Letter 32 - TORONTO!!!!

Hello Everybody!

First off I just want to say how excited I was to find out that our dear friend M.... that Sister Gillins and I were working with was BAPTIZED on Saturday! I'm sad I didn't get to go but I am just so proud of him. I know how hard he must have worked this week to quit smoking. I am so excited to hear what his experience was like!

So I only have an hour on the computers here in this library. I am a slow typer and even slower reader haha so I have to ZIP through reading the emails! PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING!! But I'm sorry if I am horrible with responding to them because my time is limited. Handwritten letters are like the best thing ever just so you know :) I'm glad to hear all is going so well though with soccer and engagement pictures and everything!

Toronto is the promised land. I thought my love for missionary work couldn't get bigger, but coming to Toronto, I found out it could. I find myself eating, drinking, singing, sleeping, EVERYTHING about missionary work - how I can improve, where we should go, how to get the work moving forward. This is all so much fun. I have never met so many amazing people in one week in my entire life.

We are in a bus/street car/subway area so we are literally talking to people all day every day. So much better than having a car I feel. It's so much fun bringing up random conversations and finding a sly way to bring in the gospel. It's like a 24/7 game of spiritual awesomeness. For reals.... I'm beaming right now.

Here is a little bit of Toronto North area:

-There is a barber shop every other shop on the streets haha

-Jamaicans RULE the town - I love them so much

-The biggest, strongest, most intimidating looking people on the bus are the kindest, most spiritual people to talk to.

-The people in our ward represent 70 different countries around the world. We are very diverse

-Our greatest way of finding people is through our ESL class. It's AMAZING. Around 10-12 new people come in every Tuesday and Saturday. I was asked to be desk manager for it, meaning I get to talk to every single person who comes in and try to hand sign what they are supposed to do and where to go. It's such a blast.

-Our apartment was definitely not designed for three sisters to live there haha but we've made it work. We decided that we share the apartment with a hobo named Donovan. If anything happens, we blame it on Donovan.

-But anyways our apartment has the BEST VIEW EVER of the CN-Tower

We have such an amazing ward. Bishop Hamblin and his family are from California. They came to Canada for a 3 year business trip and he ended up getting called to be bishop! He is totally focused on missionary work. The entire ward council is and it makes things SO AMAZING. Our ward mission leader is totally on the ball. We found out that we actually white washed into the area. We haven't had anyone in the Toronto North for three weeks because of an emergency transfer so two companionships were taking over our area while no one was here. This was by far the busiest week I've had on my mission and the most unsuccessful (numbers-wise) of my mission as well. This week will be different. We are totally going to see miracles here.

Whitewashing also means that we had no food in the house either, just random cans and sauces here and there. Good thing Sister Von Niederhausern is a master chef haha. We've survived :)

My companions are awesome! They are great missionaries. This is Sister Marler's last transfer, and Sister Von Niederhausern's second to last. We are going to make sure this is the most miraculous transfer of their entire missions! Sister Nicole Marler is from San Diego California and Sister Serena Von Niederhausern is from Logan and she knows all my frisbee buddies from BYU! We laugh so much in this companionship - I love being in a tri.

Well that's all I have time for. I KNOW this gospel is so true. My understanding of how important this work is has accelerated like none other being in this city. I promise I am going to work until I drop. I will talk to everyone who comes into my path. Every person in this city will know that we are representatives of Jesus Christ. This message truly is good news and I love seeing the faces of people God has been preparing as they ponder upon the things we share with them on the streets. There is no greater call on this earth than missionary work and WE ARE ALL CALLED AS DISCIPLES OF CHRIST!!! The Atonement is real and it is powerful.

I love you all! Have a great week!!!

Love,

Bodine Sister

So I guess I have more time hehe

Crazy story. we decided to go subway contacting to see what it was like. Sister Marler sat down on the subway next to this black man (probably YSA age) and invited him to our church's open house we are having next week. When this woman comes over and stands next to them and starts ripping apart Sister Marler. She was destroying Joseph Smith - yelling loud enough for the entire car to hear - talking about things about him that I for sure have never heard of. Then she started talking to the black man apologizing to him for Sister Marler talking to him because our church is racist. Sister Marler did such a great job of standing her ground, and stating the truth after she backfired something. The lady started yelling at her about harassing the black man and we should be charged for harassing people on the streets, on the TTC, and everywhere else now. The black guy was AWESOME and came back as well by saying things like, "She's not harassing me, you're harassing her!" and "Ya they may not have allowed blacks into their church back then but times are changing".

I have had so much more harsh rejection than I ever have before in this past week. I love it haha. It doesn't feel very good but it is such an eye opener to how powerful this message really is. I was reading Lawrence Corbridge's talk on Joseph Smith in the last General Conference this morning and over and over he talked about the rejection that Christ and Joseph Smith received and answered by saying "Why? Because the truth will always be opposed." I have been seeing that I lot. And as a result I KNOW even more than I already did that this is true. And when you meet someone who agrees and who is willing to listen, it seems to be that much easier to recognize the spirit in that situation.

Missions are so much fun :)