Monday, April 16

Explanation of pictures this week:   1) Thornton Hough, a small village within our area, our area actually includes the whole "Wirral," the peninsula that we are on. It is hard to explain to others what it looks like where we serve because one minute you are in a city and the next you are in a village so I provided an example. 2) One of our members suggested we go to the shore (or the marina) to go finding, it was very beautiful so we took a few pictures--Me being 'contemplative and dramatic' with the beautiful view! :)

Sister Spencer is finally getting better. We thought she was going to die, not really, but a little. We had to have the elders come and give her a blessing because she really wasn't doing well. When they asked me how I was feeling to make sure I hadn't gotten ill, I said I have the immune system of an ox. Now that is an ongoing joke.... but I am not sickly so that is good! We are going to go out and have a sports day with the elders in my district today! It will be fun!

I made a goal yesterday that I had done in Liverpool to set up as many appointments as I could at church. It worked really well in Liverpool and was what made us so busy. Here we haven't had a lot to do and I attribute it to not making enough effort to seek appointments, so I sat in Sacrament meeting yesterday and wrote down names of people that stood out to me. One was Sister Cherrie who is a bit crazy but got to love her! We just saw her not to long ago so I figured I would talk to her last, but I kept getting a feeling that I needed to go and talk to her immediately following Sacrament meeting. So I did. I went and she seemed not quite herself so I tried to see what was wrong beyond the usual "I'm tired." So I proceeded to make an appointment and then I just had a feeling to ask if there was anything that we could do for her... and she just broke down in tears. She then told me she is having a surgery on her eye this week and is very scared. She had the surgery on the other eye a while ago and it had gone well and she had attributed it to her receiving a priesthood blessing. I let her talk through some of her fears and then I said that we would pray for her. I then went and told our ward mission leaders the circumstance and, you know how with men you have to make them feel important by making them think it was their idea, so I said, "She's scared because last time she had received a priesthood blessing..." which they promptly cut off with, "Well, would she like a priesthood blessing?" Bingo! So they went and found her to ask if she'd like a blessing, which she did. I didn't get to talk to as many people as I had planned but I know that I was meant to talk to her and let her have someone to confide in and someone to get her a priesthood blessing. So it was a great experience.

We are having a great time with our companionship. I made a goal the other day that I would draw a picture of my companionships every time I get a new companionship or district. I already had drawn one of my district in Liverpool, so I drew one of our companionship currently. It's great and will help me remember a lot about my companions. They loved it as well and want copies. So new project for me!
Time is flying by and I can't believe I've been out for almost 13 weeks! Wow! The weather is beautiful here and it is just lovely spring time!

Tuesday, April 10

We weren't able to write yesterday because it was a bank holiday and the libraries were closed! So we get to write today!

We went to the temple yesterday! Usually it is closed on Mondays except bank holidays so we took our opportunity to go! It was great but took most of the day with traveling and traffic and whatnot!

And Surprise! I did something crazy and dyed my hair last night! I really like my hair dark and was missing it since the last time I had it dark and so darkened it!  It was fun, I've never dyed my hair completely before and I don't know what possessed me to allow my companion to dye it, but it turned out great! It isn't black but really dark brown! I LOVE it! I am pretty sure I told you about how we are in a trio now! It has been fun!

Sister Spencer (the new companion) got sick this morning and so we had a day "in." We actually taught a few lessons but tried to relax as much as we could! So it has been nice!

We went to a baptism in Oldham the other day because it was someone that Sister Spencer had been teaching! It was this cute little 83 year old woman who was just beaming. Apparently it was long in coming but it was a great service and she had a lot of family that was there supporting her (along with a lot of missionaries). I found out last week that one of my investigators in Liverpool is dated for baptism! I was so happy to hear it! She is supposed to be baptised (English spelling) next week but the elders said it may be bumped back! I hope so because I want to go but we also have our own baptism happening here next weekend! The Liverpool young lady is named Mary
and she had actually asked Sister Chuo and I if she could be baptised but she had to get married first...now everything is sorted and she is on her way. The Baptism here, his name is Bill, I haven't taught him a lot, but we did have a lesson with him this morning and he said he just gets a kick out of our lessons! He told us we brighten his day... He laughed a lot as we got off on random tangents including Sister Spencer expressing her love for Batman and me telling how Hailey and I
would break out in Love at Home if an argument may have started (it had to deal with the 10 commandments... a little). Bill is very excited to be baptised and he is entirely ready no doubt in my mind, so we are excited for him!

I got to drive for a day last week and it was actually very easy! I loved it and nothing went wrong at all! It was so nice to be behind the wheel of a car once again! Maybe again someday soon I will get to drive!

We washed the car today in some of our down time letting Sister Spencer rest! It was freezing outside but they are checking the car tomorrow at zone conferences and we had inherited the car from the elders and they clearly hadn't washed it in some time! So it was fun as Sister Hoffman and I washed the car while Sister Spencer sat inside the car with her box of tissues and a book. :)

So life is pretty good. We had Easter Dinner with one of our Ward mission leaders and he had stolen our car keys and hid chocolate eggs in the boot (trunk) of our car! It was so sweet! It was a great meal though! His mom was there and she is not a member and was apparently very nervous about having us there, but she thought we were great! We weren't able to teach a lesson but we still were able to let her know we weren't very scary!

Our other Ward mission leader is Brother Worthington. He likes picking on me, he thinks I'm fun because I haven't entirely stifled my sarcasm. I got a bit sarcastic at our coordination meeting the other night and he just thought it was great so apparently told the bishopric that I am fiesty and aggressive (lovingly). So the Bishopric is starting to joke around with me too. It think many members forget that we are human and do have senses of humour so they are a bit wary often times of joking around with us, so they brighten up when they find a missionary that enjoys a bit of humour! It is hilarious!

We had a ward activity last week. It was a curry competition! It was delicious! People brought different curries to compete for the ultimate prize... a giant chocolate bunny. We got to know a lot more people and everyone now knows me as the missionary that gets along really well with young kids. At one point I was on the floor playing with toy cars with 3 or 4 young (Kimber aged) kids. It was good fun!

Monday, April 2

It has been a crazy day today! We were told last night that we were having another Sister come and work with us for the rest of the transfer! So we had to drive to Manchester this morning to pick up Sister Spencer! She has a broken foot and therefore they thought it best to send her with the sisters that drive a car... they forgot to take into account that our flat is up 4 flights of stairs and we have stairs within our flat to get to the kitchen... Then we were told this morning that another companionship is staying with us tonight in order to go to a meeting tomorrow! So we have quite the full house tonight! Sister Hoffman has to go to the meeting tomorrow so I will be driving tomorrow! I haven't driven yet and I am honestly scared to death! These roads are so tiny and the drivers are so aggressive! All of my leaders have said, "Please don't die..." Thanks elders! It will be an adventure!

I loved Conference! We got to watch it at our chapel building! Because of the time difference they showed the Saturday Morning live at 5 PM on Saturday, recorded the Saturday evening at 9 Pm to rebroadcast on Sunday at 1 PM and then showed the Sunday Morning live at 5 PM. Unfortunately we weren't able to watch the Sunday Afternoon Session since it was from 9-11Pm and we have curfews and whatnot (SO overrated!)! I did really enjoy Elder Holland's talk and I really enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's talk as well! It was all so very good, but probably my favorite quote was from Elder Nelson: "Some believe it all began with a big bang... If an explosion happened in a printing shop would it produce a dictionary?" I LOVED that! :)

It was a busy week of meetings last week and this week is even moreso! I never knew there were so many meetings when it came to missionary work!

I love hearing about little Kimber and Tucker. I tell everyone new stories about them as I get them. I told the goldfish story for quite a while...

I have attached a picture of our car!

Monday, March 26

  I only wrote a few days ago, and here I am again! 

I guilt-tripped President Preston in my last email to him on Thursday.  I wrote all about Ben (10) crying and only about Ben and left it entirely at that. I saw President on Friday and he said he just felt horrible after reading my email to him. I said that was what I was aiming for!  :)  I am going to get permission from President today to write Ben letters to just keep encouraging him and let him know we still care about him. Plus his mum said she'd send me raspberry bon bons when she knew my address.

It wasn't just that I was leaving that made it difficult to leave Liverpool. I understand we get moved around a lot, but usually when we leave, one companion stays there who knows the people and can help in getting the transition, but when you are whitewashed completely out of the area you leave your investigators to strangers and that was just horrible.

Friday we had our "Sister's conference" where all of the Sister Missionaries in the mission go to the mission home for a conference. There are 19 Sister missionaries currently. It was a really good conference. one of the elders that was just going home this transfer has a mom who is a really well known LDS music artist and so she and her husband were here picking up their son and she agreed to do a presentation with us because she also runs a therapist practice particularly working with LDS women. It was really good and she said many applicable things to not only the mission but to life in general.  And she sang us a couple of songs as well.

Saturday was a good day. We took our gospel Principles class to the temple grounds in Chorley and our ward mission leader arranged to have a tour of the MTC as well. It was a beautiful sunny day and the flowers are blooming now so the temple grounds were glorious. We went over to the MTC and I thought no one would really remember me there because they've had several groups go through already since I left, but Sister Walker got all excited and gave me a great big hug, Sister Smith heard I was there and came and found me to give me a hug, so it was nice to know they still remember me! We had 3 investigators with us and one of them came up to me and was asking me all sorts of things about the MTC and he said that he could "just feel the power of the place." And I was like, Yes, that is the spirit. All of our investigators wanted to know what they had to do to go into the temple, they all just loved it so much. It was a great experience.

The ward here is a bit different than Liverpool. I miss the Liverpool ward already. Many of the sisters in this ward don't see the need to wear skirts or dresses to church and so they just come in whatever they want and it is not that they can't afford to have those types of clothes because some of them come in very expensive trouser and jumper combinations. It just isn't really something I see as appropriate.

Things are going well. I got your package with the ear plugs in it, maybe a bit of overkill with 7 pairs of ear plugs... but thanks. They came in handy today as we were cleaning our flat because our hoover makes the most obnoxious noise more so than the average. So we were walking around our flat with ear plugs in while I was hoovering. Thanks for the packages! They make me feel nice and important! :)

I found out as we were reading our information packet this morning that I should always encourage anyone who is sending things to me to not use FedEx if possible. Apparently their costs on this end are outrageous and they make delivery almost impossible because they can't just leave things with the mission office so we missionaries end up having to get to the FedEx office ourselves and it is just a big hassle. Good to know.

The weather is great over here currently. I have been told to enjoy it because it will only last two weeks. I hope it lasts a bit longer than that.

We taught one of our investigators last night who had a baptismal date planned but we had to move it. She is having a hard time giving up coffee. We asked her how many cups she has a day and she told us she drinks 15 cups of coffee a day. I was shocked. She then proceeded to tell us she had made such great progress from her 65 cups a day....  Sister Hoffman and I just were in shock. She said she used to have a cup every 15 minutes or so. That is not healthy at all. She asked us about the rule on decaf and I wasn't sure what to tell her. We did a bit of reading this morning and there are so many chemicals within coffee (decaf or not) that are harmful to your body. So I had a bit of enlightening.