In Canada, it's not girly to wear a scarf.

Hello family and friends,

It's been a fun second week in Quebec. The language is still hard to understand. I hope I'm understanding more but it's hard to tell. Some people have some crazy accents. On Tuesdays we teach a free English class and that's a lot of fun. I never realized how hard of a language English is until I started teaching it to someone who doesn't speak it. We've had to spend a lot of time this week searching for an apartment because of the new missionaries coming in. I have a feeling my companion and I will both be training again soon. We have a lot of awesome investigators but right now our main focus is Constance. She's about 20 and is doing awesome. Her baptism date was set for February 23 but a couple things we were waiting on got lined up faster than we had expected so she's being baptized on the 9th! We're super excited for her.

A few days ago I was asked to give a talk in church. I was pretty nervous about it since my pronunciation still isn't the best, and I've never given a talk in French. I typed it all out though so I knew I could have that to fall back on. It went pretty well. I talked for about 18 minutes and didn't realize I was going that long so I hope I didn't bore anyone ha. Well the work here is progressing, and we're looking forward to the changes coming our way. Hope all is well back home. Sounds like a lot of people are getting mission calls. Good stuff.

Elder Oxborrow

Je ne comprend pas francais

Well first off, the city of Quebec is beautiful. Everything is so old! All the church buildings are big stone structures, and everything is French. Although I don't have much of a problem getting my idea across, understanding what people are saying to me is another story. Some of the french accents here are crazy! We have a decent sized area. We cover about the bottom third of the part of Quebec City that is north of the St Laurent River. Basically we cover the down town area including Old Quebec which is awesome. We take the bus/walk everywhere since we don't have a car. I don't mind it too much. It feels good to be walking around instead of just driving everywhere. The only downside is that it has been freezing cold here with plenty of wind. Last night Elder Oviatt and I were walking to an appointment and the wind was gusting at 80 mph. It's kind of ridiculous how cold my face was. After a few minutes of walking, I looked at Elder Oviatt and noticed his ears were turning white. He started warming them up and noticed they had started turning a bit hard. Good thing we caught it when we did or it could have been bad. We have to be careful to stay near some place we can warm up since we don't have a car to warm up in. I'm loving the new area.

Love, Elder Oxborrow

Transfers

Dear family and friends,

It's been a great, warm week in Ottawa! We've had a heat wave for the past few days and tons of snow has melted. It's been very nice but it will be hard when it cools back down. Our investigators have been doing awesome! Zoe came to a baptism on Saturday and it helped both her and her dad a ton. Then on Sunday she invited two of her friends to church. She's awesome. On Saturday we had transfer calls and it saddeneth me to say that after 5 1/2 months here in the land of english and dinner appointments... It's time to put my french shoes on! I'm being transferred to Quebec city which is one of the oldest cities in North America and is purely french. It's been sad for me having to say goodbye to people but I'm way excited. Quebec City sounds like an awesome place. My french should finally start improving haha. Four of the elders I came in with are also leaving with me so a good chunk of us are leaving Ottawa together. I'm sad but excited about the change coming! Love you all.

Elder Oxborrow

P.S. I'll just start having everyone send mail to the mission office so you can just send mail to this address from now on:

Elder Brenden Oxborrow

470 Rue Gilford, Ste 300

Montreal, QC H2J 1N3

Canada

It's Cold

Hello family and friends,

It was a fun week to be a missionary. One night when we got home it was -15 F. Boy does that feel nice haha. It's livable though. It's ok since every time we go tracting in the cold our wives become more and more beautiful. Our week started on Tuesday since we weren't allowed to proselyte on New Years Eve. We helped a less active lady move this week. She really appreciated the help. We did a lot of knocking this week but had more success visiting less actives for the first part of the week. About Thursday on we started seeing a lot more success from knocking and with our investigators. We met with our investigator Diane and since we hadn't met with her for a while we had to push back her baptism date to March 2. We're crossing our fingers that she'll keep her commitments to prepare herself. We also met with Zoe that same day and had a great lesson with her. We brought one of the young women who has really been reaching out to her. The lesson was focused mainly on resolving her concerns and questions. The weekend was when we had a lot of success in finding new investigators. We found 7 or 8 people this week who we'll be seeing again. It was a great week. One thing about missionary work I've learned is that the more energy you put into it, the more joy you take out of it (even though it's sometimes exhausting).

My condolences go out to the Mitchell family. I have no doubt the Lord is with them every step of the way.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

P.S. Some photos I meant to send sooner

Christmas Skype!

(from the mom)
We had a great opportunity to skype with Brenden on Christmas day.  Aspen freaked out a little (screamed) when she saw who it was on the computer.  Since the 'call" she has been telling people Brenden is back now.  Funny how being able to see someone makes them BACK even for a little bit.

We were all able to visit with him:  Grandma and Grandpa Fraser, Aspen, Hayden, Austin and Wade.

Back and forth...

Some cute messages between Brenden and his mom (via email).

Mom:

We like letters.

Morgan likes letters.

Need stamps?

Brenden:

I made you a graph of my time usage to help explain why you haven't gotten a letter since I've been in the field. I'll try to send it soon.

Mom:

what should I put in your christmas package????

You CAN or CAN'T have an ipod with church music on it???

give me your santa list!!!

Brend:

yes i can have an ipod. that would be nice to have. Other than that I don't really know... I bought a gps already so i don't need that. Honestly the best thing would be money to buy a couple clothing items (since I'm no longer the same size).

*****

Brenden:

packages should be sent to the mission office, not my apartment address. The mission office address is:

Elder Brenden Oxborrow

470 Rue Gilford, Suite 300

Montreal, QC H2J 1N3

Canada

did you send it by local post?

mom:

I sent it via Express Mail

Brend:

Hope that works. Canada can be picky with some things, and the mission office isn't very flexible with things on their end. 

mom:

it will be... I paid more to get it there... 

Brend:

If you sent it to the mission office it has to be there by the 18th or I won't get it..

How do you make gravy for biscuits and gravy?

*****

Brend:

do you still exist? When should I call home on Christmas?

Mom:

HELLO my brenden friend!!!!

I would love to skype on Christmas if that is a possibility... if not, you know us... we are up early.  we get into utah again at midnight on Christmas eve... so maybe give us until 7 or 8am (9-10 your time).

Brend:

I don't have a skype account...

mom:

should I make one :)

Brend:

yeah certainly

It's Cold

Dear family and friends,

I think we've gotten our first taste of Canadian Winter. The temperature has been sitting pretty consistently at about 23 degrees F, but that combined with the wind and the humidity gets pretty hard to handle, especially while we're out tracting. The good news is, it only gets colder! Haha. I'll be getting some thermals or something soon. Our investigators are doing well. We met with Zoe this week and just read the scriptures with her and explained as we went along. She should be coming to church again this Sunday. Diane was supposed to come to church this Sunday, but I think she was a little nervous about it so she didn't show. However, her sister talked to her about it and it sounds like she'll be coming next week. We're meeting with both her and Zoe this Thursday and we'll be talking about baptism with both of them.

This morning we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow! It was pretty exciting. Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow