Ben's Mission to Toronto

From Ben - The Genius of Journaling (thanks Sam) Woah.  This week was an doozy and a half.  There were some wars within the mind about motivation and effort.  This week, many were lost   However! This next week is going to be different!  Why you might ask?  Because I received revelation, that's why   The tragedy was I recieved said revelation on Sunday night, at the end of the week and not in the early days.  And so it goes.  I'll leave you in suspense till the end of the email, because there were some awesome stories this week.  A 17 year old girl named Georgia tried to "Murk our testimonies" (to quote Elder Blum)  We met outside a farmers market and started talking about our experiences and beliefs.  She was an agnostic athiest based on the claim that she "wasn't able to determine a method by which she could prove the truthfulness of one Church which couldn't be applied to all churches."  Which made us quite happy, as th...

From Ben - Triumphant We Stand Another transfer begins!  The district stayed mostly the same with the exception of a single Elder swapping out, so now our rustic band of missionaries includes: Elder Hamilton the Wise and Elder Leavitt the Lore Hungry, in Orellia Elder Aken the Hawaiian and Elder Bisschop the BFG, in Orangeville. Elder Blum the Bard, and I, Elder Smith, the Short, in Newmarket. Then last but not least, we have our cherished older couple: Elder Lawlor the Master Teacher and Sister Lawlor the Banana Bread Boss, in Midland.  We are the Newmarket District.  Under the banner of heaven, triumphant we stand, and united, we conquer.  (Things are so epic if we choose to let them be, heck yah )  I'm still figuring out how to unconditionally love others.  I didn't realize how many conditions I place on my own definition to love somebody  Turns out is was a fair amount! But it feels so cool in the moments where it clicks  (It's a roller c...

From Ben - Pic #5 Everyone burst into laughter.  Elder Smith, during the weekly bread run, trying to enjoy a Raspberry Vanilla Croissant: visibly confused.  He'd been roasted.  But, he was the only one in the entire room who didn't hear the burn.  The old lady who'd delivered the toasting, to apologize, unexpectedly hugged then kissed Elder Smith on the cheek.  That was almost too much for our hero.  He'd been just trying to enjoy his croissant, and before he knew it, he'd been both unknowingly flamed then hugged and kissed on the cheek by an older lady. :) The small adventures are some of my favourite.  A legendary adventure happened this week.  We got to go to MLC, the missionary leadership council.  Neither me nor Elder Blum are Zone Leaders, so it was almost a fun ride to sit back and hear the discussions.  The broadscale vision of the mission, the small rules that need to be reminded, the joy of working together to help accomplish G...

From Ben - Seeing Potential In flash, my eye started burning.  Pain.  Amazement. Shock.  What I thought was a regular eye-rub turned into a fight for my life. I had rubbed pepper straight into my eye. What started as a funny accident turned into a demonstration of my personal pain tolerance, which then turned into surprise as it really did start to burn like the dickens.  After shedding a tear and washing my eye with tap water, things started to get better... Then.  I went blind.  T'was a good week! Had Cereal Saturday with the District.  Everyone hops on a video call during our lunch hour, eats a bowl of cereal together, and shares stories.  Corn flakes always tastes better with friends (Sponsored by Kellogg) Still learning how to solve the question of unity for the District.  It's not bad, it just needs to grow a little more.  Ideally we get to the point where people are happy to ask for help when they are struggling in their area, the...