Elder Thomas R. Ollis Jr. - Canada Calgary Mission: 07/11/2017 - A Week of Miracles... AND WAIT THERE IS ONE MORE!!

So this week was full of miracles. First off, stampede is in full effect, everyone is wearing cowboy stuff. It is kinda funny that it is just acceptable for a week or so. It also means there tons of helicopters that fly around with Canadian flags dangling below them. Also there is a fly over ever day with fighter jets. And I had to laugh because they were F-18s. American planes. But GO CANADA!

But this week was honestly so good. It was really cool. Wednesday we dropped by an appointment with a potential investigator we had named Mustafarus. Honestly I didn't think we were going to go in and pick him up. But that changed really quick. He let us in and he was with a friend named Helam. We asked if we could start teaching and he told us to wait because someone else was coming who wanted to hear. And 20 minutes later a man named Kerem shows up. All 3 are from Turkey. Being here only about 3 months and interested in Christianity. So we taught them about prophets and the plan of salvation. And one more man, also from Turkey shows up near the end of the lesson and so we teach it again. It was amazing! We picked up 4 new investigators in an hour and a half! Which is such a miracle. It was one of coolest experiences I have witnessed. But it didn't stop there.

We did a mission fast on Friday, all of us were out and talking to people. I was on exchanges and in another area but when I got back Friday night we got a miracle text. We had dropped by a referral and the lady who answered was NOT interested. So we figured it was a bum referral. Not the case. The text said Ian W really wanted to meet with us, and wanted to meet at our church near his house because he heard we dropped by. So we called him and picked him up that Saturday as a new. Ian is probably YSA but he is so prepared. He had tons of questions we answered but we also had an awesome lesson. He told us he grew up atheist but has been drawn towards God. He said he had LDS friends and he always wanted to know what made them so happy and he said he felt he needed something in his life and this was it. (Me and Elder Wiwchar both had flashbacks to those fake MTC investigators.) And near the end of the lesson he asked if he could come to our Sunday service. Sure enough he came and stayed all 3 hours and said he loved it how people were so friendly and it was great. It blew my mind how prepared he was. It was interesting because he said atheists never gather, and he was craving a family or society he could connect with. Basically we already want to baptize him.

But there are more miracles. I laughed Saturday night when we got ANOTHER referral! Mind you we hadn't got one in well over 3 weeks. It is a family of 8 from Romania who are expecting us tomorrow morning. AND WAIT THERE IS ONE MORE! Another referral for a guy who lives in the building next to us. He is trying to quit smoking and really wants the gospel and Christ in his life. We dropped by yesterday and we are hoping to meet him tomorrow. But that has been our week.

Brothers and Sisters, it was full of miracles, but they didn't come from just dumb luck. We haven't stopped working and praying, we were tested but our Savior knows what we need and where those people are. It was amazing this week to see some fruits, but I know they came from continual faith. This week in my personal study I was studying miracles before all this stuff happened, and something I found was in the bible dictionary Miracles are something we absolutely believe in. And interestingly, they are ever present. And when we don't see them, it is because there is a lack of faith. So the moral, brothers and sisters, God loves us. And he absolutely blesses us through our efforts, whether it is hard work or fasting, or both. God is there and he cares. Don't ever forget that!