We had a family of raccoons move in next door. A mom and three little babies. They are so cute but can be very vicious. They came over to eat the shelled peanuts Stan put out for the bluejays. I took pictures of them right through our back sliding door. Martin, our Italian friend told us a story. One time he went to get in his car; on his woodpile were raccoons. He doesn't like them because last year they came at night and killed nine of his chickens. So when he saw them on the woodpile he took a stick and hit one of the little ones, not on purpose, he missed the big one. He then got in his car and drove to town. When he returned, as soon as he got out if the car, the mother raccoon jumped on his back and tried to pull off his scalp. He reached up, grabbed her and threw her on the woodpile. I laughed when he told the story because it sounded funny to me. He said it was really scary.
       We taught Cindy Young another lesson and set a baptism date. So exciting. Marlene also came over this week and said she coming to our church now. She has had two lessons and came to church twice. She is our eighty year old neighbor. Stan and I find little trinkets for her. She loves anything from Africa. I make her close her eyes and hold out her hands before I give it to her. She thinks that's fun. We are all she has..it's sad.
       Last night we took my friend Betty and our friend Jack to a temple session. After the session we went to the sealing of a young couple in our branch who have been married four years. They both had been married before. They had no family to come & support them. However, the young woman's ex husbands' parents came.
        We had a Relief Society salad extravaganza on Wed evening. We went to a cabin on the lake  which was beautiful. Everyone was supposed to bring a salad to share. Twelve people came , three of us made salads. I guess that's how it goes in this branch. Good thing the three of us all made big salads. Many went swimming in the lake, others visited and we ate. I moved the lawn chair I was sitting in out of the sun and nearly fell backwards down the stairs leading up to the cabin. Everyone thought it was funny. I was glad I didn't hurt myself.
          After District meeting on Wednesday we had a nice little meeting with our three zone leaders. We talked about the future of Hope. They said the mission president is sending them out for five weeks (every Wed ) to assess the needs and meet the members in our little branch . Last Wed we went on splits with them . This Wednesday We have made nine appointments for them and us for splits. Three of them are members and the rest are less active. After this week there is no one else to see. So I'm not sure what the plan will be. Two of our most active families are moving and last night my friend and our Relief society president said she is going to move too. That means we are loosing, a counselor in the branch presidency, the young women's president, the elders quorum president, a relief society teacher and the Relief society president all at the same time. Sigh.
           Our branch president and his wife have a fourty year old son who is in the last stages of a cancer battle. It's hard to see them worry and grieve for him. They are driving almost two hours one way to the hospital to sit with him each day and then return home to sleep in their own bed. We are praying for them. It's more than hard to loose a child.
          Stan was able to save a branch member about $200. For a lawn mower repair. She is alone now as her husband is in prison.  So he fixed the mower and then mowed her lawns. Nice guy.
         We need to start organizing for our big  community "food drive ".   It's overwhelming to think about but I'm sure the Lord will help us if we do our part.
          Oh, I'm excited , we have a young less active family in our branch with four children. The mom, Erin, expressed a great desire to learn how to can food. So Stan & I went to the thrift store and Lo and behold we found a very nice canner, a bag of bottle rings, and a pressure cooker . Now I can teach her how to can. That will be fun.
          We found out there is another "real witch " in town. She is a hairdresser and I was told not to go to her. She puts a curse on you while she cuts your hair. She especially doesn't like religious people. She is friends with the other witch and they tried to recruit my friend Betty. They have a caldrun and everything.
          Here in Hope people walk across the street all the time. They never wait or even look for cars, the just walk. There are no crosswalks either. I guess no one ever taught them to look before crossing the street. It's unbelievable.
        I have been reading the best book It's called "The Infininte Atonement."  I am stunned at what our Savior did for us individually. I have learned so much already. My new book love.
         We love being missionaries . Our call here is challenging yet faith building. We have to study and pray a lot and we are asked to do difficult things. We are having experiences we could only have here in British Columbia. The Lord knows us well. He has called us to serve here at this time. It is our constant prayer than we can accomplish what we are here to do.  I try to behave most of the time and we both wear our badges everyday as we try to be good examples for Jesus Christ. The church is true. Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration. Thomas Monson is our living prophet, we need to always listen to him and obey. Our Heavenly Father is a kind and loving father who knows our name. Jesus Christ is His son and our personal Savior. He knows us individually and personally. We are so blessed to have the "good news" of the gospel in our lives. We love you all. Be missionaries wherever you are.
       Lots of love, Elder and Sister Fisher

                                           Some of the free range chicken eggs I washed by hand
                                           on the farm of Fetima & Hussian.

Hussian gathering honey from the bees.

Stan and Hussian building a greenhouse on his organic farm.

Family of raccoons at our back door. a mom and three babies. They look cute but are vicious.

         Every week is eventful and interestering. Nothing is "same old ".  On Tuesday we picked up a hot pizza at the "only pizza place in town" and took it over to our Italian friends, Martin & Amelia. We enjoyed lunch with them as they told us their not falling in love story.  Martin immigrated from Italy to Canada as a young twenty year old. He lived with his brother & wife and worked at the nearby copper mine. When his brother's wife was expecting twins, Martin felt he needed to move out so as not to be a burden. His brother said : "Martin, get married. You need to get married sometime." Martin said he had no one to marry so his brother said Amelia was a good name for a wife. He found a young Italian women named Amelia in Italy. Martin sent her money to come & marry him. She arrived in Canada , they were married that day. That night after the big Italian celebration Martin went to work a 12 hour shift at the copper mine. They have been married 52 years and have four sons. Remember the song from Fiddler on The Roof..."Do you love me "? I will try to take a picture of them this week and post it.
          This week also was a First. After our District meeting on Wednesday , a set of three missionaries came to Hope with us. We spent the rest of the long day visiting our branch members with them. We brought them home for supper before they left to go back to Abbotsford. The mission president has asked them to come & help in Hope for the next four weeks. Every Wednesday.
           Marlene asked me if we're not friends anymore because she skipped church last Sunday. I explained to her a friend is always a friend no matter what. I did tell her she won't get anymore homemade bread until she comes to church. Ha !
            Lucy and I looked through old family pictures from the late 1800's. Her family is royalty from Ireland and owned castles and one of the first cars with a motor. The pictures were funny too.
           Today was "Trash to Tresure " day in Hope. People put all kinds of things out on their curb. People drive by and take what they want. We went out with Betty & Jim but did not find one thing we could use. It's very interesting to see what is put out like a real toilet.
           Tomorrow is church, I am in charge of Sharing Time. I need a new Reverence idea. The Reverence glasses were a hit until one of the Dads ( who has a PH.D. in physiology) told his seven children not to wear the glasses as they were a distraction. These are the kids who bop their head on the pulpit, lay on the Sacrament table, and walk along the padded chairs jumping one to another in the chapel.  And the reverent glasses are a distraction ? Hmmmm. I think tomorrow I will give a gold star to those who are reverent. We shall see what the comments are about that.
         We spent a day on the farm of Hussean & Fetima. Stan helped build a greenhouse while I washed dozens and dozens of fresh brown eggs. It was amazing to me that some of the eggs' shells were all wrinkled. Who would have guessed ? I also learned about beehives & how to gather the honey. Hussean  made a little can of smoke with billows attached. The can was gold colored and looked like the oil can the tin man had in the Wizard of Oz. He would blow a puff of smoke at the bees as he opened their hive. None of them stung him.  It was amazing and very enlightening. I think Stan and I  can have a beehive & make our own honey in the future. I just need to find the oil can smoke blower.
          Oh, this week was our 44th Anniversary. We decided we will celebrate by going on a cruise to the Bahamas when we get home. Yea !
          The gospel is true. It helps us get ourselves and our families back to Heavenly Father where we all want to be. Our Savior's perfect love can do so many things for us that we can't possibly do ourselves. We are forever indebted to him. Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw and sealed his testimony with his blood. The Book of Mormon is true. We are so blessed to have a living prophet  and apostles to guide us today. How truly truly blessed we are. We are part of the Lord's army of missionaries at this time. It is our dream come true to serve the Lord together. We study, we pray, we laugh and cry together. It 's a experience unlike any other in our fourty-four years together. We miss our children & grandchildren but we will gather them all together when we return home . Keep the faith, keep choosing to do right. We love you all so much !
      Elder and Sister Fisher

       
       
     

  

                                         More of the town of Hadley.

                                         The house in the back is made of old windshields.

                                     These are pictures of Hadley, town frozen in the 50's.

The beauties on our morning walks.

 

This is a cute tree on our way to walk the forest. It's growing right out of a dead stump.

      There is the story of the Little Red Hen.  She is here in Hope B.C. Her name is Betty and she is the Relief Society President of our branch.  She can plan an activity, buy the ingredients, cook the food, do the clean-up. Everyone else wants the meal, the craft, the jam or whatever. Even those who don't come to the activities want the end results delivered to their door. What is the little red hen to do?
     We finally were able to teach Marlene a lesson this week after four months. It went well but she was going to come to church today and have a second lesson this afternoon. Zero on both. So disappointing.
      When we visited with Roy, the orgami man, he told me I need to see a shrink. Really ? He said Stan was strong and believed in what he was saying. He also told us there is no agency in this life. No one has choices. Each person does what they do according to the shoes they walk in.
      We had Zone Conference this week and received our mail from the last six weeks. yea !  Zone conference is always a spiritual high. President Burt told a great story about how he and the Bishop , young men & leaders got caught in a deep cave durning a flash flood in Utah. Sister Burt taught how to "enjoy the journey " on our missions . To look at all the little daily things we do as missionaries that make an impact on someone's life. After all day of meetings, Stan & I met with our branch president, our stake president and our mission president. The seating arrangement was the three comrads in a circle with Stan & I as appendages. They explained to us a community food drive we are in charge of.  It was done for the first time last year by the Candian senior couple assigned to Hope who had done food drives in Canada for years.The drive collected 8,000 food items and $2,000 in cash. Stan & I will organize and  work in the community for the same results or better. The mission president says this is a way to get the community to recognize the church. It seems like a daunting task. We asked about the branch youth attending the Baptist church. The branch president made excuses, the stake president said : "the Baptist are good people " and the mission president kept the waters calm deterring the hurricane. We left disappointed.
      So grateful we have the blessing of calling our children each week.
 In our walk through the forest everyday we greet a "Jack Sprat " looking man, who wears women's sweaters with a women's belt around his waist. He smokes a long skinny sweet smelling type of pen and wears a straw hat with a blue band around it. He must be 100 years old.
      On Saturday we took Betty & Jim 200 miles up the road to an interesting little gold mining town called Hadley. It was a flashback in a time machine to the 1950's with many 1970's beatnicks smoking pot. Betty & I walked the streets taking pictures & commenting on how unreal the place was. Stan and Jim were unimpressed but Betty and I had so much fun.We ate lunch at the only restaurant in town which had a hamburger& fries for $20 bucks each. We also drove to a place that had fresh fruits & vegetables at little shops right next to each other. They were  all owned & employed by East Indians in turbans. Cherries were 5.99 a pound and asparagus 8.99 a pound. I miss America.
       Durning sacrament meeting yesterday the mom of seven children ranging from 12 to 1 years gave them all cherrios.  They went to the front of the chapel sat on the floor, colored pictures, ate cherrios and fought .  The dad sat out in the foyea & the mother ignored the children. After the meeting when I saw the huge mess of smashed cherrios & torn silvers of crayon papers;  I said to the mother, pointing to the floor, " you will need to vacuume this before you go home today. This is unacceptable for the Lord's house".  She looked at me and blinked her eyes. One of her sons durning Primary went to the women's bathroom and squirted pee everywhere. The bathroom is across from the primary room and he didn't bother to close the door.  Stan & I  clean the church every week. Yea again.
      Along with the trials are great spiritual experiences. Our testimonies are solid, our faith ever strong. We are happy to be doing the best we can in this little part if the Lord's vineyard. Whatever He has in mind for us to do, we will do it ;be it cleaning the church or loving the lost wanderer.
    Oh, I forgot to tell you about Shake Races. We took a mom & her three daughters to McDonalds and had shake races  until we had brain freeze & laughed ourselves silly. This family has many trials and needed a happy day. The mom drove 45 minutes each way to come.
      The gospel is true, the Book of Mormon is true. We have a loving Heavenly Father and a Precious Savior and Reedemer, Jesus Christ. Hold to the rod in this frightful world and be safe.
    We love you all.
    Elder and sister Fisher

Sooo  tired tonight.  Please check back tomorrow for this weeks' letter.


I have to go clean the church & then go to bed.


C U tomorrow.

This forest is filled with blooming bushes.

Our General Store

near where we live.

Another  beautiful waterfall.

Roy. helping us hunt for "nook-shooks"

Primary Reverent glasses. 
We are missing six children here.

Our friend Henry.

        Today, June 4th it's 94 degrees with 70 % humidity..Weeee !  We went to Chilliwack to join with missionaries & members in a tracting blitz. I went with a member of the Chilliwack ward. She is a returned missionary from Chili. We knocked 25 doors, talked  to a few, invited many & melted in the hot sun.  Stan went with another young missionary. They tracted about 15 doors with one who would listen to them.  Later we rejoined the others for a Bbq at the church.
          Our friend Jack, asked me to hem his temple pants & He didn't feel well another day so instead of having him over, we took dinner to him. I guess this is part of the work as Senior missionaries.
         Lucy ( my atheist friend) & I had a good visit. We laughed ourselves silly about hiding chocolate in our sock drawer while Stan serenaded us with the piano in the background.
      Oh, we went "nook-shooking" with our philosopher friend, Roy. He's the orgami man who believes there is no Satan. We spent two hours hiking up & down mountains to get to the rivers edge looking for the nooks and shooks. Next time he will show us how to put them together. He gave me a big "dark " chocolate bar. He knows I'm a bit of a chocolate fan. We invited him to a dinner party. He was shocked someone would invite him to dinner. When he declined , I asked him if he was afraid we would turn him into a Mormon. He laughed but still didn't go.
      Although, Marlene went to the dinner and had quite a good time. She also came to church on Sunday. She comes over to our apartment when she sees we are home. She slugs me often; I think it's what I say . Today she brought us fresh strawberries. Yummy. We're hoping she comes to church tomorrow too.
     Ohhhhh.... We have a new manager in our apartment complex. We have nick-named her "the
Spy". One morning I was upstairs, Stan went out the sliding door to give peanuts to the bluejays, which by the way, we now have four bluejay friends that come over everyday. Anyway, the sliding door locked behind Stan. He jumped the neighbor's fence to come in the front door (in his suit ). The " spy " saw him out her window which is on the other side of our apt. She told all the neighbors what he was doing. Really? that could give him a bad reputation. We have a big picture window which she keeps walking by to stare at us. I have my camera ready. The next time she does that ,I'm going to take her picture. Ha !
       Ah,  I was invited to the family history center on Thursday in Abbotsford which is about an hour & half away.  The two head family history gruru 's of the Stake came on Sunday to teach those who wanted to learn how to do family history. I met with the head guy for over an hour. He is a kind Japenese man. He is so used to helping first , second and third generations of converts find tons of temple work to be done in their family tree. He said he had never seen such a challenging family tree as mine. He couldn't find anyone who's work wasn't done. He took a picture of my tree and took it home to break the challenge. Monday morning he called  so excited & invited me to meet with him on Thursday to show me he broke "the case". He had to go back to the 1500's to find a name to do . He was successful & so happy. So we worked together for two hours finding a Widmer (my mother's side )  family in Drentister , Bern, Switzerland  to do Ordinances for. We were shaking hands, patting each other on the back , and high-five-ing as we found 20 ordinances I can take to the temple to complete. Who would have thought family history could be so fun !  He wants me to return for two more weeks to teach me more. We will see what our schedule allows. I wanted to learn so I can set up a family history class on Thursdays at the branch for my non- members friends. Lucy, Marlene and Christine are all interested. Jack wants to come too.
       The mission president called today. We will have zone conference on Wednesday in Abbotsford. He made an appointment for us to meet afterward with him, the stake president and our branch president. Woah !!! I wonder what trouble I am in now. We shall see.
       The work here is hard. We have to think outside the box to find ways to bring Christ into the lives of the people. Stan & I have a new game going.... We see how many people we can smile & wave at  who will shoot us "I could kill you " look.  But our goal is to do just what we can to bring the light of the gospel into the lives of others. So we rise everyday with faith & prayers to be ready for the task as our hearts are willing. We love our Heavenly Father, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and missionary work. This is the time we have set aside in our lives to do what we can to help build the kingdom. We are trying our best to follow the spirit, be an instrument for the Lord, and bloom where we have been planted.  We love you all,
      Elder and Sister Fisher