2 months in Toronto!‏

Dear family and friends,

How are you all doing?

As of tonight I would have been here for 2 months! I am having a really good time here in Canada. We have been working hard and talking to a lot of people everyday. I know that I have the help of God as I speak and the Holy Ghost speaks the message to that person's spirit. It is humbling to see that some people's attitude changes from rejecting to welcoming as the conversation goes on. It is not my eloquence but my obedience that does the work. Those people are the ones who recognize the authority that we represent and power that comes from the Holy Ghost through our voices.

It has been really busy and I had no time to write in my journal this week. Our investigator Lenny is 

trying to quit smoking so that he can be baptized on the 3rd of November. We are really excited for him and hopefully by next week he will be baptized. I will keep it updated.

Have a good week everyone.

Elder Lee

October 21, 2013

Dear family and friends,

This week has been another good week. The work is still going strong! How are you all?

Something special that happened this week was the Toronto Stake stake conference. It was good to hear from the authorities and it was my first time attending Saturday night adult session. It was also exciting to finally see the Cantonese and Mandarin missionaries in the stake. There was a couple of them that attended BYU: Elder Moore, Elder Hendricks and Sister Hsiung! I also met Elder Lai that is from the Ma On Shan Ward back home. I can tell that they are great missionaries and it will be awesome to work with them in the future.

I also met a recently returned missionary, Nathan Lim, who served in HK and has been back for 10 days now. It was great to speak Cantonese with him. The Lim kids are half Chinese and they are just awesome. They always love to help the missionaries in the ward.

I am so grateful for the help that I am receiving everyday by our Heavenly Father. We have been teaching along with members a ton. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn the gospel in my life especially when I see the people we teach struggle with their lives. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the way that the Lord has set up for us to be happy. 

1. Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement

2. Repentance

3. Baptism by Authority

4. Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost

5. ENDURE TO THE END

I have come to realize more and more each day that this is the way of life that the Lord promises us that we can be happy if we live it. Trials will still come but you WILL be happy with you live it.

It's so real.

I know that this Church is more than just a religion. It's all about God. Being a member of His Church is not just showing a belief, but infinitely more importantly is to LIVE the life of a Saint, someone that strives to follow Jesus Christ and learn TRUTH.

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Lee

A good week!

Dear family and friends,

This week has been good! We worked hard and were obedient. My companion and I achieved something in the mission called the Standards of Excellence. We have been working hard since the start of my mission and finally we achieved it this week for the first time. The Lord has promised our mission that if we are obedient we will achieve it and it has strengthened my faith in Him that He keeps His promise.

We doubled our teaching pool last week and now we are pretty busy teaching. We are truly grateful for the progress that we are seeing in our area. We are going to try our best to help them go into the waters of baptism.

We taught a lesson yesterday that was filled with the Holy Ghost. He gave us revelations of what we should say to them during the lesson. I know that Heavenly Father cares about the area and He truly gives us revelations of how we can help our investigators. This is His work.

Sorry for the short letter. Hopefully there's more time to share this week. 

Love,

Elder Lee

Conference Week‏

Dear family and friends,

This past week was a special week because of General Conference. All the work is done focusing on conference. We invited everyone to come and watch at the chapel or watch it online. We would just go up to a person on the street, introduce the prophet and invite them to church.

I have never been so excited about conference. As a missionary, I realize that what they teach during general conference was what I am going to be using in my teaching appointments. There were many talks that were inspiring and quotes that I am absolutely going to use when I teach. 10 hours of watching conference went by very fast as I enjoyed all of them a lot.

Our investigators have been progressing and two of them had set a date for baptism this month. We will try our best to help them achieve that goal. Satan is working hard on them and it is so crucial to let them feel confident in overcoming temptations. We had three investigators attend general conference this week. Nancy (the old Jamaican lady) enjoyed it very much and although she does not have a date for baptism yet, I believe that she is very close. She had many concerns before watching conference, particularly about Joseph Smith, and they were answered very quickly during the first 10 minutes of it. Heavenly Father knows what needs to be said to everyone and he does it through the inspired words from the speakers.

So that's this week. Next week will be Canadian Thanksgiving so preparation day will be on Wednesday instead of Monday. I will be online at about the same time (11am-1pm) and the same email (ernest.lee@myldsmail.net) if you want to chat.

Missionary work is great, especially here in Toronto where you can meet people from literally all countries around the world. By the way, the weather is getting cooler but a suit coat is still optional...

Anyway, talk to you next week! Keep praying.

Elder Lee

2nd Month in Ontario begins!‏

Dear family and friends,

How are all of you doing? How's work/school?

So my first month in Ontario ended two days ago. It was a good month. We worked hard so I feel like it went by really quick. However, it also felt very long because we did so much here. Living in the MTC seemed like a long time ago. As missionaries, we truly strive to use every second of our time wisely. There's no time to waste!

So the top news of the week is that Lindsey got confirmed! It was my first time laying hands on someone's head for confirmation in front of a congregation. It felt great and I'm excited for her. We will keep visiting her but it's going to be less than before obviously. We are going to focus more on our current investigators and Nancy is one of them.

Nancy is a super nice lady from Jamaica and she came to Canada a long time ago and she is at least 75 years old. She goes to another church and luckily their service is on Saturday. She came to sacrament meeting yesterday and I was surprised of how many member came up to her and greeted her. She felt welcomed and I think she would like to come again. She doesn't quite understand the difference between the two churches. That kind of worried me at the beginning. Then I realized that it actually makes our job easier because if she likes the members of the true church better than the false one than it'll be pretty easy for her to get baptized. Then we can teach her the real difference between the churches(i.e. priesthood), and also the how the doctrines different.

We also taught this Bengali, Muslim family yesterday. They were contacted 7 years ago and they were surprised that after all those years missionaries still keep track of them. So we taught them about the restoration and they said they would be baptized on the 27 of Oct if they find out that the Book of Mormon is true. It is going to be interesting to see.

Elder Cowley left the companionship on Tuesday and it at first it was a little weird to serve with just Elder Binford here in Don Mills North. It forced me to talk even more and it was good practice.

Also, we went to the temple on Saturday and it was neat. Temple trips are every 6 months and you have to be close to Brampton in order to go. It was a rare occasion and I am grateful for that.

Also, I looked up a map and I found out that from our balcony we can see the New York on a clear morning across Lake Ontario. So that was pretty cool.

Anyway, the work is great. I am doing fine and there is no need to worry. I am loving the missionary life and I am glad that I still have 95 weeks to do this amazing work. I know that I am doing the work of God. See you next week.

Love,

      Elder Lee

First Transfer ends!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

My first transfer in Toronto is over! Even though it was 4 weeks instead of the normal 6, I feel like I've been here for a long time now. Elder Cowley is getting transferred away so it's just going to be me and Elder Binford for at least 6 more weeks now. The tri-panionship is over and it will take a while before I'll get used to a normal companionship again.

Best thing that happened yesterday/this week/this transfer was that Lindsey was BAPTIZED!!! She has finally found her way into the waters of baptism. She has been very nervous about the baptism for the past two weeks. All the members in the ward are extremely friendly and that played a major, MAJOR, role in her conversion process. It is very nice to know that the ward is supporting missionaries and the work. I don't think that she will have any problems with going to church now, even without the missionaries. I spoke during Lindsey's baptism and it went great. After which we went upstairs to baptize her. She was so nervous to get in the water even after the doors were open and everyone was just staring and waiting quietly. It took her about a whole minute before she finally started walking into the font. When Elder Cowley started the prayer I was nervous. She is my first baptism! The baptism went well and then she bore her testimony for the first time afterwards. She started with "Hi, I'm Lindsey. And I'm a Mormon" Everyone laughed and it made us feel good because we know that the ward loves her already. I could tell that she definitely felt the Spirit when she bore her testimony. She told everyone that she felt a surge of energy in her right when she stepped out of the water.

I know that the power of baptism is real without any doubt. Sins can be washed away and I believe that that is THE REASON why she felt a surge of energy because the spirit within her can finally put down all of her burdens.

I cannot wait till next Sunday when she will receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She is going to be a great newest member of the Christ's church.

I want to tell you, my friends, that I know for a fact that this church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is TRUE and the ONLY TRUE church on this planet. Trust in God and He will tell you that same fact that I came to know for myself. Ask him sincerely if this is the true church. I cannot deny that the Book of Mormon IS THE WORD OF GOD and that this is His church. In the name of Christ, Amen.

Love, 

Elder Lee

September 17, 2013

Dear family and friends,

This week has been pretty normal. Nevertheless, we would always come home tired and ready to sleep so I didn't write in my journal. I don't quite remember what happened this week but I'll try to write them down.

We met with Lenny and Lindsey lots of times this week. Lenny was scheduled to be baptized on the 22nd. We basically contacted him everyday for the past week. He is trying really hard to stop smoking. Two days ago we took him for a  walk to the beach(of Lake Ontario) and was trying to get his mind off of smoking. Sadly, a couple hours after we left we called him and he said he gave in to temptation and smoked. After that he hasn't been answering his phone and I'm really not sure if he can be baptized this month. Lindsey, however is doing really well. Her faith is growing stronger everyday and she is very in tune with the Spirit. She is going to be great after she becomes a member of Christ's church. She is also trying to quit smoking and coffee this week.

The members of this ward has been really nice to missionaries and has fed us twice this week, plus one more tonight! It is a great feeling to know that members are involved in missionary work and that they care about us and the people we teach.

We also talked to some interesting people this week. There was this philosophy guy that claims that he argues for a living. He met him on the bus and he would not humble himself and listen to us. He went on explaining his theories for about half an hour. Just when we thought we would leave, another guy came up and claims that he has communicated with God and he told him that people are saved by just grace and not by work. We tried to explain to him that we will be judged according to our works and desires. Again, another prideful person that wouldn't humble himself unto God. The good news was that while we were talking to the second guy, a man named David came up and he was very humble and he truly wants to learn instead of arguing. We are going to contact him later and hopefully he will accept the true doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Keep praying and keep reading the Book of Mormon my friends, 'tis true.

Elder Lee

 Lindsey's last cup of coffee and last cigarette and Elder Binford...

Apparently name tag pictures are a thing