First Day In Calgary

Hola!I made it safely to Calgary. We landed around 1 yesterday and the mission president and his wife met us at the airport. We went to the mission home and had some orientation meetings during the day. We had dinner together and then had a testimony meeting in the evening at a local chapel. The mission president and his wife are both very nice and have been very welcoming. There were 19 new elders that came from the MTC plus 5 more elders that are from canada and have been called to US missions, but are having trouble getting visas. They've decided to spend the first 6 weeks of their missions here in this mission while they wait. We all slept in the basement of the mission home last night on matresses and then woke up this morning and there was transfers for the missionaries. Everyone met in the parking lot of the church and talked for a while and then left their seperate ways. TOday I've just been unpacking and buying groceries. There are 13 spanish elders right now in the mission. All of them except 2 are in the areas aroudn the city. Two elders are in lethbridge, which is a couple hours south. Elder Walker from Saint George from my district is now in lethbridge. In lethbridge they translate at church for the members and in the city of calgary there's a chapel and a branch for spanish speakers. I'm in the Calgary East Stake adn we attend a spanish ward which has over 100 members. Elder Chunn from my district at the MTC is in the adjacent area and we attend the same ward on sundays. We also go to dinner with him and his companion i believe most of the time, so that will be good to see him often. The ward that Elder Chunn and our companions are in is supposed to be very strong which is graet. Pretty much all of our trainers have been out for about a year in the mission. My new companion is Elder zoltan from california. He has been in this area for 6 weeks and his last companion just finished his mission. He's still getting used to the area, but he seems liek a great missionary and I'm sure he'll be a great trainer for me. We met the other 7 spanish elders and President Archibald said that they're all strong and great elders. Everything is goign well. I'm excited to be here and start working with real people. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve.Thank you for the package from memaw and papa, I got it this mornign at the transfer meeting. All mail should be sent to the mission office because I'll be close and the zone leaders pick it up adn distribute it often. The address is: 7044 Farrell Rd SE Calgary, Alberta T2H 0T2CanadaI think it is around 1 dollar though to send a letter though- or 2 stamps should be good. We live very close to the library adn that's where I'll email every Wednesday, which is normally the preparation day. As far as the missionary work goes, we have a good number of investigators and I'll go to my first appointment tonight. We also have our first dinner appointment so hopefully the food won't be too spicy. The new mission president is really stressing member referrals, especially with us because we only teach spanish speakers, and so there are some programs that he's instituted and new ways that we go about obtaining those referrals and encouraging the members. I don't think we really will be doing any tracting at all unless we absolutely don't have anything else to do. THe members in the ward are supposed to be very active and engaged with finding people for us to teach. We live in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor, but it's pretty roomy and spacious. I don't really have any other news other than that everythings going well. I'm excited to teach my first lesson and that I'll have a lot of members to interact with and practice the language with. A cool experience was on the plane from salt lake there was 3 canadian olympic team hockey players. One is captain of the phoenix coyotes, one is captain of teh san jose sharks, and i forget who the other one played for. There were 45 seats on the plane adn 21 missionaries. Elder Chunn sat next to the one from the phoenix coyotes and taught him the first and second lessons and they discussed religion the entire flight. He gave him a BOM pass along card adn committed him to read it. Elder Chunn was probably the only elder who really knew anything about hockey on the flight and struck up conversation with him before introducing the gospel. I don't feel that it was a coincidence that Elder Chunn sat next to him and was able to establish a discussion with him about hocket and then progressing to religion. I know that there are no coincidences in this work. I really don't have much more news other than to pray for me and wish me luck. Over the next couple days we're goign to be meeting the investigators and since my companion is fairly new he wants to try to make contact with all the members in our area, active and non-active. Thank you for all of your love and support. How grateful I am to be here! Love, Elder Dunlap