1/18/2016 Photo

Yeah, everything's going really well for me.  We're keeping ourselves super busy. 

A picture of our zone. 

[Elder Crye is third from right.]

1/11/2016 Transfers?

Hello!

So... transfers... 

We didn't get a call last night. We were pretty confused, considering we were expecting to drive Elder Meise down to Brampton. He's going home in like two weeks, but it seems we're both staying here for now. We got an email today with our travel plans that just said "No movement." I guess they'll send me up a new companion mid-transfer when Elder Meise goes home. Weird.

[Caralee Crye wrote] Last night was a wonderful World Wide Devotional for young adults (Institute age). I'm not sure if the missionaries are allowed to attend/watch. Basically, the take-away message I got from Elder Russell M. Nelson is that when we are asked to do "impossible" tasks, with a lot of prayer, wrestling of spirit, and effort, miracles happen.  He shared several experiences from his life about this. One of these was the mandate to open more European countries (this was before the Berlin Wall came down) to the mission work. There were several times when his efforts seem to fail, meetings (with European officials) didn't seem to succeed, among other things. With time, patience, and a lot of prayers to seek revelation and guidance from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, the European countries, one by one, were able to be dedicated and opened for mission work.  

He also remembers when he and his wife and several others [it was a university setting] were asked by the prophet [then McKay I think] to learn Mandarin as the students will need to develop relationships and businesses with China and this, will in turn, will help with future missionary work.  Years later, as a surgeon, Brother Nelson was asked to go to China to help train some Chinese doctors with heart surgical procedures/methods. He was happy to use his basic Mandarin skill.  That wasn't all.  Some more years later after he was called as an apostle, China asked him to return to perform a surgery on a well known star Opera singer. He declined, since he is called as an apostle and no longer working as an apostle.  China kept asking him, again and again, to please come do the surgery. He then asked the quorum and the first presidency, and after prayer, was directed to go ahead to do as requested. he flew over there and was welcomed warmly as a fellow surgeon; thankfully, the Opera singer survived the surgery [it also was his last surgery he performed].  This act of service led to continuing friendly relationships between the Chinese people and the LDS Church.

Basically, what Elder Nelson was saying is that we may be asked to do things that may appear, or at present be, impossible to do, but with faith, prayer, and a willingness to do everything and all that we can, miracles will happen and the impossible will be accomplished.  This is similar to the quote I gave you some time ago and paraphrased, "Seek not only for missionary opportunities, also seek for the courage to do them."

Yeah, missionaries in our mission couldn't attend unless they were accompanying somebody that they were teaching. Nobody that we're teaching in that age range wanted to go. We downloaded the audio and plan to listen to it sometime in the next few days.

1/4/2016 third email

It's been pretty good! For New Years Eve, we went home early and did some weekly planning. We had plenty of leftover goodies from Christmas, so we pigged out on those. The last few days have been pretty normal. Nothing really crazy comes to mind. We're visiting lots of good families that genuinely want to develop their relationship with God.

This upcoming Sunday night we find out transfer news. Right now, I'm still with Elder Meise from Prince George, British Columbia. This is his last transfer - he'll be going home very soon. Missionary work's going really well right now! The Lord is definitely blessing us. The Vincent family (that we spent Christmas morning with) is more-or-less reactivated now, and they're getting ready to have their daughter, Shyann (she has the pants that say "Work Out" on them), baptized.

Lots of people are keeping their commitments to do things like read their scriptures, pray, and attend church. As such, you can see temptations and addictions slowly losing their grasp. It's amazing! Most of the families are doing really well.

Love you too!

-Elder Crye 

1/4/2016 some more pictures from Christmas

​Christmas breakfast with the Vincents

1/4/2016 Pictures of recent snow storm and some from Christmas Eve!

 The day [12/27/2015] the temperature dropped like 30 degrees overnight and we got like a foot of snow.​


Christmas Eve breakfast with the Ludlows

 Christmas Eve lunch with the Gunnells

Christmas Eve dinner with the Allans

12/28/2015 Weather changes

We had a nice, green Christmas here. 

Weather's been super weird. People kept telling us winter would come. We kept laughing at them. The weather kept getting warmer. (About a month and a half ago, it dropped down to about -10/-15 degrees Celsius, then it just kept rising.) On Christmas, it hit 14 degrees Celsius. Then, two days ago, the temperature finally dropped. Pretty drastically. We had a high of like -10 and a low of about -18. Last night, we got dumped on with like a foot and a half of snow.

Love you too!

-Elder Crye

12/21/2015 Week of Christmas coming up

Hey, there! I'm doing well!

Christmas is coming soon!

Got a letter from the Mission President this week:

Dear missionaries,

As you know, the MTC is keeping missionaries another week so our transfer dates as of April are pushed back a week. Timing of arrival home is generally the Wednesday of the week after your original release date. You can let your parents know that. Exact information about arrival times, etc., will be made when flights arrangements are made.

We love you and wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Pres Clayton

He sent us another letter, maybe a week ago, explaining that release dates April and beyond are being pushed back a week to line up with the transfer cycle. He said to contact him with any questions - he has jurisdiction to adjust release dates within about 4 weeks.

From what I remember, my release date was like a week and a half before school starts up again. I'm not quite sure though. We have plenty of time to make arrangements, but my new release date may require a bit of altering. Could you find out what day the 2016 BYU Fall Semester starts for me?

--

This week's been good. I'll see you guys on Friday, so we'll catch up some more then. :) As a heads up, we're limited to 40 minutes.

Love you all, and Merry Christmas!

-Elder Crye

12/14/2015

I'm hoping that these changes and updates from back home does not distract you too much and that you're still putting in your full heart and focus with the mission work. Remember to stay focused doing the Lord's work. The Lord will make sure that everything for you with education will all come into place.  

Sounds good. I'm pretty focused out here. :)

So far so good. My companion right now is on his last transfer. The Missionary Department just recently put out a new program called MyPlan designed to help missionaries transition into post-mission life. From what I understand, they haven't quite rolled out everything, but they have the part for a missionary's last 6 weeks up. I hear they're intending to have a little training module to be completed each 6 months throughout your mission, concluding with 6 modules that you do the last 6 weeks. I'm really enjoying ribbing Elder Meise about how he's almost "dead." [going home when mission ends]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about education at this point. Not really sure how I'm going to transition back into Linear Algebra or whatever, but that's a bridge to be crossed another day.

Pray to him always for guidance and express your concerns to Him. He is very, very aware of all your thoughts, your joys, your concerns, frustrations, and willingness to do things. I remember being told: "Do not just pray for missionary opportunities, also pray for the courage to do those missionary opportunities." I've seen many of these happen while on my mission that miracles can and do happen. That quote, I'm not sure if it is by Elder Cook or Elder Bednar. Brother Crowther made that same quote recently on Sunday when we were discussing in Branch Council about missionary work and the Elders assigned with our branch.

You're in Branch Council? That's pretty cool. Are you there on behalf of Primary, or Institute, or both?

That's a really good quote about not just praying for missionary opportunities, but for the courage to take advantage of them.

 

That need for courage is especially true for members. When on a mission, the mantle of missionary is on the shoulders and the promptings are generally stronger. As members not serving full time missions, we do not have the same mantle, but we still have a similar mandate to help seek for those who are looking for His truth. The ability to know when to "open our mouths" (or hands in the case of the deaf) to share with others can be daunting at times and require courage to follow through. 

Missionary work in language units (eg ASL branches) is pretty different, considering the missionaries can't really just go tracting (not that they could tract effectively in Utah, anyway). Pretty much the only effective way to find people to teach is through the members. 

 

This missionaries will be coming to dinner this Tuesday.  My mind has been thinking about possible menu choices. It has been snowing last night and this morning, but it seems the snow has slowed down a bit. It is supposed to snow all day and tomorrow. Hopefully the missionaries should be able to make it to our home tomorrow night. We have about two inches so far.

 

If those missionaries are worth their salt, which I'm sure they are, they'll invite the Spirit into our home by sharing a message and ask if the Spirit's indicated anyone to you guys that could benefit from some kind of invitation. Perhaps a good way to prepare would be to pray for the Spirit's guidance in preparation of the missionaries' visit. I wish that's something members did in preparation for our visits out here. If anyone comes to mind when they visit (or perhaps in the days following), I hope you or the rest of the family do something about it. :) 

Somehow, up here in the frozen north, it's been unusually warm. It dipped down to -15 deg Celsius a few weeks back and we got a foot or so of snow, but the weather's warmed up since then and has hardly dipped below freezing. It sounds like you have more snow down south in the desert of Utah than we have up here now.

hope you got your two packages. I'm not sure if you got the birthday one already, or if your mission is holding that to give to you along with the Christmas package. There was an email that said packages would be distributed at the two zone/mission conferences.  Perhaps you had the conferences already. How were these conferences and did you learn something that is really inspiring and motivating?  

Yes. This last week I got the birthday package from the family, the Christmas package from the family, the Christmas package from the branch, and a Christmas package from the Jarvis family. Looks like everything arrived safely. :)

It was the special Christmas Zone Conference, so we sang a bajillion Christmas songs, including a rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas that probably ended up on the Canada Toronto Mission Facebook page. Not sure how it'll be labeled, but I'm in the Sudbury Zone right now, so that'll probably help you find me.

Something pretty interesting happened this Conference. The Abitibi Branch that was just across the mission boundaries in Quebec merged with the Temiskaming Branch (that Elder Meise and I were coverning) something like 2 weeks ago. I think I mentioned that, but I'm not quite sure. Anyway, with the branches merging, the Canada Toronto Mission inherited 4 French-assigned missionaries that were serving in the Abitibi Branch. Since the Montreal Quebec Temple has been closed for renovations until just barely, those missionaries haven't attended the temple since coming out to the mission field. So, our Mission President authorized the Sudbury Zone to attend the temple while we were there in Brampton.

Did we learn much at Conference? Honestly, not really. Apart from a good message on light being a symbol of Christ (similar to Bednar's Christmas Devotional talk), there wasn't much instruction given. It was a pretty strange Conference. Normally we practice teaching people and role-play. This Conference, we didn't role-play at all. Most of our time was spent reading about prophecies of Christ's birth and singing. I think we sang all 15 Christmas songs in the hymn book, and then some.

Love you!

-Elder Crye

12/7/2015

I always struggle to know what to say in these emails. We're teaching about 20-25 lessons/week. People are coming unto Christ. They're receiving the gospel. It's such a blessing to be able to invite the Spirit in so directly to people's homes. We got some people to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for their first time this week.

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional had some spectacular music this year. I wish you guys could more fully appreciate it. The talks were pretty good too. Totally worth sharing. :)

If you haven't checked it out yet, the Church put out a 2 minute video titled "A Savior is Born". It's pretty good.

Love you all too!

-Elder Crye

11/23/2015 Great baptism and photos

This week's been good.

Really busy, as usual. :) We had a great baptismal service and Elder Perkins, a General Authority, came to tour the mission.

 ​
Elder Meise and I with a giant buffalo!

Love you!

-Elder Crye