Life in Willoughby

Greetings everyone! It’s your friendly neighborhood Cannuck!

Unfortunately, I still am not able to send any pictures yet, and I’ve yet to figure out how to send mail, but these weekly emails have been sufficient these last few weeks

I’ll be honest, there’s not too much to update this week. Elder Smith, Elder Sloan and I have been working hard every day, and though our lessons have been few, we’ve been keeping up the faith.

We have had some teaching appointments though. The first was with a guy named Mike; he insisted on meeting us at a coffee shop for his lunch break, which we knew probably was not a good sign. Mike had talked to the missionaries before and had been reading the Book of Mormon, but not for the intent of praying about it. He said he will not accept the book until he has thoroughly researched it on the internet and has solid physical evidence of its divinity. When we walked away from that lesson, it was clear that Mike did not quite grasp the concept of faith in God, and praying as opposed to researching.

Another lesson we had was with a very nice man named David. He was from China, and his English was not perfect. The lesson was not a bad one, but we learned David was only interested because he liked to learn the different rules that different churches and applying the ones he liked to his life.

We also did service for a man named Wayne, who had met with the missionaries before. Wayne had recently had a tree in his yard cut down, and he requested our help to chop up the tree into little pieces that he could use for his wood-burning stove. It was exhausting, but in the end we learned that he had been reading the Book of Mormon every night and really wanted to come to church. So our bodies were fatigued, but our spirits were high.

Elder Smith is also a very smart guy. He and I have had a lot of good, deep gospel discussions covering a wide variety of topics. We both agree that this church just makes so much sense. The Gospel is awesome.

It has not all been a happy picnic. In fact, many of the missionaries agree that Willoughby is a pretty tough area. They call it the “refiner’s fire” of the mission. It has been enjoyable though. I’ve learned a lot and I expect to learn even more. I love the mission president and I know that I’m here for a reason.

Also the Vancouver Temple is beautiful and I get to drive by it every day.

-Elder Reynolds