week 72

Things in "Lufbra" are well good!  We are teaching that one solid investigator, the uni student that referred herself and went to the temple and everything.  Well  we committed her to a date and she will be baptised the 15th of December!  I'm so excited for her. She has soo many trials with her family not wanting her to do it, but she has prayed about it, and she knows it's true so she is going forward with it!  She came to church yesterday and was like I got my answer and I'm going to get baptised.  i feel 100% commited right now! 

So now we are working on making sure she is ready and knows everything lol.  I'm soooo excited for her!

i enjoyed Thanksgiving with a nice spaghetti bolognagse hahaha. It was really good! I'm just grateful that we had a place to eat and that the members are so nice to us.  i love the food here, we are having breakfast for dinner on Friday which is a weird thing for this family hahaha but I told them it's good so I'll convert them!

We are working way hard in this area and the Lord is blessing us with amazing investigators, dinner appointments, and the members love us.  And it's all because we are being obedient and diligent!  I love it!  

So right now we are in an internet cafe in Leicester because we are playing footy today!  Hahaha sweet p-day!

Shout out to Katie and Cameron!  I love and miss them so much!  

This week will be good we have a dinner appointment every night so I'm being taken care of.

We have solid people to teach and the Lord is just blessing us!

I love it!

week 71

Thank you so much for the Christmas coat, it is soooo amazing!  I'm warm and ever since I've gotten it I've never been wet!  So it's amazing!  The christmas decos are already halfway up in town centre.  It's Christmas Season, so the decorations come out and the music is blasting!  Is Thanksgiving Thursday?  I don't even know when it is hahaha, we don't really have any plans.  I think we have a dinner appointment, but if not we will make all the food you sent me and enjoy! lol it will be good!  I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving with all the family, give them all my love!

 

Things are good here in Loughborough!  We are focusing this week on working hard, smart and really following the direction from the Lord on what to do.  We have 3 pretty solid investigators. I love this area. The Lord is truly blessing us and I recognise his hand in it because there are miracles happening.  The Lord is truly blessing us and it is kind of nice to be seeing the miracles.   Here is some good news from Milford Haven, the chapel is almost finished (should be next week) and also they got 6 new investigators last week!!  AWESOME!!  That area is exploding!  So our investigator comes to church every week, she comes to institute, and we teach her twice a week!  She is really good and progressing really well.  I hope and pray that she recognises why it's essential to be baptised and how it can bring joy to her life.  We have these investigators and we are going to be seeking advise from the Lord on what they need, and if and when He feels they are ready for baptism.  The mission right now is stressing meeting our goal of 235 baptisms by the end of 2012 and we need 41, so its a big topic and I will baptise the people in the Lord's time so they can really receive the blessings of the church and prepare to go to the temple.  It's good!  I'm loving "Lufbra"!  The members love us, the people are awesome!  It's just great! 

 

The missionary force in Europe is going to explode!  President was saying  there are about 3,000 missionaries in Europe at the moment, and in the next months there will be around 5,000 missionaries!  So in the next months we will be getting about 70 new missionaries!  It's absolutely crazy!  And they will be so young!   

 

 I love the mission because I learn so many awesome life lessons that will help me so much in my life after the mission.  I think I might train again next transfer with the huge group coming in, but we will see.  It's already the 3rd week of the transfer, so things are flying! 

 

Things are good over here behind the blue door!

week 70

Elder Kerr, an Area Seventy, came and spoke to us this week.  He said we are amazing missionaries, we are all doing a fabulous job and there aren't any huge changes we need to make--just little 1 degree changes and it will make all the difference.  I know this to be true, like the scriptures say by SMALL and SIMPLE things are great things brought to pass.  If we focus on the basics that we need to improve on, everything will fall into place.  I know it!

Another thing we talked about was agency.  People have their agency to act and no matter what we do they have the freedom to choose.  Even though we are the best examples and do everything right they can still choose to got he other way.  Often those people have chosen to go down a path they think will bring happiness when in reality it will only bring them regret and guilt and pain.  Obedience and dilligence bring happiness.  i know that to be true. 

"On it like a dog on rhubarb" is just a silly brit saying and yes I know what rhubarb is.  It is a plant and the british love it.  I love rhubarb now. rhubarb and custard or rhubarb cobbler.  It's all good! 

I love this area!  We cover the whole city of Loughborough and the uni is smack in the middle. We kind of live far east of the town and kind of in a rubbish location, far from everything lol but its ok.  The members are great, the bishop is the man and the whole ward supports missionaries in a positive way.  This ward seems to be really good and recognise hard work and respect it.  We do ride bikes, not as much as I would like but we do.  It's just an area that has loads of potential.  

So miracle of the week......

We got a media referral from a girl saying she wanted a Book of Mormon, so we go to contact this girl and she lives in the dorms at uni so were like flip all we have is a building, no number.  So we speak to the main man in charge, and for safety reasons he can't tell us anything, only that 300 students lived here hahaha!!  So we just pray we will be able to get a hold of her.  Well we get a call from the institute teacher saying he got an e-mail from a girl who wants to go to institute, it was this girl!!!  She went on a study abroad to the Ukraine and she met the missionaries and gave her a book and she read it and then stopped because she got busy with studies.  She went to the Ukraine temple and loved it, curious to know what happens inside.  So she came back and wants to be more involved in the church. So we saw her at institute, she is way cool, we taught her 2 days later and she has watched Joseph Smith:Prophet of the Restoration and she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet, she knows the Book of Mormon is true and she came to church yesterday and she loved it, so we are seeing her on Tuesday!  She is AWESOME! 

The Lord is great!  He really blessed us with an amazing investigator!

week 69

It's been a good first week. Transfers being on Monday kinda threw off my groove and it was a long week, but it's ok because now it's just a normal week! So it will be good. 

 

The ward seems really good.  The ward is pretty big compared to Milford lol It's about 150 people or so.  All the members are really young and middle aged.  There are no singles at all reallly, all young married students,  There is just one ward in Loughborough but there are more in Nottingham, becuse there is a big uni there as well.  We get fed basically every day so that's pretty awesome and it's good food as well.  We have a lady who is our dinner coordinator  and she is on it like a dog on rubarb lol.  We had fast sunday and I got up to bear my testimony and afterward loads of the members came up to me and said, "i thought you were English until you said you were from california" hahaha YES!!! I have a little British accent!  It's so totally awesome!  I'm gonna sound British when i come home! 

 

Our flat is pretty awesome, we are in the process of re arranging the flat so it is looking quite cozy and homey.  We have a fireplace so we are getting wood and making some fires and keeping warm. So I'm happy.

 

I have only been able to see 1 of the investigators.  He is 13 and Chinese. and he doesn't speak much English so we are teaching him English and teaching with English leaflets and Chinese leaflets and teach side by side.  It's working well. We were there last night and the parents came out and slapped this meal in front of us and we ate this really good, rice and ,meat and I learned im pathetic at using chop sticks but I finally finished. 

 

I know obedience brings blessings not only for me but others and when I'm obedient and hard working it shows my love for the Lord.  I feel that I have two years to devote all my time to show the Lord my appreciation for him, so I'm going to work hard and be obedient and show him it is important to me.  I have gained a strong witness and testimony of how if I dont work hard, if I'm not obedient and so on, then I'm denying not only myself, but others, blessings of salvation.  Understanding this and learning it has changed my whole perspective on the mission and I think I can finish working hard knowing I'm doing it right. 

 

I love this area and I love my mission. I am learning so many things I know i will be able to use when I get home.