March 10th Letter

The Calgary North zone started it off with a BANG! We had 3 awesome baptisms and they were great. One of them was a 9 year old kid and i asked him, "hey Cesar, are you glad you got baptized?" He enthusiastically replied, "yeah!" Then i asked him how he feels and he goes, "AWESOME!" and gives me a huge high five, it was sweet, haha. I'm falling in love with Excel, the computer thing! That's what we use to report numbers every week and I've gotten to do some crazy things on it, its pretty awesome. It was a good week, we got to help the zone out in a lot of ways and we are really excited for the meeting THE WHOLE mission gets to have with Elder Bednar this Saturday. We have to leave to drive down to Lethbridge at 4:30 in the morning. Luckily I'm not driving haha. As you know, i don't drive too well when I'm tired. (God bless that little Avalon!) Yesterday we went to the mission office to pick up mail (finally got some! thanks jayni!!!!), but we didn't drive at all! it was sweet. We took the bus and the train. That sounds kind of lame of me to say it was fun but it was an adventure for sure. I like to make things fun. Saw A LOT of interesting people too! haha wow. AT one bus stop, it was by a school and RIGHT when school got out, so it was quite the experience to see 40 crazy grade 8 kids get on the bus, SO loud, SO annoying, and SO immature, haha. I have some pictures to send, but i forgot to bring my camera card, so oops. We had a great zone leader council where president talked a lot about accountability. First we talked about ours, and then members. He used the parable of the talents to illustrate that we have each been given something, and we need to do SOMETHING with it. We need to constantly improve ourselves and share our gifts. Including the gospel. Aka God won't be too happy when we've been blessed with the gospel and we don't share it with others. That's just selfishness. And we talked about how its our responsibility to invite people to be baptized that's how we fulfill our purpose! Woot woot! Now we just need to find some people. On that note, i like this quote, (rhyme! ha!) "We properly pray for the safety and success of the full-time missionaries throughout the world. And a common element in many of our prayers is a request that the missionaries will be led to individuals and families who are prepared to receive the message of the Restoration. But ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time teachers; you and I are full-time finders. And you and I as lifelong missionaries should not be praying for the full-time missionaries to do our work!" That's from Elder Bednar's ask in faith talk. God wants us to ask in faith, and then DO. We've been focusing a lot on that lately, DOING. Being not just hearers (or preachers) of the word, but DOERS. jeah. Well, we're off to play some football and soccer and stuff. love you! Elder Crippen