Some rain, a burger, and a baptism

This has been another great week, but not so busy with every day being scheduled out.  We had our MLC on Wednesday with all of our Zone Leaders and Sister Trainer Leaders, and that is always a great meeting.  These elders and sisters are the leaders in our mission, and they are so capable and so desirous to serve.  We love working with them.  This month we are focusing on our member missionary work, beginning with the Bishop first, then ward mission leader, ward council and then the members.  Steve has met with all 17 Stake Presidents in our mission and asked them if it would be all right for our missionaries to set their baptism and reactivation goals WITH the bishop and ward council together--so their goals align, and they are all on the same page.  Instead of having the missionaries set one goal, and a ward set another goal, they set it together.  The Stake Presidents were so excited about this idea, and felt it was truly inspired.  So they are all on board, and are directing their bishops to work with the missionaries on this goal together.  We have already seen great results as our missionaries have gone in to make a truly united effort with the ward leaders.  We are really excited to see what happens.
After MLC on Wednesday we had our mission presidency over for dinner.  This was the first time the two counselors and their wives have met each other.  They are such great people--the Gedlamans, from Lethbridge, and the Stephen's from Calgary.  The Gedlamans served with President Nicholas, so  they are not new to this, but the Stephen's are new, and they are excited to be serving.  We had a fun dinner and feel like we have great new friends to work with.
On Friday we had our Re-training meeting with our brand new missionaries and their trainers.  We feel like it went really well.  The highlight was when Steve asked someone to extemporaneously stand and role play how to teach someone what the Book of Mormon is and extend the invitation to read it.  Elder Bienz said he would give it a try and he stood and did it with Steve and he did such an amazing job.  We could feel the spirit in just the few minutes he explained about the Book of Mormon.  Then Sister Moulton also stood and did it, and she did an equally amazing job.  Both different, but both so effective and full of the spirit.  We just love these missionaries.  It was so fun to see our new missionaries grow so much in the first few weeks they have been here. In our testimony meeting at the end, several stood and said how much their testimony of the Savior has grown since arriving here.
Friday it turned cold and rainy here--it rained all day long and the high was about 38! I have even worn nylons all weekend long, so you know it had to be cold!  It got down to about 34 that night when we went out to get a burger.  One of our missionaries had told us about a burger joint called 'Peters', so we decided to check it out.  It is kind of like a Hires Big H, but there is nowhere to sit inside..you really just drive up, get your food, and drive out.  It had two drive up windows with long lines to each!  And I actually ate a burger--yes, me!!  And onion rings, too!  And then we shared a pineapple shake.  It was delicious.
The best part of our week was Saturday attending Luisa Lazaro's baptism in downtown Calgary.  She is a sweet gal who was taught at first by our Spanish sisters, but then she wanted to go to an English speaking ward, so they transferred her to the English elders who completed teaching her, and they were the ones to baptize her.  She was so sweet, and so excited to be baptized.  It never gets old watching someone enter the waters of baptism and make that covenant to follow Christ.  It was really beautiful, and she was so happy.
This next week we will have Elder James Martino coming to tour our mission.  We are really excited for him to come.

Me with Elder Simpson, Sophia (Luisa's daughter) Luisa, Elder Morrow, Dad

Me with my burger!