The rain has come and will stay for a while here in Surrey
following a massive windstorm that blew through Saturday. While visiting a less
active family in our ward down by Surrey Central at around noon, we saw some
large branches break off a group of trees that tumbled onto the road. As the
day moved on and the sky grew darker, more and more trees fell onto power
lines, knocking out power in a number of parts in the city. Elder McCown and
Elder Anderson had a big tree branch fall on their car while it was parked
which cracked the windshield and dented the roof. We ended up having to stay at
our apartment that night in the dark, having to stumble around with our
flashlights while it was pitch black outside as we got ready for bed. It felt
like being in a scene from The Walking Dead!
The next morning, the power still hadn't gotten back on so
we drove to the West Elders apartment (which is quite close to the church) and
drove them to the church. We had to take all our food from our refrigerator and
pile it into the the West Elder's to prevent it from going bad. There was no
power on Sunday night either so we called up the zone leaders and they told us
to spend the night at their place since it would otherwise take us 30-40
minutes to get home from where we were, along with the fact that we had no food.
So here I am now! emailing at our church after a series of adventurous
events.
With that fun little story out of the way, here's what's
happening in our teaching pool! Tuesday evening we taught Ian and its still a
story we're all familiar with. He doesn't know of a surety that God exists. Ian
isn't legitimately progressing anymore so we called him up the other day and
told him that we would give him a bit of a break from the teaching. He had no
problems with it and will still be coming to church. We'll be praying for him.
Tuesday proved to be a really fun day with 4 appointments
after we taught Ian, all in back to back hours! We had a visit with the
Gallarde family, who we are trying to reactivate, we had dinner with Sister
Mangabat and her son, then we taught Joshua who seems to really like the
church. When we told him that we were inviting him to read and pray about the
Book of Mormon, he told us that it didn't seem like we were trying to solicit
people. Like we actually cared! I guess he was really touched by that fact
because he teared up a bit. Lastly we taught a guy named Doug who we instantly
dropped. Why? Let's just say that he's a little too talkative...
Oh yeah, here's another fun story: Wednesday we had a
certain member who called us from the Surrey Memorial Hospital. He introduced
himself and told us that he had a couple of friends staying there who each
wanted a copy of The Book of Mormon. Well, words like these are music to any
missionaries ears, so we went to the hospital front desk and asked for the name of this
man we had spoke to on the phone. The woman who worked there took us to where he
was. It didn't occur to my companions and I, that this man was staying in the
hospital's psych ward! Anyway, we gave the books to his friends, and left as
soon as we could.
Back to Joshua. We saw him again the same night the big
windstorm rolled in and taught him about baptism. He says that he's seen a lot
of signs that point towards the Mormons being right so he would be willing
to work towards a date for September 26! The downside is that he will be moving
to Langley early next month so we'll have to pass him off to the Langley elders.
I guess at the end of the week, its been similar to the way
it's often down here. Well, I potentially have a couple weeks left in the
area (I know, transfers are coming again, its weird). Wishing you all the best as
school starts up again. Have a great first week of September! Before I sign
off, I'll leave you this rather eerie picture of (what's left of) the large
Canadian flag just west of Guildford mall following the big storm:
Elder Samis
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