Canada Vancouver Mission: 11/17/14 - 11th LETTER FROM DUNCAN

Always so happy to receive our letter from Colton! This week is extra special because one of his friends will be entering the Mexico City MTC on Wednesday. Laura is called to the Washington Kennewick Mission, Spanish Speaking and is reporting in Mexico first. We're so excited to hear all about her experiences too! Unfortunately, since their missions border each other, they won't be able to write to one another. (Laura is in the dark blue shirt, just behind Colton)

Good luck, Hermana Hawkes!!!!

To Whom It May Concern:

Hello, loyal fans. How's life?! Man, the Island is nuts. It's getting super chilly here...like, we're talkin' -2 C. No snow just yet, but tons of frost. We left our car outside at our ward mission leader's house while we were over there for a cottage meeting, and when we got out, the Chevy Cruze was sparkling. Like, we're talking an apple-cider-level sheen. (If that makes any sense to anyone but me...) So, serving a mission is 2,500 tons of awesome. I am getting good at it, too, now! Well, not to sound prideful.... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not the worst teacher in the world anymore. I'm starting to lead in lessons now, and I actually know the doctrine now! I'm getting better! So...it's pretty fun now that I'm not constantly worrying about my atrocious teaching skills. Now I just accept that we're eighteen-twenty year old guys...so we're going to be weird and clunky and awkward, but that's all part of it. It's getting awesome. So, I'll give you what you came here for: the secular history of my week in the mish...

Monday: We ate at Boston Pizza right after e-mail time. Pizzaburgers are God's gift to the world. A hamburger wrapped in a pepperoni pizza... Chills. We did our thing, got some shopping done, and then we decided to clean out our fridge....oh, man. There are some things we neglected in the fruit drawer for a while (ever since we got to Duncan) and they legitimately smelled like death. So, I'll be sure to include pictures of what we did to combat the smell. Hint: scarves are life-saving. We taught a less-active family in our ward about the Book of Mormon, and it was awesome. Gettin' cold!!!
Tuesday: This day was packed to the brim with awesomeness. We started off the day by watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas and The Other Wise Men with N and K. They loved the movies. N, when called on to say the closing prayer, told us to, "Bow down!" He's fueling our mad theories that N is going to take over Duncan with his crazy schemes to take over the world. We then did some service for a family in our ward. Their kids are crazy! They kept shooting us with Nerf guns and trying to get us to play soccer...and we're all, "I'm here to work, boy!" Anyways, we had some great soup, and then we told the little kids we'll be back to play soccer one of these days. They liked that. Then, we went and dropped by a member referral that we'd prayed about and felt really good about. They are awesome! We talked with the wife pretty much the whole time while everyone else was making dinner, and she was so excited to hear about prophets on the Earth today. Then we taught W about chastity. He made it hilarious. When we told him about how the law of chastity forbids homosexual relationships, he said, "I like woman." And we started laughing so hard. Oh, man. You gotta love these times. We showed S a movie called Between Heaven and Earth all about temples. It was awesome. SUPER spiritual lesson. She told us that her grandfather who had died the week before (they were grieving for a while) was baptized into this Church. She wants to be as well, to be an example for him. Whoa. Chills!

Wednesday: We taught K about the Book of Mormon, and found a shortcut to our house from downtown where you climb up these weird moss covered stairs up a cliff pretty much. It's wild.

Thursday: We planned our week out and got to teach W again about tithing. He expected us to have something like that in the church. He's too solid for us!!!! We met with the White family in our ward and their son Ammon was hilarious and adorable. They were talking about the story of Moses, and they gave him a hint: "He's in a movie you saw!" And the whole time, this kid was trying to figure it out. Then, as his dad was telling him how this guy parted the Red Sea, and turned a staff into a serpent, and all this stuff, he blurts out, "Is it a Jedi from Star Wars?!" I almost died from laughter. Man, Moses WAS a Jedi. Wisdom from the mouths of babes.

Friday: Amazing zone meeting about baptism. I have pictures from it. One of them: me and my favorite missionary ion this mission, an assistant who's going home soon. Elder Lieber rocks. He greeted me from the plane when I got here, so he's the first missionary I imprinted on haha. That's my explanation for our relationship. He's super cool. And then me and Elder McCown got pink tie buddy pictures!!! Oh, and guess what: a woman in our ward works at a place called Pacific Rim Early Childhood Foundation! PAC RIM!

Saturday: We went to Lake Cowichan, a nice little town, to meet with a ward member that was running for mayor! We had steak with him and talked for a while and shared a lesson on prayer. We just felt like that's what we needed to share. Then, the next Sunday, we saw him again. He didn't win the election, but he was impressed. The lesson he was teaching in elder's quorum was on...prayer! That Spirit, tho!

Sunday: We had a cottage meeting at our ward mission leader's house and it was hilarious and awkward because it was just us, the sisters in our area, Brother Schmidt (our mission leader) and Judith, our recent convert. Hilarity ensued....
Love you all! Church is true! The Book of Mormon is the word of God! We have a living prophet on the Earth today! #truth

Cleaning out the fridge!