We shall go forward!

Hello – hello, hello – hello, we welcome you today, hello!

England prospers. Oh wow, all of our appointments flogged this week! (Flogged is the mission term for when you are the only one that shows up for the appointment.) So I don't really know what to tell you except we did a lot of finding, and we took members cupcakes, did service, and watched conference! A new week in a new transfer begins, and we shall go forward! There is success and blessing all around us.

We had an appointment with an investigator and as he told us his concerns and problems, I had no CLUE what I could possibly say. I felt the spirit in my heart so I wasn't afraid, and when I opened my mouth, the perfect words came out. The Lord really spoke for me. I went away thinking, "man! I wish I could remember what the heck I said!" It was a right spiritual motivational speech, if I do say so myself. God is so good at those. I wish I could do it naturally, but I'm glad He did it for me, when I didn't know quite what do say, I only knew I had to defend the family in whatever it was I said, and it turned out well.

Our investigators are dwindling in numbers, but the recent converts of this branch are doing really well. They are keeping active and moving forward. There are some that struggle, but many have renewed senses of commitment and it's cool to see the gospel unfold in their lives. One came back from serving in the temple for a week. One is going through the temple this week. One made it to the priesthood session regardless of the fact that his motorcycle broke down. One is coming out teaching with us every Thursday and trying to introduce her friend to the gospel.

If there's one thing I like about the English, it's their hilarious sense of humor, which is mainly comprised of sarcasm. If they are teasing you, you know they like you. It throws off some missionaries who aren't used to sarcasm. You can usually always have a good laugh though.

Oh, did I mention I went to Worcester cathedral the other p-day and saw prince John’s (the phony king of England) grave from Robin Hood?
Weird!

Ta-ra love!

Madie

cootie catcher

So to mix things up I made a cootie catcher/fortune teller and started playing it with people on the streets. You pick a picture, then you pick a word like "Jesus, joy, sorrow, death, life, etc and instead of a fortune, there's a scripture from the Book of Mormon-that we proceed to read to the player. It was fun, as I needed to change things around.

The Olive Tree

This week Tom read the allegory of the olive trees. "Can you tell me why chapter five is a guide on maintaining a garden?"

Lots of British Love!

Madie

The Lord has our backs....

The great thing is that Heavenly Father is really in control. :) Happy days! When it matters most, he takes over. We had a cool experience this week. We were teaching our investigator. I didn't think she was ready for the baptismal commitment, but you never know. Last time we were there, Sister Rose assigned 2 Nephi 31 for her to read, which is all about baptism. When we got to the appointment, Sister Rose had completely forgotten what she assigned, and when we followed up, she realized that we would be talking about baptism and felt the heat come on. So we discussed the chapter. During the lesson, I was thinking about inviting her to baptism but had some weird impression to wait and the impression of something about Sister Rose. Meanwhile, the conversation was drifting away from baptism and onto other things. Sister Rose was praying in her head that if the conversation went back to baptism, she would invite and then what do I do next? I turned the conversation back to baptism. Well that put the serious heat onto Sister Rose! bwa haha. So then she follows up after what I say about baptism, and extends the commitment. To my surprise our investigator told us that she had been thinking about it and really understood the importance and significance of it. She's praying about it. Cool beans! It's good to know that the Lord has our backs. Sometimes He just oversteps our plans, because His are much better. Would he really rely on us in our imperfect and weakened state to really have it all figured out? As long as we do our best, He makes sure the magic happens. And, we were going to discuss kingdoms of glory (which we did - connect that to 2 Nephi 31 - yeah that's right!)

Meet the Mormons

Went on exchange to Stroud with Sister Kottembagahagedara. She made me mango sticky rice for breakfast! We were at a returning member's house that joined the church in the sixties or seventies. She pointed to a bookshelf and said, "The Elders left me that book there when they taught me." Sister Kottembagahagedara went over to the shelf and pulled out a book - she turned it towards us, "Toshiba Guide to Microwave Cooking?" The lady was like, "No, no, no! The one next to it!" The book was entitled "Meet the Mormons".

The one time that it does make a difference....

I've realized that we do a lot of things over and over, sometimes they never seem to work, or they never seem to be doing any good, but the one time that it does make a difference - it is worth the 500 times that it didn't seem to work. Enduring to the end can sometimes be applied to having faith in certain principles of the gospel - faith that they will work.

undue hesitation

Well, I failed!!!!! the driving test for the second time. Somebody call the waaaambulence. After all, it did take me a few times to get the American one right, but I'd rather not go into that story to save any pride I have left. I had some undue hesitation a few times, where I stopped and started, and stopped again, at a confusing light, and on a weird place where I was asked to pull over (I didn't even think it was legal to pull over where I was!) nevertheless, it failed the British standard of driving, which is way up there. However, as my driving instructor got out of the car she did a double take when I said, "Have a good day," which made her laugh. I suppose she doesn't get that a lot. Three times is a charm?