September 19th, 2011

Family,

Good week this week, really good. President Cannon has been stressing the importance of setting realistic goals and then achieving those goals in a steady consistent level. Our mission has been converted into a goal oriented mission--which is good, this means that we do effective work and people find the gospel. Unfortunately when I was transferred here, the goals for this district were already made, and 1 of my teams, the Hochelaga Elders, whitewashed in. Elder Gibson came from Val d'or, and he is training a new missionary. Needless to say, they haven't hit the high goals that were set for them by the previous team, because city missionary work is very different to Val d'or. Everything is different to that place. So that means that Elder Holm and Elder Dalton have been playing the "Work as hard as possible to cover for the other team" game. Because we as a district report our goals as a district. We are a team. all our lessons count towards the same goal. The joys of being district leader, you get to be responsible. Yay. We have worked really hard and for some reason everything has been coming together for us. Huzzah. Lots of lessons, I've never taught so many people in my life. It's excellent.

We were visiting a less active member and her inactive daughter, the other day. This member has been less active since her baptism, and her daughter is deaf, and only speaks french sign language. We don't know how the missionaries in the past taught her enough for her to understand and be baptized....sketchy... But We were over at their apartment talking when all of the sudden a knock comes at the door. the Mother says "Oh, those are my daughters friends at the door, they sign with her." She let them in and then...we knew. Two very nice Jehovah's Witnesses walk in. AWKWARD. We shook hands with them and they sat down. ...silence.... I asked them "so, you speak sign?" "Yeah! Do you?" Elder Dalton said, "All I know how to say is the phrase --did you go to church yesterday?" Outgunned by the J Dubs. We can't compete with them when it comes to communicating truth to this already confused less active member. Grr..... It was like Batman passing Joker in the Cereal aisle while of walmart. Awkward timing, that's for sure. We'll keep trying.

Well it's been a ball, back to the city for me!

Peace be the journey,

Elder Holm (1)