No Greater Joy

Hello Family!

We are emailing a little early today at the library. Don't know why, but I'm okay with it. It has been much more productive today, and not such a waste of a day like p-days sometimes turn out to be.
I hope everyone liked the picture of the burger. It was the best burger in the world!! Other than In-n-out. It was at this place in downtown Brantford called Admiral, its a burger and sub sandwich place. Which subs are always called Submarines here, which is kind of silly. Canadians do a lot of silly things like that. Anyways, it was called the double bacon cheese burger or something, but it actually had 3 super thick patties on it. So I guess that's another silly thing, because normally a double burger is 2 patties. Then, the bacon was peameal bacon, which is the "real" canadian bacon. Its basically a thick slice of ham that is covered in corn meal. Its really salty. There were 3 slices of that on the burger, which was a little too much, like brown clown's face, but it was still good. The burger was amazing. It was just something you had to take apart and eat. And the fries were amazing, and they fill up a whole take out container full of fries. Anyways... it was good. I should probably stop talking about it.

Last night a younger couple in the ward had us over for dinner... the guy's name is Brett, like me, and we started talking about politics. (which he brought up, and since no one cares about canadian politics, we decided it was okay and justifiable)... We have the exact same political views!! He is an American at heart, he said. And he was a Glenn Beck fan, like me obviously, so the discussion was pretty fun! Then before we were leaving they said we should take a personality test and compare it because we were so similar. His favorite color is blue... like me. His birthday is May 24th, which is 5 days before me. It was all pretty funny because we have so many similarities. It started getting creepy and we had to go, so we will do a real personality test some other time. So, the point of this little story is not to say I added another guy to my list of man-crushes, but its fun to meet people who you get along with so well. My companion at the MTC was like that, Brett Fleming (the guy I just talked about), and I'm sure I'll meet some more.

In President Scott's weekly email, he informed us that we are on track with reaching our goal of getting 65 baptisms this month, because we have 90 baptismal dates. Elder Johnson and I will most likely have 2 baptisms this month. Reema is a woman from India, who has lived in Canada for about 2 years. She came to church a couple weeks ago, and asked us whether she should get divorced... which we can't determine that, so we said she should pray about it. But she has really benefited from feeling the calm and peace that the Holy Spirit brings when you earnestly seek it. She wanted it and needed it, so she felt it. And she was so prepared to meet with us, so she will probably be getting baptized in a couple of weeks. Phil will probably be baptized at the end of the month. His family recently joined, but he wanted to finish the Book of Mormon before getting baptized. He has a strong testimony, and he is just solid all around. He is quitting smoking in preparation, so we just continue to call him and meet with him weekly or more often. It is exciting that we have these 2 baptisms to look forward to!

The biggest thing I've learned this past week, is that there is no greater joy than the joy we feel from doing the Lord's work. The first presidency tells us that in the beginning of Preach My Gospel, and sometimes you want to say "yeah... right!" But all of the pain or frustration that I feel usually stems from selfishness. Sometimes its not, but usually it is. But everyday we teach people, or visit people, or even on days that we just try to find people and it turns out to be unsuccessful, we still tried. And at the end of each day, I feel happy. We tried and we did our best to bring happiness to the people of Brantford. President Hinckley once said "The most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves. The happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others." It is true! Another good quote I love is "Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change." Stop looking at only yourself, or being concerned about ONLY yourself. LOSE YOURSELF in the service of others. I promise there is no greater joy than that which you will feel when you lose yourself in the service of others. That's what the gospel is all about. LOVE others, and treat others the way you would like to be treated.

I'm grateful for all of the birthday wishes and emails. You are all always in my prayers and thoughts. And I'm not just saying that. I literally pray for all of my family and friends by name, along with our investigators, so they turn out to be really long prayers!! But I'm just saying... I'm not lying when I tell you that. I hope I can remain in your prayers, because we all need them daily. The gospel is true. Jesus Christ loves us, He knows us personally, and He died for us. He rose again, and we will one day too. He lives! He has open arms, and He is begging us to turn to Him.

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Brett Simper