February 9, Email

Hello dear family!
Thanks for the emails. thanks for the prayers for June. thanks for your encouragement! I just love you all so much! I am so proud of you all! Sister Anderson has been sick this week so thats too bad. we ditched a bit of church but I know God understands:) OH yeah mom thanks so much for sending that picture to Sheila! Oh my she loved it! and she gave me two big hugs...one of them she said was from you! Thanks for that! I almost cried! It meant so much to her mom! And the baptism was so wonderful! Lots of people showed up and Sheila was so calm and peaceful and never stopped smiling! so they invited all the sisters who had taken part in teaching her to bare testimony...it was very touching. Others bore testimony as well....including two converts that moved here from Russia....wow! The spirit was very strong and all were edified! wow the church is so true!
Also this week we taught a family! Amazing I know! There is a huge amount of Buremese people who have saught refuge here....( Buremese people are from the country Burma;) haha. dont worry i didnt know that either! They were all refugees in camps in Thailand where they had to live for 12 years untill they could move to Canada. So anyway we have met tons of these beautiful people around here....they are so humble and believe in Jesus Christ....the problem is they have only been around at most for two years so they dont speak good english....but we did an investigation and asked around until we were led to a man named Skari ( funny i know) who just graduated the free english class that the government offers to these people.....so we have taught them twice.....him, and his wife and 5 year old daughter.....they are receptive to the spirit because they are so humble and live simple lives unlike the rest of the canadians around here....sorry that was not very positive i take it back...haha...anyway we have to teach so simply and there is no church materials in thier language so last night we promised him that if he read the Book of Mormon in enlgish daily that the Lord would bless him to understand and improve his enlish... so he says he will continue to pray about the BOM and Joseph Smith till he finds the answer....
In the mean time president is doing what he can to stop the CLA church (Christian Life Assembly) from teaching anti mormon. and also we were invited to talk to some college students about our religion at Trinity Western University located in our area...its a huge christian school. they have a club specifically for "learning about mormons" which we didnt find out tell later that its soul purpose is to "save the mormons souls" yeah...so anyway this school is one of the reasons why they call our area the bible belt. anyway they were very nice to us.....they asked me what it was like growing up in a mormon family....... i got emotional as i told them how wonderful it was and then bore testimony of the church and what it has done for our family and felt very moved by the spirit.....they could not dispute it.....they tried to bring up polygamy...etc.... but we were able to handle it all very well with the help of the Lord....anyway as you can tell i have had plenty of oppurtuinity to strenghthen my testimony! Oh how grateful i am for it! i know this gospel is true! The book of Mormon is the word of God! It has become a treasure in my heart! It is so powerful! i love you all!

love, sister flake