Mission Tour with Elder and Sister Nattress

I think our mission pace is accelerating! I can't seem to find time to write, but hopefully can get a few things in today! Clear last week- Nov. 16-17 we had the privilege and blessing of having Elder K. Brett Nattress of the Seventy, and his wife, come tour our mission. We loved having them here with our missionaries and teaching and training them. Our missionaries left feeling very inspired and uplifted. We held two zone conferences with them--one for all the zones in Calgary, and one in Lethbridge for all of the southern zones. Because of illness Elder Nattress wasn't able to arrive until Thursday afternoon (one day later than scheduled), so we re-arranged our first conference to begin a little later in the morning so our missionaries would have more time with him when he got here Thursday afternoon about 2:00. So, the Calgary zones had him for two hours Thursday afternoon, and then the southern zones had him for all of Friday. It is always so special to have a General Authority come to your mission, and to have his wife come with him. They have served as Mission President and wife in the Gilbert, Arizona Mission, so they completely understand what we are doing and all of the challenges and blessings that come with this calling. It is great to be able to visit with them. Our missionaries loved hearing their testimonies and feeling of their love.
On Saturday and Sunday we were also able to join with them to participate in the Lethbridge East Stake Conference with Pres. Stewart. It was a great conference, and we really enjoyed being there. One of the blessings of this calling is to be able to attend 28 stake conferences each year and to feel of the great spirit in each one and be lifted and inspired. I don't love speaking at them all, but have learned to trust in the spirit to help me know what to say at each one.
After that stake conference we drove home so we could be back in Calgary to do a youth fireside with youth from the Confederation Park Stake. We did a question and answer with them, and with their leaders and it was a good night as well. We were tired when it was all done, though!
On Monday we celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary and were able to go out to dinner and we were happy that we were able to share a #LighttheWorld pass-along card with our cute little server. She was young adult age and just had such a great smile and personality, and she said she would watch it, because she wanted to know about Mormons. We hope she will be touched as she goes to the website!
On Tuesday morning we drove to Radium and met Elder and Sister Ebert, our senior couple serving in the Columbia River Valley. It was great to be with them and to hear all that they are doing. All of our senior couples serve in these unique branches, and are such a blessing and asset to the branch. We don't know what this branch will do when the Eberts leave! We are so grateful for all of our senior couples serving. They are great examples of faith and devotion! We have another new couple, the Manwarings, serving out in BC in the Trail Ward and Nelson Branch. They arrived while we were at our mission president's seminar. And then we had another couple arrive just prior to our mission tour, Elder and Sister Jarvis, who will be serving in Banff. And this week Elder and Sister Amberson arrived who will be serving in the Diamond Valley Branch south of Calgary. We are so grateful for them all!
After our meeting with the Eberts we drove clear out to Trail, BC, arriving about 8:00 Tuesday night. We had to travel some pretty slushy roads through the mountain passes to get there. Then on Wednesday we began in Trail and interviewed our missionaries there, then we drove 1 1/2 hours to Creston to interview our missionaries there, and then we drove another hour into Cranbrook to interview the 4 there. Then we drove 1 1/2 hours to Sparwood to interview the 2 serving there. And then we took those two with us into Lethbridge, because the night before they had hit a deer with their car and it was in for repairs, so we had to get them into Lethbridge to be able to come up with other missionaries to our Retrainer's meeting on Friday. Thursday we did all the interviews with the Lethbridge zone, which completed our interviews for the transfer! We then drove to Cardston to go on a teaching appointment with Sisters Romney and Russell, and we were able to meet the sweetest family with 4 boys! The wife is active in the church and the husband is not a member, and the sisters are teaching him. They were such a great family and we pray he will feel a desire to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. After that we drove home to Calgary! We were exhausted when we got home! We had driven 1600 kilometers between Monday and Thursday!
Friday morning we had our Retrainer's Meeting with our 18 new missionaries and their trainers. We always love this meeting and are so excited to see these new missionaries that arrived 4 weeks ago!
We love hearing what they have learned and are learning and to see how they are blossoming as missionaries and how their testimonies are growing. It's a remarkable thing to watch. We also see them grow in their confidence to be a missionary, and also in their trust in the Lord that He will truly guide them in this work. We are excited to be utilizing Family History in our missionary work and also to begin the Christmas initiative this year #LighttheWorld. We encourage everyone to go onto Mormon.org and participate in this great event--and determine how you will personally light the world this Christmas season.