Halifax Mission - Week One

Halifax mission week one

Sunday July 2 to Saturday July 8, 2017

On Sunday July 2, 2017 we went over to the Parkland Stake Centre with our whole family and met with President Kipp Craig to be set apart as Full time missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had some wonderful counsel from President Craig and from some of our children and grandchildren before we were set apart. We had some beautiful blessings pronounced upon us as President Craig set us apart. It was a spiritual feast and we felt that we were able to have a glimpse of heaven that evening.


On Monday, July 3, 2017 we left Calgary to drive across the country and begin our mission in the Halifax Nova Scotia Temple. This is a day that we have looked forward to, planned for, and dreamed about for a long time. We were so excited that the time had come to begin our mission! 

We spent Monday night in Estevan, Saskatchewan. On Tuesday, we drove into the United States with our final destination being Duluth, Minnesota. On the way, we made two stops in North Dakota where Kathy's ancestors had lived their lives. Our first stop was at the Hurricane Lake Lutheran Church where Kathy's great- great-grandparents, Nels and Dora Nelson, were buried. We found their gravestones and saw the remains of the church that they had probably attended. It was so exciting to see the country that they had lived and farmed in! It felt like sacred ground.

Our next stop was in Leeds, North Dakota where Kathy's great-great-grandmother Mary Anderson was buried. We had some difficulty locating her grave because it was behind a big tree (even though we knew it was there because we had seen a picture of it on the "Billion Graves" website). We were praying really, really hard that we would be able to find it because we could see rain clouds moving in. We decided to look one last time in another area that we had gone through a couple of times, but felt we should try one more time. As we looked again, we finally located it and were able to take some pictures of her grave as well as a daughter and a granddaughter's grave. There was also someone else's grave that we thought might be a great-great-great-grandparent! As soon as we were finished taking the pictures, great drops of rain began to fall and the heavens opened! We jumped into the car – perfect timing! We were grateful for our small miracle.

We were blessed with a safe trip across the rest of the country and enjoyed seeing the beauties of this vast land -- from the prairies in Saskatchewan to the beautiful lakes and forest country of the east.


We arrived in Halifax on Saturday morning at 10:30 and went straight to the temple where we began to learn our duties. Fred will be working as the assistant recorder and Kathy will be working in the office. After the temple closed, we went over to our new apartment and moved everything in. That evening, one of the other senior missionary couples invited us for dinner, which was very kind of them since we had no food. After dinner, they took us shopping and showed us their favorite stores. Then we fell exhausted into bed and went to sleep looking out our window at the Halifax Temple – what a beautiful view!


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