The big move... road trip

This last month has been a month of change for Brendan.  Just a few weeks ago Brendan got the transfer call and was asked to transfer from International Falls Minnesota to Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada.  If you look that up on a map or even plot it on Google Maps (map), you will see that it is almost a 14 hour drive and that is if you are going straight there.  Of course the missionaries never go straight there because they have to figure out the logistics so that they always have a companion from one end of the trip to the other.  So for Brendan it was more like an 18 hour trip on the road and staying overnight with some of the other Elders along the way.  As far as the mission boundaries go, Brendan almost went about as far from one end of the mission to the other as he could within the Winnipeg mission.  He covered 3 Canadian provinces and two countries to get there.  Then if you count the fact that part of his area includes a bit of Alberta, you can add yet another province to that list.  He also went from the small town of International Falls to an even smaller town at Kindersley.  There is also one other interesting fact about being in Kindersley.  Brendan is now literally within about an hour's drive from his older sister's mission.

The next bit of change for Brendan, if traveling across half of the country of Canada isn't enough, with the month of July also comes mission president changes.  So Brendan now has a new mission president also.  His new mission president didn't have to come from very far though.  Since they are from Calgary Canada which is one of the neighboring missions of Winnipeg, their move was probably easier than most.  Brendan told us that he finally got to meet his new mission president when they had a zone conference in Saskatoon.  Brendan said that he is very impressed by his new mission president and he has already inspired Brendan to do more scripture memorization.  Here is what Brendan wrote home:

"This week we also welcomed in our new mission president. He and his wife are from Calgary and they are really quite neat. It was quite a neat experience to meet them. They came to Saskatoon and everyone in the Saskatoon zone came and met them. Then they spoke to us for a couple hours and man that guy knows his scriptures. Got me in the mood to continue memorizing. So this week that has been a big focus of mine. Whenever I have a bad thought or really any temptation of any kind, I start reciting scriptures in my head. I already have 5 down in the last two days, so things are going well hey? I'll have to keep it up and me and Chris can battle it off for the family scriptorian award."

So here is the interesting thought I had when Brendan told us that.  He said that he was inspired to do more memorizing and that if ever a bad thought or temptation occurred that he would recite scriptures in his head.  That sounds like a great idea.  Then he said that he had already memorized 5 in the last two days.  So my question is, where are all these temptations coming from that are causing him to memorize scriptures so quickly?  Never mind, Brendan has always been the fact and trivia member of the family.  Memorizing anything whether it is scripture or historical facts, has always been easy for him.

Brendan's new companion in Kindersley was actually one of his companions from the MTC.  So Brendan was pretty excited about the change.  But the downside is that Kindersley is a really small town which means that the teaching pool is pretty small as well.  In fact Brendan told us that they really didn't have anybody that they are currently teaching and are basically starting from scratch.  When he wrote home a couple of weeks ago he said that it had been one of his hardest weeks on his mission.  Mostly due to the fact that they are having to spend all of there time trying to find people to teach and none of their time actually teaching.  In the last week or so they have been able to meet some new people that have been interested in knowing more about the Gospel, but it hasn't been easy.

We received a text from one of the members in Kindersley thanking us for sending our boy to them as a missionary.  They also sent us a couple of pictures of the hard work that they have been doing.  But from the looks of those ribs that Brendan is enjoying, I'm thinking that Brendan got the better end of that deal. :)