Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

I'm going to number paragraphs and bullet points this week because I might have multiple paragraphs for some points.

1- Walking again ('Tireless' Tuesday)

2- FINALLY figured out the heating in the church thanks to a helpful member :)

3- There was a spider in our carrots! >:D

4- Got to hold some bunnies! :D

5- Bluejays!

6- Transfers in a graveyard :l

7- First day with a new comp! Sister Christmas!

8- Stressful bus rides

9- Service at the Mustard Seed

10- Raking leaves and prepping gardens (more service)

11- Heh heh, wifi at the apartment! >:)

12- First real Bible Basher experience :0

13- Sister Christmas loves to cook!

14- Some Formers called us back! :D

15- Awesome members with crazy, energetic kids!

16- Cute cats and potatoes :D

17- Pruning trees for a guy who kept trying to give us money

18- Surprise interview with President Cowley

19- The Cowleys speaking at church :0

20- Wonderful member giving us early Thanksgiving dinner!

21- Yes, Thanksgiving is early in Canada. XD

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1-  Sister Spackman and I walked to church again on Tuesday. It wasn't too cold, but it was windy enough to make my ears go numb. :l  We weren't able to strike up any conversations on the walk, though; not many people were outside.

2-  A nice Brother at the church showed us how to work the thermostat! Sister Spackman and I were SO happy! We didn't bring blankets on Tuesday because we didn't want to lug them to the church, but because we got the heat working, we didn't need blankets that day. :)

3- Remember last week when a nice member gave us a bunch of food? We pulled her home-grown carrots out of the fridge and there was a spider crawling around in them! XD  Sister Spackman let me save him. I put the little guy out on our balcony. Lots of bugs hang out there at night, so he'll be fine. :)  I like saving spiders. 

4-  On Wednesday morning (just before transfers), Sister Spackman and I got to go to the house of some sweet members! They have awesome kiddos and a very friendly little dog with heterochromia (two different colored eyes). They got baby rabbits last weekend and let us hold them! I was in heaven. They were so small and fluffy! The one I held was a harlequin-patterned rabbit. I loved her markings.

5-  I've seen a few bluejays around. They're super pretty birds. They make neat sounds that remind me of cartoon falcon/hawk/eagle cries. I wish I could get close enough for pictures, but they're skittish. There are so many of them in the city! They just swoop around and land everywhere! Kind of like seagulls in Utah; they're just all over and no one seems to notice or care but me, haha. I'm just not used to seeing sky-colored birds flying around. 

6-  We did transfers in a graveyard. XD  Weird place, but it was halfway between our areas, so it worked. Sister Christmas's companion, Sister Neff, went with Sister Spackman. We swapped companions, which doesn't happen often. 

7-  Sister Christmas is awesome! All of my companions have been musical, and she's no exception. She plays guitar, piano, and also loves to sing! She asked me if I was musical and I was like, "Um... I love whistling?" XD  She thought that was funny. She also thought I was pretending to have a low spice tolerance and she made VERY fiery chicken noodle soup for dinner one night. I ate it because I was starving and it was delicious, but my eyes were watering and my nose was streaming. I couldn't quench the burn for over an hour; I just kept chugging water, but it did nothing. XD

8-  We rode a bus my first full day with Sister Christmas. Several busses, actually. I was so nervous because Sister Christmas didn't sit by me, and although she told me when to get off, I forgot the sequence of random numbers and letters that denote each bus and stop. Once she got off and I just heard her say, "Thank you!" then the bus doors closed and the driver started pulling away! 0.0  I stood up and yelped, "Wait! I need to get off too!" Sister Christmas thought that was funny, but I was having a little panic attack because I don't know the city at ALL and I don't know what I would have done if we'd been separated. XD

9-  There's this neato kitchen called the Mustard Seed that helps feed homeless people. Pretty sure all the workers are volunteers. Sister Christmas and I helped scrub and chop carrots. Like, fifty pounds of carrots. We were there for a couple of hours, but it was really fun!

10-  Later, we also helped this nice British dude rake leaves in his yard. He gave us a bunch of rainbow tomatoes (he pronounced it "to-mah-toes" instead of "to-may-toes" XD; I love his accent)  as a thank-you gift. Some of them are small and green, some are orange and red, there are some yellow ones, and even a couple purplish ones. I didn't know tomatoes came in so many colors!

10-  We also helped this one lady prep her garden for winter. We cleared out a bunch of old growth, cut some plants so they wouldn't freeze completely during winter, and raked up a bunch of leaves. I saw so many neat little spiders! They all scurried into hiding too fast for me to take pictures. There were also some pretty ladybugs too. It was warmish that day, so I didn't need my jacket. (Haha, warmish meaning about 55ish degrees Farenheiht with no breeze, it wasn't actually warm)

11- I'm so glad we have wifi at the apartment! So many members ask to do video calls, and a bunch of them are back-to-back, so we'd have no time to drive to their houses anyway. We finish one Zoom Meeting, have maybe thirty seconds as a breather, then jump right into another zoom meeting! It's also nice to have wifi because our scheduling app, area book, updates automatically so there's no discrepancies between my schedule and Sister Christmas's. 

12-  Okay, I thought I knew what Bible bashing was.  (*insert Thorin from the Hobit saying, "Never have I been so wrong." * XD)   I had an experience with a rather vehement basher. Things started out good, and I actually felt the spirit. :)  I was surprised, but the spirit was so strong that I was grinning under my mask. I felt light, warm, and happy, and I know that my companion and the lady we were speaking with felt the spirit as well. We shared the scripture in John that spoke of Jesus's 'other sheep' (Meaning the people in the Americas, like the Nephites and Lamanites).  The lady seemed to take it well at first, but then she just SNAPPED.

12-  She started yelling about how the Bible was 'COMPLETE' and that if anyone took or added to it, they would be cursed. Pretty sure she had an odd version of the Bible, because the verses she read to 'prove her point' just sounded... I don't know... a bit off. The wording was wrong and I got a weird feeling. As soon as she started getting heated, I felt the spirit leave immediately. My smile melted faster than icicles in a fire and I just wanted to get out of there.

12-  It was such a distinct difference going from a spiritual high to absolutely NO spirit. You don't miss something until it's gone. I honestly felt empty inside until we left that house and the spirit returned to us. I have a firm testimony now that the spirit can't remain in a place where there's arguing or fighting.

12-  I really admire Sister Christmas. She kept her cool, didn't fight back, and calmly stated plain truths. She didn't get upset when the lady interrupted her or yelled. She didn't retaliate when the lady pretty much called us liars and demanded to know how we could be certain that the Book of Mormon was scripture. 

12-  I'd like to take a moment to say that the Book of Mormon IS true. It was written by prophets to teach us about our Savior. All one has to do to be assured of this truth is read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Since multiple people were taught by prophets, and by Jesus himself, there are multiple records of it. 

12-  Sister Christmas described the Bible and the Book of Mormon as candles. In a dark night, who wouldn't want more candles to light the way home? More light will always help us to find our way in these dark times.

13-  Sister Christmas is a chef! She loves to make everything from soups to salads. I've had some really tasty meals with her so far. Since I'm not all that skilled in the kitchen, I usually do dishes just to feel useful, haha. XD  

14- Formers are people that were once being taught that missionaries 'dropped' for various reasons. They might be too busy, not interested, or we might not have been able to contact them. Sister Christmas and I called some of them, and two of them called us back! One was a wrong number, but the dude was like, "Sure, I'll hear a message about Jesus." Sister Christmas and I were silently cheering and dancing with excitement! We can't wait to call him again. :D

15- We've done some member lessons that are way fun! Sister Christmas is really good with kids. I live being able to go to houses for lessons with kids, because they're often so rowdy they can't hear us over Zoom. She did a fun lesson called "Jump for Jesus". She set up a picture of Jesus and told the kids to jump to him in one leap. They couldn't, so she laid out pieces of paper and explained the steps to get back to Jesus. Faith, Repentance, Baptism by Emersion, The Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. The kids were able to make it to the picture of Jesus by using the steps. We then explained that 'enduring to the end' means repeating the steps again and again. Exercising faith, repenting constantly, taking the Sacrament to remind us of our baptismal covenants, and listening to the Holy Ghost. 

16- We went back to the British guy's house to do more service. He had us dig up potatoes. His friendly cats kept hopping around through the garden and rubbing against us. He had two Maine coons and a British short-hair. I got some pictures and loved cuddling them! :D 

17- We pruned some trees and a dude that didn't understand the concept of service. He was like, "No, you can't work for free! That ain't right!" We were like, "We absolutely can and will work for free because we want to help." Sister Christmas attacked some trees with giant clippers and I broke down the big branches and trimmed off the smaller ones. We filled four huge bags with clippings. The guy kept us there for a good few minutes insisting that we take some payment. We just kept refusing until he eventually gave in. He kept trying to call it a 'gratuity', not payment. XD  I mean, he was sweet, but we can't accept money, and I don't really want to. It's reward enough to help someone who's not as physically capable. :)

18- So... yesterday morning the Cowleys texted and were like, "Hey, can we meet with you?" Sister Christmas and I exchanged shocked, nervous looks. We went to the church and President Cowley pulled us aside for individual interviews. I thought I was in trouble, but he was just doing a survey to see who had watched Conference as a kid with their family and who had done daily/nightly scripture study and family prayers. My family had always done scripture time after dinner (sometimes long after, haha), then we always do prayers. We also watch conference and make a sort of celebration out of it. I have so many memories of Conference bingo, the Reverence Tent, and other things my parents did to help us pay attention. :) 

19- The Cowleys decided to stay for our church meeting. They spoke and it was interesting. They were both at the mic at the same time. XD  They kept interrupting each other and swiveling the mic back and forth. Sister Cowley said something super interesting. She told us how when she was little, she loved reading comic strips. Both the heroes and villains wore masks, and she only knew who was good or bad because of what they did. She said that now, we wear masks (for different reasons, haha) and we're harder to identify, but people will know we're good if we continue to be good examples. I really loved that. 

20- An amazing member heard we didn't have a ton of food. She invited us over and gave us a wonderful meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, ginormous rolls, and soda for an early Thanksgiving dinner. Sister Christmas and I had a feast! There are enough leftovers for another dinner or two. :)

21- Also, yes, today is Canadian Thanksgiving. I would NOT recommend calling it that here, though. Canadians don't take too kindly when they're reminded that I'm from the States. XD  They just call it Thanksgiving here, just like how we call it Thanksgiving at home, even though it won't be for another month. A member at church said, "We have Thanksgiving early here because by the time the third Thursday of November rolls around, the ground is frozen solid and there's not much to be grateful for."  Sister Christmas said my face was PRICELESS when he said that. I imagine I looked like a scared dog. XD

We also went to a park with a neat bridge 

Hope everyone's doing well! Stay safe and keep reading your scriptures! 

Take some random pictures that I'm too tired to explain. XD