Elder Beddes' Tales from Toronto: August 22, 2016 What a Week to Remember!

Hey Guys! What a week to remember! It sounds like you guys are having a ton of fun! I can't believe that you ran that 5k, it looks like a ton of fun!!! The lagoon activity sounded like a ton of fun too!! I can't believe school is starting up already! It seems like yesterday was starting her soph year and i was preparing for a mission! Where does the time go? Remember to try hard and get good grades! Well saying goodbye to everyone in Sudbury was really hard. Probably the hardest area to leave. Said goodbye to some of my really good ward members and they started tearing up, which made me wanna tear up. It was bad, but i've been emailing them so it's all good. Another family that was really hard to say goodbye to was the H's. My convert family! They all started tearing up, that was extremely hard. I don't know if they told you about it but it was pretty sad. We are emailing as well, and I can't wait to see them sealed in the temple in a year! Austin cried to (the 17 year old kid i play basketball with) reminds me a lot of the catcher off of the sandlot, it's pretty funny. But it was hard to leave him too. Jamie (Hell's Angel) was mad and sad too. I'm gonna miss that guy so much. I served there for 6 months and i will never forget it!

Well let's move onto Napanee! It's quite the place! People have been calling it "God's country" hahah ton's of land! It sure is beautiful!!! So much land it's crazy. My new companion is really cool. He is from Mesquite Nevada! He played football all of his life, and he's really funny!! He works extremely hard too, it's been learning a ton lately and fast! he's such a good missionary and he's been taking a ton of initiative which is really weird for new missionaries! HE's going to be an AP, I KNOW IT. ;) We've been having fun. The area hahaha well you could probably guess from the other area i've explained when I first come in. It's very slow. We came in with only 1 inv. who isn't solid at all sadly and only 2 LA (less active) they have been working with. I honestly question whether the elders before us did anything but that's ok. We are going to build it up ourselves! We have already found 4 new investigators from just talking to everyone! We have found 3 other LA's as well that are wanting to go to the temple and start meeting with us!!! It's been fantastic. It's been really tough though that's for sure! Napanee is a branch of 30 active, and 200 all together. So it's been a weird adjustment. Training is pretty tough too. And being a dl in a new district of missionaries I haven't even seen before! So everything is new and it's extremely hard but i've been putting my trust in God and pressing forward and it's been good! I honestly don't even know who Lavine is dad haha is she a singer? Napanee is old fashioned! I like it a ton, tons of farms as well! Old buildings that look like they are from the 1800's. We met this LA who hasn't got to church in forever!!! And she owns this huge 200 year old farm house and she renovated it and all the rooms are different cultures. It's old fashioned, dad you would have really liked it. I wish I took pictures but I lost my camera charger and so i haven't been able to take pictures at all. If you could send me a camera charger that would be fantastic! I hope you remember what it looked like. One of the solid inv. that we found was a miracle. We were calling some former investigators to see if they would be interested in learning more and I called this one and it was the wrong number and before I was going to hang up and I felt prompted to just start talking to this random dude about the Gospel! hahah and it turned out that he was really interested in what I had said and he wanted us to come over and teach him and give him a Book of Mormon. We were about to teach him the Restoration the next day and he's very solid. Just smokes and drinks, but he excepted a baptismal date for sep 24! He's so excited for it too! he's pretty sweet, but it was so cool to see that miracle! It pumped us up!

The LA's we are now working with are sweet as well, we set a couple of dates for them to go to the temple in October! SO i'm really excited for that! The branch is really sweet though, they love to feed to the missionaries. I've never seen people so willing to feed missionaries ever, so it's really good and cool! I love it, it's been definitely a ride i will never forget! It's been good though, it's been a learning experience. Going to new area always reminds me of the savior when he went to different places. makes me wonder what it was like for him to have built relationships with friends and the people that he healed and then to move on. My district meeting was on talking to everyone about the Gospel in every contact and conversation, i learned a lot about how we can relate and guide the convos to THE GOSPEL!!! It's awesome! Anyway, love you neighbor as thy self, and love God with all your heart!!!! I love you guys dearly. here's my new address. 151 Industrial Boulevard #17 K7R 3Y4 ! The post strike never did happen i don't think! Weird huh?

Love forever and always,

Elder beddes, coco, jojonator

"Is that your new mission president? Did you tell him you are related?!"

"Yes. he calls me cousin beddes hahaha it's pretty funny"