Summer is here?

Canada has seen unusual weather this year. Everyone talks about the light winter (that's because we are in Canada). We had hot days this week (crank up the air conditioner), but when June finally arrived days have been cool and rainy.

This has been a slow week in Trent Hills.

Todd Moon once sent a quote from Einstein, "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count. Everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." This is often the case with senior missionary work. We have been trying to increase the number of Melchizedek Priesthood holders in the branch, but ended up the week with a 17% reduction.

Monday started out with a walk through Kennedy Park. This was followed by a companionship discussion about the difficulty of measuring success on the mission. We were invited to dinner with President and Sister Holt in Havelock. We learned he was planning on driving to the hospital in Peterborough in the morning in spite of his bad knees. We offered to help.

Didn't they offer this exercise on TV?

Work on those quads!

It says we are in the "last days"

 We skipped our weekly district meeting on Tuesday to take the Holts to Peterborough for treatment at the hospital. We left a phone message for Elder Pineira (our district leader) informing him of our absence, but he didn't listen to it until the end of the week. As we passed the mysterious house in Norwood where Ben Lavoai was supposed to live we found two cars there. We had tried unsuccessfully to find him multiple times in the past. The cars belonged to house reconstruction workers who were trying to repair damage left by a fire.  No one lived in the house (or could live in the house) in its condition. This gave us one fewer Melchizedek Priesthood holder in the branch.

The hydraulic lift lock in Peterborough

In the evening we went to Hastings to find a Book of Mormon referral who lived on Water Street in Campbellford. Since there is a Water Street in Hastings (but none in Campbellford) we tried to find him there, without success (no house with that number). We then tried to contact two former investigators who lived in Hastings. John Li was not interested and the contact information for Lydia was wrong. We returned to Campbellford with little success for the day. We decided to put the Water Street address into the GPS and found it on the road toward Stirling. The referral was a 15-year-old boy who wanted to read the Book of Mormon so he could learn about the church. He didn't want to take lessons, but agreed to a followup phone call. Last week we talked to Caitlyn's step father who informed us she didn't want to learn about the church. Today we received a phone call from Sister Bevans serving in Bancroft, where Caitlyn's grandparents are members. It ends up that Caytlin will be going to girl's camp this summer with the Bancroft Branch. All is not lost.

Wednesday we needed to go to Brighton to make a deposit in the bank. We wanted to visit some members on the way back (Wayne, Eleonor, or Cindy) but none were available. We picked up some groceries.

Recycling bags waiting for pickup

Have you ever tried to teach an autistic 8-year-old boy with ADD the Plan of Salvation lesson? Added to this, was the fact that it was his birthday and he was fixated on recording our lesson on his new Nintendo toy he got for his birthday. We are trying to teach Mark-James the missionary lessons to help him prepare for his baptism on June 9th. We got through the lesson, but don't know if we got through to him. Before the lesson on Thursday we helped out at the Family History Center for an hour. A delivery came to the church of three bulletin boards which Elder Wheeler unpacked.

What do you think of Marmora?

Rainy days ahead

 June came on Friday as a cool, rainy day. We were informed that John Bolton (a do-not-contact Melchizedek Priesthood holder) died of cancer on Thursday. John is deaf. When we met him we were prepared with pencil and writing pad. To help John feel more comfortable at church and to help communicate with him, the whole branch took special classes in ASL (American Sign Language). Even with this effort, John decided he did not want to associate with the church. We took a drive to Warkworth and visited the library. We entered an art gallery and saw Kim, a soloist with the choir. She sat by Sister Wheeler during most of the practices and recognized us.

Rainy day in Warkworth

Saturday was another slow day with no one to visit. We tried to contact some to see if we could visit but no luck. We took a walk downtown in Campbellford and Elder Wheeler worked on his Sunday School lesson.

Side yard in Campbellford

Dream house in Campbellford

 One year ago (last Sunday in May) we bore our testimonies in Portuguese in the Christie Ward. We bore our testimonies today, but this time in English. It's hard to believe we have been in Canada a year. Some days and weeks seem to pass by slowly, but it seems like yesterday we arrived here.

We mentioned losing 17% of our Melchizedek Priesthood holders in the branch. Fortunately, this is not the full story.  With Mark Sedore moving into the branch we have a 17% increase in active Melchizedek Priesthood holders. Thanks, Mark.