April 28th Letter

Me and Elder Lee running to the temple in the rain/snow/slush.

iOle!

we had to take the classic photo

Me and Bro. Vaka bringing in DA PIG!

the pet cat we had for 10 minutes

our baby

painting without war paint is for chumps.






SO yeah, transfers are next week. SO I'll be emailing on Tuesday. How crazy is that? Time is going by way too fast, its blowing my mind. Reality is setting in and I'm FREAKING out, haha. Life is so good as a missionary, so I'm gonna take advantage of it. Big thanks to mom, Leneah, Kaela, and Maddie for the letters i got from them! we only get mail every like, 3 weeks down here, so that's a bummer. More than likely I'll finish here and if you want to send anything direct, my address is 47 Laval Blvd W, Lethbridge, AB T1K 4E4 Canada. That's more optional that anything, whatev you want! Oh and Maddie, thank you for the iPod comparison, but mine is better cuz its old school! haha not. but it works still. Right? right? please say yes. That blew my mind when you said that I'm the next missionary to report. How does that happen, like, what goes on there? We just went to the temple today, that's why I'm writing a bit late. It was awesome. We had ANOTHER surprise spring snowstorm and that was good times. there was a WHOLE bunch of missionaries there, our whole zone, and a few others from other zones came, so it was really good to see old buddies. A few nights ago was writing in my journal and i was just kinda feeling down a bit. Satan works on me hardcore and tries to make me feel like i haven't done anything good on my mission. I had earlier listened to a CD Jayni sent me forever ago with a song on it by the tabernacle choir and it says in it, "If you're worried and you can't sleep, Just count your blessings instead of sheep, And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings." That song came to my mind and i thought I'd try it out. I started counting my blessings, and WOW nothing chases feelings of insecurity away more than that. Mostly i tried to focus on the people that i have met that have changed my life and that i know that I've helped them a little bit. It was such a great feeling. I want to find more of those people!

We had a good training by the assistants a few days ago. Prior to the meeting we were asked to read two talks. Man Down by Pres. Eyring, and the Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father by Elder Maxwell. They both are great talks about forgetting yourself and serving others. I thought that i had been doing a good job with that but the Spirit helped me see otherwise. I learned that we can never stop moving forward, but we always need to keep moving forward. We can't just be all happy and complacent with where we are. We can always get better and better and be more effective instruments in the Lord's hands. It was a humbling but really cool wake up call for me. I wish i could have had my act together 21 months ago. But whatev, we're here to learn!

I really like Elder Madsen a lot. We are a lot alike in personality so we have lots of fun. His teaching is getting better and better, he's one of the best teachers I've ever seen so young in the mission. I really wish i could get all of me feelings down, but i have the same problem Nephi does in 2 Ne 33:1. Bummer. i guess i can just tell you guys stuff. Oh, by the way, Sister Lambert from the office called the other week and asked for travel plans and stuff. I told her i wanted to go to Ontario Airport. I'm guessing that's where you were planning on anyways. Its SO weird we're making these plans. wow. Well, life is good, i love you all, and I'll talk to you on Tuesdays!

Elder Crippen

April 21st Letter

Hey! I'm really sorry about last week. It totally slipped my mind. For some reason i thought i had emailed you guys but i think got confused with the pictures and stuff. But its going pretty good here. Last Thursday was probably the highlight of recent days. We went up to Calgary for a re-training meeting for Elder Madsen and i was reminded how much i love big drives! Its just so fun to throw in some music, EFY music, don't worry, haha, and watch the miles click by. It was awesome cuz i got to stop by a lot of families and stuff. It was fun to see the surprise eon their face and how excited they were. It really felt good to feel that impact on someone. I love it. The meeting was good, i was enriched. Its really been warming up here and that's nice, except for the fact that we cant take off our suit coats until may. And its getting reasonably hot for Canada, 26 degrees C. I really hope winter's over. Last week we had a crazy random snowstorm. Like 8 inches fell! Walking around was awesome, as usual. But then it all melted like 3 days later, haha. Typical southern Alberta. We're still trying like crazy to meet with our investigators, but they are very illusive. we're going to the temple next week! love you all!

Elder Crippen

April 7th Letter

Canada's olympic hockey jersey

Jarome Iginla is a big deal. He plays on the Flames and he's the man

Me and my district making cookies this morning

WOW i love conference. And lucky me got an extra conference dosage this week cuz it was zone conference. Two missionaries that i really look up to a lot, Elder Funk (the missionary who was in the blue bathrobe) and Sister Jackson (the tall sister that you met when you came and visited, the light-haired one) gave their farewell testimonies. They are awesome examples to me as missionaries and i'm gonna miss em a whole bunch. The weird thing is, sister jackson came out 3months after me, and she's going home. Weirddddddd time is fast. But I loved general conference. I wish i could give a rundown, but that would take forever, and i didn't bring my notes with me. Off the top of my head, talks i like were: Pres Monson: he's so personable! I loved the rundown he gave of standards we should be living. Sister Beck: I was excited for her's cuz it's Jayni's aunt, but then started to zone out because it was all towards women (or so it seemed) but i really felt like i should listen and i was able to apply a lot of what she said to me and i learned a lot about personal revelation! It was great. Pres.Uchtdorf: All of his, especially the one on patience. It gave me new perspective towards that attribute and yeah, good stuff. Elder Martino: Great talk on following the Savior's example on facing and learning from trials. awesome. Elder Holland: I straight up love the conviction with how he speaks. He pretty much was like, Look, we're done messing around with this, here it is. It really motivated me to always have my guard up from all forms of pornography. FYI: there were 15,000 more convert baptisms in 2009 than 2008. Yeah!!!! SO i can't really remember too many more specifics, i guess that's why we take notes, haha. I"ll probably send a letter home with things i liked.
Cool story: Monday night we were walking around, and we got a call from a lady who was not happy. She had just watched a 2 hour documentary on the Mormons and was venting what she didn't like. Funny thing was, everything she said, i didn't like either, because NONE of it was true. She said that we forced men, women and children to walk across the pains in mud snow and ice and we wouldn't allow them to use horses. Wow. If it wasn't twisted completely, it was totally false. She said that we believed that Christ was burned at the stake, what the?! No idea where that came from. But she kept using NOT nice words and said terrible things. It was pathetic. For 2 1/2 minutes she just kept ranting and i couldn't get a word in to tell her that she was being ridiculous. Then she finished off with more not nice words and hung up. It really had me frustrated and down. I guess i could've hung up as soon as she started going off but then she'd be like, baaahhhh rude mormons!!! But it really made me sad that she was believing all of these lies. Then, 3 minutes later as we were walking to an appt we ran into Sis. Vaka ( the wife of the Tongan guy who called you) and her friend Linze who were are teaching and have been struggling to get a hold of. We were able to have a great chat with her and it really boosted me up and i could see that God sends us little miracles/tender mercies when we are down to build us up. I was really glad fro that.
Zone conference was good, i was able to find a lot of ways to improve my teaching. It was only the lethbridge zone so that was a bummer, i love the big gatherings. Another reason is i get to see Steven Wilson (from BYU), he's serving as an AP right not and he's the MAN. Elder Madsen is great. i was really nervous to train but he's making it awesome. He reminds me A LOT of Ryan Gray, best friend from BYU. They are similar in many ways so its almost like I'm serving with him. And we have a ping pong table in our apartment which makes life AWESOME. But life is good, as you know. Thanks for the pictures, they made my day! I love you all!
Elder Crippen