Short email from Elder Crye today:
Hello!
We both forgot our cameras at home. We'll get a selfie to you next week. :)
Monday, February 8, 2016
Week of Feb. 1, 2016 - Funny story
Hello!
The internet was out at our chapel last week, and the nearby library was really stubborn in what they accept as proof of North Bay residency. They required us to have a letter addressed to us that had been sent to our address, unlike literally every other public library I've been to in Ontario (like 7). All the others accepted our proof of residency form printed on LDS letterhead with our name, address, and contact info for the mission office if they had any questions. Not North Bay, though.
Some changes did indeed happen! Elder Meise is now home in British Columbia, and Elder Sommers is now my companion here in North Bay. It's mid-transfer though. Things might change in 3 weeks.
We drove over to Sudbury (~2hrs drive) Monday evening and stayed with the Elders there. Elder Meise took a bus down to Brampton early Tuesday morning, then after meeting with the mission president and going to the temple, he flew out to BC. I stayed with the Elders in Sudbury until Thursday when our Mission President came up for interviews. He brought my new companion up with him. Elder Sommers is from Flagstaff, Arizona.
Funny story:
Last week Sunday, our Chevy Equinox started dripping water inside near the overhead lights up front. So, we had to take it in. It was covered under warranty. The dealership rented us a Buick that we got to drive around. Our fleet coordinator said that was fine, so we went for it. The dealership mentioned that the inspection and repairs might take a few days. Perfect. We were heading over to Sudbury anyway.
Picture this - We pull into the driveway at the Zone Leaders' house in Sudbury, and they look bewildered. At first, they probably wonder why a random Buick was parking in their driveway. Then we step out of the car. Pure confusion for like 5 seconds straight. They get over it and go inside. Once we bring our stuff in, they ask us about it.
Elder Moffat: "So, why are you in a Buick?"
Me: "Oh, you know, it was Elder Meise's last week. He had some extra cash left on his card. *straight face*"
Moffat: "Seriously?"
Meise: "Yeah. ... Just kidding."
Moffat: "So what's up?"
Meise: "We thought we'd save on K's (kilometers). A member offered us their car."
(They still look confused, but they drop it for the time being.)
... Later that night once we're in bed and it's too late for them to make any calls that aren't an emergency...
Meise: "Want us to tell you what really happened?"
Moffat and McKinnon: "Yeah, sure."
Meise: "We totaled the car. We haven't told President yet."
*silence*
McKinnon: "What happened?"
Meise: "We were turning and slid on some black ice, right into a pole."
Moffat: "Are you guys alright?"
Meise: "Yeah, all the damage was up front by the engine block. We're both fine."
Moffat: "How'd the car look?"
Meise: "Pretty bad. There's no way it wasn't totaled."
Moffat: "And you haven't told President?"
Me: "We'll probably tell him tomorrow sometime."
We told them what actually happened the next morning.
The last week was pretty interesting. Lots of really absurd things happened, both with missionary work and with just little everyday things:
- Lots of ward drama.
- An investigator that was ready for baptism in like 2 weeks dropped us due to his fiancee.
- Half the investigators we were teaching dropped us. (Lets face it though, that one's pretty normal)
- One of our investigators randomly died; he was only like 40 and he looked healthy the last time we saw him.
- Two of the people we were working with confessed their love for my companion, so we couldn't go back until after he left.
- Making arrangements for Elder Meise's last week.
- The Chevy Equinox leaking as mentioned above
- Somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, we taught about 35 lessons (new record for us)
The most recent week was pretty good. I spent half the week in Sudbury, then half in North Bay with Elder Sommers. We've been having a great time and the Lord is continuing to bless this area.
We'll have to take a selfie to send home. :)
Love you all!
-Elder Crye
Monday, January 18, 2016
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.]
[Elder Crye is third from right.]
Saturday, January 16, 2016
1/11/2016 Transfers?
Hello!
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 Pictures of recent snow storm and some from Christmas Eve!
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.
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.
-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
11/9/2015 Amazing week - photo
We were ridiculously, incredibly blessed this week. Of the 20 or so families/individuals we're working with, 8 or 9 of them came out to church, adding about 20 people to our sacrament meeting attendance, most of them for their first time (or in the case of members, their first time in a while). That was crazy! There's no way we could've done that on our own! Teaching people true doctrine and following the Spirit has been leading to some awesome results over here.
We've had a really good week. Again, running around like headless chickens, but it's very fulfilling. One of these days, I'll have to get a picture of my companion, Elder Meise. :)
11/2/2015 animal sightings
This week's been pretty good.
Missionary work is moving forward really well.
We cover the Temiskaming Branch as well as the North Bay Ward, so on Saturdays we drive about 2 hours north and spend the day in that area. We attend church there once a month. This last Saturday, in Haileybury, probably a town of about 10,000 people, we saw three bears up in a tree. There was a police officer parked nearby keeping an eye on them. Apparently, they wandered into town, got spooked, and climbed up the tree for safety. The police officer said the mama bear and her two cubs had been there for the last two days.
Over the last two weeks, I've sighted two moose.
-Elder Crye
10/26/2015 From Elder Gary Crye
Things are going well up here in North Bay.
Elder Meise and I have been keeping ourselves really busy. We've just been hopping around from teaching appointment to teaching appointment. It feels really good to be working hard.
There's a saying that goes around here in the Canada Toronto Mission: "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles." That's definitely something I know to be true. The last several companions I've had were great Elders, but I don't know if you could say they were exactly obedient to the mission rules, or in some cases, even striving to be. That's something that's very difficult to accomplish, and requires you to know the rules pretty well, so I don't really blame them. However, the companion I have now, is one of those "exactly obedient" types. And so, we've been going around just seeing blatant miracles everywhere we go. It's great!
It seems that wherever we've gone, people are super receptive and practically begging us to teach them the Gospel. We were able to teach over 20 lessons this week, which is something I haven't been able to do in quite a while.
Life's pretty good.
-Elder Crye
10/19/2015 New Transfer! My birthday yesterday
Hello!
I found out I'm being transferred to North Bay tomorrow.
Birthday was great! Elder Anderson managed to get most of the ward to sing to me throughout the day.
We got some snow flurries here on the 17th. Cars are nice and frosty in the morning. Snow hasn't stuck yet.
We should have a few baptisms coming up here in Orangeville in the next week or two.
Super short email due to a few things - packing and trying to figure out how to help a 9-year-old learn 5 lessons worth of stuff in a 1-hour visit, and figuring out who to bring with us on short notice on a Monday evening (when several families are doing FHE) after the first guy fell through.
Somewhat regular day in the life of a missionary?
In other news, Orangeville's awesome and the Gospel is true!
-Elder Crye
10/13/2015 Second post
Hello. Greetings from up North.
Monday, this nice fellow walked into the chapel asking some questions about our church. For whatever reason, a seminary teacher was still hanging around the chapel, so he gave the guy our contact info and got some of his. Later that day, we got in touch with him and set up a time to meet. It's awesome when people find us instead of us finding them. :)
Wednesday, we went on exchanges with some of the Elders in Newmarket. Elder Anderson stayed in Orangeville while I joined Elder Christensen in Newmarket and his companion worked with mine. We spent the day teaching a lot of people about family history and helping them use FamilySearch and Ancestry. It was nice - I've used FamilySearch quite a bit, but haven't used Ancestry nearly as much as Elder Christensen evidently has. It was a good learning opportunity. Over in Newmarket, they have several people that are preparing to attend the temple with their own family names.
Thursday, we met up with an investigator (person learning about the church) that originally didn't think she'd ever be able to give up smoking. She's been smoking for 42 years. Heavily. Nowadays, she's down to a couple cigarettes a day and quit entirely for a day until she relapsed back up to a couple/day. No big deal. We just get back up and try again. The Book of Mormon is powerful. I love that we're able to promise people that if they make a consistent effort to read from the Book of Mormon and do things like pray to invite the Spirit into their life, everything else will fall into place. You'll find the strength to overcome addictions. She's having a great time at church too.
Yesterday, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving - much like Thanksgiving in the US, but on a Monday in October. A family in the ward invited us over, along with inviting over two other families. It felt a lot like home with all the extended family getting together. We had all sorts of stuff: turkey, potatoes, candied yams (This time, with pecans/brown sugar instead of marshmallows. 10/10. Would recommend), and pie. Aww yeah.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect, and it works!
-Elder Crye
-Elder Crye
10/13/2015 HAPPY THANKSGIVING (CANADA)
[Caralee Crye wrote:]
Dear Elder Gary Crye,
Dear Elder Gary Crye,
I hadn't realized that today [10/12/2015] is Thanksgiving in Canada! Hope you're enjoying that day too! Is it a big day there in Canada as it is for USA in November? How different is celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving when compared with Thanksgiving in USA?
It's a pretty big day. Here, the snow comes and the harvest season ends a little earlier than in the US, so they have Thanksgiving a little earlier. They celebrate it on Monday. Schools are out for the day. People sort of celebrate it all through the weekend, and tend to have a large dinner with family/friends at some point over the weekend. It's a little different in that Thanksgiving isn't the kickoff to Christmas season in Canada. Instead, it's a little strange since some people have Thanksgiving/fall decorations and others have Halloween stuff up. Also, it doesn't coincide with any large fall/winter break - back home we tend to get several days off for Thanksgiving. They just get a slightly longer weekend here.
The meal's pretty much the same - turkey, sometimes ham, with lots of potatoes, stuffing, yams, rolls, salads, etc.
Several of the families in the area where I'm at have cabins further up north that they take off to on weekends like Thanksgiving.
Many people up here also celebrate US Thanksgiving, though they don't get time off for it. Black Friday's pretty big too (after US Thanksgiving, not Canadian Thanksgiving).
10/5/2015 From Elder Gary Crye - General Conference Weekend miracle
I just want to share a brief experience that happened this week during General Conference. Sunday morning, a member showed us an excerpt from her journal that went something like this:
Oct. 3rd
Conference miracle. Heavenly Father answers prayers.
This week we talked as a family about preparing questions for General Conference. J [her son] is having all these great spiritual experiences in Seminary, and now he has some great questions, but there's one that's really been bothering him: Why am I not happy?
[My husband] and I promised him that he would be able to get an answer from an Apostle if he paid attention to Conference.
It's normally a really big struggle to get the kids to pay attention to General Conference, so today [my husband] and I thought we'd do something a little bit different. We attended Conference at the chapel.
As we all filed in, most of the kids looked like they were about to fall asleep. We pulled out some candy to help them pay attention. J was awake, but not really alert. He was on his phone.
I said a silent prayer, asking Heavenly Father to help J pay attention to Conference.
At that moment, the awesome missionaries got up from across the room and sat next to J. They pulled out their notebooks, ready to learn. J followed their example and sat up straight. He got his notebook out.
The very first talk: President Uchtdorf, an Apostle of the Lord answering his exact question.
Miracle!
Elder Anderson and I did something very simple, but it made a difference.
By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.
Love you too!
-Elder Crye
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