It's The Final Countdown

Hey!  Its the last week!  In one weeks time I will be at home, in Arizona, enjoying the company of friends and family, and the heat.  And the good Mexican food. Lots of things.  Not to say I won't miss it here. But I've missed good Mexican food.  Did I say Mexican food?  I meant family and friends.... Mostly.

Anyway, this week has been great for Elder Sun and I.  We have been working with Joy still, finishing teaching her lessons again to review her commitments to God, as well as preparing for my return. This last weekend we also helped at the Fukinese Association of Alberta, preparing and cleaning for some of the renovations they are planning on making before winter.

We are still planning on having a baptism for my last week here in Edmonton, which is so great. I am so glad I got the chance to get to know and to teach David, he is such an awesome guy.

This week has been a pretty slow week.  With David out of town, we have been doing lots of finding, talking to people on the streets, in their homes, in our churches, and it reminds me how much I love sharing the gospel with these people. I am truly grateful for the time I have had here in Edmonton to share with these people, and I am so blessed in all the things I've learned and the ways I've grown incidental to sharing this amazing blessing with others.  I am so grateful for God and his plan and all the things he does for us.  I know he loves us, each and every one of us, because we are his children and he wants what is best for us, and will help us get there.

Elder Ethington

Heritage Days

Hey All!  How has your week been?  This week has been pretty crazy here in Edmonton.  It's also my second to last week to send out this email!  Crazy!

Well this week, the major event was Heritage Days.  All 8 of the Mandarin speaking missionaries were asked to help volunteer at the Taiwanese pavilion during Heritage Festival.  The Festival is a three day event of each country showcasing arts, foods, and other parts of their own unique culture to help show and celebrate the multi-cultural heritage of Alberta!  It was so much fun to see all the different cultures and backgrounds people come from.  Truly an awesome event!  I spent the majority of my time volunteering for the A/V at the Taiwan tent, helping to make sure performances went smoothly and moving things.  Lots of things.  But it was lots of fun.  I also got to try on a costume.  I didn't dance in it, but some elders did, and it was pretty great.

Other than that, this week has been pretty slow.  David passed his baptismal interview, so he is set to go on August 13th, my last Saturday in Edmonton!  Crazy how fast things go!  But I'm so excited to get home.  Sad to leave, but excited to see family.  Anyway, that's my week!  Hope you are doing well!

PIna Colada

Hello!  How's your week been?  This week has been great for Elder Sun and I.  We had a chance this week to work with David, the spiffy man who came to church again this Sunday.  There we were able to finish the lessons we need to teach with him, and go over the questions for baptism.  He is super prepared to be baptized in the next few weeks, and I am so excited to have this to look forward to as I start on my last three weeks!  Holy Cow, thats so weird to even type out!  Its amazing how fast these two years have gone, and how much has happened.  I am super excited to get home and to see everyone and to be able to share some of the experiences I've had living in the strange foreign land of Alberta, Canada, as well as the miracles I've seen while I've been on the Lord's Errand.  I am so blessed to be here with these people, and I am so grateful for the time I've had to serve them.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Lime

7/12/2016

Hello!

This week has been very good here in Edmonton.  I am enjoying my final few weeks!  This week I got a letter with my travel plans, so I now know for sure what my itinerary looks like to get home in August.  Crazy!

This week we were finally able to meet with David again.  He is awesome!  He showed up to church this week, looking spiffy in a suit.  I taught him spiffy, I felt like it was a pretty good word for him to learn.

This week at English Class on Friday, we used the Institute BBQ to give people a chance to talk to native English speakers, and it was great.  The students had a great chance to talk to and interact with many of the YSA members in the area.  Which was a great English practice and a great fellowship builder.

Well, that's been our week here!  I hope you're doing great!

Elder Ethington

This weekend we have seen a few holidays.  We were able to celebrate both Canada Day (July 1st) and the Fourth of July!  Although it was a much smaller celebration for the Fourth, we sang the anthem during our meet the new Mission President and then got really good American burgers afterwards for lunch, we thoroughly enjoyed our American Holiday.

This week has been pretty slow as far as missionary work goes.  We were supposed to meet with David, but he forgot and we weren't able to meet.  And we haven't heard from him since, so we are a little worried.  But hopefully we can talk to him again soon.  We were able to work with Joy's husband this week.  He does a lot of work around his house and his car, so Elder Sun and I went there and tried to help him out.  He was reluctant at first, but eventually let us lend a hand, which was good.

Anyway, that's about our week.  Hope you've had a good Fourth of July!

Elder Ethington

Elder Sun and Elder Ethington on Canada Day

Last Temple P-Day with President and Sister Manion

Summer Storms

Hey!  How's your week going?  This week has been good here in Edmonton.  This Monday we got transfer calls.  I'm entering my last full transfer!  Crazy times!  Elder Sun and I will stay here in Bonnie Doon where we have been doing well and doing good work.  This Sunday, Anneliese went back to China!  Its crazy!  She will get the chance to talk to her dad, and hopefully get his approval for baptism so that when she comes back to Canada, she can receive baptism.  We also met with David this week, who is awesome!  We talked about prophets and priesthood and he understood the significance of a modern-day prophet, a man on Earth who has the authority to say, "Thus saith the Lord."  I am so grateful for the guidance modern day prophets bring into our lives, for all the blessings that God has given us to guide us in a difficult and confusing world.

This week was also Father's Day!  So shout out to all the fathers out there who do so much for those around them. I am grateful for my own father, who has nurtured and guided me on this crazy journey called life.  He has taught me, protected me, laughed with me, and continues to strengthen and support me.  I am so grateful for him and all fathers out there.

Have a good week!  

Elder Ethington

A Week of Dinners

So this week there was a Chinese Holiday, the Dragon Boat Festival.  That night we went and had dinner with a friend who invited all the Mandarin Elders to come.  It was delicious.  The food for this particular festival is rice dumplings, which is rice and some other added bits wrapped in Bamboo leaves and then steamed.  It was very delicious. 

This week we were also able to meet with David.  He is doing so awesome.  When we met with him, I was on exchanges with Elder Roundy, one of my zone leaders here in Bonnie Doon.  We had a great lesson with David, in which we committed him to a goal for baptism!  I am so excited for David and the great progress he is making.  We were also  able to meet with Anneliese, who is headed back to China this coming Sunday.  We will miss her while she's gone, but we will be praying that she can talk to her family and will be able to get baptized when she returns later this summer.

That's been our week!  I hope you're having a good one!

Elder Ethington

General Conference and the Prosperous Land of Bonnie Doon!

Hey!  How's it going this week?  Hope everything has been well! The work here in Bonnie Doon has been going great!  Elder Ostler, Elder Sun, and I have been keeping busy with the work here. We are meeting with several people, all of who are doing well.  One highlight of this week was Saturday, when Nicole brought dumpling stuff and we made and then at lots of dumplings at the institute after ping pong.  Also this week we had a great chance to meet with Brian, who is a great guy super interested in learning about religion and why there are so many churches.  He is progressing well, and I love having the chance to meet with him.  It is great to meet with the people here in Edmonton and to see the changes the gospel can bring into the lives of people who were searching for it without even knowing.  It is great to be a missionary!  Love you all and hope you are doing well!  Have a great week!

Return To a Familiar Land

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend with a chance to reflect on the reason for the holiday.  Christ and his Resurrection, his return and conquest of the grave. A victory which provides for us the assurance of a resurrection, of being able to live forever in perfected bodies.  How great is that?  I love it so much!  I am so grateful again for the chance to reflect on the Gospel, on Christ, and on the Atonement.  How much these things do for us!  I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has a wonderful plan in place to help us and that we have a loving brother, Jesus Christ, who is willing to sacrifice for us just to give us the chance to come back and live with him.  And he still gives us that choice.  The choice to follow him or the choice to pass it up.  And I am so grateful for the chance I have to help people learn about this choice, and the great blessings that can come from following Jesus Christ.  I love it so much!

This week has been awesome!  We met with Cassiel and Victoria, and they are doing stellar!  So happy to see the progress each is making in the gospel, in learning about Christ and coming to understand his role and to accept him as Savior.  Victoria in particular we have been working with to help her understand the nature of the Church we represent, as the Church of God once again on the Earth.  The only church authorized and holding the priesthood power, the power that brings salvation to the souls of man.  It was great to have Spencer, a recently returned missionary that was good friends with another friend of mine from home (shout out to Colton!) for the lesson with Victoria.  Spencer is such a great missionary!  We love working with the members here and to see their desire to share their testimonies, and to help people receive the blessings that have come to them.

This next week is also has General Conference!  Super excited!  We are setting up a Mandarin version at one of the churches here!  Last chance for me to watch it on my mission!  Which is crazy to think, but I am super excited to here the amazing messages that these men and women of God have to share with us!  Thanks for reading!  Love you and hope you're doing well!

Elder Ethington

 Here are some pictures from my last couple weeks.  Fruit Ninja in the snow, and then exchanges with Elder Elliot.  Also, I forgot to explain the subject line. I'm being transferred. Back to Bonnie Doon!!!

Pi Week!

Happy belated pie day!  Yesterday was pie day, and it was celebrated
with some delicious apple crumble pie.  All pie aside, this week has
been a great week of missionary work, salvation-spreading, and
gospel-teaching.  Elder Decker and I have been doing some great work
to help the people here in Edmonton Canada to learn of God, of Christ,
and of the gospel.  This week we met with Holly again, and talked
about the 5 steps of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance,
Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the
End.  We read out of Book of Mormon with her as well, and she seems to
be doing really well.  We are planning on asking her this next week
when we meet about how she expects the Holy Ghost to feel or speak to
her, and what she feels she will need to feel or know in order to
accept baptism.  We are pretty excited for that, we think it will
really help her progress and help us understand how better to help her
towards baptism.  We also had the chance this week to go on exchanges.
I am no longer district leader, but Elder Decker is, so I had the
chance to spend a day working with Elder Mathewson again. He's a good
guy and a good missionary, and I enjoyed the time I got to spend
serving with him.

This week in Edmonton is starting to bridge the gap between Spring and
Winter.  Earlier weeks were warm, and I thought winter had ended.  But
a few days of good snow proved me wrong.  But this week has been
moderate, with lots of snow melting and chilly but acceptable
temperatures as the norm.  So spring is coming!  And now it stays
light out a lot longer - mostly due to the Daylight Savings change we
had Sunday night....  But it's getting there.

Alright, thanks for reading!  Hope you have a good week!

Winter Returns

Hello!  How are you doing this week?  This week has been good here in Edmonton, Canada.  Doing the Lord's work and helping people to come to know Christ and the miracle of his Atonement.  Again this week, I have really come to appreciate the gift of the Atonement.  In his love and mercy, Christ descended below all things. Why?  So he could lift you and me.  I love that.  I love that the Atonement has so many blessings for us.  Not only does it cleanse us from sin, but it also heals is and let's us grow, get better, and become more like Jesus Christ.  And that opportunity for growth, that chance to be better than I can be on my own, is something special. A lot of people may not see the need for that.  But I can tell you that I have learned that through the Savior, through his Atonement and obedience to his commandments, he can help us do more than we can do on our own.  And I can promise as you seek God and ask him about these things, he will tell you they are true.

This week has been good for work in Edmonton.  Elder Decker and I have seen great blessings as we've worked hard and we are so happy to see our friends here progressing.  One of our investigators, Hannah, who has a goal set for baptism in a couple weeks, has moved recently, and this week we will pass her to another set of Elders who work with people in that area.  Kinda of sad to not be teaching her anymore, but still excited for her progression and for the opportunity she has.

Also this week, we've worked with the Greenfield Ward Sister Missionaries, meeting a few families in their ward.  They're great missionaries and are great support to us as we try to work with Chinese people.  For some reason, some people respond better to two young women coming and inviting them to church than they do to us two, not nearly as smiley young men...  So it's great to be able to work with them.  I love to see a harmony in missionary work, with members, other missionaries, or the people we teach.  Just helps assure me we are in the Lord's work.

Well thanks for reading!  Hope you're doing well!

Elder Ethington

Sister Kirts, Sister Lacno, Elder Decker and Elder Ethington posing in the Chinese way

A Week In The Life

Hello all!  How are you doing this week?  Elder Decker and I have been having a great week!  The work here in the Riverbend Stake has been moving forward strong and we are excited for harvest that has begun.  We have been able to meet with some of our great investigators.  We are super excited for Hannah, who has accepted an invitation to be baptized this month.  We are still working with her and hoping to prepare her and make sure she is ready for baptism at that time.  One thing that got sorted out this week is her baptismal interview.  Since she is new in Canada her English still needs some work, and our zone leaders were worried about being able to effectively communicate and make sure she was ready.  Fortunately for us, last transfer one of the Mandarin was called as our Assistant to the President.  So now he will conduct the baptismal interview for her.  We are super excited for that.

This week we also met with Holly, who opened up to us and we had a great conversation with her and her fellowshipper.  Her fellowshipper is awesome, not just as a friend, but he also does blacksmithing.  So I think he's pretty sweet.

Finally this week we have a new investigator!  Her name is Casiel, and she is a young woman staying in the home of a family in one of the wards here.  We visited with them before, but at that time Casiel wasn't really ready to start learning about the Church yet.  This week, she was ready.  We are super excited to start meeting with her.  I am so glad for the members that she lives with as well.  They are super awesome and great friends and support for her and are loving her so much.

One of the awesome things that happened that we didn't get to be a part of was one of our investigators who helped with a dinner put on for seniors in the area.  The dinner was Broadway themed, and she is a great violin player, and she played I Dreamed A Dream accompanied by a member of the YSA Ward.  Although we weren't there, we heard it was super good and she played super well.  Hopefully we are going to be able to have her play a special musical number in Sacrament Meeting in the next couple weeks.

I hope you have had a good week.  I know I have, and I know I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life.  Love you all!  Have a great week!

Elder Ethington

Elders Decker, Bergeson, Ethington and Rich

Walruses

This week has been awesome!

This week Elder Decker and I have been working with some great investigators: Hannah, Holly, Victoria, and Tina.  Probably the highlight of the week is setting a goal for baptism with Hannah.  Such a great experience to help people as the prepare to make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father and to see the blessings that flow into their lives.

This week we've also worked with a few less-active members in the area.  It just reminds me of the cultural differences between Western Culture and Asian Culture.  Its amazing to see the difference.  And sometimes it is difficult to understand these differences, but they are really ingrained in people, so we have been spending lots of time to try to understand different thought processes and how we can best help our investigators.

Thanks for reading!  Sorry its short, Love you all!  Hope you're having a good week!

Temple Week!

Hey all! This week we were able to go to the temple! It was such a great experience to be back in the temple and to see the love of those serving there and how great the work done inside is. Loved it!
This week was our Chinese New Year Fireside! It was a great activity! We had a few talks from some members in the area who speak Chinese, and they were great. But the part everyone loves tho most is, of course, the Chinese food potluck afterwards! It was so delicious! So much yummy Chinese food all in one place, I loved it! Elder Decker and I had a great turnout from our area, people that we are working with and so we very much enjoyed it! 
This week I was also able to go on exchanges with Elder Mathewson. He is such a great guy. He is almost done being trained and he is a great missionary already. So excited to see and hear the great work he will do. 
This week started off with some bowling last P-day, which was super fun. There is a place here that has "Twooney Tuesday," which is bowling for $2! It was sweet!
Well that's been my week! Hope you all are doing well!

Week of Meetings

Hey all!  This has been a great week!  We did have a bunch of meetings, but they were awesome.  We were able to receive training as a world wide missionary force, something that hasn't happened in over a decade.  It was so great!  The title of it was "Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts"  jam packed with awesome knowledge and reminders. I super loved it.  We also were able to meet with President Manion yesterday to discuss our specific needs as foreign language speaking Elders serving in Edmonton.  It is great to work so close with President Manion and to see the care he has for all that we work with.

This week we were able to have some great discussions.  Thursday we met with a lady named Angela, and had bible study with her.  It was great.  We also had a lesson with the Lu family here, who are also great.  They have two little boys, one who was running around during our lesson who is three years old.  His parents told us at one point he was born in the year of the Dragon, and then he roared like a dragon.  So cute.

Well, its been a good week.  Love you all!  Bye!

Sorry I'm Going to Email You All Again

Hey!  Sorry, I haven't emailed for a bit!  Its been a great time here in Edmonton with my new companion Elder Decker.  We have been having some great work, great referrals from other missionaries still, and super enjoying it.

We are also gearing up for the coming Chinese New Year Fireside.  We have the fireside at the end of January, but the New Year is in the middle of February.  This year is going to be the year of the Monkey!  So get ready for all the Monkey jokes.  I don't have any, but I know lots of Chinese people will teach them to us.

This week I got a box from my family. They told me before that the theme came from two things: an Elmo book, and a Michael Jackson song.  I was very surprised, but also it was a lot of fun!

I hope you all are having a great week, and that you continue to do so!  Love you all!

A Late Letter...

Hey!  It's been a great week!  Sorry about not writing last week!

Elder Decker and I got super busy doing all the things we needed to do for our P day.  Sorry about that!

These last two weeks have been awesome!  Elder Decker and I have been doing great work, and we have had great results!  We have had several solid referrals come from other missionaries we serve around, and it has been great.  I love to see the awesome work that can be done when we work together well with those around us.

We are still having a great time here, especially with getting members out to lessons.  There are so many soon to be missionaries or fresh returned missionaries that are so willing to help.  As well as the others!  That is one of the greatest blessings in a missionaries life, is members being solid and dependable supports in the work.  We may teach and cry repentance, but the members with whom our investigators become friends, those are some of the most important people to these new converts.

I hope you have had a great holiday season!  Love you all and miss you!