If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye!

Greetings from Slave Lake. Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Firstly, we have been doing a lot of finding this week. The new mission President has put a lot of emphasis on going out and finding new people to teach. So, we've obediently begun to take the time to go knock more doors and talk to everybody. It is a strange change of pace; before the efforts of our finding would be indicated in actual results: New investigators, lessons taught, investigators at church, etc. But now, in addition to those key indicators we count the number of approaches we get each day. Approaches just means we tried to talk to someone or knocked on a door, regardless if no one answers or the people on the street ignore us - it still counts as an approach. So we've been doing a lot for that reason, though it seems like teaching is more effective in real life terms.We got 163 approaches this week and have no Idea if that is good or not. We are finally finding the more rude people it seems. We've been quite fortunate in the past here. But it mattereth not, I'll be transferred in two weeks haha!  Anyway, just a little bit about what is going on in the mission these da

We had a good lesson with Len this Saturday in the home of one of the members. It was a great lesson, we went over the baptismal interview questions and made sure everything was squared away. He has agreed at this point to have the baptism performed on Sunday, September 11th after sacrament meeting. I hope I didn't press him too hard to try and have it done before I was gone, but this is the outcome at this point, so it looks like I'll be here! Len is such a wonderful fellow and he'll make a fine addition to the branch. Pick and Flower of England I tell you! This branch could really use some more priesthood brethren.

Poor Lyle has been ill as of late and he took a fall down the stairs in the middle of the night this week. Seems he can never catch a break. a few cracked ribs and his neck was messed up as well. Lots of prayers going out to him in the branch; we hope to have him around for a few years yet! 

One of our Filipino investigators, Cris, watched the whole Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration movie we emailed to him last week! We didn't expect him to have time, seeing as he works some crazy hours. Cris really has some admiration for the prophet and he is getting a better understanding of the Book of Mormon. We will hopefully be committing him to baptism again in the next lesson or two. Hopefully we get to take him on a church tour this next week. We will hopefully be meeting with that really cool couple we found a couple weeks ago, this week. They got really busy after we left; Mike got a job and has been running ever since. We'll see what happens. 

That just about wraps everything up! 15 days until transfers, so we'll see what the Lord has in store for me. Time to really dig in and go out with a bang.

Elder Higginson

 

 Caterpillar!

 Len and Elder Miller preparing for baptism!

Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud

Greetings from Canada. Thank you so much for the sweet email you have sent my way, they really gave me a boost. Now to the reporting on the work. 

The Parks had family come up to visit this week which was really neat for everyone. The best part was they brought their son, Robert, who recently returned from serving a mission in Chile 3 weeks ago. All he wanted to do was go out and work with us, so we had a great time! He came dressed in his missionary attire, just no name tag. So we took him up to Wabasca and went tracting. We knocked a lot of doors, talked to a drunk dude and got a new investigator! quite eventful. Afterwards we got to go meet with Lyle and he and the family he's with fed us supper. We had a great visit with him and he has really been doing well. He's been reading his scriptures and keeping the commandments like a champ! He was really touched by Alma 40:11 and he told us that the scripture gave him hope. He went in for surgery today and he is expected to be very weak after. But we came and gave him a blessing with President Park on Sunday so that was good. I got to bless the sacrament with Lyle for the fist time as well, and coached him through it!! It was super cool! Recent converts are such a joy and blessing, especially when they are so committed like this guy. 

Along with the great things that have happened this week, Satan has been particularly active. We met with Len this week and he informed us that he has been scheduled by his employers at the mill to work the Saturday of the baptism, basically for the whole day. This is the first Saturday he's been scheduled to work in the last 18 months. Infuriating. I'm starting to get confused on just how much Satan is allowed to mess with. He is suppose to have no power over the living God, but really though!? If we move it to the next Saturday, I will be transferred and miss it by three days. Why cant things like this just work out?? We are pushing to have the baptism the following morning or even after church, but it hasn't been decided yet. Well, whatever at least he's getting baptized still. We'll just have to cheerfully do all things that lie in our power for the time being. 

I was reading a talk yesterday by Elder Renlund. He had some interesting insights to share and I thought I might share a portion of it. 

Our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are the ultimate Givers. The more we distance ourselves from Them, the more entitled we feel. We begin to think that we deserve grace and are owed blessings. We are more prone to look around, identify inequities, and feel aggrieved—even offended—by the unfairness we perceive. While the unfairness can range from trivial to gut-wrenching, when we are distant from God, even small inequities loom large. We feel that God has an obligation to fix things—and fix them right now!

I've seen this my whole mission and more now than ever. We encounter folks on occasion who seek signs and fail to recognize hardly anything they receive to have come from God. They live in sin and feel like God still owes them. Meanwhile I am over here recollecting the repentance before God that morning for getting to Studies at 8:01. Certainly not saying that I'm anywhere close to perfect, but I recognize the gap and I keep trying. The whole talk was really insightful and I'd recommend it. Should be on the main page of LDS.org right now.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week, and remember to take time everyday to stop and listen for the still small voice. It will tell you what you ought to do and bring peace to your troubled soul.

sincerely

Elder Higginson 

Greetings from Canada!!!

We've had some good success this week! Investigators are coming out of the woodwork and Old ones are coming back to us! I'll just share a few highlights.

Firstly, the Temple was great. We got to stay overnight at the mission president's house with his son and wife. Wonderfully hospitable people. The youngster, Jacob has a lot of Nerf Guns. He likes to bring them out when the missionaries come. Didn't get a chance this time though. Interviews with the mission president are always a good thing. Longest one I've ever had, clocking in at about 35 minutes. President Pattison is a good guy with a good sense of what we need to do in the work. I've been working the Tagalog angle with him pretty hard haha. I think he might put me back in Language work for the remainder. But who knows. 

We had a great visit with Lyle up in Wabasca this week. We are just starting to reteach him the missionary discussion after baptism, starting exactly 5 months to the day from when he was first taught. Now here is the cool part: he is working on one of his friends from Hockey, who has recently found out that he will be a father. He want's to straighten out his life and he approached Lyle about it. Lyle told him it wouldn't be easy and he'd have to come to church and take the discussion but he reported that this fellow is sincere and agreed to do it. Lyle is an A-1 Style boss. He set us up an appointment for this Friday and he'll be making us supper as well! We really couldn't be more blessed. 

We have been teaching the Fam regularly and we finished teaching them about the Life of Jesus this week, from the Mount of Transfiguration to the Ascension.

The spirit was really strong and the kids were under control so It was great. One of Bev's daughters, Rita told us at the end that she feels different when we come share messages with them and she feels like it's time to start again to make the necessary changes in her life. Similar thoughts from Dusty, another of Bev's daughters. "It would be a good thing for Noah to grow up in." Noah is such a great kid haha. So we will be teaching the lessons to the girls starting this week and recommitting them to baptism. 

The highlight of the week was when we were greeting people at the church and we see Little Noah outside the doors in his white shirt, slacks and tie! We were so happy to see him! He was followed by Blake, Bev, Stevo, Blake's granddaughter, Rita and Ezra, Rita's 11-month-old baby. Them plus, Len, Seth and Kevin made for 10 non-members at church and 7 of them technically investigators! Booyaa! It was so great to have that many people at church. 

Well, I've gotta run, but I love all of you and I look forward to hearing from you next week! Oh yea, I got my trunky call last Thursday at 11:43 A.M. Looks like I'll be flying into Boise International airport come December. :)

Love,

Elder Higginson

And then may we stand still...

Well, we have a fun day planned up here and I don't have a lot of time but I'll give you all the update. We have Zone Conference and interviews with the mission president tomorrow so I decided to pull a few string so us and the Parks could go to the 5:30 session at the  Temple tonight and stay over at the mission home. It will be a fun couple of days! 

This week was incredible. I've never had so much success and been so exhausted by the end of it. We exceeded the standard of excellence in all major and important categories. 16 lessons taught, including 4 member presents and 2 in members homes. We picked up 6 new investigators, from our own efforts and through contacting referrals from members. I definitely feel like boasting in the strength of the Lord right now, but I'm gonna try and be humble so the Lord will continue to bless us with continued success. It has truly been great though. The Lord has been answering our prayers and guiding us in what to teach each of these precious souls.

First off, We got our man, Len on date for the 10th of September!!!!! It's finally coming to pass! He will make a fine addition to the branch. And the best part?? That is my last Saturday in this area most likely! What a way to finish off strong! 

We had a great time with the Fam this week. Bev, personally invited us and the Parks over to celebrate the birthday of Blake's daughter who passed away 3 years ago at the age of 20. Ever since then, they always let a bunch of balloons into the air on that day. It was such a sweet visit and Bev showed all of us her pictures of her family and Blake's. These are real people that have all been through so much. They have been prepared by God to receive the gospel. And it is OK that it doesn't necessarily happen while I'm here. It will happen and these folks will experience the blessings that follow. 

We were walking down the street on Thursday trying to contact an old potential investigator who ended up telling us to come back in another month. Some potential investigators we find don't even really deserve to be called "potentials" because they are so lukewarm. But anyway, we decided to talk to the neighbor next door who was out gardening and she had no interest and was frankly a bit rude. But I asked her for referrals anyway and she straightway pointed to the house across the street. "That guy over there. His name is Mike." We figured that she was probably sending us to go talk to some Lucifarian dude who would drive us away, but we opted to have faith and see who this was. We talked to him and his wife and they were very much interested in having us back! Haha, who would have thought.

We came back the next day and had a great first lesson. The wife told us that no one had ever come to their door before and they wondered what it was that we were sharing. She was full of great and honest questions about the work we do. This family is trying to start fresh. They've gone through a lot but they are great people and we all agreed that it was God who led us to them. They are excited to read from the Book of Mormon and come to church. They have 2 young children and we told them about primary and they seem genuinely interested. Both parents agreed to the soft commitment to be baptized. Serious tender mercy of the Lord. We will give you an update next week, but we've already got the perfect fellow shipper for them and we think things will be great!

Have a great week everyone! 

Love, 

Elder Higginson

P.S. y'all made an exceptional sand octopus. 

 

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.   

                    -Doctrine & Covenants 123:17

 

                                    The sky is better in Slave Lake, than in Redfish.

 This is the Fam. We love these people so much! Except those two people standing on the far left and the little girl with green dress. We don't know them. 😏

Scatter sunshine

Hello everybody! I'm glad to hear that you're all preparing for an adventure at Redfish Lake! I must say, I envy you all, That place is so wonderful this time of year. As I told Aubrey before, I vote you make a Jabba the Hut sand sculpture. Everyone play nice and do your darndest to not receive major injuries. We all felt really bad for Isabell losing a chunk of her leg last time. 

The work of the ministry progresses steadily up here in Slave Lake. We have been able to do some good quality work and many of our investigators are making progress. Firstly, Blake and the fam. We have really been pushing for them to read the scriptures together as a family each evening and say family prayer. I can say it really made a difference in our house and I know it will help these people. They moved across town this Friday and Saturday and we offered to help out. We did a few trips, got the couches out and the Parks came over to shampoo the carpets off the old place and help with additional cleaning. They were totally out of the old house and into the new in just a couple days! And the new place is much nicer. They will be here for a few years most likely and they are planning on buying the place. And the best part? It's like two minutes from the church. Sunday morning, Blake, Bev, and two of there sons came to church! and about an hour ago, Bev called us and invited us over for supper and to a family gathering. We've been doing our best to reach out to her and make her feel comfortable and she's responding. Sister Park was able to have a good visit with her and She is on board to be baptized. But the marriage might not take place until September or maybe even later. I've waited so long, but I don't think I'll be around for the baptisms. But that is ok. As long as it happens, I've done my part. 

A cool experience from the other day. We were coming down the elevator with some other folks including an older, rough looking gentleman with a beard, ear ring and a large tattoo on his arm. We'd talked to him in the hallway a bit and he was nice. We started chatting with him as we made our way to the Parks, on the first floor. Just after President Park opened the door, the man told us he was actually a member of the church, who had held the Melchizedek priesthood, but because he moved up to Red Earth, far from any chapels for 20 years, he had not had contact with the church hardly and had kind of lost his way. He told us he'd been thinking of coming back and getting active again! I asked if he'd like to meet but he wasn't ready for that yet haha. But he'll keep thinking about it he says. The Parks actually park next to this fellow in the parking lot and they have talked with him a bit over the last year but he had never divulged that he was a member. I really hope he decides to come back, we could use him in the branch!

The work really is delightful out here and there are many great miracles yet to come. Spiritually I have been down on myself lately and overly self critical. I've worked hard to overcome such feeling but they keep coming back. Today I feel cause to lift up my head and rejoice. God loves each of us and we are that we might overcome sin and have joy. My love to each of you and enjoy the festivities. 

Sincerely 

Elder Higginson