Week 17: Thanksgiving, Mystery Soup, And Church Swap

Hola Hermanos y hermanas, como estan? I'm loving life and loving the work, I hope you guys all are too. Alright let's dive into the week.


Gonna start off with a funny story... so apparently there is such thing as a Spanish Canadian redneck. Introducing...... the Cuevas family! I had dinner with them this week, and they live super far outside of the city limits, like a 45 minute drive. Their house is out in the countryside, and they have a bunch of land where they do their  country stuff. We get to their house, and they serve us this soup. Now, if any of you know Elder Curtis, if you put food in front of him, he eats it. Period. Full stop. So I ate The Mystery Soup. Then we gave a lesson, and as I'm driving home, hermana Cuevas texts us and says hey you liked the soup? We said of course. She said good cause that was my children's Pet Rabbit and they're crying right now cause they figured it out. Never in my life had I been put on such an emocional rollercoaster. The soup was gas btw.


A funny fact about Canada: they have Thanksgiving early. Way too early. Like today is Thanksgiving. Apparently the reason is because the harvest is a lot earlier cause on nov 25 or so this place is covered in snow and -40 degrees. Anyway, for Thanksgiving, we went to the pinedas house and it was such a great time. Chowed down on some of the best fare canada has to offer: ham, taters, gravy, the works. I gained a new love for people who have missionaries over for the holidays. If you can, Please do it. It will mean more than you can know.


We've been finding like crazy this week (for Canada, I don't wanna hear about you south american elders haha) each day I think we found someone Spanish and an English person. It's been great to have some fresh perspective in our teaching pool. Shout-out out to Elder Curtis Sr. y también los Dominicanos, we found someone from the DR! Her name is Dehitry, and we taught the restoration and did a church swap on Sunday! We were blessed to go to the nueva esperanza church of Edmonton. What an experience. They love their worship music (no phil wickham :( ) I'm gonna try to attach a video, Idk if it will send.


Because it's Thanksgiving, I've been thinking a lot about gratitude. It's so so so important. I mean, I can't really put it into words how important it is. With gratitude, we can literally choose to be happy. One of my favorite stories in the bible is Job. He got everything taking away from him, but he maintained his faith Because of gratitude for his relationship with God. 
Quote about gratitude I'm gonna paraphrase:
Gratitude turns a meal into a feast and drudgery into delight. It softens our grief and hightens our pleasure. It turns the simple and ordinary into the profound and transcendent.
I think it's jospeh b worthin. Idk. Those of you with Google you can look it up and fact check me haha. Gratitude is the best. Especially when I've been on my mission, I've seen such great blessings when I'm grateful.


That's all folks, have a great week!


Adiós ,
Elder Curtis


Pics
Breakfast this morning
Canada Maple leaves
Morning in Edmonton 
Mexican revolución picture
Yes, I cleaned this kitchen




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 11: My Mission=On Fire (Literally And Figuratively), My New Sensei, And Canadian Food

Image
One of the most beautiful analogies I've ever heard in my life is this: Canada is like if aliens studied America for 30 years, and then tried recreating it. Everything is roughly the same, except for some very important differences. Primarily Food. Once again, mostly the same, except for one crucial Food genre: chips. For some reason, these people (who I have an immense love for) love.... ketchup chips. On everything. Like ketchup flavored lays, cheetos, and a whole bunch of ones I've never even heard of. I have yet to try one, because I'm scared I'll like it. Also, for the first time, I tried Canadian syrup. Now hear me out: I know and believe America is the greatest country on earth. We have the best everything- except syrup. I don't know how people settle for anything else after trying this literal liquid gold. I'm going to find a way to smuggle some home. In other news, me and Elder Girabaldi did some service at a soup kitchen on Wednesday, and we met a man ...
Read more

Week 29: FREEZING

Image
One of the more crazy weeks of the Mission Quick meteorology lesson: way way up north, there is something called the polar votex (basically a big ol cold air mass) When it is being nice it stays in a nice neat circle and keeps all the cold air together. But sometimes it gets weird and wonky, and the air leaks down to where normal people live....... I woke up on Thursday morning and I crack open the balcony to feel the temperature. No joke I could not breathe. I go and check my phone: -29°C. Cold. Very very cold. Over the next couple of days, the whole province of Alberta slowly shut down. On Saturday, we reached a high of -36 and a low of -42. There was talk that we would have to stay inside, but thankfully we didn't have too. Did that stop us? No. We still workin, found 8 new friends to teach, and put Jahir and the Martinez family back on date. The Lord loves effort! Honestly kinda crazy. We haven't been able to meet with them since before Christmas. I didn't know if they ...
Read more

Week 4: One Month Down

Image
Hola everyone. It has now been officially a month and a day since I've been set apart as a missionary. It has also probably been the quickest month of my life. Time has absolutely flown by, and I'm completely ok with that. Every day is filled with gospel and language study, bonding with my district, and the occasional fun random activity. Like last P-day when we went to the Provo temple, which was absolutely incredible. I love the temple, and I was grateful for the opportunity to get outside the MTC boundaries and get out into the real world.  Me and my two comps actually got the opportunity to talk to a guy outside of the temple who was writing a talk about the Holy Ghost. We were able to give him some advice and direct him to some conference talks and also 3rd Nephi 18. It was awesome to be able to see what missionary work is going to be like. Except we'll be speaking a different language, and it'll be -40 degrees outside. Oh Canada, I can't wait! If...
Read more