Sept 8, 2014

Hey Everyone!

Things are great! I’m having a really good time here in Brandon. For my year mark I burned a shirt on my porch, and made some homemade tortillas haha. Things are just still moving along and picking up speed. We've been having some good lessons lately and seeing people progress. oh funny story... so we were sitting by our investigator David, (the albino nigerian) and during fast and testimony meeting he just looks at us and says, "can i go up now?" I was just like what.... haha cause he says some pretty ridiculous things, so he just walks up to the front and starts bearing testimony on Elder Ferrolino and I, how all that we are teaching him is making him like life a lot more and that he is grateful he is still alive. I was so anxious the whole time that he was just going to go on a huge rant about some political issue (he does that all the time) and that I would have to go up and take him off the podium, but it turned out fine and it was really good. We are going to have to move his baptism date to a later time because lessons take forever with him. It took us almost 3 hours to teach him the restoration cause he was just talking like a mad man. We have this game Elder Ferrolino and I play with him. We call it jui jitsu teaching. We use things that he says to bring the conversation back to the lesson, and keep it on track. It is a really tough way to teach but it’s working and he’s loving everything were teaching him. It’s a lot of fun.

I love the pics that all the kids sent me. Tell them thank you!

So I’ve had a lot of crazy experiences this past week that have made me really grateful to know our purpose for being here on this earth. I’ve come to know just how real lucifer is, and how big of an influence he can have on our lives if we let him. He has a lot of power in this world, we all just have to keep resisting.

We went on an exchange with one of presidents assistants this week, it was interesting. He really liked using his “leadership role” and trying to “boss” us around, it was really annoying! So the whole exchange I had to find things to do because he had a car and I’m so used to bussing, I had just planned things to do that would take all day on the bus, and with the car it took an hour. So I was pretty stressed trying to find stuff to do. haha we took him to a lesson with David and he didn’t say anything the whole time, and David was having a really bad day and yelled at him for just sitting there like an idiot and told him he needed to teach like Elder Porter and Ferrolino. It was honestly the funniest thing ever. So the next morning he asked what we had planned and I told him we were going to do some roofing, so we went to help our friend Patrick and I got all harnessed up, strapped myself on to the rope and said “adios,” and I was on the roof for 2 hours talking about the gospel with Patrick. I threw Elder Ferrolino under the bus cause he had to stay on the ground with him for 2 hours but that was fine. hahaha it was a lot of fun.... at least for me..

Well I cant believe a year has gone by. My testimony is so much stronger and I’m loving every minute of my mission. Well, at least most minutes haha. Love you all!!

Elder Porter

Sept. 2, 2014

Hey Everyone!

Time is flying by pretty quick. I cant believe I’m already half there. It’s ridiculous. I honestly can’t believe it’s half over. I wish I knew at the beginning what I know now. I’m honestly excited about this next year. I know its going to go by so fast. I’ve definitely had some seriously hard times on my mission, but looking back I’m really glad I did. It’s easy to stay the same person you were before the mission if you just go through the motions. I’ve definitely grown up a ton this past year. There are still things I want to do better at and things to work on, but that will be my whole life. I’ve definitely loved being a missionary. I’ve come to understand that it’s not about the baptisms. It’s about how hard you work and how much you serve and what you do to help other people. I think we will have a baptism coming up this month and I really hope it all turns out well.

We had a real good week. We went out to a pow wow on the reserve all day on Saturday. It was crazy. It was huge!! There were tons of people there. I think Elder Nelson and I were the only white guys there! It was the best. I bought a beaded lanyard. It’s really nice.

We've still been helping our friend Patrick roof some houses. He’s starting to open up to us as we talk with him and we're able to mess around and have a lot of fun. I really enjoy doing the roofing. It’s a lot of fun.

My companion is good, but I have to kick him into gear or he will just sleep all day. I make him get up at 5:30 for the gym every day though. haha. We're doing pretty good. I love it here in Brandon so much!  

So we're still teaching David, and he's been coming to church. We set a baptism date with him for the middle of the month, and we’re really praying it works out. We have to teach him quite a bit still, so we will see if we can make it happen.

Well I was sick as a dog this past week. I had a real nasty cold. I couldn't eat or sleep and I started to go crazy! I kept working, but on Wednesday it got to me and I almost passed out!! I could barely walk straight. Anyways, I didn't eat for about 3 days and lost like 13 pounds. I’m feeling a lot better now though, and I gained it all back a few days later. It was a real tough week but I’m just glad I’m good and healthy now. 

We had a really fun ward tailgate party yesterday. I bbq'd some pork and we had a good time. We played soccer with all the latinos and had a lot of fun.

So lately we have been having these huge "dock spiders" around our patio. We have three of them and they are the size of a silver dollar, a little bigger. But anyways the zone leaders live right across the parking lot and every night we put a grasshopper or dragon fly in the web and watch them battle it out. Well we got this huge grasshopper, probably the biggest one I have ever seen, and my spider battled with it but ended up losing a leg. So it recovered and is back in action. So we caught a snake the other day, it’s pretty small but we're going to put it in the web tonight to see if they will battle. It’s pretty fun to watch. They have some crazy battles. haha

As district leader I am responsible for leading a meeting each week where I train them on how to better missionaries. I talk for like 45 min and then we practice doing stuff, like role playing different skills. I had a really spiritual district meeting today on testimony. It was really good. I think every one liked it. We read the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf about having a personal testimony. It was great!

It’s in the 60's and 70's now. The leaves are changing, falls about to set in. Winter will be here beginning of November! It’s rainy season, so we get these light prairie storms now and then few times a week. It’s nice!!

Things are going really good. I love being a missionary and I’m excited for this next year. I love you all!!

Elder Porter

We went to the Souri swinging bridge. I was sick as a dog that day, but still was cool!

After the pow wow, we went to this families animal rescue, it was so fun!!

August 25, 2014

Hey Everyone,

So this week was good. I drove into Winnipeg and dropped off Elder Hindes and picked up Elder Ferrolino. He’s a good guy, really funny and we're doing some good work together already. We had an interesting Sunday yesterday haha. We went to our friends 10th wedding anniversary party. They are Nigerian, so it was a huge social. They were dressed in there native clothing from Africa, and there were a ton of Nigerians there. Anyways so we ate a bunch of the food, and this one guy comes up to me, I think his name was Jomeodusuloa, or something crazy, we were just calling him JB. Anyways he tells us to get a bowl for their soup. So I’m like okay, and we all grabbed a bowl and he gives us this intestine soup with tons of liver and kidney and heart and just weird stuff in it. It was an adventure eating it for sure haha. It actually wasn’t that bad. I don’t have my camera with me right now but I have a picture with all of us that were at the party gathered together. It is a good picture. I’ll email it to you later. Other than that, we didn’t have too much happen this week. Just the normal stuff, taught some good lessons, and just hit the streets like every day. Oh we did go to a boxing gym with a recent convert, cause she was begging us to go with her, and the coach was pretty impressed with me, haha. I didn’t tell him that I used to box and do muay thai until the end haha. It was funny. He had to put me on his heaviest bag cause I was hitting too hard. It was fun.

Love you all!!

Elder Porter

Elder Ferrolino, in his natural environment, haha