Transferred

September 9, 2013

I'll be going to the doctor this week to sort out my sickness, so I should be fine. Yes I'm taking meds. I'll keep soldiering on no matter what! Elder Gardner has this song on his iPod called Nephi’s' Psalm, performed by the BYU men’s choir. It's given me a lot of encouragement and help lately in increasing my drive to go out and do missionary work. It's been quite tough lately, it seems that all of our investigators are moving to other parts of the country, or to another country entirely! And our finding efforts are less than effective as well. We can't seem to make a return appointment. Lots of people will talk to us; they just don't actually want us to come into their home or to see us ever again. It doesn't help either when you watch the work of salvation broadcast and the prophet and apostles say the exact same thing. Talking about how tracting and street contacting are no longer effective ways of finding, talking about how missionaries could knock doors and talk to people on the street for hours and get nowhere and I'm here like " I could have told you that ages ago!!". If you haven't watched the broadcast, you really should. It talks about how, without the members, our harvest will be meager. We need the members (including you guys) to share the gospel with their dear friends and family, and to refer them to the missionaries. It doesn't need to be anything big, just a simple invite to learn more about our church from the missionaries, or even giving them a pamphlet(which you can get from the missionaries) about the restoration or plan of salvation. It seems really scary and intimidating at first, what if they get offended or weirded out? What if they don't want to talk to me again? The prophet said in the broadcast that a heartfelt testimony and an invitation to learn more about the gospel will never be taken in offense. All you are trying to do is help them and bring more happiness to their life. This week was a little discouraging, we stayed in for a couple of days because I was sick, and the rest were mostly spent working the area, knocking doors and tracting. We had 4 lessons in total this week, which isn't too bad.

Bishop is giving the missionaries the 5th Sunday to talk about the work of salvation broadcast, so hopefully we can inspire the ward to do more missionary work and revive this area through member referrals and member involvement. I hope we get the ability to use Facebook soon, because I know how much England could use it. As soon as we have that, I have a feeling that our work is going to speed up faster than we thought it could. Not much else to talk about, we were on exchange with the district leader the other day and me and Elder Dryden, who is one transfer younger than me and English(from Leeds), have decided that after the mission we're going to get a flat together and attend BYU. And then we could stay at his place when we visit England and they could come up and enjoy beautiful Central Washington and Lake Chelan with us!

September 16, 2013

The suits you sent me with don't fit me anymore! ha ha I'm looking into having them tailored, but it may be cheaper to just buy a new one, for now I got a cheap one at ASDA which looks really nice and we don't wear them that often anyway, so I'll be fine with it for a while. Mom, with the things that I've experienced and with how I have felt, I will never fall away from the church. I have had my testimony tried about as much as it can be. This is not an easy mission. I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and that this is his true church. It's good that you're starting to feel that missionary spirit! I know that as you stand as an example to the rest of the ward of the excitement

and happiness that sharing the gospel brings, others will follow suit. When you share the Gospel, it doesn't need to be a big scary thing that you have to gather yourself for. I recently watched the Leadership broadcast on hastening the work of salvation and it cleared up a lot of things for me. You don't need to be extravagant and overbearing in sharing the gospel. I've personally found, since I've been here, that the most meaningful and not-awkward way to share the gospel is to look for opportunities to lead a conversation to the topic of religion, and then from there you can share a short, powerful statement regarding a principle of the gospel. from there, you can gauge their level of interest and either tell them more, invite them to learn more from the missionaries, or wait for another time when you can comfortably lead a conversation to gospel related topics. Just follow the spirit and don't be afraid to take the conversation there. Be proud of Jesus Christ and what he did for us. Opportunities like this come more often than you think; you just have to look for them. This week was really good, Tuesday we had a really inspiring Zone meeting talking about the commitment pattern and ended the day with a sweet dinner.

September 23, 2013

My new area is awesome! Solihull is a very posh part of the country, so for at least a while I'm living pretty comfy. You'll never believe this, but there are 4 missionaries in Solihull ward and one of the other ones who came in this transfer is Elder Stubbs! My companion is Elder Hoffman. He's way cool and I'm excited to be serving with him. So in this ward it's me, Elder Hoffman, Elder Stubbs, and Elder Lowry (our district leader). I'm so jealous that you guys get to go to the temple! It's interesting; in a way you are doing a lot of what I'm doing with your kids. You have them for a year, to help them to grow and develop. I suppose in a way your helping to shape their attitude and outlook on life and in doing so shaping their future. Your helping people every day just as much as I am. When people recognize you as a member of the church, you are doing missionary work. If people can make that link between you trying to help those children and your religious beliefs, you could be the one to open the doorway of baptism for someone. Matthew 7:16 This week has been pretty standard for opening a new area. STRESSFUL. In getting here, we had my baggage (3 bags weighing about 8,000,000 pounds), Elder Hoffman's baggage (2 bags), and Elder Stubbs' baggage (3 bags).Plus two bikes between four people. It took us about 6 hours of travel and pretty much destroyed us. We spent the rest of the week building furniture and trying to install a washing machine, finding out it's broken and flooding the place, and now waiting for a new one. We’ve just finished all of the furniture yesterday and now we just have to clean all the cardboard, Styrofoam, and plastic off of the floor. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to do some actual missionary work. Fingers crossed.