week 68 part 2

So I'm in Loughborough, pronounced Luff-bra.  It's in Birmingham right below Nottingham.  So I'm kicking it with Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest!  

It's a fairly big city.  It is a University town so there are loads of uni students.  I'm excited to work in a uni town.  I haven't seen this many people in a while so it's quite shocking hahaha.  The flat is really nice.  its small but homey and big enough.  Ours is the one with the blue door.
Elder Gomez (pronounced Elder Gometh) is the man from Spain.  His English is good, he has the classic Spanish accent and it reminds me of Senora Rubio sometimes hahaha.  I should have listened to her better hahaha.  It should be a good transfer for sure! I'm excited.  

It is a ward here and they have a building!!!  The ward is big, I've heard more than 100 people so thats interesting!  I might not like it after being in such a small close knit group i won't know everyone and their dogs lol but I'm going to do my best to get to know everyone the best I can and fast.  They just had a baptism a transfer back and we have 2 to 3 investigators who are working through things, but they are interested in learning.  I'm really quite excited to get to work and to see some miracles and success happen.  

i have some pictures from Milford that I never got to send.

St. David's Cathedral

Our last district meeting in Milford Haven.  I love these elders and sisters!

The William's Family (the mum was somewhere else)

The man himself. the legend of Pembrokeshire. Dr. Dickie 

The Martin Family

week 68 part 1

Today is transfers!  I'm staying in Milford.......just kidding. I'm finally, after 9 months, leaving to go back to England. I'm going to Loughbrough, near Leicester.  I'm follow up training a boy in Elder Dutton's group.  He is from Spain.  

I know that God has a plan for me, I would have never thought of this place and it makes me know that President is called of God and that I'm meant to be here.  I'm excited to be in a new area with a new companion, it's kinda nice.  

This is my new address.

Elder Barton

11 Thomas Street

Loughborough

LE11 1SH

England

We are emailing at a member's house tomorrow, so I'll send a better email then.  We are at the Mac Store at the Bullring now just popping off quick ones to let everyone know. 

week 67

So this is the last time you will hear from me before transfers lol, that sounds pretty dramatic.  YOU'LL NEVER HEAR FROM ME AGAIN! lol  So transfers are Monday this time, so the 29 of October. They have some fancy Mission President meeting on that Wednesday, so Pres. Rasmussen moved transfers. So you will hear from me either Monday or Tuesday! :) happy days.  So last week we had presidents interviews, but I asked President bluntly, "am i going to be here for the open house?" 
and he said, "well Elder how long have you been in Milford Haven now?" 
"9 months sir."  
"no probably not."  
So I'm planning on getting transferred Monday. So what will happen is on Saturday we will get the dodge (the what's up with everyone--who is leaving/staying/new comps, everything). So I have begun packing a bit so I don't have to stay up all night Saturday.  Because Sunday is Stake Conference in Merthyr Tydfill and then we are going to Abberystwyth.  So it's going to be a pretty crazy week.

The weather here is pretty bleek and boring now, about 14 degrees or so and in a couple of days its supposed to drop to about 7 degrees so that's about 45. It will be winter soon!  I love it!
Bro. Dickie is the man!  He is like 94 years old and still going strong!  Like today actually, he took us to see St. David's Cathedral.  It is a beautiful cathedral!  It was way fun!   

Brother Dickie is the oldest member of the branch.  He is a retired GP and he lives alone.  His wife
died a while back.  He goes to the temple 1 week every month.  He is just one of those awesome old funny guys everyone loves.  i don't have a picture of him because he hates pictures lol but when I get one I will send it.


So Milford Haven is seeing miracles.  We got a media referral and so we tried visiting and nothing. So we had a night of appointments and Bro. Dickie  was with us and all our appointments fell through. So we decided to stop by this referral and the mum answered and she was super excited.  She was like, "Oh I love your religion, I've read the Book of Mormon, you are all so pleasant!" And I'm like, "WHAT!!  GOLDEN!"  So she says, "let me go get my son, he was the one that wanted you to come." So he comes down, and this kid is 17 and elect!  The whole family is elect. Well the mum was busy speaking to dad so we taught the kid and invited him to be baptised and he sad YES!  We are seeing him tomorrow and we are going to put him on a date for the 1st of December!  Then we checked the building schedule for the 1st of December and it's free, so we booked it having faith he will say yes!  Oh man I'm sooooo excited!!!!  I'm not going to lie I'm kinda sad that the second we have a golden elect person I'm leaving.  But..this is how I feel.  I have been here 9 months, I've worked hard, and tried to find people.  Now the Lord led us to this elect kid and his family, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity and blessing I had to meet him, becasue it is proof to me that even in a really hard area when it seems "dead" that there are people prepared to hear the gospel and I saw that.  I saw and taught him because the Lord allowed me to, and now I can leave this area happy because I feel like I was led and guided and found the person the Lord wanted me to find.  So I don't need to see the blessings.  I
feel I have left this area better than when I found it so I'm happy.

The chapel is looking really good, it should be handed over the end of November!  Man I'm sooo excited for this area!  It's going to explode and not slow down for a long time! I'm so happy!

I'm loving my mission so far, I'm learning soooo much and trying now to apply and really build habits and my testimony in things by doing them1

week 66

Mission football WAS awesome.  I'm finally not sore anymore from it.  It took a while to recover.  Just a little about some of the other missionaries:  Elder D is from France, he is the district leader and he is pretty cool, he is way funny.  Elder P is
from Arizona and he is a stud and a way hard working missionary.  Sister L is from India!  That's pretty cool, I haven't met her, but she sounds legit.  We just have a way cool district, everybody gets along and loves each other!  It's brilliant!

So I learned how to play some songs on the ukelele.  I have a little collection of songs now. It's pretty awesome, because it's my mission uke-- all my companions have signed it!  So it's just a way cool memory of my mission.

Today is gonna be legit.  We are just gonna chill out, write some letters, clean, eat, sleep, and then tonight we are meeting with a couple of members and we're gonna play some squash, which is just like raquetball, except smaller.  And then have a FHE with the sickest family EVER!!  It's gonna be a good day.  

The chapel is looking soo good!  We get the keys the 23 of November!  It's just around the corner!  I'm soo excited for the branch, they deserve it and need it!

Things are good here, we are working hard and have some solid potentials.  We're going to see them all this week so it will be good.  Hopefully we can get one with a baptismal date.  it will be good!

I have learned that God truly does love us. Just like a parent who does all they can for their children and give them
opportunities to have a good life.  Well I know God is the same way.  He is our loving Heavenly Father,  he gives us opportunities to do things that will make us happy because when we are happy He is.  It's a fact.  In our white missionary handbook it says "your loyalty is first to the Lord, then to your mission president and then to your companion."   It keeps us focused.  If we're not focused on the list,  we can change our efforts a wee bit.

week 65

Sorry I didn't email yesterday.  It was the Thomas S Monson Transfer Football tournament (aka mission football)  so we were in Cardiff all day.  Man it was sooooo muddy because it poured that morning and then it was misty all day but it was so fun to play in--we all were soaked and covered in mud hahaha I scored 3 goals!  It was awesome!

Our little mission footy team!  We rock!!

So conference was awesome!  The announcement!  Oh man that is absolutely crazy.  Missionary work is being pushed so hard and do you know why?  Because it is an experience that will set you up for the rest of your life so they want everyone to have the chance.  I loved Quentin L Cook's talk in the Saturday morning session.  It was really good. That Saturday session really tugged on the ole heart strings and I was able to learn and receive some good insight.


So we left Haverfordwest Saturday morning and got to Cardiff, where the Zone Leaders picked us up and we chilled and got all ready for conference by making our food and stuff.  Then we went to the Saturday morning session at 5pm. hahaha crazy time change!  Then the Zone Leader's did a baptismal interview so we split up with some other missionaries and went out and did some finding.  That was really cool, and cold.  It is most definitely autum time because the leaves are changing colours and it is getting cold!

Then Sunday came and at 10 am we watched the Priesthood session live lol.  Then at 1:00 pm we watched the Saturday afternoon session, and at 5:00 pm we watched the Sunday morning session.  We cant see the Sunday afternoon session because it is at 9:00 pm, so that's kind of lame, but oh well it's a privilege to see what we can.

Monday morning we drove to Cardiff from Ponty Pridd, the ZL's area, and played footy from like 1130 to 1500.  We played hard, our little team of 12, and we got 3rd place out of 4.  Not bad, we could have gotten second but we had to
cut our last game short because we basically got kicked off the field.


I have learned on my mission, especially in the last 3 months or so, to just ask.  You never know what the answer might be--so you might as well just ask it anyway. 


So some news with our District. there are 3 new missionaries coming in on Wednesday. Mid-transfers, from Provo because they had to learn English.   So here is how our district is now:
New Castle-                  Llanelli-

Sister Lafevre                Elder Parham
Sister Benson                Elder Destriboui(DL)

Abberystwyth-                Milford Haven-
Elder Mucca                   Elder Dutton
Elder Quilter                   Me


Since last night was a mid transfer dodge night, here is our new district:
New Castle-                  Llanelli-
Sister Lafevre                 Elder Parham
Sister Lewis                    Elder Kulows

Abberystwyth-                Milford Haven-
Elder Mucca                   Elder Dutton
Elder Destribuoi(DL)     Me

So Elder Destriboui just moved areas in the same district and Sister Benson is opening a brand new area and training a new Sister missionary from Armenia! And they are on bikes! hahaha its absolutely crazy!  

All is well here, we are working hard to get a baptism still this transfer.  I know this week will be good, I'm pumped to be effective, smart, and work hard this week and see what happens.  We are trying this week to hit standard of excellence and hit all of our goals!  It is going to be a good week for sure!

Tomorrow we have a Zone meeting in Swansea, so that will be good.  The Zone leaders will teach us a bit and train us so that will be good!

It's been a good week!  And it will only get better!

week 64

The weather here is... hmmmm...., it's raining and getting cold and soon it will be freezing.  Hahaha oh well it's autumn now so we will prep for a cold winter.

Things are good here.  The chapel is looking amazing and everyone is sooo excited to get in it.  We were able to get a new investigator.  She seemed really excited, well so I heard because I was on exchanges when it happened, which is how it always seems to go down hahaha.  Good things happen when I'm on exchange lol.  But it's all good, she is busy for about a week so we won't be able to see her til next week.  Things are good we just need to find someone to teach this week because I think I told you that this transfer is the Thomas S. Monson transfer.  The goal is to baptise 1 this transfer so we really need to find that person this week so I'm putting everything to God.

For Conference on Saturday and Sunday we are going to Abberystwyth again for the weekend and spend the night with the elders there.  It will be a good week.

I know that this area is being blessed, and i have learned that it isn't about me receiving the blessings, but the area receiving them because the people need it.  This area is being blessed, a chapel, excitement, and then missionaries will reap like crazy!


It will be sooo good!