September 21, 2015 - Area 5: Port Coquitlam

Area 5:  Port Coquitlam

So it begins. After a couple more days in Surrey, it was time to pack up and move on. Wednesday afternoon Elder Nielson and I were in my new area which will quite likely be my last. 

Port Coquitlam has been a great place to be so far. It's a lot smaller then Surrey and sits close to the mountains. It's also probably as diverse as Surrey but with a lot more Chinese people than Indian. Our apartment is actually right by downtown Coquitlam. We cover all of downtown which makes it nice and easy for us to street contact. The name "Coquitlam" is apparently a Native word that means "stinky fish"  because for whatever the reason, the fish that come out of the nearby river smell unpleasant.  

The members? They've been terrific so far! We helped them out with the annual BC food drive on Saturday, in which we put the bags that had been donated on scales to weigh them most of the time. The members seem really warm and friendly, especially when I told them I was Canadian.

Elder Nielson is from Logan, Utah. He loves sports (like pretty much everyone down there) I was pleasantly surprised however, when he mentioned that he liked watching hockey too! He seems to take the work very seriously and the members of the ward love him. He knows what he's doing even though he's only been out 3 months. Elder Lopez taught him well.

Our teaching pool has been looking very good so far. We've been seeing this Filipino guy named Noel who had a baptismal date, but for reasons that are hard to explain, we don't know if he should be. He goes on tangents a lot and never really seems to respond well to the questions we ask him.

Among others is Leah, a 16 year old Chinese girl who comes from a Christian family but wants to know if there is a single church that's completely true. She has a friend who is her same age named Ember, a member of the church who is also from a Chinese family. Her mom loves feeding the missionaries! Leah has instant fellowship, which will surely help her progression a lot. We shared a brief review of the restoration with her to make sure she understood it well. She's a little concerned about the need of priesthood authority, but she's willing to pray about it to figure out if such a thing is needed.

There's also Jessie, the mother of a Mexican family who has been taught on and off for quite a while. She loves the missionaries but says that it seems to be taking a long time for her to get an answer on whether or not the Book of Mormon is true and if she must be baptized.

 Yesterday we went to Bishop Ashton's house for dinner. He lives in a large house that overlooks a lot of the Greater Vancouver area. You can see Surrey from up on the hill. Bishop Ashton was called to be bishop over the ward the Sunday before I came in. He's got a daughter that's getting ready to put her papers in for a mission soon, so missionary work is truly "a big deal" to him. 

It appears that my time in this city will likely be a very good one. There are lots of people to bless and a lot left to learn as the twilight of my mission appears to have arrived. We need to sustain this teaching pool and baptize some people before the time is spent. We'll need the direction of the spirit more then ever before. Too often have I gone into investigator's homes, not knowing quite what to say. I guess that just means I'll have to pray harder for the spirit to discern what our investigators need. So ends the first week in a new area. Talk to you all next week!

Elder Maclean Samis

September 14, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

Another Challenge Begins

Hey all! So, I think I forgot to mention last week that transfer calls were coming. Sure enough, they came Saturday night. Suddenly I am about to leave Surrey and will be transferred to Port Coquitlam, likely on Wednesday. To my irritation, I can't figure out a way to save a screenshot to show you where it is on a map since those who don't live in BC probably don't know where it is, but its actually just across the bridge to the northern side of the river from Surrey, and east of Burnaby meaning I'll still be within the greater Vancouver boundaries. Fun little fact, my old companion Elder Burns is coming to join Elder Shelley and Elder Tolman. He goes home in 2 and a half months.

President Burt has assigned me to follow-up train Elder Nelson who has been out for only a transfer. I'm really excited for it! I've been told that I'll be in the same stake as Surrey but in the Langley zone. Though I know it won't be easy, I believe I was placed in Surrey to prepare for this task.

What of this final week? We've still been trying to help Ian. We met with him once and his testimony appears to be growing,but at seems like a snail-like pace. We've been having some trouble contacting Jamie to set a time to meet with him. We sent him a few texts a couple days ago and just early this morning he finally replied.

We also got a phone number from the Coquitlam Elders (*it should be noted that Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam are 2 seperate places right next to each other) that belonged to this crazy guy who wanted us to meet him in Holland Park. We did, and pretty much the entire time he bragged about how his bible contained the 2nd and 3rd books of Ezra and a bunch of other writings that were not found in the King James Bible. He was offering to print off the 3rd book of Ezra and charged us some money to do it. Only Elder Shelley bought a copy but Elder Tolman and I didn't bother. We tried sharing about The Book of Mormon but he kept on talking about the bible.

Those who have been following this blog regularly are probably getting the message that being here in Surrey has been a refiners fire. With these great trials that have fallen upon me, its time to move on. I'll be forever grateful for this sacred time I've experienced these 4 and a half short months in this city. You may hate trials in their moment, but when you look back on it, all is well and you've been shaped to something amazing because of them.

And now suddenly here I go, down to what will likely be my final area in my full time mission. I know almost nothing of my area or my companion. One sister missionary who had served some around the area found out I was going there and told me it was a "cute little town" with some nice scenery and a lot of rain. The assistants who gave the call also told me that the area was "booming" which would be very welcoming indeed. 

The next couple days will likely be very busy as I get ready to go. Enjoy The last bit of summer-oh wait I guess school just started didn't it. Love ya bye!

Elder Maclean Samis      

September 8, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

Saying Goodbye To John

Hey everybody! Sorry this email is late. Its been a wild day so far. Yesterday, being labor day, meant that the church employment center was closed which disallowed us to email. I went to Abbotsford for a doctors appointment after a temple trip in Langley this morning.

This will probably be a pretty short. Yesterday Ian came to church and the day before we had another meeting with him to see how he was doing. Is Ian making much progress? In our eyes, not really but perhaps in the eyes of the Lord. We passed Joshua off the the Langley Elders and they had a lesson with him the other night. We haven't heard how it went since we asked them just a few hours before the appointment started. 

On Friday we came across the name Jamie in our area book. We invited Jamie to our ward corn roast that kicks off tonight at 5:00 pm. He replied to our text saying that he was taught by missionaries in 2003 though, he can't remember what he learned from them. He said that he would come to the activity. We taught him the restoration the following day and it was a solid lesson. The idea of the great apostasy makes a lot of sense. He loves the idea of new prophets as well!

Another big event was the mission farewell of our beloved friend, John B. He's been going out with the missionaries in the ward pretty much daily. He had an open house Sunday night and there was a ton of people there. We'll miss him a lot and we wish him well in his mission Cebu in the Philippines. He leaves tomorrow morning. I know perfectly well that you want a photo with him, so here you go! John is in the gray suit and his mother and younger sister are in the bottom left corner:

It's truly hard to believe that a year ago this past week I left Nanaimo and was placed in Abbotsford. The 20th month of my mission is here (not that I'm counting or anything). Hope you've enjoyed your labor day weekend and the start of the new month. Bye for now!

Elder Maclean Samis   

August 31, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

Blackout

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

August 24, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

And the Days Go On...

If you read my last email, you probably remember me talking about that lady Elder Shelley and I were led to named Liz. The one who looked like she would be baptized, the lady who seemed to be more then ready to receive us? Well the bad news is she hasn't. The day of her appointment she told us that she couldn't make it but she would meet us at the church for a lesson a couple hours later. She didn't, and we haven't heard from her since. You can imagine by now that our companionship is frustrated beyond all measure.

Well, we are disappointed (not discouraged) but this is what happens when you serve a mission. You hope to find people who are ready, but more often then not, no matter how solid they appear, they will not make it to the water dressed in white while you are in the area. So once again, we're back to a  teaching pool that has only one person in it, Ian. His thoughts about God's existence seem to really be coming along now! We set a date for September 23rd which will give him plenty of time to prepare. He believes that he can't regard the entire Joseph Smith story "made up" because no one in their right mind would lie about what he saw and what he did and die for it if it was a lie.

This past Friday Elder Tolman and I went on an exchange with our beloved district leader, Elder McCown. We decided to go on a bit of an adventure into the roughest patch of Surrey during the evening. We talked to a lot of people, many of them homeless. I talked to this one older guy named Theodore who asked us if we were Mormons. When we replied yes he said that he was interested in a Book of Mormon. We had a great discussion and I gave him one to read. He told us that we could come by the shelter where he was staying the next morning. When we went to the front desk the lady said that there was nobody named Theodore living there. Oh well, who knows where that book will take him? 

After we left the sketch zone we talked to another guy named Joshua who is down to meet with us this Tuesday at the church. He's interested in the Book of Mormon as well and says he is on a search for the truth about God.         

Elder Johnson of the quorum of the seventy came to town to hold a conference this past Saturday afternoon about missionary work. He asked the question "what makes it so hard for us to share the gospel with our friends and families?" People were opened to answer questions during the meeting. One of the sister missionaries serving in our ward stood up and explained that all members of the church has what she calls "FOM" or "fear of man" as she put it. We're afraid to share the gospel because we are afraid of being judged by those around us. I was astonished when she said this because this sister is bubbly, she's confident, she's had 14 baptisms, she was even a star college volleyball player in California before her mission for crying out loud! She's the kind of person everybody and their dog wants to be! And yet she says that she gets nervous about talking to people. Wow, I guess even the great prophet Moses was too.

With that in mind, perhaps I've hopefully turned the corner in my attitude towards myself. Anyone who knows me well knows that I get down on myself a lot. Wish my companions and I luck and prayers as we plunge ourselves into the middle of another transfer here in Surrey, the place that is changing my life for the better! Love you lots and have a great week!

Elder Maclean Samis

  

August 17, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

Why You Need to Follow The Spirit

Another week passes. Whose in the teaching pool right now? Only Ian still, though Elder Shelley and I met some one amazing while Elder Tolman was attending his Sister's wedding in Coquitlam on Saturday. 

We'll get to that miracle in a moment but first I'll tell you about our exchange with our zone leaders. I was placed with Elder Reynolds in our own area Friday morning. He came out at the same time Elder Shelley did and seems to have a similar personality to my own. It was a lot of fun discussing interests we had in common. We thought that Ian was ready for his baptismal date since earlier in the week he told us that he was ready. We went over the baptismal questions that evening with our bishop, but when we asked him "Do you believe that God is our Heavenly Father," his answer for us was the exact opposite of what we wanted to hear. "I don't know" He replied. The 2 of us were surprised as well as Bishop De Vera. We taught and testified how he could know if it was true by understanding the Book of Mormon and praying to know. Judging by what he was saying, he figures that he's seeing a lot more signs that God exists then he once did. He's just thinking a little too much.   

We didn't see him at church on Sunday. When we sent him a text asking him where he was he replied that he was sitting by a nearby lake where he was doing some serious thinking. After church we found him where he said he was. We taught him seemingly more of the same things for a little while. As we were talking we heard a shot-gun blast followed by the sound of emergency vehicle sirens seconds later. This is Surrey after all! 

Now lets turn our attention to that miracle I was talking about. Saturday morning when we exchanged back, Elder Shelley and I planned to do what a lot of missionaries like to do in Surrey: Street contact at the Surrey Central bus loop downtown. We were about to get out of our car to work when we had what could only be described as a "funny feeling." We didn't know why we felt it. We were just following our plans. Confused, we said a prayer of direction, knowing that for whatever reason we simply weren't supposed to be here. The thought came into my mind about a referral the Whieler family gave us when we visited them and did a bit of service for them. We drove there, got out at the cross street and were about to knock on the door when we saw a woman, looking of Hispanic decent, driving in her car, pointing frantically towards where we had just parked as she passed us. We followed her as she turned the corner and she just sat silently waiting for us.

When approached her in the car she rolled down the window. When we asked her what was wrong she began to cry, telling us to pray for her family. They had been placed in a critical situation. We offered a prayer and then she told us more of what was going on, now crying more. There was an awful look of emotional agony in her face as she kept talking. She believed in God but felt angry at him for causing her to go through all the troubles she was facing. She felt that something was missing in her life and she didn't know what it was. We explained that even though we didn't know exactly what she was going through, God did and that we have what she's missing. She told us that she knew a little about the church and it seemed like the Mormon Elders were always around to pray for her whenever she was in a hard time. She introduced herself as Liz and gave us her phone number. We will be meeting with her soon this week. She lives in Vancouver, though she comes to Surrey often to visit her 4 kids. We'll probably teach her a few times before passing her over to some sisters in Vancouver.

As she tried to pull away, her car wouldn't start so we helped start it with some jump cables she had in her trunk. She thanked us now smiling and drove away leaving Elder Shelley and I amazed at what just happened. We knew why we were led to where we were now. It was one of the sweetest miracles I had ever been a part of in the long time I've been out on my mission. You serve to be involved in things like this.

With this in mind my brothers and sisters, may we be thankful for the miracles we have seen throughout our lives. Little has been easy being here in Surrey, but being here is perhaps the best thing God could offer me to grow like never before. God bless you are and please pray for Liz. Love you!

Elder Maclean Samis        

August 10, 2015 - Area 4: Surrey East

Just Ian Hello again at the beginning of another transfer. Elder Shelley arrived on Wednesday. Elder Erasmus left with the zone leaders on the ferry to Courtney. Elder Shelley, our new companion, is from Clearfield Utah and he's been out just under a year. He seems to be a really friendly guy and is very much "on the ball" with missionary work. The day he came into the area, he immediately studied the maps, the area book, and the ward list asking lots of questions and coming up with ideas on how we can improve. The first time we took him to Surrey central was a bit of a scare for him since he was up in Prince Rupert (a town off the northern coast of BC with 12,000 people living in it.) Our results this week were pretty similar to last week. Once again, we are still not teaching anyone frequently except Ian. Earlier in the week we taught him about fasting which he seems to be fine with since he has on occasion fasted for 3 days straight when he was younger as part of training for boxing! fasting for just a day should seem like a cake walk for him. We taught him again just before a baptism that the sisters had on Saturday, going over Mosiah 18 in the Book of Mormon. He attended the baptism and seems to like it. He seems to see a lot of things that "make sense" in the doctrine of the church. Just after the baptism we had a ward party that ended up getting rained on. Ian had to leave before it started, but it was still a good time. With our personal finding seeming to be "unfruitful" as of late, we've decided to do all within our power to focus on member missionary work. We have a number of scheduled member appointments this coming week. Hopefully we can get some referrals this week. Ian looks likely to be baptized on the 23rd this month, but beyond him we need to build our teaching pool. I've seen a lot of faith in Elder Shelley, and him and Elder Tolman and I hope to put in strong efforts to achieve meaningful results. With these few things in mind, I will conclude this email. Enjoy the week! Elder Maclean Samis