Key word of this week: URGENCY!

Hey Hey Hey!

   Well, in all honesty, it's been a pretty slow week. Jacob didn't get baptized and we went finding a lot. But we had a great comp study yesterday in which we set some new goals to help us be better and more effective. I was sitting at my study desk during dinner and I was like "gahhhh! We HAVE to be better, work harder and baptize this transfer! We're in flippin Toronto!" You'd think I would learn by now that God continues to make me grow in order to see blessings. Crazy how he does that, eh? He's like "oh, Sister Messer stinks at bus contacting so lets have the Spirit tell her she needs to do better at that. She'll deny it for a few weeks and then finally surrender and be the missionary I expect her to be. Then the harvest will come." Ya. So stay tuned, i'm hoping this week i'll gain some guts and yet again open my mouth. Key word of this week: URGENCY. We're going to have a sense of urgency all the time!

   We did have Alice at church yesterday, which went very well. She even brought a friend with her. She's been reading steadily from the BoM and she's very close to the Spirit. As we've helped her recognize the Spirit it's made a big difference in our lessons. We gave her a church tour on Tuesday and it was awesome. We taught the 5 steps of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we did. For example, as we taught faith, we showed her classrooms that she would learn in and explained how that would increase her faith. Repentance, we talked about prayer and how leaders in the church help us to repent if needed. Baptism took us to the font where we also talked about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We ended in the chapel and talked about enduring to the end and the sacrament. That was definitely the highlight of the tour. She used the words "peace" and "sacred" to describe the feelings there. We were able to point out that it was the Spirit and that really touched her. She said she would be baptized as she understood the commandments and knew that this was true. We were hoping to set a date at church but it didn't work out. Stay tuned :)

  We also taught Nora and Sylva. They're from Africa, we've been working with them for quite a while now. Working sundays is keeping them from church. Nora is a single mom and Sylva is her 10 yr old son. he wants to be baptized soooo bad! His dad who is in Africa says he needs to be older. However, Nora told us she could talk his dad into letting him...so mainly it's her holding him back. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and invited Sylva to say the closing prayer, in which he said, "Please bless the missionaries that they will have eternal life and that me & my mom can be baptized on time." We thought that was very sweet. He's such a stud. We wish he only had permission!

  We heard about the bombing in Boston on the bus right after we had gone downtown on Pday. That's crazy stuff! Boston isn't too far from Toronto, everyone has been talking about it. But the details you mentioned were crazy! I had no idea about the lockdown and finally finding the guy in a boat? So weird. All the terrorists seem to be muslim, eh? Which is weird- the muslim people here are so kind even though they're usually not interested. They all seem to be very family focused people too.

  Last pday we went downtown and wandered through Kensington Market- a multi cultural marketplace. We soon found ourself in China Town and had lunch there. Coolest part of the day- we rode a street car! They're all over the place. From the subway we boarded it and i felt like I was getting on Indiana Jones at Disneyland. haha but for real. It was  in this dark cave like place and we got quite excited.

  Well, today we're going to Target!!! They're new to Canada! I haven't been in a Target in so long. I've been looking forward to this day. ;) Have a wonderful week! I'll see ya soon!
Love Sister Messer