Slowing Down

Hey everyone. 
Nice to hear from you both. Not a lot has happened this past week. Things seem to be slowing down as we approach the Christmas season. We mostly just saw less actives and members as it's becoming impossible to meet up with any investigators. We did have some appointments with our investigators but they all cancelled. 

The Muslim family that we were teaching had to cancel this week and said they wouldn't be able to meet with us until the new year. We met this really nice Scottish lady on the street and she was very interested and wanted us to come over and teach her and her partner the next day but when we showed up no one was there. Over all it's been somewhat of an uneventful week. But it's been good strengthening our less actives and visiting them. Two of them came to church yesterday and it was great to see them there. They really want to keep coming every week and stay active now.

I got packages from home and from my grandparents on both sides. The senior couple brought them to church from the temple. I can't wait to open them but this year I'll wait until Christmas day if I can. 

There are some exiting events coming up that I look forward to. On Thursday we are going to the temple and having a Christmas dinner, on Christmas eve we are going to go caroling at Tower Bridge. Today our district are going to central London. I'm hoping to see lots of Christmas decorations.

How do you like you'r early Christmas gift Sister Fisher?

Christmas Video

Hey everyone.

Last week was a very slow week and not much happened. It was looking to be one of our busiest weeks but plans didn't really work out. We had a lot of lessons planed from all our finding and calling people but most of them canceled. We did get to meet with the Muslim family again. They are very nice and friendly. They do want to learn more from us about our church but they have told us that they will never change religions. They say they have lots of respect for all religions but they only want to learn. It's common to run into Muslims especially in this area. They are always nice people.

Contacting hasn't been too successful either. We've met a lot of really interesting and nice people (and many crazy people too as Sister Fisher said) and have had good discussions but none of them were interested in meeting with us. Hopefully they use those cards and see the Christmas video. That will plant a seed. I love the he is a gift video; it's really good. The website is really cool too. We do get 10 cards per day to give out. I think it's a brilliant idea.

Regarding Christmas packages, we will be going to the temple on the 18th for a Christmas dinner like last year so I should get the packages there. And Sister Fisher, you can open the package I sent you. I would have waited a bit longer to send it if I wanted you to wait for Christmas day. I just can't wait to see pictures and see how you like it. I'm glad it got to you.

Some of the Christmas traditions over here are different.  They ware paper crowns over here that come out of those Christmas crackers (those things that you pull apart and it pops and there's stuff inside). They're also really big on Christmas jumpers over here. They're everywhere. I can't remember there being so many back at home. I can't really think of much else.

We haven't really seen much of our regular investigators. We've met with a couple new investigators but we've had a hard time setting up appointments with people. Sally is back from I think Ireland so we've been trying to see if we can find a time to meet with her. Akin is actually just as busy as before. We just can't seem to meet with him. He's not doing too good either; He's been sending us texts saying he's not happy anymore. We can't help him unless he finds the time to meet with us. We've been in contact with a lot of people trying to meet with them but they usually say to call back or just cancel appointments. I guess it's a busy time of year. We haven't seen Isaac in a long time but he said we may be able to meet with him this weekend if he's not busy. He'll let us know.

Elder Cook

We had a lot more appointments this week but most of them didn't go through. We've been calling lots of people and hardly anyone answers. But we did finally get in contact with a less active family that we haven't seen in a while and we set up an appointment with them. We also got an appointment with one of our investigators who's baptismal date we had to drop. His name is Akin. Turns out he got a new job and now he's a whole lot less busy. So now we can hopefully meet with him more. He's really trying to start a new life. He has said that he hasn't been very happy and has had a hard life but when I talked to him on the phone he said he's trying to think more positively and that he's got a new view on life and he's much happier now. 

Sam's happy too. He bears his testimony every time he gets the chance in classes. It sort of surprised me to find out how much of an impact the church has on him. We also had a referral from the mission office that seems good. They are a Muslim family and we stopped by their house as soon as we got the referral. They were really nice; they let us in and fed us and were really interested. We have another appointment with them and we're exited for that.

Elder Cook was pretty cool. He talked a lot and did a Q&A thing with us and the Mission Presidents of both missions talked a bit as well. I'll send you another e-mail with more info.

Sorry Sister Fisher I forgot to add your e-mail to the recipients last week so you didn't get my e-mail. Do you want me to send any info or did Dad fill you in? I'm out of time but have a nice week!

Quentin L. Cook

Dear Sisters and Elders,      The highlight of the week was the visit of Elder Quentin L. Cook and his wife. He took the opportunity to shake the hand of all present. He then told a lot about the history of missionary work in England. This included his personal service as a missionary 54 years ago. One of his companions was Jeffery R. Holland. I was serving as a missionary about the same time, but in Australia. He reminded us that our calls are all dictated by one of the Twelve Apostles. We are called to succeed not to fail. Revelation will provide when there is a lack of experience, if we are faithful and living obediently. Missionary work is filled with hard things and rejection. This occurs because our Heavenly Father wants us to grow. D&C 31:7 states that the Savior said, ”I will open the hearts of the people, and they will receive you.” Many will harden their hearts and reject our message, but we should not be discouraged. It is a time to increase our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He quoted President Gordon B. Hinckley, “Tell the missionaries, if you have more faith, you will have more success.” We need to seek the spirit and have faith that the Holy Ghost will do the teaching. The first vision and the Plan of Salvation always invite the spirit; use them often and bear testimony of their truth.      At the conclusion he pronounced an apostolic blessing upon our mission and missionaries. He acknowledged that rejection and family problems at home may draw us to think that we could do more good at home. He blessed us with a realization that all those we love, now or in the future, will be blessed for our service and sacrifice now. He blessed us to understand the great heritage that is part of this London area. He blessed us that our missionary service would be a blessing to us and our posterity forever. He also blessed all those who have any special needs, some known only to God. May we give of our time with a free and willing heart that we may be able to receive the blessing bestowed upon us by one of the Lord's special witnesses of His Name. I love you and ever pray for you. President Millar

Stake Cultural Event

Sorry I'm e-mailing today. We couldn't do it yesterday because I was sick all day I just stayed in bed all day. 

Sams baptism went well. He seems very happy. He fits in with the ward very well and they are doing a good job fellowshipping him. You can tell he was very exited and he has lots of support. He bore a powerful testimony in gospel principles class and said he wants to do missionary work. After the baptism the stake had a cultural event at the stake center where all the wards in the steak represented a different culture. Our ward of coarse was representing Africa. Particularly Ghana. There was lots of food from different cultures and everyone dressed in their traditional outfits. Sam let us borrow some of his African cloths so we fit in quite well. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long. We had to leave before the dances started. I heard one of the wards did the haka. 

My companion and I are trying really hard to set up appointments to keep us busy. It's getting more and more difficult to set up appointments. I don't know how Elder Heninger did it so well. He seemed to be able to fill in the days with no problem. Even when appointments canceled. I've been calling lots of people but still can't seem to get enough lessons. Maybe people are getting more busy as we get closer to Christmas. 

We currently have two baptismal dates but we may need to drop one because he's just too busy to meet with us. I've only met him once and haven't seen him since. Our other baptismal date has been away so we haven't been able to see her for a few weeks. Daniel S (a young man in our ward) brought one of his friends to church last Sunday. The sisters are teaching her now. It's really exiting because you can see how exited he is about it. He's doing a really good job.

And the hot chocolate in England sucks too

Moves are coming

Hello to everyone.

Moves is coming up and Elder Heninger is leaving. He's going to Guernsey which is off the coast of France. He's super exited. My new Companion will be Elder Darcy. He's from Ireland. He was actually my district leader in Crowthorn after Elder Moulin left.

Sam is getting ready for baptism and things are going good. He should be baptized on Saturday and we're really happy with the trust and the relationship he has with the ward. He asked for members to do his baptism as well as his confirmation. He's been asking many people to come and he's really exited. He's still as busy as ever but he managed to find time to feed us. We did a lot of service last week which makes me feel good. We finished that guys garden; we dug out some bushes which was very difficult. We got a return appointment with him too. His name is Marvin, he's Jamaican. We also helped the new ward members (the Cheungs) with moving giant tiles into their new flat and came back another time to help tear out their kitchen. They're completely redoing it. They haven't moved in yet but they want to feed us Chinese food some time. They're really nice. We have been having a hard time meeting with our other baptismal dates and investigators because they keep canceling appointments but we keep trying.

Elder Quentin L. Cook will be visiting the Europe Area and he is scheduled to talk to the missionaries from the England London and England London South Missions on November 25. That's pretty exiting. It'll probably be really crowded though.

This is a drawing I did for Elder Heninger in his journal.

New Finding Ideas

Last week went really slow. We had an exchange without warning which was annoying but at least I didn't lose anything. We also had some service witch went pretty good. It took a long time clearing up this guy's back garden but it looks better now and we have another appointment to come back. We were going to have Sam's baptism this Saturday in between sessions of stake conference but the bishop said to move it back to next week because we wouldn't be able to confirm him the next day. But that will give us more time to prepare him and make sure he's ready. I can't really think of much else to say but we've met a few new investigators and had a few lessons cancel as usual. We met for the second time with a lady named Adjoa. She really likes the lessons and understands them surprisingly well, but she talks a lot and it's hard to stay on topic. She also seems unwilling to change religions for now.

We were asked to try new finding ideas and that lead to many of the appointments we had last week. The list that my companion and I came up with consisted of many different kinds of events that would require much planning. We didn't have much time to plan these events so we simply decided to switch up our approaches. It was mostly just asking a simple question like "what makes you happy?" or "what is your view on religion today?" but we also tried simply going around asking for service opportunities witch led to the garden clearing activity we had last week.

Church was Good

My companion and I did a lot of finding last week. We've been asked to try thinking of new finding ideas so we tried to mix things up. We mostly just switched up our approaches. We tried going around just asking for service. That didn't work too well. People just don't want to be helped. We did get one service opportunity out of it though. We're going to help pull weeds out of someones garden. It's a garden of weeds. It needs to be done. Now we have lots of potentials from the last two weeks and so we're planning on doing all we can this week to contact as many as possible. 

Church was good. Issac came to church for the first time in five years. He met the bishop and made plans to move his records to the ward. It turns out our bishop knew his bishop back in Ghana. He was able to tell Issac that his bishop back at home passed away a couple years ago. Issac was able to meet lots of the people in the ward; they did a good job to fellowship him. We were also able to meet the new family in the ward. They didn't need us last week for service but today we'll be helping them move things. They moved here from central London but they're originally from Hong Kong. His name is Gabriel Cheung and they're a young family expecting a child. Sam was also at church. He acts like a member already but he still doesn't have the time to meet with us. We met with him twice last week and we want to meet with him twice this week but he says he's just too tired after work. We'll talk him into it. We had a few good teaches with new investigators and hope to get more. Over all things are going very good.

Hey Sister Fisher I got a hug in the male from Tanis too!

 It's been really nice and warm lately. We had rain yesterday and today but it's supposed to get nice again for the week. The rain here is like Sister Fisher said: like a mist. It's usually like that though sometimes we get drops.

Our ward is mostly Ghanaian's. It's a nice ward. The Sintims have us over every week and over-feed us with African Food. Pauline Welch is the missionary mother of the ward. They have all the missionaries over every week. They're the ones that pranked me. Our ward mission leader is really good at keeping up-to-date about our investigators as well as less actives. He's a busy guy but I think he mostly tries to focus on organizing members to fellowship the people we're working with.

Elder Heninger is a cool guy. He's really friendly and outgoing. We get along really well. He likes camping and hunting, especially duck hunting. He also likes sports. Oh and snowboarding.

this is Elder Heninger

 No one cares about Halloween over here. Everyone just wants Halloween to get out of the way so they can start celebrating Christmas.

Now to answer Mums question.

I wish I learned a language. There are a lot of people around here that speak multiple languages and I've always wanted to learn one but I've never been able to decide what language I wanted to learn. Right now I want to choose between Mandarin, Japanese, German, Italian or Spanish. I know I took French in high school but that class sucked. I also wish I learned piano.

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