Life is Good

Hey family, some crazy things have been happening. Yeah I heard about
all the members freaking out and stuff a member showed us yesterday
what had been going on. And honestly one of the first thing that came
to my mind was 'ah finally it's beginning the purge of the church' I
think right now Heavenly Father is making sure that the people who are
on his side are actually on his side. If you read John 15 it kind of
talks about that and our current situation. It is sad to see so many
people leave the church over such a silly thing but for myself I just
see it as a person who would have slowed the progress of the church
anyways. But it makes sense the church is going to be attacked hard in the last
days and if we don't have a strong member population it's going to
fall.
On another note! Life here is good! We didn't get to teach
William this week but we should this week. We are also now teaching a
less active member to prepare him for getting the Melchizedek
priesthood. So that should be fun! Elder Ballard comes this Saturday
and I'm way excited. We may have some missionaries stay in our flat
the night before, so # sleepover!!!!! It's way cold here now and it
gets dark at like 4 again so the work is going to go way slow. I hope
it doesn't snow.
That's weird that Jordan is taller. I need a
picture to prove it. Well I love you guys and hope everything is great
back home this week!!! Bai

Conference Weekend!!!!

Hmmmm well conference was all good we don't get to watch the last session cause it is too late at night but we will probably watch it later this week. I think something that would be good to do Every Day would be to share a story about Christ and how much he loves everyone. I recently have been trying to grasp the reality of the atonement and it almost brings me to tears every time. The fact that Christ would take every single pain and affliction for every single person in the existence of ever is so powerful and not only that but he did it all by himself. He needed to without help, needed to personally overcome every single sin ever. Its amazing. I love everything that I have learned on my mission, thank you for always making me goto church and to my classes and being super strict with me most of the time;) I would not be the person I am today without the example that you and dad have set for me.

This is what he wrote Dad:

It has been a great week. We have been doing lots of finding and we have been getting flogged a lot as well. Conference was awesome, I learned a lot from it. I especially loved Elder Eyring and Elder Hollands talks. They are my two favourite speakers of this conference. We don't get to watch the last session here so I don't know anything from that one? Anything super cool about it? Transfers are on the 20th, yes its a Monday, President is going to a training to teach us all how to use Ipads, we are getting them in the start of may so the transfers are shorter. It will be very exciting. We have an investigator named Dave, he is probably one of my favourite investigators. He keeps wanting to learn everything deep about the gospel and we are trying to teach him all the basics so he can understand those deep things. He is very Humble he has MS so he is in a wheel chair. He has learned to do so many random things its unreal. 

Gospel Changes Lives

Hola!

Well im going to try and be more detailed in this letter cause I feel inspired to be;)

This week was good! We have been street contacting so much this week! I don't know how often you went out finding but we do it for about 6 hours every day. Its insane how many people we talk to. We seem to get around 7 potentials per 70 or 80 people and only 1 investigator per every 20 potentials. so life is busy. The investigators we do have are all kinda at a stand still right now. No one is progressing too much except for a man named john. We texted john last week randomly, he was a number in the phone that has been there for ages, and he called us back and set up a return appointment. When we met with him he said that when we texted him he was having a really hard time with life and that he was contemplating suicide. We have been meeting with him since and he is sceptical of everything but he is slowly warming up to it all! its great to see how much this Gospel can change anyones life. I got a copy of the teaching of the prophet joseph smith and I have been digging it! ive been studying so much of it and have been trying super hard to apply it to my missionary work. Its been going pretty good so far. We are going to have interviews and exchange and conference this week its going to be super busy! As for things I need, Everything I own is starting to break or wear down. My shoes are good thank goodness. But my trousers are starting to fall apart, that's what I get for buying primark quality trousers haha. I can probably last another month with the ones I have now but ill need to get some new trousers soon. I need money for a new backpack as well casue mine is on the last leg of its journey haha. But I can last a bit longer with it. maybe another 2 weeks I don't know im not a magician I don't know how long they will last.

Love you!!!!

New Companion, Elder Wiser! Excited

WEl lthis week has been great! Me and Elder Wiser have been dong lots. Our boiler broke at the beginning of the week though so we have had no heating or hot water.....we haven't been able to shower just sponge baths and rinsing our hair. Thankfully we got to use the other guys shower Friday. We are still waiting on the boiler guy to fix it. Everything is good though. We are getting lot of new potentials and talking to lots of people. We have some new investigators and if they stick ill tell you about them! My companion is awesome I love him! We get on with each other really well. He's a funny guy. I love teaching as well. Elder wiser told me that I teach with authority, so it has come out of the mouth of 2 witnesses so it must be true, haha he said im really bold in everything I say. I don't think im very bold but hey its whatever. There was as solar eclipse on Friday it was s cool! my first solar eclipse ever. I couldn't get any pictures cause my camera wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. But yeah everything here has been good. Me and Elder Wiser are going to smash it this week! We plan on getting 5 new investigators so it should be good!!!!

lOVE YOU GUYS!

Transfers Again!!! Elder Wiser

Um This week has been lots of fun actually! I got a new companion same area. My companions name is Elder Wiser!!!!! He is legit and he is so funny! We are gonna be good friends. He loves to work which is good cause I need to learn to love working in the rain haha. We have some super solid potentials to teach this next week! this area is gonna take a 180 degree turn. There are going to be miracles this transfer. Liz found out she has cancer so in essence she is kinda screwed cause the doctors here aren't the best. We really need a miracle with her. I've been great! Our boiler is broken so 10 C showers are the worst..... haha missions are fun.

I just want Sanguosha for my birthday. We should be getting Ipads in may or june President is going in for training on how to train us to use them this month so it should be good.

Love you Guys!!!!

Keep reading the BOM and stuff, and say your prayers and goto the temple for me casuei cant go.

p.s. I haven't taken any pictures cause I forgot to....

Love you:)


THIS IS WHAT HE SENT US LAST WEEK

Wow. It seems like every time I have doubts about this work that something comes up and slaps me in the face and says "whats the matte with you". This has been a hard week. Workwise everything went great! I've just been so mentally tired lately that nothing could make me happy. So I told President that I needed help cause I wasn't wanting to do anything. I went all the way to Birmingham to talk with him and we just talked for an hour and a half. I don't think I have ever felt the spirit so strongly in my entire life. I have a new motivation for this work and your letter has just backed it up even more. Transfers are this Wednesday so there should be a good change coming, me and President talked about what and where we think I should go next transfer but nothing is set in stone. Everything is okay with my companion and I.  I've been in Nottingham since the beginning of my mission so I might move across the country I don't know. But thank you. This next week should be lots of fun. Cool experience I had on yesterday haha. We were teaching Ola, I dont know if ive talked about him before, anyways hes a Baptist and we teach him during church and we were talking about the book of Mormon the entire time and I was just talking about it more and testifying of it and he stopped me and said " you speak authority, that is good you will go far in life with that talent" After that we got him to commit to read the book of Mormon every day! All he needs to do is read the book and he will be converted! its all he has to do he believes everything else!!! anyways that's all for this week. Love you!!!!!

The Elect are Everywhere!

Hola Familie

Como estas? Liz is doing great!!!!! She is still dying kinda...But she came to church and everyone fellowshipped her like crazy!!!! Scotts Baptismal date was moved to the 21 and Ola is great as well. Samson is a new investigator I don't know if I told you about him but he is Solid we told him about the plan of salvation and he buzzed that we knew where we were before this life. Im excited to teach it to him!!!! This last week was great though we got a lot done! I went on Exchange with Elder Battles!!! It was way fun. We taught one of the most amazing lessons ive ever had in my life and I don't think ill ever have a lesson as cool as that one ever again. The elect are everywhere! The girl we taught wasn't in my area we were in Elder Battles area. So I don't remember her name or anything sorry:( Keep praying for Liz though. This next week should be pretty crazy we have 2 exchanges and a zone meeting. Do you know of anyone who has their mission calls to Birmingham England? i know one of my friends is going to another mission in England. Well i hope you guys have a great week and keep praying for liz!!!!! LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Love Stake Conference

 Yes the package was awesome i ate all the sweets in a day unfortunately, ahhhhh preservatives and sugar they are the best!!!! I read the peacegiver in 4 hours it was really really good! This last week was super busy! To start the week off i went on exchange with the zone leaders and me and Elder Debeikes spent most of the day driving to a place that wasnt even in our area. But we both helped supervise a youth service activity...i know what its like to be a youth leader now, i dont know how they do it these kids (probably ages 8-14) were given hand saws and the giant clipper things, these handsaws were fetching crazy they are ridiculously sharp, and then just let them go crazy on random trees in the park to trim down the branches. The group that me and Elder Debeikes were in charge of had the craziest kids ive ever seen. 2 of them are from the middle east and the rest were english and somehow they got into an argument about racism and they all had hand saws and i was scared there was gonna be a battle and that people would start attacking each other with them. Me and debeikes were freaking out the whole time. It was not okay haha. Later in the week we went to zone conference and i took pictures with 30 random missionaries and i also sang in the choir. That was a fun day i got to meet a ton of people from my group, the people i would have been with in the MTC had i gone to Preston. My group is crazy.  But yeah we didnt have a lot of time to teach and find this week so we didnt really teach or get new investigators. We also had stake conference and President Rasmussen gave me a shoutout!!!! He talked about Elder Halls bike crash and said that me and Elder Hall teaching someone on the side of the road inspired him. It was pretty cool! but yeah thats this week. Nothing too fancy and crazy. All our investigators are doing really well as far as we know so it should be a pretty busy week of teaching them! Love you and talk to you next week!!! 

He later wrote:

Also if you can have anyone you meet pray for liz She is literally on her death bed right now and is on a waiting list for an operation that will save her life. She only has her newborn daughter and no one else. She asked us to text her every day to make sure she is still alive so we can come get her child so she doesnt die. So yeah if you could have everyone pray for her to get either higher on the list or to be healed that would be amazing. This could be her last week to live potentially. soooooooo yeah. love you bye!

Long Bike Ride

 

 

Hola family

okay its just you guys hehe. This week has been great!!!!! Its raining right now though and thats kinda depressing...Crazy adventure story me and Elder Nogueroles were on exchange and we decided to go to Southwell a little village outside the main city, if you go to google maps and type in Bulwell England Nottinghamshire and then look up southwell you can see how far we cycled in a zig zag pattern cause we got lost. This keyboard stinks so sorry if letters are missing. Anyways we went on a 6 hour bike ride to southwell cause its in their area haha....never doing it again. HAHA  This week was awesome we set 2 investigators on a date!!!! Ola is on a date and a guy named Scott! They both have been so prepared!!! Sometimes being bold is the way it has to be, With Ola he grew up in the baptist church so in our lesson i basically just told him his baptism didnt really count (in a loving way) and after we explained how our church has the authority he committed to find out if it was true and is studying so much better than before:) We have a busy week ahead. we have 3 meeting and one is in Leicster....so farrrrrrrrr im not excited but at the same time i am cause i get to see Elder Severe:P "whats wrong with people" haha i ask myself that everyday when i see 12 year olds smoking and drinking, chavs are scary. But you occasionally find the cool chavs that arent crazy so its worth it. Time is going so fast now, ever since i hit my 6 month mark everything is going faster:( I've also wanted to start learning the piano and i have been thinking about minoring in music theory at Uni, i dont know i have like 10 things i might want to start doing when i get home i cant be bothered to think about it right now...but yeah this week has been a week of learning patience cause the people do not want to talk to us at all haha. Its been good though! this week should be good get ready for an Elder Severe story next week:D

"I'm Batman" 6 Months out now!!!

                                                  Wayne Manor, from the movie "Batman"

I am feeling a lot better I can actually work now! Elder Packer is the best. The past  months have gone by so fast i still feel like i dont know anything.

 Wow life sounds cray back home! This last week was crazy! I finally got something that has helped me with this illness. So apparently i have Chronic Rhinitis (idk if that is spelled right) but the doc says that its the casue of my coughing and fatigue and such. I got some spray that i have to inject via a fine mist into my nasal cavity. We had transfers this week and me and E. Packer are staying! Hes the man! we get along so well, hes like a different version of cole except he cant quote anything that me and cole would quote together. I was not able to hear the News from the church we dont have anyting ti access it from but i heard about it from some members. SO for your questions that you have

1. I wish i had read the book of mormon and studied out the stories of Christ more.

2. Come on really? you know this? haha well i didnt plan on going on a mission at all, to be honest i didnt even know if the church was true so i had to take the test in moroni 10:3-5 and after that i had to decide if i wanted to go on a mission or not. After some small and simple blessings in my life i knew i needed to go on a mission.

3. Christ is in every single aspect of everyones lives, and trials should be embraced and looked upon as opportunities to learn. As we grow in knowledge and understanding more and more knowledge will be given to us and we can use that knowledge to build a fortress around us. However like all fortresses they are useless unless we "man the battlements" or use what we have learned. A Fortress without an army is just another building that can be easily penetrated.

4. My favorite thing about serving a mission is all the fun amazing and weird people you get to meet. Muslims are our favorite ti talk to cause they just try to preach hellfire and damnation at us. And all the other cool missionaries that you get to meet and hang out with.

5. England is very diverse, i thought i would be speaking just english but ive learned a little bit of Welsh, Polish, Chinese, Galaec, Tongan, and Swedish. Its also ridiculously cold here and somehow it still manages to rain despite how cold it is. Also the Chocolate here is better than anything ive ever had. And Donner Kebabs:D they are the best.

6. The most important thing to remember on a mission is that you are doing the Lords work, its not about you and it never will be, Have fun while you work but dont be stupid, just be yourself and talk to everyone you can. Its going to be very very hard some days, there will be somedays where you question what you are doing and you want to quit. there will be days when you're on top of the world and feel like you can move mountains. (technically you can hehe) Make friends with as many people as you can, especially the chavs(ghetto people) or else they will harass you hehe. Stand for what you believe and stay with your companion. And if your companion crashes his bike and cant move dont panic just call 999 and teach a lesson to the first person that stops to help you (this actually happened). But es just serve as muchas you can and have fun, MOST IMPORTANT OUT OF ALL IS BE YOURSELF!!!!!!!! NO one likes a fake missionary or a striver, and people expecially dont like wasters. Eww wasters....

Great Week!!

Hola Parents!

 Okay so this last week has been cray...kinda? So about the pictures it takes 20 minutes to upload 1 picture at this library i cant be bothered to upload them. same with email's if i try to email one its takes ages to send and then the computer freaks out and its bad... Anyways this week was good. We have an investigator named Liz, we taught here 2 times this week and we have planned for her to be baptized on the 14th of Feb. She is amazing! She has had such a hard life and wants to know so much! Our lessons with her are my favorite! She believes everything we teach and studies stuff out for herself and learns things without us even helping her!!! agh shes so cool. On a less positive note i am still sick from November with a chest thing so I'm probably gonna go in and get a chest x-ray because its not getting any better.
  So this week should be interesting. Hopefully we can find more people and i can get some sleep. Life = crazy. Cool British thing to try put malt vinegar on some chips (french fries) its super good, also i cant remember if i told you but i love things with vinegar now? i know weird right? Salt and vinegar crisps and fish and chips dowsed in vinegar. Missions are so weird. AAGGHHHH

Anyways love you guys! Stay fresh!

Love Elder Winder

The Book of Mormon

Wow this is so weird, yesterday at church we talked about prayer in all our lessons, today I started reading the BOM a different way.  I got a paper back copy and in the front wrote down a question I have. Mine was how does prayer benefit us and what blessing can we receive?  So now as I read it from introduction to end, I am going to mark every single verse that talks about prayer or the blessings that come from it. I'm excited to see how much stuff gets marked. When I finish I will go back to the front and write the answer underneath the question. Then I have a book tailored to a specific questions.  

Do you remember my friend Dustin Sorenson? He emailed me and he just got his mission call as well to the Alps so he will be in Germany and Austria and stuff. I personally never thought he would serve a mission but I'm excited for him and Kelton as well. 

This week we had interviews with president and I went on exchange with Elder Gros from France. He's super french and he's hilarious!!! We taught a couple lessons this week and commited a family to baptism...but they are moving in 2 weeks so we wont be able to see them get baptized but its alright as long as they know the truth:) other than that its been a pretty basic week.
I actually finished D&C this week so I've read through the whole thing and my mind is full of dodge now... there is so much to be learned in there and in the pearl of great price. I did get my bike and it should last me for a very long time! its a very nice bike for the price i payed for it. The bike shop loves the missionaries so they always give us super good deals!!!! You're right this weather isn't good for bikes maybe you can talk to president and get me into a car? ;) haha wow its freezing here all the time it doesnt matter if the sun is out or not its cold.
We are going to Wollaton Hall today... aka Wayne manner.  That's right I'm going to the place where Batman lives, or where his house is filmed in the movies at least haha. Ill take pictures! hope you guys have an amazing week.

Love Elder Winder

Teaching, Yeah!!!!

Well this last week has been fun! I went on 2 exchanges because we were behind on exchanging with the district. So i went with the Zone Leaders from Tuesday to Wednesday! We had a great time! we taught an amazing lesson on the Plan of Salvation and we committed their investigator to a date! Then i showed him the talk and i changed his life! (Elder Alldredge) We almost had to drive to Lincoln to check up on some elders cause they weren't texting in and safe to us so we were freaking out and had to call the President and stuff! The president just told us to call them in the morning and if they weren't there then we needed to drive up there. Luckily they texted later and said they were okay and so we had them call president. Then on Thursday to Friday we had exchange with another team in our district. I went with Elder Battles....Hes freaking crazy! he's one of the funniest guys I've ever met! We went to a Chinese investigators house and they cooked hot pot for us!!!! Hot pot is the best Chinese food around no doubt! Then that night we played some chinese card games with some other Chinese investigators. It was lots of fun! So when we exchanged back the next day we went to district meeting and that was good! After we exchanged back latter that day me and Elder Packer found a Polish guy named Andrew! he doesn't speak any engllish but he understood enough to set up an appointment with us. So when we taught him we brought a 10 year old kid who spoke English and Polish to translate for us. We taught the restoration and about how the church can change Andrews life and he was completely willing to change! We havent been able to see him since but we are trying to set up another appointment! thats all for this week! OH wew bought Settlers of catan! its the districts new favorite game! we play it whenever we get a free chance. Today we should be playing it so it will be fun! i need like £60 for a decent bike. And you didnt put down Wesleys email -_- but yeah the ward is good too the ward mission leader is amazing! he will do anything for the missionaries. Sorry i am sending this to both of you and not doing individual emails i dont have a lot of time today on the libraries computers.

Happy New Year!!!

 

 

 

Well last week was crazy indeed. Im gonna try and remember everything that happened but ill probably forget a lot of stuff. SO the beginning of the week was super normal, p-day changed cause it was a weird week so we had a normal day on monday. After we confirmed skype times with our families we just went to work. We went and did some finding and didnt find very many people. I dont think we found anyone actually. Tuesday was a weird day. Ive been sick so we tried to get me into a private physician but they are all on holiday so i had to go to a NHS (national health center) which is kind of like a doctors office but we went there and ended up being there for 4 hours and ended up paying £50 for a nurse to tell me that im sick and that i should go home and get some rest and drink water.......My mission president could have told me that.. they didnt even prescribe anything for me? It was a waste of time. But for the rest of that day we went and taught some people and ended up getting 3 new investigators and helped a lady whose baby was in the hospital due to complications. It was a crazy day!!!! Then on Wednesday we did something fun i cant remember. haha. But Thursday was crazy!!!!!!! So we woke up opened presents! got some socks and some other cool things and tons and tons of candy which was bad cause me and my companion are trying to eat healthy. Then we went to the other elders in our districts house for breakfast. Our breakfast consisted of 1 egg each and a piece of bacon and some cheese...we are so poor T-T haha but after that we watched a movie and me and Elder Nogueroles played Magic The Gathering for 3 hours, Agh we are nerds!! hah then we all went to our dinner appointments and me and Elder packer went to a members house to eat and skype. there was way too much food and we didnt finish even half of it. Then it was time to skype.....So apparently i have a bit of an accent and i didnt even know it so i was pretty happy:) all my siblings voices sound older and they got way cooler presents than i ever got so thats good haha. but it was lots of fun to sykype home! then after that we just went home and fell asleep cause we were so drained. Friday was BOxingDay so our whole district went to Nottingham city center to shop at all the stores and everyone was having sales. I bought a suit some white shirts and some ties and some nerd stuff from a place called Forbiden planet (best place on earth) and i got some new scarfs. The rest of the week has jsut been the same old stuff eating lots of food and going out finding...oh and it snowed here....ive never been so cold in my entire life!!!!!!!! agh its the worst. we cant ride our bikes cause there is so much black ice. so thats all my last week!

 

so yeah it was a fun week! im super mad i missed the wedding:( like super mad. he couldnt wait 2 years?

anyways this week should be good as well:)

love you:)