Week 58 - Walk and Talk August

Hello All!

     Another great week in the Canada Calgary Mission!  How's everyone at home?  Good luck to all of you starting school today!  I'm sure you'll be awesome; just remember to make the most of the time you have right now.  It has the potential to be awesome!

    We're doing some awesome things as a mission right now, speaking of awesome.  This month has been dubbed "Walk and Talk August", and our goal during this time is to talk to 1,000,000 people as a mission.  It's gonna be really hard to get to that goal, but it's going to do some great things for us as a mission no matter the actual number of people we talk to.  Part of this is that we park our cars almost all the time, and walk, walk, walk.  It's been a lot of fun, but going without the shelter of your car can be pretty risky sometimes.  This last week, for instance, we got an insane rainstorm that blew through the city, and completely drenched anyone who was outside.  (Luckily, Elder Mac Duff and I were near a member's home at the time and they were gracious enough to give us shelter.)  It's interesting what happens sometimes when we exercise our faith.  The Lord definitely has a sense of humor and a plan for us that we often don't understand.

    Along with lots of walking and talking, our area is doing well right now.  Maurisio is moving toward the 23rd strong, and is very receptive to what we've been teaching him.  We taught him the Word of Wisdom and Law of Tithing in the last week or so, and he's willingly accepted both of them.  Definitely prepared.

    We're really trying to find new investigators right now, well, investigators who will actually meet.  It's pretty easy to talk to people and arrange a time to come back here in the East, the actually catching them at home after that is the hard part.  I know the Lord has prepared people here who will be receptive to our message.  After all, it's a pretty great message.

    Tomorrow, we'll have the opportunity to realize the importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ a little more in our lives.  As part of our zone conference, we'll be doing a special temple session as a missionaries.  I am very excited, especially since I haven't been to the temple since November, but also because of the opportunity to learn more about the covenants I've made with my Heavenly Father.  We've been learning more about our covenants as a mission lately, and I've learned something that I really love.  In a talk, "The Power of Covenants," Elder D. Todd Christofferson says something about gaining spiritual and moral power in the crazy world we live in: "What is the source of such moral and spiritual power, and how do we obtain it? The source is God. Our access to that power is through our covenants with Him. A covenant is an agreement between God and man, an accord whose terms are set by God.  In these divine agreements, God binds Himself to sustain, sanctify, and exalt us in return for our commitment to serve Him and keep His commandments."  I love that so much.  God promises us everything, and in return, asks for our commitment to serve him.  He might not even ask for everything, we just need to be willing to give it, and He'll give us so much more than we ever could give.  Of all the things that show our Heavenly Father's love for us, this is definitely one of the greatest.
    I hope you're all doing well.  You're all so wonderful, and I'm insanely grateful for your influences in my life.  Keep being awesome.  Have a great week!  Be good!  Have fun!

 

Love,

Elder Hafen