Another Lovely Week in Kenora

Hey there friends and family from the wonderful area of Kenora Canada!

 

I am sorry that I have been bad on sending details, I am trying to work on knowing what you even want to hear about, but I will just do my best to keep on working hard to send you what you want. I have some fun things to talk about in Kenora, I will start with the animals:

 

There are deer everywhere. I am convinced that this is a training ground for santa and his new team of reindeer (if that guy will ever get a new team. sheesh)

 

I have rats living in my apartment, which is awkward, because the white handbook clearly states that we are not to have pets, but on the other hand Elder Ruth and I enjoy the company...so... ha ha I am joking! rats are nasty, we are going to get rid of them today though for our "preparation day activity".

 

Now for my companion:

 

Elder Ruth is a great kid from el paso, texas. He is a hefty guy, and is super funny, he is definitely my favorite companion so far. We are trying to fingure out how to move past the adversity in the branch, but we are working hard, and feel like we have a pretty good direction.

 

The area:

 

Kenora is a pretty little town with hills everywhere, and nice rocky terrain, and pine trees everywhere. At the moment the town is surrounded by frozen lakes, but they melt (obviously) in the spring and summer. Kenora is a big tourist town, it has about 14,000 islands that everyone and their grandmothers build cabins on, so they see a lot of tourists in the summer, but it dies down significantly in the winter. Other than that, it is beautiful.

 

The work:

 

I am working hard to figure out what Kenora needs in order to gain the spark for missionary work. This branch is very... comfortable with where they are at, so it is tough to get them excited about missionary work, but we have a terrific branch mission leader who is excited about getting the work going. He served in philadelphia, in which his mission hextupled the baptisms and retention rate in that area in just a year, and they did it all through tracting. I hope that this will shed some light on the mission presidents decisions regarding our work, and that we can continueto press forward and fulfill our purpose to find, teach, and baptize.

 

I love you all, let me know if there is anything more that I can tell you, and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

 

With Love,

Elder Kendall

 

 

Kenora Branch

Well hey there friends and family!

 

I am just here, in canada, freezing my tush off, but working hard! I have been bad at e-mailing specific things about my work, so you deserve this.

 

Kenora is a small lakeside town, and all the lakes have just frozen over, and they are beautiful. there are pine trees everywere covered in snow, rocky hills, and just about a billioin lakes here. It is beautiful in the winter, but very cold, and because of this not a lot of people are out. So, the logical thing to do would be to get in touch with them in their homes, right? wrong. My mission president is very against tracting, it isn't banned, so I still do it, but I feel like everyone is rooting for me to fail, which can get kind of discouraging. Also, the branch is not very inclined toward missionary work, they have told us that they are comfortable where they are at, and that we don't need to baptize anymore. However, despite these setbacks, I am still working hard.

 

We are teaching a little girl named michelle, a foster kid for one of the families in the branch (ok, so maybe they are into missionary work, but they live in the middle of nowhere, it is an hour and a half drive away, and I don't have a car... so we go every 2-3 weeks) she is actually really close to baptism, so that is great. We did a lot of finding last week, and didn't get in many doors, but we have a lot of solid potentials with return appointments, so that hopefully will work out!

 

I have been studying moroni 7 and 8 this week, and if you have the time I would invite you to check it out! it is a wonderful section on faith, hope, charity, and verse 26 in chapter 8 is one of my favorites on the nature of the spirit.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week, thank you all for the love and support!

 

With Love,
Elder Kendall

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello friends and family from the freezing area of Kenora!

 

this is going to be very short.

 

Happy thanksgiving! I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you give thanks in all things.

 

the work is picking up, people are progressing nicely, and I am anticipating a productive week.

 

Darrell from my last area got baptized! he requested that I baptize him, but we couldn't make the trip,

I am just excited that he went through with it, and that I was able to participate in his teaching.

 

I love you all, thank you for your support, I hope you have a wonderful week, and I apologize for the lame

E-mail! it will be better next week.

 

With Love,
Elder Kendall