The Long Week

This has been a long week. I'm thinking back to the beginning of the week and it feels like a month ago. Contacting hasn't been successful and we just cant seem to get in contact with the former and potential investigators we planned on contacting. We are still going to keep trying by them but we were also planning on stopping by members houses and trying to work with them more. We have a small ward and the sisters get all the dinner appointments so we don't get to see the members often enough. Elder Treadway feels like he doesn't know very many of the members and we also need something to use our time so we're not just contacting for hours at a time. Overall we feel like this week is going to be a better week. A lot of it is just our attitudes.

I've got lots of pictures to send so I'll start now before I run out of time.

Keep working on that man cave, I can't wait to see it when it's done. And enjoy your Scottish company. I've met a number of Scottish people. They're nice.

I've got an interesting conversion story for you but I have no time so I'll share it next week!

A member took us to a pub and bought us some really nice burgers!

The Romsey Abbey.

My New Companion

Hello.

Good to hear from you and see all the pictures. Nice to hear everything is going good over there (apart from the lightning, forest fires, and facial hair).

I thought Godzilla took place in Tokyo, not San Francisco. Was it good? I heard it was amazing.

Not much happened this week except for moves. I think my new companion and I are going to work well together. I just feel like I need a boost of energy. Maybe the heat over here has something to do with it.

I haven't really done much for touring and taking in the history here, I've been around the abbey here, but haven't been in it yet. I understand this area has a lot of history and I've heard a few cool things but haven't really looked too much into it.

There is a member in our ward who is in his late nineties, and he's still driving! There are lots of old buildings and sights in England everywhere you go. I don't think the Stonehenge is in my area but I'll try to find out. It might not be to hard to get permission to go there.

I am adjusting to my new area. It's always hard to adjust to big changes. Actually this time it wasn't as hard to adjust to my new area as it was to adjust on my first move. I think it helps you to grow.

My new companion is Elder Treadway. He's from Texas. He loves music; he was a drum major which is a conductor for marching bands. He's a really cool guy, a hard worker, and a real lady's man by the sounds of it.

 

Peter our investigator is doing good. We saw him yesterday and he always enjoys having discussions with us. We haven't been able to see Damien for a while. We haven't seen him since his mother told us he was sick. We keep stopping by but no one is ever in. There are loads of other really cool people that we're trying to get back in contact with but it hasn't been easy.

Beggars Fair

Hello again friends and family.

Sound's like you're always having fun over there. I love being updated on the things that are going on back home. Do you have any pictures from the street wheelers? I thought that picture of Justin was hilarious. I've got a picture of an interesting car I'm not sure I've sent it yet. There are lots of cars here that you would never see back home.

Sounds like your keeping busy as well. By the time I get home the house probably won't even be recognisable! I did get an e-mail from Braedon this week; haven't heard much from him for a while until today. It sounds like he's doing really good!

We had a lovely DA (dinner appointment) at a members house on the 9th. It was a late Canada day/ 4th of July meal for Elder Wilson and I. We had lasagne that looked like an American flag and a maple syrup cake that had a Canadian maple leaf on it! I will send pictures of those as well.

Things are going good here. Moves is this week. I'm staying but my companion is moving. President Millar told my Elder Wilson who my new companion is but he immediately forgot. So I won't be able to tell you until next week. It seems as though we have lost contact with all our investigators except Peter. Every one must be busy with summer stuff or something. We've been having a hard time contacting people we are teaching as well as people we have met on the street. Contacting has been hard lately due to some summer fairs and festivals going on. Last Saturday Romsey had an event called "beggars fair" and there was live bands everywhere around the town which made it impossible to contact. That and it was just too crowded and there were lots of drunk people. We tried stopping by some people but they were all at the beggars fair. We decided to try contacting in Eastleigh but they were having a big event of their own. No one wanted to talk to us. It was not a very successful day. We also saw a dinosaur at the train station. I'll send pictures of that. He didn't want to hear from us either.

No Mosquitoes

Hello to everyone.

Another week, I always look forward to hearing from the family. I'm glad you had fun on Canada day. We had dinner at the bishop's house. He's not Canadian and didn't know it was Canada day but we had a very nice (and spicy) meal. I guess you can say that's how I celebrated Canada day. You should stop giving Baxter hot dogs. He's getting really fat.

The area is going good. We recently re-organised the potentials in the area book much like we did in my last area. It seemed to help. Now it's easier to figure out who we want to stop by based on where we will be that day. It's better/ less exhausting to contact on the way to something rather than aimlessly wandering around. Especially when you'r dealing with a lot of rejection. At least you feel like your getting something done. There are some people we found that we want to contact but it's not easy to catch them in for some reason. I'll admit; I am losing patience and energy. That's why we're looking for other things to do, so we're not doing the same thing for too long.

There seems to be no mosquitoes at all here. Not that I've seen.

We saw Peter again yesterday. He loves having conversations with us and he's super smart. It's hard to stay on topic with the lessons though and he has a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon as the word of god. We told him to read it and he's up for it but he's busy reading the Bible cover to cover. We are still trying to get back in contact with Damien but now he's got dental problems. We keep calling at a bad time. (In England calling also means knocking or stopping by)

Zone Training

This week has been good and bad. We've had more lessons this week and new investigators as well. That's mostly because we have been doing lots of street contacting this week. We had two days in a row of just contacting and it is extremely exhausting. We've been getting some street teaches and a few new investigators from it but a lot of the scheduled appointments we had were flogged or cancelled. We haven't had any dinner appointments last week. I have lost almost all of my energy. It's very stressful not having any proper sit down lessons. We couldn't visit Damien because he's been sick but we did get to teach another new investigator this week. His name is Peter; he's 20 years old (if I'm remembering correctly) and he knows the bible really well. He actually stopped us on the street and told us that missionaries have taught him and his family before and he want's to start meeting with us again. So far we've only met with him but the rest of his family don't seem too interested any more. So we'll just meet with him for now. He's very kind and is sincerely seeking for the truth. I think the lesson went well.

Here is the picture we took on our Zone Training a few weeks ago.

Canada Day

Hello family..

We have been having some really nice weather this week. In fact I don't think it rained at all in the past couple weeks. It's been super hot. I guess I sent all the rain over to you.

It's been a hard week but we've picked up a baptismal date. His name is Damien and he's in his mid twenties. He's a nice guy and he's trying to quit smoking so we told him we're going to help him with that. He just got a new job as a security guard but he works really late shifts so we're worried it may make it hard to meet with him or bring him to church as he'll want to sleep. But he told us his life has been better since we met him; that he started getting job interviews (he's had a hard time finding a job) and he's been feeling over all more positive in general. 

We've been focusing on contacting former and potential investigators the past few days and we made a list of people we want to try by this week. Turns out the area book doesn't look too bad. It seems fairly up-to-date. Way better than the one in my last area. Hopefully we will have success contacting these people but we want to find new people to teach and we're having a hard time with that.

We've been able to meet more of the members. One of them reminds me of Merle Dixon. We had dinner at his place.

 I did get grandmas parcel. A plushy moose that says "moose hugs from Canada." (made in China) You didn't send me the pictures from Britt's birthday. 

Getting ready for Canada Day

Wicked Wendy 2

Hello everyone.

Glad to hear everything is still doing good over there. Good to hear that you all are keeping busy. And happy fathers day! Hope you had a good one. Justin's going to love having a job (or at least the part where you get your own spending money from it). $14 an hour sounds good! And he'll love being able to drive. Don't worry once he gets his license he'll practice a lot more. I miss driving. You can sell my car though, I don't like the idea of it not being used for so long and someone else may really want an old toyota. Besides, I still really want a mini and it would be a good chance to have a new car. I'm not expecting you to buy one but keep an eye out for one for me. And tell justin that he doesn't have to give in to peer pressure. It's okay if he likes big trucks but he should be more open minded. Maybe he needs to watch some topgear. That might help. But if he's willing to pay for his own gas maybe he can find out for himself if it's worth it.

There's not much I can tell you this week as my companion and I have been sick for a collective two and a half days. I'm slowly getting familiar with the members here. I've been able to meet some of them at church but it's a lot easier to get to know them if we meet with them personally and we've only had one dinner appointment since I arrived here. I think that's where we got the sickness. We thought it was food poisoning from something we ate the night before but apparently the family we visited all got the same illness as us. We think it was just a bug. So apart from being stuck in our flat for a few days we also had a lot of plans cancelled so we mostly did street contacting and knocking. The area is a nice area but it's taking longer to adjust because I've hardly met any of the members formally and I've only met once with the investigators that I know of. I want to go through the area book to get a good idea about what people we are teaching. Unfortunately this aria book looks like another out of date one.

My new shoes are holding up well. We still do a lot of walking in this area but not as much as my last one. I like Romsey so far. I still haven't got grandma's package yet because the zone leader were late to "district leader council" or something so I'll get it at zone training on the 18th. I'd better send you some pictures now. This first one is of the abbey from our flat. I think we'll go there today for more pictures.

We went to this nice milkshake shop and they had hundreds of flavours. Here's two of the more interesting ones...

random stuff

Some stuff from my sketch book...