SNOW IS MELTING!

This week we had so much Asian food!!!!! Yum! :) And I’m exploring the world of food!! I know... crazy. I didn’t know what to get at some of the restaurants so I just pointed at a random one and it ended up being pretty dang good!! :) I am so proud of myself! I am growing up to be a big Sister!! Let’s just hope this trend stays with me throughout my life and not just my mission ;) 

It has gotten pretty warm here!! All the snow is starting to melt off the side walks now! So I was able to wear my flats again instead of my boots!! It feels nice to wear something different for a change! We actually had a lesson outside on a recent-converts porch yesterday! :) Its still only around 3 degrees but it is a lot better then the -20 we were having before!!! 

So Yifan is progressing in the gospel so well! He participates in class all the time and has such good insights!! We are preparing him to go back to China. It is so fun watching him progress so much! He truly was so prepared by the Lord! Our new investigators from last week came to church as well!! :) It was so much fun!! They are like the best people ever!! :) They make me laugh so much! We had a good ol' time! We had a lesson with them later last night and they know Sister Gillins a little too well.. They gave us ice cream!!!!! They give a treat every time we come over!! She was like you can’t go! If you go I'll just be giving your treats away to the other sister!! She's trying to make me jealous!! But I love them!! Last night we had a good question and answer night with them! They are so wonderful and opened minded!! 

I have such a great love for this place. I love being a missionary with all my heart! There are up's and down's and all arounds, but when you really stop and think and remember why you are out serving the Lord it makes things all better again. There is nothing like helping my brothers and sisters have the peace and joy I have felt through the gospel! 

Oh!!! I got to hold brand new baby bunnies!!! They are so stinking cute! They haven't even opened their eyes yet!! They have the cutest little ears and tails!! :) But the one I held went to the bathroom all over me!! This is the second time that has happened in this area!! I thought animals liked me... but nope. At least this time it didn't get all over my clothes and I was able to wash it off right away :) 

Oh man! We also had this awkward moment when we almost met with the elders investigator!! oops... We had a former that we called and set up an appointment with. We showed up and I just had this feeling that it was one of the Elder’s investigators... but we went up to the door anyways. She ended up being asleep so we couldn't come in. I went to call the Elders after that happened to ask if it was their investigator and they pulled up right next to our car to go to an appointment with the same lady at the same exact time!! Awkward!! But all is well now and we know who belongs to who!! :) 

I hope y'all have a great week and God be with you until we meet again!! 

Love, 

Sister Gillins 

Oh my kinder egg surprise gave me a wolf!! So my prediction for transfers is that I am getting sent up north to teach the wolves :) 

KINDER EGG SURPRISE

HONEY, I'M TEACHING!!

This week started off GREAT! We were able to visit with our referral we got from mormon.org. She is amazing!! :D She already knows a ton about our church so it is so much fun to meet with her! We are also teaching her fiancé as well. They are such a fun and cute couple! They have these cute cats! They rescued one of them and it doesn't have any teeth and it’s really scared of everything. But it LOVES me!! :) It usually doesn't come out when people come over but it came out and just sat on my lap!! And our second lesson it was all over Sister Leeson and I! :) I said it’s cause it can feel the Spirit! :D If I could I would probably take it home. But other than the wonderful cats!!! They are awesome!! We were able to teach them about the Plan of Salvation!! It was a really cool lesson. We taught it very simply out of the pamphlet and helped them understand it. At the end they were able to open up and ask us lots of questions. They said they would pray every night together and ask if what we have taught is true and if the Book of Mormon is true! How cool is that?! And they came up with that on their own!! :) So we are really excited for them to keep progressing in the gospel! :) And plus they gave us some honey!! :) Her fiancé owns a bee hive place and makes honey and I told them how cool that was! So when we saw them again they had wrapped up honey for us! :) Oh man they are my favorite!

Tuesday was such a spiritual day for me!! I was on a spiritual high! I felt like the Spirit was guiding me in everything we did that day! In each lesson we gave, the room was just full of the spirit and I had felt like it was Gods words coming out of my mouth instead of my own. That is something I have been praying really hard for. I want to be a better instrument in the hands of the Lord and on Tuesday I was able to just give up what I wanted the lesson to be like and let God use me. :) I am so grateful for all the things I am learning out here on my mission and that I get to be a servant of my Heavenly Father. The work moves along much easier as we let God run the show.

This week we also dropped by some formers! Crazy!! They were trying to convince us of all this stuff.. It was weird. They were trying to tell us that what we were doing is right, but then also telling us that we were wrong.. I was just so confused. The only thing Sister Leeson and I could do was just shake our heads and at the end bear our testimonies and say a prayer. I was actually somewhat frustrated when we came out of the lesson. But Sister Leeson was in such great spirits!! I am so grateful for her!! She wanted to keep talking to people, and that really helped me cause I was just not in the mood. Later that night we met some nice people. They weren't interested but very nice and that helped change my mood.

Oh!! Stephanie had more baby bunnies!! 11 of them!! They are so cute and hairless!! So prepare for more bunny pictures!! :)

We also went on exchanges this week. I went to Oshawa with Sister Anderson! We had such a wonderful time! We walked a lot. Not too many people were out which was sad.. but it felt nice to walk around and not be trapped in a car. We were able to find a wonderful less-active sister and hopefully she will be coming back to church soon!!

I hope you all have a good week and that the Lord is with you!!

Love,

Sister Gillins

Sister Leeson and I had a fun Mustache Monday
I love mustaches...I feel like I could totally pull one off ;) 

We also got creative with our food supply and made ham fried rice!!
 It wasn't too bad if I say so myself!! :D 

mormon.org is COOL!!

This week Jordan made us spaghetti! Yummy! And we were able to have his sister over as well! Who is now engaged!! Woohoo! :) So that was fun. They remind me a lot of my family back at home because they are always play fighting and having fun :) Them and Stephanie’s family really make me think of my family and how blessed I am to have them! We may have wrestling matches and may argue about what is on TV.. but we still really love each other. So I am grateful for that wonderful reminder every once in a while! 

As for our 72 year old investigator, right now we are giving him a break. He isn’t too much into religion he says. But he is willing to look at the Book of Mormon and he studied that and the Bible last time we came over. So we gave him a Restoration pamphlet and told him that we would be back in a few weeks to see how he is doing and what he thought of the pamphlet and he was open to that! Sometimes all we can do is share simply and offer a powerful testimony and let it sit for awhile. Don’t worry!! We aren’t giving up on him. He just needs some time to think and study! 

This week has been a lot of contacting! Which I love!! Sister Leeson is doing awesome as well! She is talking a lot more to the people we meet on the street and she is starting to start up the conversations!! :) She is coming along so well!! :) And it is wonderful because it is getting warmer! The end of this week it has been up to -5 (opposed to -20 from last week) so people will actually take some time to listen to what we have to share. I love giving out mormon.org cards too! It is like handing out $100 or eternal life! Only if people could just understand how important it was! OOOOOHHHHH on that note!! We got a mormon.org referral that actually wants to meet with us and requested a Book of Mormon! Those are sometimes rare. Usually they are pranks from friends, but this girl actually wants one!! :D We are visiting with her tonight! So I will let you know how that goes next week!! :) 

We got to go to Wolfe Island again this week!! It is still as fun as it was last time! :) We still act like little kids and walk around the boat in freezing cold temperatures because it is so cool!! :) Then I tried giving a mormon.org card to someone on the ferry and he denied me... but hey! It happens right!? Life goes on!! And I haven’t been able to play in the snow at all this winter! So Winnie let us go play in her backyard this morning! :) It was so much fun! It looks like there is a ton of snow but most of it is frozen so it was only the top layer we played in. We made snow angels and ran and jumped in it. It was just a ball!! :D 

I love you all and I am so grateful for your prayers!! 

-Sister Gillins 

FINALLY PLAYING IN THE SNOW!

  

SISTER LEESON AND I
LOVE GOING TO WOLFE ISLAND!

I LOVE MY FRIEND WINNIE!

HEY!

Yummy?

Happy Chinese new year everyone!! :) I decided I like Chinese New Year better than our normal one. :) Cause you know how much chocolate I got for my birthday and Christmas? A LOT! So like, how am I supposed to meet my goal of being healthy? I can’t!! But Chinese new years is later... when I already ate all of my chocolate. So now is the time for me to start!! :) 

But Winnie and Monica had us over for the New Year and made us some yummy Chinese food! and some different kind of stuff.. ;) I had veggie chicken... I didn’t like that too much... I think it was just the thought of it. And I had a preserved duck egg. It was black and gross. Not really gross, again more of the mind thing. But everything else I had was super yummy!! :) And I wore red for good luck! 

Stephanie our friend that is teaching me how to survive when natural disasters happen gave us cat-tails to eat. NOT LIKE THE ANIMAL THOUGH! It was the plant! Who knew you could eat them!! You boil them up, salt and butter it and eat it like corn and the cob! It kinda tastes like artichoke! :) So we had some pretty fun things to eat this week! :) 

We were able to visit our 72 year old investigator this week as well. He has had a pretty cool life! He is really smart too! He has like 5 computers at his home! And he uses them all for work.. He’s awesome! Now we just need to be able to fit in a lesson somewhere while we are talking. I am able to throw out a principle here and there but then the conversation goes a different way... But that is what keeps missionary work fun right? 

It has still been stinking cold. No one really wants to talk when it’s cold. But we keep on tracting! :) It has been really fun. I think my favorite is when it snows cause that means that is only about -5 instead of -20 and more people are willing to keep their doors open for longer :) We had a fun day contacting yesterday. I had so much energy! I was almost running up to people wanting to share the gospel. I wish everyone could know. I wish it could be like the old times where I could stand on a soap box and just share the gospel. Maybe I will try that once it gets a little warmer. But for now I will just keep offering to shovel drive ways. 

OH! There is this apartment by the University that has this cut out in the window and I have been dyeing to knock on the door! So yesterday I did. I asked for permission to take a picture with it! No worries, I am being legal and polite! ;) But I think an ex-Mormon lives/lived there.. Idk how they got the cut out. I’ll probably go back and ask for the story when we have a member so we can actually go inside! But how funny is that?

(PS... the cut out is a guy from some Mormon movies) 

And look at my picture…, my new friend "Bear Witness" (haha funny ;D) and I match!! I love matching!! 

Love you all!! Stay warm, or cool... I guess it depends where you are! 

-Sister Gillins 

My "Bear Witness"

How did he get there?

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!
Preserved Duck Egg....(not my favorite...yikes)

eating my survival food....CAT TAIL PLANTS...
kinda tasty....

The Gift of Tongues

So, I got to use my Spanish skills this week! Which is about 1% of what it used to be... which is sad cause I was already really bad before. But all worked out well!! :) We were given a referral of a woman that only speaks Spanish and French. Very little English. But I was able to use a little Spanish to get the point across! And she said she understood my English a lot better than Canadian English! woot woot! ;) It was really cool though. She is such a sweet lady and has a young daughter. She is looking for a church family and I feel like this will be the place for her! :) She was able to come to church this Sunday! It was a little boring for her I think because she didn’t know what anyone was saying... but we have some awesome members that can speak some French who talked to her and set up a play date for their children! The members here are so awesome and do so well in fellowshipping! I love it here!

Oh! The reason I am emailing on Tuesday instead of Monday is cause of family day!! They have a day set aside just for families! So that was really fun to use while tracting.  Except no one let us in... It was like -35 with windchill! Every time some one would open their door my glasses would fog up! So I had to take them off while I was talking to them! One person did let us in though! We were in the home for about 45 seconds until his wife said, "He is just being nice we aren’t interested, leave" well... the warmth was nice while it lasted :) 

We stopped by a potential investigator last night! He is 72 and the cutest old man ever! He got a Book of Mormon while he lived in Poland and says that there is evidence that it is true! :) So we are already off to a good start! I can’t wait to start teaching him! 

Oh ya! So right now Tim Horton’s is having a roll up the rim thing... idk what it really is. But you roll up the rim of your hot chocolate and you may win something!! I won a donut!! Now I never win anything so I am really excited about it! Plus free food!! :) yay me!! 

I love you all!! 

-Sister Gillins 

It's cold out here! -30 today!

I won a free donut! yay me!

BAPTISM!

This week was AMAZING! So many fun and amazing things have happened this week! :) 

First, it has been snowy! Really snowy! And I love it! It is giving me a pretty good work out walking in the snow! It’s not good packing snow though.. so no snowballs :( But it is a lot of fun to play in! We were early to district meeting this week and there was a huge pile of snow over in the corner of the church parking lot. So I climbed it :) All the way to the tippy top! Then Elders came and we all climbed to the top. Some spots weren’t to stable though. It was like quick sand! If you stepped one step out of line you would sink right in! Haha it was a blast! The elders were to lazy to climb back down so they decided to slide down on the backs and bellies and man were they soaked! Sister Leeson and I didn’t really have that choice because of our skirts.. #SisterMissionaryProblems. But all in all it was good fun! :) 

Then we got to take a ride on a ferry to Wolf Island to have dinner with the Branch President. The ferry is the only way to get to the island, and man was it fun! I probably took billions of pictures and videos. Everyone who goes on it everyday probably thought I was crazy but I was having the time of my life! How cool is it to be in your car and on a boat at the same time?! Super cool! :) The water was frozen so they cleared a path so that the ferry could make it across the lake. It reminded me of the Titanic cause it was so cold and if you fell in the water you would probably die!! Burr!! 

We also did some service this week and learned a new sport in the process... its called throwing snow balls at icicles so they don’t fall and kill someone! We spent a good half hour helping people on the street do that! :) And they were so grateful! They said we can come back in a few days when they form again and help out some more ;) Oh the joys of winter!! 

Also there is a new work out called trying to get frozen rain off of everyone’s car!! During church on Sunday there was frozen rain! So we were all out scraping cars for about an hour! The elders were silly and didn’t put on there winter gear.. There ears started to get white!! D: FROST BITE! So dangerous! They wouldn’t listen to us and get in the car.. but they sure did listen to Sister Whitehead! :) I love her so much!! I think she probably saved their ears! 

Don’t worry everyone I am staying very warm!! I layer up like its no ones business! 

Yifan also got baptized on Sunday!! Woot woot! It was an amazing baptism though. We are trying to make the baptismal service shorter and I love doing that. I feel like it makes the baptism more about the person and less about the speakers and the spirit is so much stronger! He was so excited for his baptism the whole time during church! He always laughs at me cause I give a billion high-fives but he humored me yesterday and just kept giving them to me! After he was baptized he had the opportunity to bear his testimony and it was amazing! He still remembers the day we met him. It was the day it was -30 out and he thought we were just asking him for directions.. turns out we were giving him some ;) It has only been a short month since then and he has loved the changes he has made. He loves the church and he loves that everyone tries to remember his name even when they pronounce it wrong (you pronounce it as E-fine) He was able to bear such a strong testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel! He is going to be such a strong member when he returns to China! He will definately help build up the church there :) 

Miracles do happen when we do talk to everyone. God puts people in our paths for reasons. I am so grateful that I took the opportunity to stop and talk with everyone that very cold windy day or we would have never met Yifan. Pray with faith and God will answer. I know that this gospel brings happiness and that our Heavenly Father loves us!! 

Love, 

Sister Gillins 

YIFAN'S BAPTISM DAY!
he is amazing

I climbed the mountain of snow

Ferry ride to Wolf Island....

so much fun!

TWINNERS!

I changed my mind about the animals... A recent-convert in the branch let me hold one of their baby rats while we gave a lesson. Well... in the middle of the lesson the thing tinkled and pooped on me! :( So gross.. But you know what.. It’s alright cause it didn’t faze anyone! Everyone kept going on like normal like nothing happened… after I cleaned myself off and the lesson went very well!! :) But I’m never holding an animal for an entire lesson again! 

So this week I wore my hair “natural” and someone asked me if I had ever read Harry Potter before… and I said "No, but I have seen the movies!!" And they said I would make a great Hermione.. thanks.. and he wasn’t talking about the cute one in the movie..he was talking about the big haired one in the book!! but its okay, they are all just jealous! (Man I love humidity... NOT!)

We had a dinner appointment fall through this week.. so I asked Sister Leeson where we should go to eat for dinner and we both decided on a Chinese buffet!! :) Yummy!! it was so good. we ate till we couldn’t eat any more! and I had Sister Leeson try her first piece of sushi! She liked it :) I feel successful now! 

This week everyone also humored me. :) If you don’t know by now..I will tell you a secret… I love to match and be twins with people and… everyone let me this week! :) Sister Leeson let me even curl her hair so we could be real twins! Then Winnie wanted to match us too so we all matched on Sunday as well! :) But this time I had to straighten my hair to be like the rest of them! We looked so cute. Everyone was like did you mean to match? And we exclaimed,” we sure did!” :) Yifan even matched! Not on purpose though! We asked him how he knew to wear what he did and he said "the spirit told me ;)" haha he is catching on fast! :) 

He is awesome though! In Sunday school our teacher asked us what was similar between all of our converts and we talked about how they are all prepared. At the end of the lesson Yifan was like, "I didn’t know I was prepared! I don’t feel prepared!" he is so awesome and so prepared! If all pans out he will be getting baptized this Sunday! :) 

Something I noticed about winter is that people don’t like to stop to talk to you.. or open their doors all the way.. I don’t blame them! It’s usually around -15 c outside each day. But Yifan is one of the only people who really stopped to talk to us! That’s another reason why he is awesome! But I keep praying that we will find more like him! :) 

Transfers are this Sunday!! Wish us luck! 

Love you all,

Sister Gillins 

TWINNERS

Hermione HARRY POTTER Hair

LOOK AT THE NAME OF THIS SIGN...
The Tragically Hip Way
 Temperatures below freezing
 and a wind chill of deathly!