Clair Evans

See the title may not make sense to some but I am so happy and excited for my sister who got married on Saturday!!! She is the greatest sister anyone has ever or ever will have. Truth. Very proud of her as her younger brother☺️  She is now Clair Evans, not Clair Pilling.

This week Elder Pilling dies of heat, goes on an adventure, and goes to church 

So this week was delightful, hit 34C 2 days in a row. Just gorgeous, pretty hot but luckily it was last pday, so I was in a car and the other day I was on exchanges so I had the car again. Let me just say, the invention of the car is genius. You can be working while moving! Calling, texting, studying all while buddy companion drives. Genius. Plus there is AC and music. Although the bike is way more fun. We have a 2017 Chevi Malibu silver. It's sweet.

So let's start with pday of last week. I took Elders Goodman, Smith  and Campbell out to the cheesecake factory for lunch. The Hermanas and zone leaders joined in as well. It was delightful, seriously super good. I got this green curry Thai plate which just melted my soul. I'll attach a pic, maybe. It was good, really hot though. Played some basketball and the usual boring stuff because there are no activities to do here!! Boringest place ever. If you think Okotoks is boring, think again. Literally all there is to do is eat... Lame

So let's just talk about some numbers shall we? OK good idea. So Elder Goodman and I strive for 25 contacts a day. The goal in the mission used to be 10 contacts a day... 😂Which is terrible, no wonder nobody had any investigators. You have to talk to everyone to find people to teach. So we really push talking with everyone and it is the funniest thing when I talk to a Spanish person. Super awkward and all I do is smile and wave and then say Jesus Christ a bunch of times lol. Anyway so a really good day is 28 contacts or more. Average for the day is usually 22ish I'm guessing. And that is not individual people that is 22ish individual people we talk to or groups we talk to. So it's good. Sad part is that we haven't found a new soul to teach! No new Investigators:/ and not even that many potentials. Although I will say when we do find someone who shows interest they are usually very solid. Anyway so poor numbers in my opinion. We need souls to teach, I am confident that I have knocked at least 90% of the doors that we can knock. This does not include all the gated communities etc. But we have tracted streets twice and some three times since I've been here. The work I KNOW is only going to progress through the members. We had a lovely Bishop youth discussion last night at Bishop Hodges house. Many of the youth came and we had Italian sodas (delightful), cookies which tasted like our home cookies and brownies. So the Bishop did some dunking and trick shots out on his hoops because he is hilarious and then we all gathered around and talked about the stake fast we participated in (which was to fast for missionary work in the stake) and discussed what we are going to do now, who are we going to talk to, to invite. How will we do it etc. So he gave a little talk type thing and then boss man elder Goodman and I had an opportunity to express our thoughts. It was awesome and the spirit was strong. Discussed some of these things:

Be confident in being Mormon, if you express your confidence and show you're comfortable, people will be more comfortable asking questions.

Lead by example

Show them things that they can learn from, Book of Mormon, pamphlets, videos etc. 

The sacrifice we need to make as members to share the Gospel is nothing compared to the sacrifice Christ made (this is my favourite one. Came right from the spirit) 

And some other things as well that I don't quite remember at this time. It was really good though and positive. Shared experiences from back home, tried to relate as much as possible.

OK also this week we had 3 different discussions with random people about religion. Each one started with us teaching the restoration and then ended with the Trinity/Godhead discussion. The trinity makes no sense! It is the biggest waste of time ever. Terrible false doctrine that has a lot of people walking in the dark. The first discussion was interesting, we weren't bold enough and he thought he was convincing us that our religion is wrong. The next guy, we totally came out on top. We discussed a lot with him and he was thinking for sure. He kept changing the subject. The last guy we really had thinking, more than just the Godhead, prophet as well. During all these my testimony grew immensely of our prophet President Russel M.  Nelson and the Book of Mormon. Oh and the fact that this is the true church. Christ's Church established again on the earth. What an amazing church with true doctrine and principles. It is true. Share the truth☺️

Okay story for all you good people. So Saturday night we had dinner with a potential investigator named Dean. We took a short cut to get there over the hills from the Highlands homes across to the college. On the way back it was dark and we took a different route. We hiked up a steep hill, biked down a steep hill. Hiked up Another hill and biked down that hill. At this point we thought we only had one more hill so up we go! At the top of this hill we realize we are no where close so we bomb exactly right down this hill. We end up shredding through this orange orchard. Which was sweet but sketch. Heard something in the woods and screamed! And finally made it to this big fence which we had to hop. Once we were out of the mess we realized we were no where close. Like at all. In fact Dean lives really close from the church. Like 2 mins. After this adventure we realize we are now one minute away from the church south of it. Terrible terrible idea yet exciting at the same time. Luckily since Daisy is dead I went on another bike. That now has a flat...

So there was some neat excitement for you all. It's very warm here although today is cold! That's all good.

Lots of love to all you people. Remember who you are (Mormon) don't be ashamed please.

Elder Pilling