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