The Pizza Miracle

Me in front of a member's house with a tiny front door. The building looks sweet!

This was a bit of a shorter week because we had P day on Tuesday last week and now it is Monday so it was only like a 6 day week. So we start from Wednesday.

Wednesday (Nov 7): I felt more like a missionary today than ever. I woke up and it was so windy and rainy, literally the most wind I have ever seen or felt in my life. Then as we were doing some contacting we met a lady who just moved here yesterday from Romania. Her name is Lidia and she was really nice. We invited her to church and she said she might come Later we saw her carrying some bed posts and we offered to help her and so we carried them to her house which was a mile away. Then we asked if she needed to get anything else and she needed a mattress so we went with her and carried that mattress back a mile as well. Keep in mind the rain and wind. Man it was wild. But we got to know her a little bit and she is awesome. She told us she would come to church on Sunday and we gave her a Book of Mormon. After we were about to leave she was so grateful that she asked if she could buy us a cup of coffee or tea. Haha not the best offer. I just hope we can teach her. Overall it was a great day today despite the crazy weather. 

The ocean on a crazy windy day.

Thursday: Today we had the chance to do service for a member who is putting in extensions for his house. We did this from 10am until 6pm with lunch in between and then they fed us dinner afterwards! Man it was so exhausting and lots of manual work. We put in drainage pipes, moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of material to bring the flooring up to grade. Also we dug quite a bit of holes and man I was sore. They made pork chops and potatoes for dinner so I was satisfied. I had fun but if there is one thing I learned today it is that I don't want to work construction or any form of manual labor for a job. They even sent us home with some food like soup, bananas, juice, etc. Man they are such an awesome family I just love the members here in Hastings. To sum up the day it was challenging, fun, hard, and rewarding. 

 Me digging a whole in the dark, one of them was my actual face and the other is me with a fake face. Can you tell which is which? 

Friday: Today we traveled in to do our interviews with President and Sister Checketts. We were asked by sister Checketts to share a conference talk from the recent conference that answers a question of the soul. President Checketts asked us to teach him a principle form Preach my gospel. It was great and I really love them. We had Mac n Cheese for lunch and it was delicious. Travel takes up a lot of time when you live on the south coast and have to travel to London so we didn't really do much else besides that and interviews. Then we just did some studying when we got home. 

Saturday: This morning was so devastating. As we were studying we got a call from one of our friends we were teaching and she said she didn't want to meet with us anymore. Which was so sad because we felt like she was very solid and humble and willing to learn. Oh well, maybe she will be ready another time. Tonight I experienced a miracle. Some people might think this is silly but I was really touched and my testimony was strengthened because of this so here you go. The Pizza Miracle; Me and Elder Stoddard were stopping by houses of members and we passed this pizza place that was only 5 pounds for an extra large pizza so of course we had to buy it on our travel back to the flat. Well we bought it and as we were walking back it started to rain. And I was so excited to eat this pizza and to some they might think it is funny but I prayed in my head that our pizza would stay dry and warm. and literally right after I finished praying we walked by an umbrella that was seriously just sitting there on the ground. Wow I was so happy and so grateful. Why was this simple pizza experience so miraculous to me? Well I truly feel like God wants to bless us in every aspect of our lives no matter how small, all we have to do is ask (prayer). I also believe that he does in fact bless us with small things like this every day  and we need to do a better job of recognizing those small and simple things and really be grateful for them. 

Sunday: Today was remembrance day which they have on Nov 11 in England to remember those who died in world war 1. Almost no one was at church we had about 30 people there and we had to bless the sacrament as well. Some older ladies gave us some American candy though which was sweet! Yes pun intended. Today other than that was just a basic Sunday in the mission field nothing too exciting to share. 

Monday (today): This morning we did some shopping for food and when we were walking back to our flat we found this freezer literally sitting on the side of the road right next to our flat. There was a note on it that said, "Free, please take, otherwise it is going to the dump on Tuesday." Wow me and Elder Stoddard were stoked because our flat only has a fridge it doesn't have a freezer. So you better believe we hauled that bad boy into our flat and found a spot for it and plugged that sucker in. Man the missionary work here in Hastings has been really difficult and we have not had much success but boy the Lord has sure blessed us in many other ways. 

The freezer we picked up today.

This week was a real struggle numbers wise because we taught no lessons, no one new came to church, and we only found one new person to teach. But even though it has been rough I have still managed to find joy in the little things and be grateful for all the blessings which we do receive. That is it for me this week. Hope all of you are doing well and I am thankful for the love and support which you give to me. Until next Monday!

Elder Orchard

We also learned: Thanks for the food ideas. I have done ham and cheese sandwiches with soup, as well as grilled cheese. But I haven't made spaghetti because that is a lot of effort compared to other things haha. Also I haven't been able to find packaged mac and cheese and nothing along the lines of ramen noodles sadly. Also they don't have chicken noodle soup here it kinda sucks. They have like all these different crazy kinds of soup but I haven't been able to find chicken noodle at any stores. Yes we got a little bit of food at church but not as much, and the only dinner we got was the family who we did service for the whole day but other than that no dinner appointments. Yes we got baking soda today so hopefully that will be able to fix the smell slowly over these next few days.

What conference talk did you share and what principle did you teach from preach my gospel? I shared Elder Uchtdorf's talk called "Believe, Love, Do" It is a great talk about how we can find joy and happiness and it also talks about how having faith in Christ will bless our lives. It is super great! The principle that I taught was the Christlike attribute of love/charity. 

I guess I would just like to hear about your interview with your mission President this last week.  Did you have to ride the train back to meet him, or did he come to where you are to do the interview?  How long did the interview last and what kind of things did he talk to you about? My interview with President was good. It was pretty short though. Like I said in the main email I taught him a principle from PMG and so I decided to teach him the Christ like attribute of Love/Charity so that is actually really funny how you mentioned to study the Christlike attributes because that is what I have focused on studying this whole past week. Then after I taught him he basically just told me to focus on asking everyone for referrals. Regardless of if they are members or non members, and then said the best way to do it would be to share something from preach my gospel and ask if they know anyone who would be interested to learn more. That was essentially the interview. Unfortunately we had to go to him so it was another day filled with long train rides. Yeah that is basically the gist of how things went.