Feb 24, 2014

Hey friends and family,

Man the temple walk sounds like it was sure fun! I’ts great to hear about the members doing there part and using the missionaries to help them bring people to the fold. That would be nice if that would happen here. haha.

Well it was a tough week overall and there was a ton of crap that happened this week. We decided to contact less actives downtown on the intersection of Ellice and Young street which is actually where we are now at this center for Aboriginal people. Anyways, it is literally one of the most ghetto streets in Winnipeg and it was really interesting getting to knock on drunk natives doors... and other peoples doors.... lots of things happened on that street which probably shouldn’t be included in this email. We have just been trying to find people to teach and no one wants to hear from us it seems like. I know we will find someone eventually, but for now we just got to keep working hard and being more obedient.

I cant wait for it to warm up. People will actually be out and about, so it will be great being able to contact them. 

Transfer calls coming up on friday. I’ll stay here I’m sure and I’m pretty sure Olguin is out of here. He’s been here forever. 

Yeah I heard from Dad how he and Carson got to have a good time at Bushnell Tanks. That sure sounds like fun.

Could you send me some simple recipes? Maybe your salsa recipe? That would be greatly appreciated. 

I’ll hit 6 months on march 4. Time is fast and slow at the same time. Days are longggg and weeks are short. sometimes. It all depends on if you are having fun. One thing that’s making time go by faster for me is working out and cooking healthy foods. I’m getting a sushi roller and I’m learning how to make sushi. Things like that make me feel like I’m accomplishing something, even though its something small haha.

We get to go and walk down the Winnipeg River and look at really crazy ice sculptures today. It should be really fun. There are warming huts all the way down the river so maybe we will survive.

We have to go to Sis Mcleans for dinner tonight... I love finding chunks of mold in my food and being sick the next day. So that should be just great. ughh...

I’ll have to send you some pictures later this week. These computers here are really slow at sending pictures. 

Sometimes I get kinda discouraged seeing friends of mine teaching tons of people and baptizing like crazy in different countries around the world, but this mission is just a much different mission. It’s hard and thats why I’m here. I don’t know why President Thomas keeps putting me in trashy areas but I know one day I’ll go to Flin Flon or Saskatoon or Moosejaw where it is much nicer. But for now I’ve just got to make the best of it and work hard here in this area, because there are people out there ready to learn. Out of 156 missionaries there’s not that many people being taught. It’s a tougher mission and I guess thats why I’m here. but I won’t give up, and I’ll just keep working harder. Love you all, and thanks for all the support! Elder Porter

 Some of the ice sculptures, crazy awesome!!!

 Some of the warming huts I was talking about.

There is a path made for people to skate on, man I wish we could ice skate as missionaries!!!

To Me

Feb 19

Dear Family and friends

So this week was pretty good. We taught some lessons and all that missionary stuff. We gave blood and that was fun. I got to box a few elders and that was great. We had a really great dinner appointment at the Gross's and a family from Selkirk was there and we got to talk for a long time. It was great.

We had the most boring meeting ever yesterday from the assistants to the president. It was a 5 hour meeting on how to plan for your week/day. I was sitting between my district leader and zone leader and we were trying to plan ways we could kill ourselves haha. Even President Thomas was snoring. It was the worst meeting of my mission hhahaha.

We've just been trying to find people to teach. I'm getting really fed up with all the natives here. They're all alcholics and drug addicts and I get so mad. Just now we had to go pick up stuff for a member from his wife because he's in a care home and we went in and she was super stoned and we found a crack spoon on the table so that was nice.

We teach a less active downtown and he lives above the worst bar in Winnipeg so twice a week it looks like two missionaries go into a bar every week. haha overall good...

I've got a joke for you. You can take it out of my email to everyone if you want mom. Okay so what's the difference between a native lady and a buffalo?? about 50 pounds..... hahahahahahahah

Oh we got good news. All the missionaries get to go to Regina in April and see some General Authorities speak. So that will be way fun. We can go through the temple with everyone so it will be way fun.

Just an average week basically. Not a ton happened. My 6 months is coming up soon.

Oh and one of the sisters in our ward is going home due to her inability to stop telling ridiculous lies. Some missionaries just start to go nuts out here sometimes and she just couldnt take it. She's leaving against her will though. It's just that all the members could tell she was lying. It was out of control.

Oh dont put this one in my email home but Bishop asked us to go to these "cottage meetings" that a lady in our ward does... this is ridiculous. This lady has all the recent converts come over and she teaches them a bunch of false doctrine and crazy church history and stuff. Poligamy, Kolob, the blood atonement, the Adam god theory. Just all around crazy freakin stuff. It's retarded. Basically Bishop went to one and shut it down and she's starting them back up again and Bishop is making us go to shut things down and keep it all on track with the church's real doctrine. yep. There is some crazy stuff here. I don't know if stuff like this ever happenend in my home ward and I just didnt know about any of it but I'm sure it's just here that things like this happen. But whatever. 

Hopefully all of you are doing good. Thank you all for the support. Love you all have a great week!

Elder Porter

Just an example of an every day contact.......hahahaha

Feb 10, 2014

Hey Everyone!

So this week was full of ups and downs, but all in all it was a great week. We volunteered at the hospital twice and had a good time doing that. I watched this old lady in a wheelchair wheeling herself down the hall and she pooped and it was dripping all the way down the hall... it was so gross and I am definitely glad that its not my job to clean it up hahaha.

So yesterday we had an appointment set up with this lady named Allei. She's a black lady from Sedan and her husband went there a year ago and went missing so she’s on her own with 5 kids. So anyways we went up to her door after church and it sounded like a ton of people were there, super rowdy and what not, so we knocked and she answered and there were tons of people in there. Lots of people with dreadlocks. I felt like I was in Jamaica haha so I asked her if we should come back another time and one of the guys was like "no brother! come and grub wit us mon! Deres food for all of everybody!" haha so I was like alright man! So we ate a bunch of food from Sedan and talked with them about Jesus Christ and got their names and numbers because I told them about basketball and they got super excited and wanted to come, so were gonna try to turn them into investigators. It’s going to be great. hopefully. We prayed with them and they were saying how good they felt with us there, and one of the lady’s there, Rachal, said she belongs to the Gateway Ward and wanted to talk to missionaries again, so we got her info and gave it to the Gateway Sisters and have another appointment set up for next week. It was good.

That was a great experience and I’ve been noticing the spirit a lot this week as I’ve talked to people on the street, and on the bus and what not. We were even talking to one of the bus drivers about religion, and what we do as missionaries. I’ve seen the blessings of talking to everyone everywhere we go.

We were contacting less actives downtown so we were looking around for all the freaks of the universe that we needed to avoid and we spotted the other elders, I ran up and shoved Elder Barton in the snow. haha I scared him so bad. Anyways, we walked with them back to their car, so we could get a ride and Elder Barton kept complaining about how his hand was so cold and I looked down and he had one of his gloves off and was laughing. He only had it off for 5 or 6 minutes and when we got in the car and it started to warm up he had to pull over and let Elder Olguin drive because he got pretty bad frostbite. in 5 min... it was -42 and that is really scary. I felt his hand and the skin was frozen really bad so we had to run it under warm water to get it back to normal temp. (thats the procedure for frostbite) yeah it was a stupid thing to do and we are still making fun of him for it. what a retard hahaha. But just an example to show you how cold it is here...

On my mission I have learned a lot about good. But I have learned even more about evil. Things that I have seen and experienced this week has made me know just how real Satan is and how terrifying he can be... I have seen Satan’s influence in peoples lives and how he has them bound by things that is impossible for them to conquer on their own. I have learned how Jesus Christ can make us new again. How he can make us pure again. I have seen how the gospel changes us and how when people know it to be true for the first time, that light comes into their countenance. 

I know this church to be true and that through Jesus Christ and his Atonement we are able to be clean and can be forgiven. I know that is an ongoing process and that we are constantly having to try harder and be better. I know this life to be hard, but possible. 

Have a great week everyone. Stay warm. oh wait...

We went on a good run this week

It was very cold though....

Elder Porter

  Dinner with

                                       Sis. Merasty

     

                                     

                      Oh Winnipeg Oh Winnipeg the Babylon of the earth                                         

Feb 3, 2014

Hey Everyone!

So the most crazy thing on my mission so far happened this week.....

We were volunteering at the hospital (Misericordia) and it was down town. After, we got on the bus and the other elders came with us because they didn’t have enough k's to drive. So we got on the bus and there was this lady there who was screaming at the top of her lungs “I CANT FIND MY CUSSING KEYS! WHAT THE CUSS CUSS THIS CUSS THAT CUSS CUSS CUSS.......” she was obviously on drugs. Very intoxicated... and so I was just like okay, normal downtown. So I sat by her. She had a four year old girl with her and she was crying. She was obviously scared because normal people don’t act like this. So the lady started yelling at me to let her use my phone. Then I said “if you calm down, you can use it. I will help you figure things out.” I handed her the phone and she started yelling at this guy on the phone saying she has his daughter and stuff. He hung up. She called again.. he hung up. She handed me the phone back and I saw a whole bunch of marijuana in her sleeve. So at this point I called the guy, and he said “I don’t know this lady. Who are you....” So I was really mad at this lady for having a 4 year old child on the bus, the child was scared to death and crying.... this lady was not her mom! So Elder Barton was helping to calm the little girl down and I was about to get on the phone with the police. The lady ran off the bus with the child and left all her stuff, gloves, bag, purse, everything. So I ran off to follow her with the other elders and I took her stuff to her and she just ran and got on the same bus yelling at the driver asking where the bus was going. I was on the phone with the police describing her and I told them the bus number and everything so they pulled the bus over and got everything figured out. Crazy!!!

We have been teaching a less active guy named Scott. He is no longer less active! We have reactivated Scott Gerzanic. He is such a great guy. We teach him like 2X a week. Love the guy.

We served this less active lady named Sarah Russell. The snow plows left a bank like 4 feet tall in front of her walkway and we moved it all and left a little arch for them to all crawl through. She loved it and has come to church for the past 3 weeks after not coming for years and years. She’s really nice.

We stopped by a lot of formers and got yelled at a few times. I love it. I look forward to the rejection. Not really but I’m used to it now haha.

We had the best dinner appt with the Abbot family. They’re one of my favorite families on my mission. A lot of the kids are around my age so I can have an intelligent conversation with people my same age. It’s nice. We were at their house for dinner and I taught an object lesson on Hel. 5 12 about building our foundation upon Jesus Christ. I got a can of beans and said it represented Satan and his temptations. I went to the table and said it represented Jesus Christ and I place my finger on the table and said it represented us. I then proceeded to smash my finger with the middle of the bean can really hard and when your finger is on the table, it just dents the can and it doesn’t hurt your finger at all. It makes quite a noise though and everyone gasped and one of the abbott girls screamed. haha it was funny and definitely something they will remember.

We had an amazing ward game night on friday night! So many people showed up and had an amazing time! we got close to the members that way and since then I have definitely seen such a change in the members attitudes towards missionaries. We have way more dinner appt. that usual. like 2 or 3 a week! It’s great!

Elder Olguin and I got our workout/eating plan all figured out and it’s great. We got our shopping done today at Costco and we are eating healthier than ever. I’ve been dropping some weight this transfer and I’m gonna keep doing it haha. I’ve got my pushups to 95 straight and I got my strength back to normal. We run intervals in the snow at nights after proselyting time is over.

Elder Olguin got permission to go and see his old track coach at the University of Winnipeg on Friday. It was a bit awkward for me I’m not going to lie. Having so many athletic, beautiful women around me... how am I going to make it this whole 2 years.... hahahaha

We’ve been working hard and doing our best. I’m loving it. I’ve finally felt like I’ve seen some real progress with stuff since I’ve been here. We helped bring two inactive members back to the fold. It’s crazy hearing that in some of my friends missions, they baptize 2 people a week. This mission is just a different mission. Most missionaries here go home with 3 baptisms. The most a missionary has baptized in the last decade here was 15. Baptisms are not everything, and its not what a mission is all about. I just know that I am doing my best, working hard, and inviting others to come unto Christ. I’m doing what I’m here to do and I’m loving it!

I sure love you guys and all the support I get from you! Have a great week!

Elder Porter

Jan 27th

Hey Everyone!

Well this week has been cold. Suprise! Probably the coldest on my mission. With the windchill the other day it was -52. Like are you serious?!! I hate staying inside. I feel so lazy when I don’t go out.

Well we had a good week over all, very slow because no one is outside, but whatever. Yesterday on the way home from church, we missed the bus by 2 min and had to wait for the next bus for 55 min. It sucked. There was a lady in the bus stop though and we taught her for 45 min! It was great. Then a guy from the mennonite university walked in and I was talking to him and he was like "man I’m freezing! This sucks! I’m not from here!" and I told him I wasn’t either and he asked me where I was from and I said Mesa AZ. He was like... me too..... what the heck are you doing here? hahahha we talked for a while. It was funny. We were both miserable!

  I went on exchanges with Elder Muirhead who is waiting on a visa to go to Zimbabwe Africa. It was great because I don’t know all the bus routes and we got so lost for a bit hahaha!! We went to teach a less active who lives in a tiny room above a bar and after the lesson some weird stuff happened... all i will say is that it involved 2 extremely drunk people and me....... 

Anyways we had church yesterday, and this african guy came in and was talking to me and he needed a place to stay. great. why is this my problem right? He talked to Bishop and he is getting things figured out. He’s actually a really good guy and he has an interview at the university for being a professor. He is a member who was baptized about a year and a half ago. 

Every Tuesday and Friday we go and play basketball with a bunch of phillipinos and holy cow I’m getting good! Not to brag but I’m pretty much the most valuable player. 

It was just very cold this week and not very many people were out. some roads got shut down because of bad road conditions.

Oh one more funny thing happened. So Sis Denton from England who came out with me is now comps with Sis Wise, the one who is a pathological liar. She hates it haha, but anyways President said that Sis. Wise needs serious help with her lying and told me and the other elders that when she lies, to just call her out on it every time. haha I said that won’t be a problem for me. I’ll help her with her lying...

anyways yeah this week has been slower but pretty good. love you guys!

Elder Porter

Jan 20, 2014

This week had a very rocky start. Elder Berger went home early and and that was really sad. He is a really good guy with a lot of questions. He was a good missionary and will be fine when he gets home. It's just too bad.

So we were on the roof of a members house this week while it was -20 with a -43 wind chill, with 60 km winds. It felt like needles were blowing on my face. We were shoveling snow off the roof for him. It was miserable haha. 

We got our transfer calls. Elder Olguin and I will be staying together for another 6 weeks. It's going to be really fun. Love the guy. 

So there is this member in our ward, a recent convert of three years, named Sky. He goes to lessons with us and dinner appointments that we need fellowship for. He is the best. He just has stupid ideas. He prays with his arms spread like an eagle and he believes that evangelicalists should be crucified. He also believes that Jesus Christ has already returned to the earth.... whats wrong with this place.....? haha he's funny. We showed up to get him to go to an investigators house and we knocked but he couldnt hear us knocking because he was busy practicing his rapping. He is a very good artist to. He's native.
This is Sky's cat, the only cat I've ever liked!! 

There is this lady in our ward who is absolutely insane, but thats half the ward so.... haha she was holding these "cottage meetings" where she got all the recent converts and discussed false doctrine with them... seriously...?? So the ward had to have this big purge with all the people who attended the meetings and they had to all be taught the true doctrine over again... what the heck. Things can get frustrating here. 

We went to a funeral this week. that was fun

I'm learning my sign language really well lately. We teach the deaf less active members every week and it's great. We did some snow shoveling with the other Elders in our ward a few times this week and that was really fun.

So we have meetings starting at 8 am for church and it takes us an hour and a half to bus to church so we spend the night at the other Elders apartment every week and of course always end up going to sleep late. 

We have been volunteering at the hospital (Misericordia) and helping out with the elderly playing bingo and just stop by to talk. Bingo gives me such a headache, listening to "WHAT NUMBER WAS THAT?? WHAT? WHAT? I CANT HEAR THE NUMBER! WHAT AM I DOING HERE? WHATS MY NAME AGAIN? CAN SOMEONE PLEEEAAASSEE HELP ME!"

I swear a year of my life gets sucked away each time I volunteer there which is twice a week haha!

I've been at the point of my mission where when im walking down the street and I see someone I just talk to them. It stinks sometimes but if I dont invite everyone to learn the gospel and give them the chance to hear it, then why am I here? That's the whole point of being here, to invite others to come unto Christ through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. That is why I'm here and now it's become a routine. Who I am. and who I'll always be. I love it.

I got yelled at at the library a few days ago, maybe a week ago, everything blurs together.. this guy told us we were wrong and he went on about his religion he formed and how he is going to enforce it with guns and weapons. He was just yelling at me and I just told him to quiet down because it was the library. Then I walked away. Being a missionary, you just attract the freaks and outcast of the world sometimes. It's ridiculous. I love it though.

It's been a good rest of the week, filled with spiritual promptings. I've seen miracles as I've acted on the promptings. It's so amazing!

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. 

The church is true. The atonement is real. Jesus Christ lives.

Love you all

Elder Porter
                  

Dinner at the Aquinos

My Danier Leather coat.

They have lots of coats in the mission home up for grabs that missionaries have left. Warm only til about -30...

Just doing some preaching in our kitchen hahaha

Jan 13 at 10:45 AM

Oh man this week was sooo warm. It jumped in the 30s this week and the snow started to melt. It was really muddy and nasty but really fun. This week has been great. Elder Olguins birthday is today. He’s 19 now! haha so it’s great. Elder Barton is the one with the Costco card. They have this deal where you can buy a hotdog and a drink for 1.50! Best deal in the city. It is great. So to answer you question about the huge pork loin, we pan fry the meat and season it and it’s sooo good. It’s still lasting us. I hope I don't get transferred, because I spent all my money on food and stuff haha.

So on Tuesday, we got to go to a little town called Winkler with Elder and Sister Langston, some of the office workers, they are a senior couple, and we got to go and set up a new missionary house. It’s a 6 bedroom house for two elders because they will be having church there. It’s going to be really neat! It’s a very nice place. It was an all day thing. We set up desks and appliances and all sorts of things. It was great.

Today we’re going laser tagging with all the other missionaries in Winnipeg. North zone vs. South zone. Elder Berger, Barton, Olguin and I all bought matching training hoodies and we have some face paint, so were going to destroy them. I’m excited. It’s going to be a blast!

This is my tribal face paint before we go laser tagging, I'm not actually going to do it like this when we go, just in our apartment, haha











Nice and foggy day

We’ve been working with a less active guy named Scott lately. He’s such a good guy, a little crazy, but that’s the way things are here it seems. He’s the guy who has had 2 brain aneurisms and he’s soaking the gospel up. He loves it. He’s super poor, and finding him a ride to church has been a little tricky, but he’s always wanting to come and he came this week again. He wants to  work towards the priesthood. He’s obeying the word of wisdom. He is gaining a testimony and is already reading in 2nd Nephi, love the guy.

We volunteered at Siloam mission at the soup kitchen. I was the milk man. I poured over ten gallons of chocolate milk for like 200 people. Them bums like there chocolate milk, and the milk was like a week and a half expired haha. It was gross.

Transfers are coming up on the 23rd, and we find out our transfer calls on Friday. I’m prayin I stay here with Elder Olguin. He’s such a good guy. 

We’ve just been teaching members and less actives this week. Sis. Merasty is a native lady and we were teaching her sons. She’s is such a great member. She calls herself a Lamanite. I thought it sounded odd, but it was true. She calls all the natives Lamanites. I thought it was a little funny. She is teaching us how to sing the hymn "How Great Thou Art" in the cree language. It sounds amazing! There are tons of natives here. Right now I’m surrounded by Lamanites haha! We’re at this place we call the “native place” for natives to use computers but were immigrants, kind of, so they like us here haha. 

Well I’m working hard and loving it. Pray for me that I don’t get a really crappy comp next transfer. Love you all.

Elder Porter                    They finally plowed the sidewalks....

January 6, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I actually saw a lady break off a piece of her hair like 5 inches long. Her hair was wet when she left to walk to the bus and it froze, she was an adult. Man this week was cold. Well all the people of Winnipeg have been making a big deal about how it is colder here than it was on the surface of Mars this week. Yes the planet Mars. It was also colder than the North Pole here, but that’s a given. The windchill made it -55 f this week and that is not an exaggeration. It is so freakin cold. We were waiting for the bus the other day for like an hour in -50 and we thought we were going to die. President says to stay in at -52 and no proselyting after -40 but I just can’t stand not doing anything. It’s like I’m going to go out and work unless it is blizzarding. We just throw on a couple pairs of thermals, wrap our face up and get out there. There were quite a few deaths on New Years, because all the drunk people just pass out in the gutter and die in the cold. It’s stupid.

I absolutely love the pictures of you guys ice skating. That is so great!

Elder Olguin and I have been working hard this week. We get along so well. I love the guy. I have had really good companions. Oh my gosh, there are so many missionaries here who have beat up their companions. Two assistants have gotten in fights with previous companions. President doesn’t like it but there are some retarded missionaries here, and when your trapped indoors with them for a couple days you want to kill them. So I won’t get sent home if I beat up my companion. I’ll just get an emergency transfer. haha I’m just scaring you mom. I’ll try not to haha!!!!

This week was tough, but tons of fun. It was sooo cold this week and no one goes out in this weather, so we were trying to find things to do this week. we got discouraged one evening and the Stafford Elders and us went to the forest which is right by our apartment and went for a nice little walk. It was fun and lifted our spirits.

Today for p-day we went to Costco, one of the missionaries bought a Costco card here, everything is so expensive at the store, so it kindof helps. Like a gallon of milk is over $5.00. Anyway, we got a huge thing of meat, we are going to use the awesome spices my family sent me in my Christmas package, it’ll be awesome!!

It snowed like 7 inches the other day and it blew huge snow drifts everywhere. We did some shoveling this week. We were supposed to teach this lady and her husband, but they were being really flakey and wouldn’t let us in a couple times, so I got pretty mad and just dropped them as investigators. It’s not worth our time spending over an hour to get there, waiting for half an hour at the bus stop and taking an hour to get back. We’re just wasting our time with them.

I gave a lady a blessing this week. She requested one. Her son got a head trauma in a fight and he would randomly flip out and cut himself and others with a knife in her house so I made sure he was not in the house when I gave her a blessing. ugh people are insane here. I wonder if it’s the cold getting to their brains......

We had the worst fast and testimony meeting ever yesterday. All the psychos got up and bore their testimonies. One lady bore her testimony about how Jesus Christ and Lucifer were brothers. Yeah it’s true, but why would you bear your testimony on that. Seriously. I’m sure glad we had some people at church yesterday. ughhh

We went with the Stake Patriarch to give this man a blessing. Brother Cyril Mcfarlin, an 83 year old man from Trinidad, he’s such a great guy. He’s a very good church member. He’s mad because he can’t go to church very much because of his health. He’s such a good guy.

We are getting public affairs missionaries here. They are about to build a temple here in Winnipeg so that will be really good!

Elder Olguin and I get to go out to a little town called Winkler tomorrow to move a bunch of stuff there. There are going to be missionaries there and a branch out there. It’s gonna be so good. President made the goal of 225 baptisms this year. It’s going to be a good year hastening the work.

I’m loving this work and I’m always working hard. It’s a very tough mission. The people here are content. There is a ton of rejection, but honestly I know I’m going to grow here. I wouldn’t grow if I went to an easy mission. It’s the tough times that really test you and its Gods way of molding me. I’m just a piece of clay. God is the sculptor here.

Love you all, thanks for the prayers

Elder Porter



!    

This is our apartment building, 7th floor baby!!

You don't want to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ? I

                                                  

forgive you, but my gun don't, haha!!! We went to Cabella's 

                                                  

on P-day......               

The snow is a little deep ya think????????

We showed that meat, it didn't have a chance!!!