12/22/2014 Merry Christmas This Week!!!

Here is the latest email from Elder Crye in Canada.

- Caralee

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Missionary work in Canada is interesting.

It's a struggle just to find people that are interested in learning. Everyone's busy. Everyone has other priorities in their life. Not many people really care about where they came from, why they're here, or where they're going. Not that many know their purpose in life.

Of those that are religious, most are religious due to the traditions of their fathers. They've never really asked for themselves if it's true. This is a problem that we find in people both inside and outside of the Church.

If there's one thing I wish more people did, it's to actually ask those kind of questions and then put themselves in a place to receive their answers.

Every now and then, my companion and I stumble upon somebody that's interested in learning more about the deeper things in life. Perhaps we find them. Perhaps they find us. They actually meet with us. We teach them. We have a wonderful, spiritual experience together. We feel the Spirit. They likely do too, but they may not recognize it. Often, there are things like commandment issues that might be keeping them from having the sensitivity to recognize the Spirit. Their curiosity is piqued. 

Then, we invite them to learn more. We want them to gain their own witness of what we share, not just believe us, but believe God.

We invite them to come to church, pray, and read. Those 3 things are what we often call the "primary answers" in that they're so essential to getting your answer. Just like a seed needs air, water, and sunlight to grow, everyone's testimony needs those 3 things (church attendance, prayer, reading scriptures) to grow. Without any one of the 3, the seed withers and dies.

This week was really really promising. We taught several different people. People invited us in. It was Christmastime. Everybody was happy. Apart from all the shopping and the frustrations that come with it, people are having a Merry Christmas.

Several people wanted to learn more. They wanted an answer. I believed them. They truly sounded like they wanted an answer, but then they didn't show up to church. It's times like this that I wonder what more I could've done. 

I bear you my testimony that I know that this gospel I share is true. I know it as much as I know that I exist. I believe that's a strong claim, but this is truly something that I know.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Every time I remind myself that all those we're meeting "are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." (D&C 123:12)

Love,

Elder Crye

Elder Gary Crye's mormon.org profile

Elder Gary Crye set up his mormon.org profile.  It went live on 10/6/2014 and can be seen at:

http://www.mormon.org/me/G8ZW

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

Our zone together at the recent Zone Conference. We coordinated colors. Hopefully you recognize me in the back. I have my right arm around Elder Smith - he's to the left in the photo.

Our transfers are on Dec. 29/30th. We should be here for Christmas. Yeah, just finished week 4 with Elder Smith.

Umm, honestly things are pretty normal here in Brampton. We see the "celebrities" of the mission all the time - the Mission President, our Stake President, and so forth are often at our ward. The Assistants to the President are in the area right beside us. We got about a foot of snow overnight this week. It's since warmed back up.​

 

This week was pretty weird though. We had 3 different progressing investigators (people that have been taught several times, have shown up to church, are looking like they might be baptized in the near future) just disappear on us this week. They had no relation to each other whatsoever, but their phones were all disconnected, neighbors haven't seen them, etc. We're very confused.

Another photo taken the morning after that snowfall. By the time we had finished shoveling the driveway, we already had another 2 inches.

Elder Gary Crye

December 8, 2014

December 8, 2014

I am doing great. 

We saw Meet the Mormons the other week. Solid movie. 10/10. Would recommend, even if I wasn't a missionary. :P

The new Mission President is really pushing for us to be "full-purpose missionaries" in that we invite ALL others to come unto Christ. That means investigators, but also all of the members, etc. We're now an integral part of the ward council in helping everyone receive the ordinances necessary for salvation.

The work in this area is moving forward. We're working very closely with the Elders Quorum to revitalize our ward's home teaching program. Something that's very different here from Lehi is that not a whole lot of home teaching is done. 3 months ago when I came here to this ward, the figure was something like 13% of families in the ward had been home taught in the last month. In the last year, only about 30 or 40% of families had been home taught. So... A lot of our visits and calls that we've made this week were to determine if people still lived at the addresses given and then to determine if they would take home teachers, accept missionaries, or that sort of thing.

We've had a lot of success this week with praying for where to go and what to say. This week, through prayerfully planned trips, we finally made contact with a ward member that several others refer to as a "personage of spirit" in that nobody in the ward (except for her mother) has made contact with her for years, but her mother (who is also pretty hard to contact) says that she's always around the home - she's just never there when anybody visits. We had an excellent visit and got new contact information to update the directory with.

There's a talk I've been really studying the last week or two that I'd definitely recommend: Ask in Faith, by David A. Bednar

Elder Gary Crye

Transfer 3, Week 1 (November 24, 2014)

November 24, 2014

So, my companion left me. Now instead of introducing my companion as Elder Mangakahia and having everybody look at me funny and say, "What?" and then just telling them to call him Elder M, my new companion is named Elder Smith. Everybody gets it the first time. That's nice.

Elder Wyatt Smith is from Malta, Idaho. He says it's a small town near Twin Falls. He grew up on a dairy farm in a big family with 7 siblings. He's a nice guy.

This week's been pretty good. Things were pretty hectic with transfers at the beginning of the week, but they've slowed down quite a bit since then. My journal entries each night have gone from 2-3 lines back up to a page or so. 

I'm still in Brampton, Ontario. It's a great place. Most of the missionaries say it's the most "normal" place in the entire mission. Not many crazies out here. Plenty of people from all around the world, but not many crazies.

For those of you asking about snow, it snowed about a foot here earlier this week, but then it melted yesterday and today.

The church members up here are great. Being able to stay in one area for a few months now really has its benefits. It's awesome being able to know most of the people in your ward (congregation). As missionaries, we're constantly playing matchmaker, but instead of romantic relationships, we try to build friendships. As we come to know the ward, it becomes a lot easier to say who would get along with somebody that we just met that day. That, and the members here really are awesome. A while back, I mentioned something about how I love brownies. Last week, the family I mentioned that to fed me brownies. God bless that family. I've missed brownies, especially since we never really have the time to bake decent brownies at home and store-bought brownies always seem to come out too cake-y.

This week, our stake hosted what they called a "Missionary Academy" where the youth got together to learn more about what missionaries do. It was really awesome being able to witness so many youth bear testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His divinity.

In other news, I watched On the Lord's Errand, a biography of Thomas S. Monson. I was watching it in ASL for the fun of it, and found Mary Bonham interpreting. That was pretty cool.

Oh, and I was able to teach about the Restoration in sign language this week. That was also pretty great. Claudia might be the first ASL investigator in the mission.

I love you all.

-Elder Crye

Photo from Culture Night (November 8, 2014)

Culture Night - November 8, 2014

Elder Gary Crye's companion, Elder Mangakahia, presented "A Culture Night featuring Mana The Spirit of Polynesia".  There were several booths, displays, and Elder Mangakahia performed several different dances from various regions. Elder Crye and other missionaries helped out with this event.

Below is a flyer.

There is also a video of this event.  Elder Gary Crye can be seen a few times during this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHYv1sXHXqY

A Day in the Life of A Missionary - a collection of photos

From Elder Crye's email on October 14, 2014 showing a series of photos from "A Day in the Life of a Missionary" when he and his companion were followed by some ward members in the area where they're serving.

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October 14, 2014

Yeah, so we had a local event called "Day in the Life of a Missionary" where the idea was to get members to take photos of us throughout the day to post to social media sites.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1zupvf5wsp44yhh/AAB0c0hxRzdGFp3I6Md4TxWNa?dl=0

Also, check out the Facebook page titled "Heart Lake Ward". 

Love,
Elder Crye