Hermana Rachel Dean's 18 month adventure in Canada, Calgary: July 2016

Monday, July 25, 2016

07/25/16 Group Email

Hi! Wow what a week.. we lost our dear Hermana Schnebs. So now we are down to two. It seriously was the funnest transfer ever, I loved every second of it. Definitely my fastest transfer too! Hermana Amaller and I are excited to keep on working down here in the Foothills, we have some goood goals we're gonna be working toward. Anyways, Alex is doing good! We were able to celebrate Colombia Day with him, the elders and a family in la Rama. We cooked soooo much Colombian food, oh man it was so yummy. Afterward, we had a bomb lesson with him about el espiritu santo. We watched the talk by Elder Hales and got super personal afterward. Hermana Amaller pushed me a note during the talk and said "13 Agosto" It felt so right so I gave her the "heck yeah!" and she invited him to pray about it and then Hermano Alvarez straight up said "yeah do it. You have to pray about it" It was the coolest! Members are the best! We then left, but later found out that Alex stayed there hanging out with the family until 10:30 or so! So awesome! However.... we haven't been able to see him since Wednesday hahah so please keep him in your prayers!

So Saturday we were up in an area called Bridlewood. We were going to visit a less active. I parked the car, we said a prayer, got out and were half way through the street when Hermana Amaller said "We have to talk to him" and pointed to a man sitting in a parked car.. now I was kind of nervous.. Pretty awkward to go up and tap their window, but good thing I have the most fearless daughter who listens to the spirit! We went over there, he rolls down the window and we just start preachin. His name is Harjit from India and was super interested in what we had to say. We started talking about God and about 20 minutes into the conversation, he says "why are you here? Why did you walk over to me?" We were able to tell him Hermana Amaller had the spirit tell her that we needed to talk to him. And then he says "I pulled over the car right here to think about God." Oooooh my gosh I just got goosebumps typing that, it was the coolest moment EVER. Both of our mouths dropped! I just looked at him and said "God sent us to talk to you" we got deeper into conversation and he told us he watched her sister pass away last week and that ever since then, he has been wondering where God was. We were able to give him a book of mormon and we testified our hearts out. He agreed to meet with us, so we passed him off to the missionaries in that area. Suuuuch a cool exerience.. We are working for a God of miracles, no doubt!

Another miracle this week... yesterday we had about an hour to spare. I had the strongest feeling to walk down a certain street. Fast forward, and we are on the driveway talking to this man from Iran. He was so nice! He told us that his Wife and kids were members of about two years and that the elders come and work in his yard with him once a week. (small lds world we live in) then out of nowhere, his 19 year old LESS ACTIVE son walks up with their Asian Jehovah's witness friend, who's probably like 50 and boom this Asian wants to bible bash. So we start talking about what we believe in and alllll this stuff, it was such a long converstaion, but the coolest part was that the less active son was helping teach with us! I kept having the impression to talk to him about a mission, and he said he's been thinking about one. So we were able to give him the YSA ward info and he was really interested. We finally told the Asian lady that we had to go and as we were walking out, we met a worker from El Salvador who was working at his house and we invited him to church.. ahhh it was the coolest thing ever!! Part member less active family, non member friend, helping the less active son, AND meeting a Latino. It was incredible!! We walked about laughing out loud because it was the craziest experience. It was such a good bible bash and we testified so strongly of our beliefs. It was so awesome.

So yeah the Canada Calgary mission is the best mission ever! So many experiences that we see every single day. I love this work. I love working for the Savior and being able to testify of Him and of the truthfulness that has been restored. Have a good week! Love you all! Pray for Alex!

Con amor,
Hermana Dean

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

07/25/16 Pictures

Goodbye to Elder Butler

Celebrating Colombia Day by cooking Colombian food with the Alvarez

Our studies turned into talking about Dad's mormon ad hahah

Downtown Okotoks ice cream

Hermana Muralles

How our room was set up for 6 weeks haha pretty crowded

Welcoming Hermana Padron into the mission! (oh yeah, Hermana Schnebs got a perge-training call, so she left us last week :( we miss her!)

Dany Pavon (potential inv)

you know if you're a spanish missionary when you drive around with arroz con leche in a cup

07/18/16 Group Email

Hi family! Wow! What an INCREDIBLE week. Seriously, the miracles were just rollin in! So on Friday we were able to bring Alex to a baptism! It was awesome! He loved it and totally felt the spirit.. we are still working with him, but he is definitely progressing! Last night we had a lesson with him and he wanted us to talk to his parents IN COLOMBIA. It was soooo cool we got to skype them and talked with them for awhile. It was the coolest thing ever! At first his Mom was just going off on this rant about her church she attends and all these weird experiences she's had, but then out of nowhere she was telling us how much Alex needs our church and how she is hoping that we are teaching him to pray and read his scriptures. It was so cool. And then, his Dad walks in and Alex says "Hey Dad have you read the book of mormon that I sent you? Read it, it will take away all of your doubts." Holy! My mouth dropped! Because Alex has sooo many doubts, and he's pretty quiet when it comes to him telling us when his doubts have been taken away. It was amazing and his parents told us that we can send missionaries to their house! Soooo cool. We then ended the lesson by teaching him about Prophets. We showed him a picture of President Monson and all the 12 and 70 and then watched "Decisions" (watch it!) and just basically explained how everything is run. He is really excited to look up more conference talks. He told us that we have changed the way that he thinks. We have helped him look at the more important things in life. Ahh when he told us that it made me so happy :) I love being a missionary.
We picked up a new investigator this week!!!! We were driving up from the south and I had an impression to heart attack a lady in our ward's door. I wasn't going to follow it.. but I did haha. Because of that, Hermana Schnebs got relevation that we should stop by a referral. So we did andddd we got it!! We taught the Restoration to a sweet 15 year old girl named Vanessa, from Peru. She is amazing! Seriously, such a doll! It was suuuuch a spiritual lesson and she was loving every word. As we were teaching, Hermana Amaller testifed of how she has opened up the book and has recieved an answer she was looking for. I then got the most overwhelming feeling to have her open the book, pick a random verse, and read it. I was soooo nervous haha I was praying so hard! "heavenly father, I trust in the book of mormon and I trust you, but please please help her pick a good verse!" It took SO MUCH FAITH. BUT, I did it. I had her open the book. She read Alma 26:24.. which I was nervous there at the beginning, but then I got a feeling to talk about the plan of salvation. I asked her if she knew anybody who had died and she told me yes and I was able to testify of the plan that we have. It was quite the experience, one that I will never forget. Such a leap of faith, but the Lord backed me up 100%!
So the family in our ward, the Pavons, have their niece from Mexico living up here with them. We met her last week and wow she is amazing. We were best friends from the start! She is awesome and cool. She isn't really investigating the church, because she works on Sunday, but we really feel like we can have an impact on her. She is 19 and was so excited when she found out we were around her age. So, we went up and visited her at work, Mucho Burrito, and it was the best thing ever. She was soooo excited to see us. Her face lit up when we walked in! She is so cute and we have high hopes for her!
This work is true! I love being here. We have sooo many miracles. The biggest miracle of all is seeing people change and seeing how this missinoary work brings them happiness in their life. I love it here! We went hiking and wow I was amazed. Canada is so beautiful! Have a good week!

Hermana Dean