reached the point where the sun actually helps warm us up. We'll be out in short sleeves before too long though. It's just a matter of time.

This week we continued to find new investigators, but also continued to have a hard time meeting with the investigators we already had. We had a lot of good visits with less actives as well. Also this week, Elder Leon starting teaching me some Spanish. There are a lot of Spanish speakers in the area so it would be sweet to be able to learn it as well as French. The pronunciation is a lot easier than French, and a lot of the structure is the same so it shouldn't be too difficult, but I'll have to practice it a lot.

This week in Quebec there was a huge event called Red Bull Crashed Ice, which is basically a race on ice skates down a track with jumps and sharp turns and such. We were lucky enough to go see it! We were only able to stay for a few minutes but it was still awesome to be there. Also, on Saturday we had transfer calls and we found out Elder Leon and I are both staying here. I was super excited and relieved. Ever since I got here I've wanted to see this place in warmer temperatures. There's a lot to do and see in Quebec in the summer, like there is in the Winter.

Also, this week we got mail from the mission office and I just wanted to thank everyone for the happy birthday wishes!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

P.S. The pictures are from the past few weeks.

-A scorpion at our investigator's house

-My birthday cake

-Red Bull Crashed Ice

Birthday Week

Dear family and friends,

Just another week in paradise here in Quebec City. The work in the area is really starting to expand. It seems like it had been at a bit of a standstill for a while but little by little we're finding ways to hasten the work. It's been a bit of a challenge lately though since all of the students are studying for finals then leaving for Spring Break. We did have good lessons with our investigators Bin Li and Carlos.

The other day Donald, our investigator who had been in the hospital for a month was discharged. We happened to stop by the hospital a couple hours after he had left. I was immediately worried because I thought he'd probably start smoking again the second he got home. We went by his house and our fears were realized. I was super bummed since he had gone a month straight in the hospital smoke free, and had gained a lot of his strength back. He says the last few cigarettes he has are the last ones he'll smoke before he quits but we'll see. I wish there was more we could do to help him but it has to be his desire.

On Friday the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency took us out for dinner and Elder Leon mentioned that it was my birthday. He immediately started asking me what I needed for my birthday and I kept telling him I was fine and had everything I needed. He said he'd buy me a cake haha. So we walked to this fancy cafe/bakery place and he bought me a cake, then when we were walking back to the bus stop we passed a sport merchandise type store and he asked me if I wanted a jersey. I said I was good and he said we should just go look. He kept offering stuff and I kept trying to resist but he persisted and in the end he won by buying me a way nice Montréal Expos hoodie. Ah man I felt so bad but he said he's young, single, doesn't have a car, and has a well paying job so he's well off financially. In any case, it was a good birthday present. We also went out to get ice cream earlier that morning with the other missionaries. It was a good day. Thanks to all for the happy birthday wishes!

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Miracles!

Hello everyone!

It was a good week followed by an eventful, emotional weekend. We did a lot of knocking this week and we were able to find four new investigators. That was good for us since we've been on a bit of a dry spell with finding. We also did a lot of coordinating with the new sisters we received in our area since they opened the area last week and were starting from scratch. We also visited a few less actives and paid some visits to some people in the hospital.

On Saturday I got a letter from Zoe who was my main investigator in my last area who I worked with for over 4 months. She wrote to tell me she was getting baptized on the 23rd of Feb. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't really heard any news on her since I left and then next thing I knew she was getting baptized. I was pretty emotional for the rest of the day... and still am when I start thinking about it haha.

We also had transfer calls that night... and I'm staying in St. Foy but getting a new companion, Elder Leon. I've never met him but I hear good things about him. I got along really well with Elder Oviatt and I'll miss him but different companions means growing and learning different things. The mission's kind of crazy at this point. New areas are opening everywhere and a new Zone! I'm excited for the transfer though because a few friends from Ottawa are getting transferred to Quebec. Should be fun. We'll have a lot of missionaries in our apartment for the next couple days to accommodate for the companionships who live further out.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

view from our apartment