Small Answer to Prayer

 

 

SOOOoooooo this last week has been pretty basic! Same day almost every day of waking up and getting ready and trying to find people to teach. Its super hard to find people here no one seems to be interested in our messages. It was Elder Halls birthday on Saturday and we had a party at the chapel with the Spanish families. It was so fun and it reminded me of family reunions. So I've been learning a bit more Spanish, mostly just phrases, my favourite is Estoy Guapo. I don't know if that's how you spell it but its my favourite. So yesterday was a bit different. We went to Edgar and Caties house and ate some really good food like always then we taught Edgar English and he taught us Spanish. I think he friended me on facebook so yeah that was cool. After that we had a long bike ride back to the flat to get some things and after that we had to ride about 4 miles to another area. A mile of that was super uphill and I knew it. So when we got to the flat I went into the bathroom and just sat on the toilet to catch my breath cause we live on top of a hill. I decided to say a prayer to have the strength to cycle the rest of the night, my legs were on fire too I could hardly walk. On the way out we started cycling. About a mile in I realized I wasn't even tired. We got to the hill and I cycled the entire thing and felt great. My legs didn't hurt after or anything. It was a blessing mostly cause if I had walked it we would have been late by maybe 20 minutes. I know that's just a small part of the blessings I receive.  I also prayed for someone we could teach because we still hadn't found anyone to teach. We decided to try a house and ended up teaching a 74 year old man about the plan of salvation. It was great. Then when we got back we watched the 17 miracles. It turned out to be a super fun day:) Anyways that's all that's happened this week really. I hope this next week we will be able to teach more. we are meeting with Edward the 74 year old man on Wednesday so we'll see where that takes us. I hope everything at home is going good! Maybe I'll send a package with cool stuff back one day but holy flip its expensive.

Love you guys!!!

We love our Ward Members!

Sounds like home life is pretty normal. All that's happened this week is lots and lots of meetings. We had stake conference and heard from Elder Massimo De Feo and I learned a lot about different doctrines. We haven't taught anymore lessons, we haven't gone back to teach the guy we taught before.  We need a member to come with us because he thinks we are trying to hit on his girlfriend and he just got out of prison for murder or something so yeah no lessons. Its Pretty hard here in Eastwood (its a little north west of Nottingham) we almost have all 0's on our record for the week.  The people here aren't very open to the gospel.  The only saving grace is the ward members, They are the nicest people in the world and we always have a good amount of banter with them and its always fun. We got our haircuts yesterday from the Spanish family and idk you have to tell me what you think? I like it a lot.
So I'm starting to understand Spanish pretty decently after about 10 minutes of being around it my brain starts to connect things. I'm far from being fluent but I can understand some things. Have I talked about how many flippen spiders there are around here?  "Aranias" is spider in Spanish btw haha but they are literally every 5 feet, I hate it.  The bush in front of our flat has 8 massive spiders in it. NO BUENO the sisters flat entrance has 12 just chilling above us in the entrance way..........Yeah so I forgot to tell you Hell and Damn aren't swear words here?!?! haha so its always really weird to hear a 6 year old say damn that hurt when his brother hit him IN THE CHAPEL haha its weird. I'm trying to not get into the habit of saying them but apparently most missionaries do:( but its been a decent week I've learned a lot and hope we can find new investigators.   Also the Spanish family is throwing Elder Hall a party I think? idk but I don't have anyones address or number so yeah:( I think we have like 4 people bringing him cakes so it should be alright.

During Stake conference Elder Massimo De Feo spoke. He's such a humble man and he basically spoke about how missionaries helped him in his life and about lots of different doctrines. The one I liked was the doctrine of repetition, like how we watch the endowment, its the same video yet we receive new revelation every time we watch it.  The same goes for conference, when people complain that we have already heard their messages its there so we can receive new revelation about the same subject.

The Spanish family says is still need to rebuke you for not teaching me Spanish haha ;) but I can understand most of what they are saying and me and Elder Hall are trying to learn it. the phrase I use the most is no intiendes I don't know how to spell it haha but that's all this week.

Taught my First Discussion!

Yeah its been super hard. It feels like the whole world is against us but its whatever, whats the world compared to god. So mostly ive been struggling to just talk to people but a switch clicked in my head the other day and I could just talk to people and be casual about it so yeah that's a pretty good blessing.

Okayyyyyyyyy so you ready for this story? So me and Elder Hall decided hey lets go to a village we haven't been to before so we went to a little town called Ripley. We rode the bus there cause its so far and that was long and annoying, I hate public transportation. So we get there and we start talking to people and doing all the normal missionary stuff. and we decide to tract a random street. At this point I was really discouraged cause everyone was just kinda waving us off and not talking to us. So we tract this street and get 4 or 5 potentials!!! holy flip that just happened it was kinda crazy, tender mercies. On the way back to town centre we see this kid on top of this railing thing with a bike and hes about to ride down the stairs, so we stop to watch and he starts calling out to us so we cant here him so we go into this little courtyard and see there are more people in there. as we started talking to them we come to find out they are drug dealers and I was like flip this is not where I want to be, but they started asking us questions like if we drank or smoked or did drugs and stuff and we said no to everything and they couldn't believe us. one guy was like Wait are you guys Virgins? and we kinda looked at each other and said yeah. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack he couldn't believe what we were saying we never drank, smoked, did drugs, or had sex. he thought we were crazy. he was all like how on earth are you guys even happy how do you have any fun? It was so funny then more guys came over and we were basically cornered in this little courtyard with 10 drug dealers all of which had weapons which are illegal to carry in the UK. Then one oft hem was like what if I closed that gate and all of us just beat you to death then what? no onw would know where you are and they would never find you. at that point I thought, oh crap I need to get out of here. but after we left they were all cool and we thought they were hilarious. when we were walking away Elder Hall said flip our church is so organized, our parents would literally know we were missing the next morning and they would find our bodies so fast. crazy story right? Over the next couple days we got trial after trial again, elder hall got 4 punctures in 4 days on his tires soooooooo we couldn't get anywhere. I was getting a little discouraged again then out of no where we got a new investigator and I think 2 or 3 referals!!! I love blessings. anyways I cant even remember anything else that happened this week other than I taught my first lesson finally!!!

One Month

So this week has been like the others, super busy. Fixing everything in the flat and organizing things. But we did get a chance to go tracting, This is how my first door went *knock *knock *knock "hey how are you? We are missionaries from our church". (other guy) "Don't mean to be rude but..." *slams door!  I was like Flip, missions are hard!  Haha that's basically how every door was for an hour and a half. We did get a pretty solid potential though with a family from Zimbabwe, I'll let you know more on that as it progresses. Really all the missionary work we have done is try to get the members to trust us more.  We have been trying really hard to try and be best friends with all of them. Basically every kid in the ward loves me because I played video games.   So yeah video games are good!! haha I met a kid this week who isn't a member but hes basically me in every way so we are pretty tight. Our Dinner Appointment at his house was so crazy, they literally own over 300 snakes and just breed and sell them!!! I had one around my neck for most of the night it was so sick!!!!!! I need a drop box because all of my videos are too big for this mail thing. That's all that has happened. much love to you all.  

Alright confession time. i dropped £20 pounds on chocolate. Flip the chocolate here is sooooooo goooooooood. im addicted. anyways i might buy real food today not sure if i will though.

Family Home Evening with the Marinas Family

 Elder Hall and I having some fun!

Soccer Fields, we play all the time. 

ALSOOOoo im gonna start learning Spanish from the Spanish families in the ward cause they keep rebuking me for not knowing it, in return we are teaching English. but yeah that's it.