Bed bugs and bears

It has been a little while since I last updated this blog.  There are good reasons for that and most of them are because of how busy Brendan has been on his mission.  You would think that if he was so busy then there would be a lot to share with everyone.  That is probably true except for the fact that Brendan would have to share all of those things with us first.  Basically what I am saying is that Brendan has been so busy with all of the responsibilities that he has as an Assistant to the President that he hasn't had a lot of time to spend on sending emails home.  He has written us each week but his emails have been short, sweet and to the point.  Most of what he has said is that he and his companion are on long road trips around the Winnipeg mission area visiting the various zones and districts.  So that has been most of Brendan's life for the past several weeks.  Here is an example:

"Well, another P day spent on the road. So apologies for shooting this one late. But for the first time since I have been here, the drive from Winnipeg to Regina was actually super scenic. It was amazing!! One thing you need to know about the prairies is the fact that the sky is huge. HUGE!! You can see everything. There is not a single thing that is out of view. And when the sun sets, it shoots the most vibrant colours across the whole sky. I wish I got some pictures but I was to busy trying to not veer off the road into a moose or something.

This week has been a week full of office stuff, so there isn't much to share. But I just want to say something real quick. I hate North Americans. Well, I hate Canadians and Americans. Not really, but I definitely see us as an inferior species. There are some gems along the way but the true gold is found in the diversity of the world. Why? Because everyone not from North America is SOOOOO NICE!!

I don't get it. They are just the nicest people you have ever met. Exhibit A: Elder Deans and I are walking out of a less actives apartment. And this guy who we have met maybe two times before from the Caribbean, strikes up a conversation and then invites us to their home for some traditional Trinidadian food. AMAZING!! People just do things like that. All day. I love it

Anyways, I've got to jet off to a zone conference. Love yous."

Isn't that just the greatest email.  Short, sweet and full of good stuff.  Did you notice the Canadian influence in some of the word spellings?  There are a few other tidbits and experiences that have been shared along the way and now seems like a good time to share those experiences with everyone else.

Let's start out with every missionaries nightmare... BED BUGS!!!  I just love the way that Brendan told us about his bed bug problem.  Not just because it is Brendan telling the story in "Brendan" fashion but because of the way that Brendan turned his bed bug nightmare into a day dream.  Here is Brendan's version:

"You guessed it! this week sucked..... blood. No but for real, this week kind of sucked. and I will let you know whyyyyy.  We got bed bugs. Kill me now. And I don't know how many of you have dealt with bed bugs before, but they suck. (no pun intended this time) They are damnable little creatures and I hate them.  We live in a two story house. You know how many bed bugs can fit in a two story house? Hundreds of thousands and so we practically had to pack up our lives and machine dry it on high for 20 minutes and then double bag them in hefty bags. Worst experience of my life. And then after all of that. the exterminator comes and sprays everything you hold dear with toxic fumes.  And then, you can't even live there for like two weeks. So we are sleeping on the ground in another companionship apartment for two weeks while they do multiple treatments to our humble home. Shoot some prayers up for us and our backs. I can feel the scoliosis coming in hot.
But in all reality it is kind of fun. We are just roaming around living out an adventure and its been good.

Not much happened this week. Definitely not as eventful as the ones in the recent past.  To add to my list of troubles ;) my shoulder bag broke this week. So I bought a new one. And it is half camera bag half shoulder bag so life is good. I'm happy."

 Oh, but the story doesn't end there.  Every good nightmare has to have a sequel and so here comes "Bed Bugs 2, The return of the bite":

"Alright. Let me give you an update. You know how a couple weeks ago I was talking about how we got bed bugs at our home and we had to practically put or entire lives in the dryer on high for 20 minutes and then move and live out of a suitcase at another set of elders apartment for an entire transfer? well, today I am here to tell you that it was all in vain.

In our vacancy from our home, it got fumigated twice and just bathed in poisons that can apparently kill small children (and then without knowing that I went home to do some laundry real quick and practically touched everything in the house haha, I'm gonna die or have life midlife birth defects or something).

BUT IT WAS ALL IN VAIN. We went back this week. Because we got the go ahead and sure enough, I have a wonderful nights rest in one of the best mattresses in the mission no doubt. Only to wake up so covered in bites that I thought I was becoming a leper. haha, no it was not that bad but I straight up had like 20+ bites. Soooooo, we are back to living out of our suitcases for the next while. Wish me luck."

Moving on to probably the most profound experience that Brendan has had on his mission so far.  Brendan, his companion and the Bishop of the Ward recently visited a family who are new members of the Church.  The family had just received news of a tragic event.  Brendan sat in the living room of this family while they told the missionaries what had happened.  I won't go into any of the details here but I will share with you Brendan's reaction.

"We sit back and complain about so much. Really, we think we have it so hard some times, and some of us do. But we have no excuse. None. And that thought alone was enough. I balled. Like a child. Right in their living room. Bishop, Elder Dean and I. All three of us. I won't go into detail about the rest. But what I will share is that not even moments later did I hear a mother and a father, bear powerful testimony to us and their children, that this gospel brings hope and it brings peace. And that it is real because they have felt it. Through the hardest time of their lives, they have felt it. They have felt a burden lifted and strength added as they were yoked to the Savior. It was powerful, I hope that you can feel the power of it. Because its true. All of it. And the proof of that is in the details.

I hear people often on my mission ask me "why?" "Why if there really is a God in Heaven, does he allow such terrible things to happen to those who don't deserve it?" or "Why if God supposedly loves us, does he let hurt and anguish happen daily?" Do I have an answer to that question? No. No I don't, but I do know one thing and that is that this past Friday evening, I sat in the humble living room of a humble family and felt the Spirit of God, the Comforter, do exactly that. Bring comfort to those who were desperately in need of it. And for what ever reason, I, am almost 20 something kid, born and raised in comfort and excess, was given the opportunity to share with them the one and only thing that could bring lasting peace to their hearts.

So please, do us all a favor. The next time you feel to say "why me?" or "why this?" or even "why now?". Stop it. Just Stop it. Instead of thinking inwardly, stop, pause for a brief moment and think of someone you know who needs a burden lifted, a tear wiped or simply a kind word. And do everything that you can to do exactly that.

I had no intentions of writing such a letter when I started this. But I feel that I needed to hear it myself and that hopefully you did as well. I love you, but more importantly Our Heavenly Father does. If you don't know it, stop, pause for a brief moment, and practice what was a fore mentioned. You may not "know" it, but I promise you, you will feel it."

These are the kinds of experiences that missionaries have.  Maybe not every day but they happen.  And to illustrate another type of miracle, Brendan told us about how he went on splits with a former mission companion.  Both of them were new to the area of Winnipeg where they were, but had a desire to find a family to teach.  After several hours of knocking on doors in the rain, they found a house with a minivan in the driveway (always a good sign for a missionary).  When they knocked on the door, a young mother answered and invited them in as if she was expected the missionaries to show up.  Well, one thing lead to another and prayers were answered.  Wonderful experiences happen.  Hard experiences happen too.  But in the end, it is the wonderful ones that are always remembered.

Responsibilities just keep coming

So there have been some changes for Brendan in his mission over the last month or so.  Some of the changes he announced to us in a very subtle way.  Around the beginning of April, Brendan sent us an email which started out in the same way that most of his emails start.  With Brendan, it means that he has picked some random topic to talk about and then ends up telling us all about the wonderful things that are going on.  So the random topic this week was all about tennis and the opportunity that he had to play a few sets with his companion.  In fact, the way that Brendan describes this innocent tennis match up in the great white north, make is sound like the pros on the grass courts in England.  I'll give you a taste of what I am talking about:

"Today has been the best p-day ever. We splurged and dropped like 30 bucks each on some tennis rackets and went and played the 3 most intense sets of tennis ever played. We played at an old folks home and all the old people lined the edge of the fence and just watched with awe as brute will and sure fire tenacity was dripping to the court floor. IT WAS WIMBLEDON OUT THERE!! Just instead of in beautiful England on lovely grass courts, we played on concrete and it was some where in the 20's (Fahrenheit) and we were wearing short sleeve shirts and shorts. And it felt tropical!
 But Elder Randall won the first set 5-1 (we were playing 5 game sets) and I thought I was down and out. He played in high school and I tried to haha. (failed) But, I had the comeback of the century and won the second set and then won the third one with a whopping 11-9 game win. It was a long set to say the least. ON TOP OF THE WORLD BABY!! all the old people lifted me up and carried me off the court singing that one song from Remember the Titans. It was crazy."

The image of all of the elderly residents of the neighboring senior center hoisting Brendan on their shoulders while they sing and carry him off the tennis court, just cracks me up.

Yes, Brendan won a well played tennis match on his P-day, but we haven't gotten to the big changes yet.  Brendan goes on to tell us about attending conference and watching the most wonderful and spiritually edifying 10 hours of General Conference that he has ever experienced.  Then he finally ends his email with the following subtle detail about the upcoming mission transfers:

"President grabbed me after MLC (mission leadership council) on Friday and brought me into his office. We sat down and he tells me that he is going to be giving me my transfer call early. Well, you might have guessed where this is going, but I'm going to be serving in the office for the next couple months. So Alex[Brendan's brother], you aren't the only AP in the family anymore..."

Yep, if you caught that little detail, Brendan has a new responsibility to be the assistant to the President for the next several months.  From what Brendan has told us so far, it is a very busy, sometimes tedious, occasionally boring but most importantly, a very a spiritually rewarding job.

I mentioned that Brendan's new responsibilities as an AP are sometimes tedious and boring.  The only reason why I say that is because of the size of the Winnipeg, Canada mission.  Part of his new responsibilities is to visit all of the zones in the mission every transfer.  If you have ever looked at the size of the mission, it is huge.  This means that getting from one zone to another or one city to another requires many hours of driving.  In the next email that we got from him, he was traveling from Winnipeg to Saskatoon.  Brendan and his companion had been in the car for about 11 hours and were just arriving in Saskatoon.  His email didn't really say a lot but what he did say is that his first week as an AP was extremely tiring and fun.  Then he ended his email with another challenge.

"Been listening to a lot of talks lately as we drive. And I have decided what talk is my favorite talk of ALL TIME. And the award goes toooooooooooo Dieter F Uchtdorf for his work with creating the literary masterpiece that is A Summer With Great Aunt Rose. If you have never read that talk GO AND READ IT NOW!! I won't be offended if you walk away from my email. Go. GO NOW!
 The whole talk is a story, a parable you could say of a girl that spends a summer with her great aunt rose and man is it packed with life lessons!! So go and read it and change your life."

So here is something that Brendan never expected to learn on his mission, another language.  When Brendan received his mission call it said that he would be serving in the Winnipeg, Canada mission and speaking English.  Well, that has been mostly true.  But with his new assignment as an AP in the office, he has also been assigned to a new Ward which includes several deaf members.  So Brendan has been learning American Sign Language.  In fact he has become quite good at it, even to the point where the Ward leadership has asked him to sign for the deaf members during the meetings.  When we talked to Brendan on Mother's Day, he did a little signing for us. Not that we really understood what he was saying.  He also talked all about his Ward, his new responsibilities and just how much he loves being a missionary.  He told us about how he had to translate the church meetings in ASL for the deaf members in the Ward and how he and his companion actually tracted into a deaf man and Brendan was able to talk to him for about 20 minutes.  He just loves all of the new experiences that are happening all of the time.

So here is another one of Brendan's random thoughts:

"I always do this, but I guess I will start by explaining my subject line. It is going to be really really bad when I get back to the U.S. and continue to ask black people where they are from. haha. In Winnipeg and for the most part a lot of Canada, if you run into a black person they are most likely NOT from Canada. So you ask them where they are from! They say Nigeria, you ask them if they are making any pepper soup, if they are from the Congo, you say something in swahili. They love it. But I have a feeling that is not going to cut it in the U.S.. "Hey man whats up?" "Not much man" "Nice, just out of curiosity, where are you from?" *Slap in the face "AMERICA!" "

In his latest email, Brendan told us all about his return to International Falls.  If you remember, International Falls was Brendan's first area when he arrived in the Winnipeg mission.  It is also a small slice of the U.S. which belongs to the Winnipeg, Canada mission.  It turned out that Elder Dale G. Renlund was visiting the Winnipeg mission last week and made a stop in Saskatoon.  From there Elder Renlund was headed to International Falls to preside over a very small LDS District in the area. Brendan and his companion got permission to travel to International Falls to attend the meetings.  They got up at 4:30 in the morning to travel for 4 hours to listen to an Apostle of the Lord speak as well as visit some of the members in the area that Brendan hasn't seen in over a year.  Brendan described it as one of the greatest experiences of his mission so far.

I mentioned that we were able to skype with Brendan on mother's day.  It was wonderful to see and talk to Brendan for a while and it was also amazing to think that we will only be skyping with him one more time before he comes home.  Some parents say that the time that their kids are on missions goes by very slowly.  That has not been the case for us.  The time has been flying by.  We can't even believe how fast a year and a half has gone by.  We told Brendan to enjoy every moment because it will all come to a close before he knows it.  One last thing to talk about.  This past weekend Brendan's sister got married in the Timpanogos Temple.  It was a wonderful event and obviously Brendan couldn't be there.  But during the same weekend we had a couple of visitors from the YSA Ward in Winnipeg where Brendan served, stay with us.  Even though we were exhausted from all of the wedding activities last weekend, we stayed up and talked to the kindest and sweetest young ladies from Winnipeg.  They both were fairly recent converts to the church and had the strongest testimonies.  It was great to get to know them, talk about Brendan a little bit and share some experiences.

Miracles and challenges

Winnipeg is thawing out.  Actually according to Brendan, it is El Nino that is causing Winnipeg to thaw out a little early this year.  But then I am sure that Brendan doesn't really mind that.  Except he said that when Winnipeg starts to thaw out, everything turns to mush and then it refreezes overnight which turns the city into an ice rink.  In fact Brendan's description of it is that when the city freezes over again, you could literally go curling on any sidewalk and that mothers literally pull their kids home from school in sleds.  BTW, if you don't know what curling is, look it up.  It is that sport that Canadians love, well... next to hockey, and the sport that nobody watches on TV during the Olympics and still wonder why it is an Olympic sport. 

So Brendan has started a new thing to end each of his emails.  It is the weekly challenge.  So every now and again, I will throw in some of Brendan's weekly challenges.  Here is the first one:

"I love the sacrament lately. I just can't wait for it every Sunday. I want to issue some challenges right now in regards to those things.

First and foremost. I want each of you to take the time to prepare to take the sacrament. If you are just simply showing up on Sunday (or not showing up at all) expecting to take the sacrament and have a spiritual experience you are short changing your covenant growth and your opportunity to reconnect, renew, reassess and restart. Please take some time to ponder and pray TODAY about how you can better let the Sabbath and most importantly the Sacrament influence your week rather than have the rest of your week define your Sabbath and especially your sacrament."

 A few weeks ago we got a "Miracle" email from Brendan.  No, it wasn't that the email itself was any kind of miracle, it was that Brendan decided to list out all of the miracles that happened to them that week.  I will try to run through a few of them.  But to start out with, as they say... "it is always darkest before the dawn", Brendan tells us about how they were really going crazy with all of the investigators that they had lined up and teaching.  Then within about 24-48 hours, all but 3 of the investigators dropped off.  But then starts the miracles.  Follow along because some of these miracles seem a little off topic but then I guess you could call anything good that happens... "a miracle of the Lord".  Also, I am going to try to summarize these miracles at the expense of losing some of their meaning and yes, some of their humor.  So fill in the blanks along the way and enjoy:

1. Taught a wonderful and solid lesson to one of the remaining 3 investigators.
2. Got a call from one of the YSA Ward members telling the missionaries that he has a friend from work that he wants to bring to church on Sunday.
3. With 30 minutes to go before having to head home and at 20 degrees below zero outside, they decide to do a drop-by on a former investigator and not only did the visit work out well, the former investigator is now a current investigator.
4. During another drop-by visit at an apartment building in which you have to get buzzed in to enter and with freezing temperatures outside, Brendan and his companion were able to get into the building immediately rather than having to wait out in the freezing cold for someone to buzz them in.
5. Brendan and his companion were able to meet with another investigator that they had challenged for baptism but then lost all contact.  They were able to reconnect and all is moving forward.
6. The YSA Ward member from miracle #2 shows up on Sunday with the investigator that he said he was going to bring to church.  Needless to say, all went very well at church that day.
7. Brendan is asked to play the prelude, postlude, hymns and accompany for the musical number all at the same fireside.  He had to quickly come up with an arrangement to "How Great Thou Art" in a record amount of time.  (to see the video, go to Elder Brendan Nicholes' facebook page)
8. Brendan and his companion went to Costco and had Chicken Strips and Fries for lunch
9. On their P-Day, they actually finished a game of Monopoly.
10. On P-Day, hung out with the senior missionaries at the mission office.  But the real miracle was that while they were at the mission office, Brendan's companion gets a call from someone who had met with the missionaries in Utah and now that they live in Winnipeg, would like to continue with the lessons.

I told you that some of the miracles seemed a little off topic but hey, when you are a missionary, you will take any miracle in any way that it comes.  But for the rest of the miracle list, you don't get better than chicken strips at Costco for lunch.  ;)  Just kidding.

Here is another weekly challenge:

"I guess the challenge for this week is to be kind. I think that might be my favorite word of all time. Kind. It just looks so nice and means something even nicer. So find an opportunity to go out of your way to be nice for some one. Henry Eyring once said something along the lines of "you hold in your hands the happiness of more people then you can imagine" NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!"

And now, one of Brendan's usual random thoughts:

"SLOW COOKERS MAN!! Why did I not ever know about these things when I was at university? I mean I saw mom whip out her crock pot and magically 7 hours later we had a crazy good dinner. But it never got into my head until this week when I broke out our slow cooker. Dropped some onion at the bottom and threw a fat bit of ginger ale in there, 2 pounds of chicken legs and lathered that stuff in BBQ sauce that tasted like the closest thing I could get to taste like Gates. And 9 hours later we had the most bomb chicken you have ever tasted!!! it was insane. We are making some curry chicken today. Makes the apartment smell like the life. Plus we have some Asian members coming over to do apartment checks tomorrow and so we are going to try to bribe them to give us a good mark with some curry chicken."

Random thoughts and other spiritual experiences

Brendan sent us an email not long ago that started out with a story about meeting a new investigator that seemed to get it and then just as quickly, finding out that the same investigator had decided not to move forward.  The rest of Brendan's email was a reflection on that experience.  Many of the things that Brendan said, shows how much he has changed over the last year.  Well, maybe not how much he has changed but more about how much of a different side of Brendan is showing through.  Rather than trying to paraphrase what Brendan said in his email, I will just let Brendan say it all:

"So is the life of a missionary. You win some and you lose some. I read today a verse in 1st Nephi that I had never noticed before and it is in chapter 17 Verse 21. "Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." This is Laman and Lemuel complaining about their journey into the wilderness and the afflictions that they encountered.

Now it is interesting to see their words. "yea and we might have been happy" Now they went through the same things as Nephi. The exact same things. All the afflictions, struggles, trials were felt by both parties and some could say that Nephi had it worse. But compare their statements. How many times can you find Nephi saying something along the lines of "my joy was full" or "my heart was filled with exceeding joy" in First Nephi. Hint: IT IS EVERYWHERE!

Whats the difference between the two? Humility and gratitude. And that is what I have learned it great abundance thus far on my mission. I am coming up on my year mark this week and in all reality it is quite surreal. I feel weird. I have been out for what feels an eternity and also a total of a week at the same time. I don't get it.

I have come to find that if happiness for you is only found in the past, then you are limiting your opportunity to feel happiness in the future. Luke 17:32 "Remember Lot's Wife" It is as simple as that. DON'T LOOK BACK! Happiness is found not in simply getting through hard times but in enduring with an attitude of gratitude. What a silly rhyme but what a profound thought.

My challenge to all of you this year is to take that to heart. Live it. 2016 may already be off to a bad start, but it won't get any better the more you think of 2015. Happiness is a choice and it is in store for all of those who endure well. Choose to be happy today. You won't regret it"

It seems that these past few weeks for Brendan have been some of the most spiritual and difficult times that he has had so far.  Just a couple of weeks after sending us the email that talked about losing a very good investigator, we get another email detailing an experience that Brendan had while giving a blessing to a Ward member.  I won't go into detail about why Brendan was giving a blessing to one of the Ward members, except  to say that this member had just come through a very frightening and intense experience.  As a result, Brendan's mission president had asked Brendan to join them in the Bishop's office.  Here is how Brendan described what happened next:

"But we laid our hands on his head and I have never had an experience like that with a blessing in my life. I have never felt like an oracle for the spirit in such a real way in my life. And it was powerful. I couldn't tell you a word I said. Not one. But the spirit filled the room and next thing you knew I was giving this Ward Member a hug after. What power is had in the oath and covenant of the priesthood. What an incredible experience to be the conduit for the spirit in such a real life moment."

I think I mentioned this before but Brendan's emails home tend to contain a lot of random thoughts.  In one paragraph he will be talking about a very spiritual experience and in the next paragraph he is talking about slurpees.  That's right, slurpees.  In fact when Brendan gets into is random thoughts mode, those thoughts are almost always pretty funny.  Take this one for example:

"Last thing, this has been a long one. But I have to get this off my mind. Straight up, Winnipeg is the slurpee capital of the world. More slurpees are bought and drank here then anywhere else. Whats up with that? I kid you not, you will drive around and you will see people with their coffee cups in their hands and that makes sense. But then you will see people in -7 degree weather, with a slurpee in their hand. ARE YOU KIDDING? no gloves either. They are just bare handing that thing. Whats up with that? These people are nuts."

 There you have it.  Apparently the Canadian people in Winnipeg are tough as nails.  Who else would bare fist a slurpee in -7 degrees?  Those must be some mighty good slurpees up there.  Oh and if you thought that random story was good, check out how Brendan started out his next email:

"Well, well, well. I can't feel my fingers right now. I just got done helping an old sweet man break all the ice off of the library side walk. And jeez, in Utah we have snow shovels. But in Canada, they got a whole new assortment of winter tools. We used this big ice breaker thingy. Just a long pole with a metal dull blade on the end that you just ram into the ground and all the ice shatters. It's crazy. My hands feel like that one time I used a jackhammer for 4 hours straight. Jiggly.  Oh and its like -16 out with like 60 km an hour winds. sooooo, yeah. Winnipeg.  So I will try my best to type even though my hands are toast.

But this week has been fantastic haha. hah hah. Well, it has been alright. I have enjoyed it for the most part. Nothing overly crazy. Except I have just been destroying my white shirts lately. Those things have just been practically battle ridden casualties. I have gone through three in like three weeks.  The first two I ruined by accidentally leaving a pad of neon green post it notes in the pocket. Those got straight murdered."

The third white shirt that he destroyed had more of a story behind it.  It all had to do with being out tracting in -18 degree weather with the wind blowing at about 80 kph.  Then they spotted a man waiting at a bus stop in shorts.  Did I mention that the Winnipeg Canadians are tough as nails?  About the time when Brendan was getting the man's contact information, the bus pulls up and the man rushes to get on.  Brendan, in his haste, put the uncapped sharpie in his shirt pocket.  Once they finally got home and Brendan noticed what had happened to his shirt, he said that it looked like he had been shot in the chest and was bleeding green blood.  Let's just hope that the contact information was worth the destruction of another white shirt.  If anybody is thinking about sending a package to Brendan any time soon, a new white shirt might be a good thing to send.

OK, random thought time again.  Check this one out:

"BUT our ward organist didn't show up for church. Sooooo guess who played the organ for church yesterday. THIS GUY! And it was super fun. I loved it. Mom you would be proud of me. I play the piano for everything out here. I end up having to play at church every week in gospel principles, and I play about every week at FHE and in district meetings and even for zone conferences and baptisms. So it is great fun. I'm better at piano right now on my mission with no practicing what so ever than I have ever been in my life. And heck, I even chucked in some pedals when I was playing the organ on Sunday. I felt like the man. haha. I loved it!"

On one of Brendan's recent P-Days, they did a little sight seeing around Winnipeg.  Brendan sent home a few pictures of the things he saw.  He also sent a few pictures of himself.  Check out the picture of the ice-sickle that froze going up rather than hanging down.  There actually is a perfectly logical explanation for this.  Enjoy the sights of Winnipeg.

 

The Christmas call

It is that time of year again when we celebrate Christmas.  It is also the time of year when our missionary gets to call home.  This has been our tradition for the past seven years.  For the past seven years our family has had a missionary serving in one part of the world or another.  So getting a missionary call on Christmas is just what we expect.  This year was a little bit different though.  All of our kids were spending Christmas in different places so the family togetherness was more of a virtual thing than a physical thing.  You can put it this way, there were a lot of skype windows open and getting the skype conference call working was a trick.  But in the end, we all had a great time talking to Brendan and knowing that he is doing well.  We talked to Brendan for about 40 minutes and also got the chance to meet his companion and some of the Sisters that he works with.  Brendan looked really good and his sense of humor is still pure Brendan.  Here is just a sampling of that humor for those who have missed it over the last year:

"Ya know what I don't get. I watched all the missionaries in my district start calling home and immediately when their family popped up on screen everyone started crying and Kleenex were everywhere. They were sharing all these intimate moments and I was sitting in the corner just thinking "thank you Heavenly Father, for giving me the family I have. Truly, thank you" I hopped on Skype and called Alex and Annie and immediately when they popped up, me and Alex were just WAZZZZZ UP????!! it was great. No tears. never tears. Fake tears were shed on my part. But that was to check if I still had that youngest child talent of busting out the waterworks on command. The verdict... I can't."

So Brendan told us about an interesting experience that he and his companion had in the YSA Ward.  One evening before Christmas, the Ward decided to go Christmas caroling for their activity.  When Brendan told us this story, he put in the subject line of the email, "Caroling to Muslims".  Not that Muslims had anything to do with the story really, it was more that Muslims as well as a few other religious sects don't really celebrate Christmas.  If you are at all familiar with Canada, the country is much more of a melting pot for different ethnicities and religions than is the United States.  So when the YSA Ward decided to go caroling, it turned out that many of the people they visited didn't even know that caroling during the Christmas season is really a thing.  Needless to say, they really enjoyed the experience and also had an opportunity to explain to people why they were there and what Christmas is all about.  You really can't ask for a better missionary experience than that.

Things have been going great for Brendan and his companion when it comes to being able to teach and baptize new members of the church.  Brendan told us just a few weeks ago that another person that they had been teaching was just baptized as well.  He also told us a story about how he and his companion decided to start calling phone numbers in the Ward directory and setting up appointments.  Calling one of the less active members of the Ward really turned out to be "the right thing at the right time".  I won't go into the details of the story here but during some of the teaching moments that the missionaries had with this Ward member, those exact words were said.  This was a real testimony builder for both Brendan and the Ward member.  To make the call at the right time and then teach the lesson that was needed, just shows that the Lord is in control.

Brendan was really excited about Christmas and the Christmas package that was sent from home.  There was stuff in the package like vitamins, candy, games and a camera.  You can probably understand why a missionary might not be too excited about vitamins and stuff like that but you might think that he would be excited about a camera.  Not Brendan.  No, the thing that he was most excited about was the new Junior Ranger badge that his Mom sent him.  Last summer we took a trip up though Wyoming and South Dakota.  Brendan's Mom was able to pick up a Junior Ranger badge from a few places along the way.  The reason why she did this was because every time Brendan had an opportunity to get a Junior Ranger badge from one of the National Parks we visited during family trips, he did.  In fact during high school Brendan would proudly wear his Junior Ranger badges to school.  You might think that wearing Junior Ranger badges to high school is kind of a strange thing for a kid to do, but hey, that's just Brendan's personality.  Anyway, in his email home after opening his package, his new Junior Ranger badge was all he could talk about.  

It has turned really cold in Winnipeg.  Brendan said that December wasn't really bad but once January hit, the temperatures have really dropped.  Here is how Brendan describes it:

"So winter has finally come. Winnipeg style. Its been below freezing for about all of December but January hits and everything drops even more. It has been in the minus 20's (Celsius) all this week and with windchill it has been a steady -38 Celsius. That's probably about -38 Fahrenheit. Its been good. I like it. You go out in that kind of cold and you are warm if you are smart and you feel like the MAN. We went street contacting yesterday evening in -35 and my eyebrows and eyelashes froze. I'll send some pics. It makes for an interesting time.

I will say, the strangest part of it all is when your nose hairs freeze. That is some crazy stuff! Feels wack. The wind here is gnarly. That just feels like it goes straight through your skin and straight to the bones. It is wack as well. But maybe the #2 strangest thing, people are out here walking their dogs! And they put these little dog shoes on their dogs. Its hilarious to watch. Truly."

Interesting experiences and random thoughts

Here we are in December again and you know what that means.  For the last 7 years we have been skyping with one of our missionaries at Christmas time and this year will be no different.  Except this year Brendan will be the missionary that we will Skype with.  Up until now, Brendan has been the one here at home skyping with one of his siblings serving as a missionary at the time.  Brendan actually skyped us for the first time last Mother's Day so this will be his second Skype home but his first Christmas.  This should be fun.

As usual, Brendan is just loving the missionary work in Winnipeg.  He is still working with the YSA Ward there and loving it.  This is the second YSA Ward that he has worked with.  The first one being in Regina and now again in Winnipeg.  He told us that he wishes that he could somehow mesh the two YSA Wards together because he has seen some great things from having experienced serving in both of them that would make for one exceptional Ward. 

But missionary work also has it down times.  The trick is to turn the negatives in to positives.  Here is one of those down times and how Brendan handled it:

"Next up I learned two things, Pomegranates are so cheap, and delightful. I forgot how much I loved them. But I will tell you who doesn't like them, white clothes. Whether that be white shirts or G's, pomegranate juice might as well be blood. That stuff don't ever come out. And I learned that the hard way. I still have a couple poms left, so I will probably just strip down before I cut them up and eat them. Can't risk any more casualties. But, actually in reality I avoided some casualties, thank you TIDE TO GO!!! Seriously though, that stuff works wonders. You want a scripture reference, Although your white shirt maybe as red as scarlet, dab a little tide to go and it will be as white as snow. Learned this for real this week. #miracles"

Averting a tragedy and turning it into a miracle.  Isn't that just the missionary way?! While we are on the subject of how missionaries deal with certain events and opportunities, Brendan told us about a recent Family Home Evening with the YSA Ward.  This activity included a Zumba class.  But obviously before starting any kind of class, there must be a prayer and a spiritual thought.  Brendan and his companion were assigned the spiritual thought.  Brendan didn't tell us what he had prepared for the spiritual thought, but what he did tell us was this:

"But tonight for FHE we are doing zumba. SOOOO DOWN! With some spiritual throw down of a well prepared spiritual thought that we got assigned and then hitting the floor for some zumba, we are gonna be shaking our booties with a tear in our eye. What more can you ask for?"

Ok, it is time for our monthly Canadian vocabulary lesson from Brendan.  This month the word is "toque".  We were introduced to this new word due to the fact that winter is coming and Winnipeg is getting cold.  Brendan has found his new best friend which will keep him warm though the bitter Canadian cold.  Ear Muffs.  No, the meaning of "toque" is not ear muffs but you are close.  A "toque" is actually Canadian for "beanie" which is all Brendan wore last winter to keep his ears warm.  Last year was OK but this year with ear muffs, Brendan is in heaven. At least his ears are. Not to mention that when he goes to one of his appointments, he won't be taking a beanie off his head and looking like he just rolled out of bed.   The rest of him will probably still be cold especially when it hits -40 in Winnipeg with 40 kph winds. 

Here we go for one of the funniest stories of Brendan's mission.  There are a lot of different ethnicities in Canada.  One of the main groups of people to immigrate to Canada are Nigerian.  Brendan says that they are some of the nicest and kindest people he has met.  Ever since Brendan got to Winnipeg, he has heard about a church called "Redeemed Christian Church of God" where many of the Nigerian people meet on Sundays.  A few weeks ago Brendan and his companion decided to attend this church to meet some of the people and get to know them a little better.  When they showed up at the church, they were the only two white people there.  Then they were immediately ushered to the front from the chapel and given all of the attention and love that the rest of the congregation could give.  Then the pastor of the church asked the two missionaries to stand and invited the entire congregation to come and shake their hands.  All 200 of them!!  Then the gospel choir began to sing and the band played and as Brendan described it, it was like a full on concert.  Anyway, none of that is the funny part of the story.  The people at the church seemed to be very kind and friendly people.  The funny part of the story came later which Brendan didn't even know about. 

Just a few days later I was sitting at home working when I got an email from a strange email address.  Of course, everybody gets email from strange email addresses and normally I would have just deleted it.  But this one had the subject line, "We are glad you came".  When I opened the email it was from the Pastor at the "Redeemed Christian Church of God".  Apparently, Brendan had given them an email address thinking that it was one of his old addresses from before the mission.  As it turned out, it was one of my email addresses that ironically enough, I only use for corresponding with church members and scouting.  The email was very nice, here is what it said:

"Dear Brendan,

Blessings and greetings to you in Jesus name. We were privileged to 
have you as our guest this past Sunday.  We trust that your visit was 
spiritually enriching and that you were warmly received.

As a Church, we are committed to the person of Jesus Christ, and we 
base our teaching upon the revealed word of God.  It is our desire 
that people come to place their trust in Christ to forgive them and 
lead them, and that they grow in their relationship with Him.  We feel 
God is doing extraordinary things among extraordinary people and would 
love to see you be a part of this. Kind regards, ..."

When I told Brendan, in my weekly email, what had happened, he responded back saying that he just about laughed himself to death and that whole story just made his week.  I guess the best part of the story is that there are good kind people everywhere.

If you have known Brendan for very long, you would know that for whatever reason, his mind just goes to random thoughts.  Apparently that even applies to his emails as well.  Here is a random thought from Brendan that you just might find funny.  Especially given that he was a radio DJ through high school:

"Anyways, this week was crazy. Lots of stuff. Well, where to start. I don't know. I give up. I'll talk about what's on my mind. On a mission, your musical taste just dies. Straight up, two weeks in it just dissipates. And all that is left is cheezy EFY songs from the early 2000's. But you want to know what is strange. I TOTALLY DIG IT. haha, you should see me. We get bumpin in the car. EFY 2006 comes on and next thing you know I'm air drumming and singing along to "Power in Purity" like its Bohemian Rhapsody. ITs great. I love it. It will be weird in year or so to go back to listening to my old stuff. It's almost as if my ears are stuck in limbo and maybe some day they will make it to heaven. But for now, I'm sticking with the For Strength of Youth greatest hits 2014."

Brendan has been learning a new skill lately.  They  recently met a man who is deaf and attends one of the nearby Wards.  So now every Monday night this man teaches them sign language.  According to Brendan, he and his companion are getting really good at sign language.  Brendan said that now that he has been learning sign language, he is meeting all kinds of people who are deaf.  The great thing is that now he can more easily communicate with them.  Brendan is even considering asking his mission president if he could be reassigned as an ASL missionary.  I'm guessing that isn't going to happen but hey, if having the ability to at least make a door approach in sign language opens the door (so to speak), then it must have been worth it. 

Diversity is the spice of life

After spending a few months in Regina, Brendan is off to the "peg", Winnipeg that is.  He has spent a lot of his time serving in the YSA Wards and as a Zone Leader.  With this transfer to Winnipeg, about the only thing that will change is the place.  Brendan will still be serving in the YSA Wards and will still be a Zone Leader.  One interesting thing however, is that in both Regina and now in Winnipeg, he is serving with two other fellow PGers.  Elder Merrell, Sister Alder and Brendan were all friends at one time or another during high school and now they are serving the Lord in the Winnipeg, Canada mission.      

According to Brendan, there have been several miracles that have taken place in the last few weeks in the Regina area.  The most important of which are the baptisms of two young men who have been taking the lessons from the missionaries for the past couple of months.  Besides the fact that they have chosen to join the church, their names are what makes them unique among new members of the church.  I won't mention their names here but just know that with names like theirs, they were definitely destined to do great things.  The other great miracle, although this one somewhat pales in comparison to the previous miracle, is that Brendan and his companion have too many dinner appointments.  That may not seem like much of a miracle to you, but to a missionary it is a wonderful thing.  Well, at least to Brendan anyway.  He told us that while he was serving in some of the smaller areas, it was difficult to get dinner appointments.  But in the bigger cities and the more established Wards, dinner appointments seem to come a little easier.  Another reason why dinner appointments are so plentiful is because of the time of year.  Unlike the U.S. who celebrate Thanksgiving in November, the Canadians celebrate it in October.  Brendan told us that there have been some nights when they have had two dinner appointments and at least one night when they had three.  In fact Brendan said that during a recent dinner appointment with his Stake President who is from France, there were also two investigators from Nigeria, another man and his wife from Mexico, a young person from Iraq who had spent 9 years in a refugee camp and then the two missionaries from the U.S.  As Brendan would put it, Canada is the real melting pot of North America.  

Have you ever heard a missionary give you the "play by play" rendition of how thing are going?  Well, here is the play by play as given by Elder Nicholes in a recent letter home:

"Well well well, here we are again with another edition of random spattering of typos and broken thoughts somewhere racing in my mind as I watch terrible parenting here at the local library. I'm glad you could join us this evening and I hope you don't enjoy your stay.

But this week was a wiz(ard) I don't know why I added that last part. But anyways, moving on. Lets talk baseball. The Jays are killing it in the Playoffs and Canada is going nuts for it. On to hockey, the jets are off to a good start and the city of Winnipeg is ringing with the chant of GO JETS GO. GO JETS GO. GO JETS GO. I like it. On to Canada Winnipeg P-day activity, volleyball. I spiked the ball into a Sisters face today. I don't think we will be playing volleyball any more..."

 Speaking of play by plays and other funny stories, a couple of weeks ago Brendan told us about his new found love for Asian food and how a white kid from Utah impressed the presiding matron of a local Asian family.  Here is the story because Brendan tells it better:

"Well, I want to start by gloating. Yeah, it was good. In Regina I ate a lot with a member family from Vietnam and they taught me to eat with chopsticks and I started getting really good with them. Well as good as a white kid from Utah can get with chop sticks but that is beside the point. Here is why. Elder Gottenbos and I went to a member's apartment who is from China. And they made us Kimchi. AND SINCE I CAME OUT, I LOVE KIMCHI! I love Asian food so much. Like I never had real authentic Asian food till I came to Canada. Where you go to any Asian restaurant and you know it is the real deal. But anyways back to the point. They asked me if I wanted to use chopsticks or a fork. I said Chopsticks and they said the thing they always say... "you sure?" I said yes. They bring them out reluctantly and I start eating the kimchi with them and then the mom who speaks no english what so ever says something in chinese. I look at her son and he says "she just said that you are really good with chopsticks" BAM SEAL OF APPROVAL. That is all. My ego is at all power."

OK, now that Brendan has impressed the Asians with his crazy chopstick skills, it is on to impressing the East Indians with the game of cricket.  Here is how he did that:

"Moving on to my next gloatworthy thing. We were out walking by the university doing some contacting and there were a bunch of East Indians with these boxes and stuff. When I looked a little closer, they had a cricket stick. I WAS SO DOWN! Every night in Regina I would see these East Indians playing cricket by some apartments and one time we went to go join them but we didn't end up actually playing. They just taught us how to play. And So I wasn't letting this chance go by. I yelled out to them and they immediately invited us to play. AND IT WAS AMAZING! Seriously the funnest game ever. And super good way to contact. Me and Elder Bos made a good team I'll tell you what, he was an incredible baller (pitcher) and I was killing it on the hits and fielding. We ended up beating the other team. It was so fun!! Dreams really do come true."

This month's letters from Brendan just keep getting better and better.  Not only were the baptisms, impressing the chinese family with crazy chopstick skills and then playing a mean game of cricket isn't enough, just wait until you hear what's next.  So Brendan and his companion get a call from the assistants telling them that some visitors from Salt Lake will be coming to the Winnipeg area during the next week.  But these visitors aren't just anybody, no they are the people that actually wrote the "Preach My Gospel" manual.  If you aren't family with the "Preach My Gospel" manual, it is the manual that all of the missionaries throughout the world use when teaching the Gospel to people who are interested in knowing more about the LDS church.  In addition to visiting the area, they want to accompany Brendan and his companion during some teaching appointments to see how the missionaries are using the manual.  The assistants told Brendan that he and his companion needed to have three solid appointments for the next Tuesday night.  If you have ever served a mission, you probably know that many appointments fall through.  So making sure that you have three solid appointments, can be tough.  Brendan told us that this assignment really put the pressure on them to set up appointments.  So they literally just started asking anybody on the street if they were free on Tuesday night.  As it turned out, just asking people if they are free wasn't a half bad contacting approach.  Tuesday night finally came and here is how it went:

"This week was actually pretty great. We had some interesting things happen that made it great. If you read my email last week you would know that we were getting a surprise visit from some people from the mission department of the church and that they were going to go on splits with us. Well, turns out it wasn't just anyone from the mission department. IT WAS THE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, and we were in a tri-pan with him all Tuesday night. And I have no idea why I fretted about it, haha, it was the best! He took us out to Applebee's for all you can eat ribs and then we had a couple appointments set up for that evening that he came a long with. And at one point we were going through the Plan of Salvation pamphlet with one of our investigators and Brother Wade starts going through it and giving all this detailed background on things in the pamphlet and that's when I realized, "My investigator is going through the pamphlet with the person who WROTE the pamphlet." Blew my mind. But it was super neat. Later he gave us all the little details on Preach My Gospel and how it is used in all the missions around the world. It was a really a super fun night. Love that guy. We are best friends now. haha"

Over the last few weeks Brendan seems to have talked a lot about the diversity of people who live in Canada.  Just this last week Brendan told us that his teaching pool is currently made up of people from Korea, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, China, India, Mexico, United States and Australian Aborigine.  Brendan is now a connoisseur of authentic Asian food and to our surprise, really likes spicy hot food.  Which is funny because he wouldn't touch the stuff before his mission.  Needless to say, things are going great in the Winnipeg, Canada mission and especially in the YSA Wards where Brendan is serving.