Not Too Shabby
This week was not too shabby. It seemed like it took forever though since we are leading up to Christmas haha. But I had lots of cool experiences and in fact I had the privilege of taking part in 4 blessings this week. Its funny because I was thinking at the beginning of the week at how I'm surprised I haven't had to be part of any blessings yet and then the Lord just slapped us with them. The spirit is so strong in those moments and they truly are so powerful.
Tuesday (Dec 11): We were able to do service with Brother Hobbs again today which is always such a blast. It has been exciting to see the progress of his house and I can't wait for in a year or 2 when he finally finishes it to see how it looks. It will be so cool to always know that we helped him build that extension. Brother Hobbs knows how much I love sourdough bread and so he bought some for us to have with our lunch. He's a legend!
Wednesday: This morning we taught a cool guy who's a tattoo artist and had a super nice home. Then when we got back we are some lunch, did some studies, and hit the streets. The ocean breeze is bone chilling when the wind picks up! We wanted to teach Mohammed today but he was pretty busy with work and we didn't get the chance to. Honestly today was pretty challenging in the evening but we were able to get through it. The member who was going to have us over for dinner had to cancel last minute and so that was a little tough. Boy let me tell you something missions are challenging. We seriously plan out our day with what we are going to be doing every single minute and no matter what without fail ever single day our plans will fall through at some point and it's all about adapting.
Thursday: We had our district meeting this morning and it was pretty great. Then directly after we went home to teach a lesson with a nice chap who used to be an alcoholic but then completely changed his life around. But the time we got back to the flat it was 3:30 and we still hadn't eaten lunch yet, I guess you could say I was pretty darn hungry. Its crazy because the sun sets so early here in the winter so by the time we finished eating lunch it was dark outside. How wild is that! Afterwards we went to teach Mohammed and prepare him for his baptismal interview on Sunday and then we went to choir practice. It was quite a busy day.
Friday: We spent our morning as usual talking to people on the streets. A ward member invited us over for lunch and it was delicious! She basically made rice and beans and I haven't had that for quite a while and I just loved it. This particular couple is pretty cool the husband is from Colorado and the wife is from France. They are great and then invited us to come over for boxing day to have dinner. The rest of the day wasn't too exciting it was just a normal afternoon.
Saturday: Holy moly today was so cold! It was super windy and rainy the entire day and I was freezing. We did a lot of street contacting because we didn't have anything cool planned for the day. However street contacting never goes well while the weather is bad because no one will stop and talk. But there wasn't much else we could do so we just had to endure to the end. (Hehe missionary reference). This evening we travelled to Tunbridge Wells to do some tracting with the sisters in their area and it was actually pretty fun in the rain. We even got one guy who swore at us about 5 times all in the same sentence. Haha man those people are so funny.
Sunday: This Sunday was so great! I got asked to speak about agency so I spent about 3 days of my morning study preparing this talk and I feel like it went really well. We went with the Elders quorum President after church to go visit a couple of people who were sick and then brother Hobbs invited us over for dinner and we had some good pasta. After we ate we decided to watch the Christmas devotional since none of us had seen it yet and it was great. I even saw brother Williams from our ward in the choir!! Wow I just thought that was so cool. Tonight Mohammed had his baptismal interview and since he has a Muslim background he had to be interviewed by a member of the mission presidency because that's the policy I guess. Well guess what guys, Mohammed passed his interview!!!!!! Christmas just got that much better because we are going to be having his baptism on this Saturday the 22nd! He has been such a miracle and I am amazed at how much he feels the spirit. He doesn't have the greatest understanding because his English isn't great but he has a strong testimony in Jesus Christ.
This week has been filled with miracles and the tender mercies of the Lord. I hope that each of you will look back on this last week and recognize the many small blessings that came.
Do you have more details about the blessings you helped with? The first one happened on Tuesday while we were serving with brother Hobbs. He got a call and one of the members of our ward had their dad fall and break his hip so we went to the hospital and gave him a blessing with Brother Hobbs. The other 2 were just people who couldn't come to church and have been sick for a while. Then this morning we traveled to Tunbridge Wells to give one of the sisters a blessing because she is having a tough time learning English. All wonderful experiences and it was great.
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| Me and Elder Stoddard slaying the work |
Tuesday (Dec 11): We were able to do service with Brother Hobbs again today which is always such a blast. It has been exciting to see the progress of his house and I can't wait for in a year or 2 when he finally finishes it to see how it looks. It will be so cool to always know that we helped him build that extension. Brother Hobbs knows how much I love sourdough bread and so he bought some for us to have with our lunch. He's a legend!
Wednesday: This morning we taught a cool guy who's a tattoo artist and had a super nice home. Then when we got back we are some lunch, did some studies, and hit the streets. The ocean breeze is bone chilling when the wind picks up! We wanted to teach Mohammed today but he was pretty busy with work and we didn't get the chance to. Honestly today was pretty challenging in the evening but we were able to get through it. The member who was going to have us over for dinner had to cancel last minute and so that was a little tough. Boy let me tell you something missions are challenging. We seriously plan out our day with what we are going to be doing every single minute and no matter what without fail ever single day our plans will fall through at some point and it's all about adapting.
Thursday: We had our district meeting this morning and it was pretty great. Then directly after we went home to teach a lesson with a nice chap who used to be an alcoholic but then completely changed his life around. But the time we got back to the flat it was 3:30 and we still hadn't eaten lunch yet, I guess you could say I was pretty darn hungry. Its crazy because the sun sets so early here in the winter so by the time we finished eating lunch it was dark outside. How wild is that! Afterwards we went to teach Mohammed and prepare him for his baptismal interview on Sunday and then we went to choir practice. It was quite a busy day.
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| Mohammed with his baptismal calendar |
Friday: We spent our morning as usual talking to people on the streets. A ward member invited us over for lunch and it was delicious! She basically made rice and beans and I haven't had that for quite a while and I just loved it. This particular couple is pretty cool the husband is from Colorado and the wife is from France. They are great and then invited us to come over for boxing day to have dinner. The rest of the day wasn't too exciting it was just a normal afternoon.
Saturday: Holy moly today was so cold! It was super windy and rainy the entire day and I was freezing. We did a lot of street contacting because we didn't have anything cool planned for the day. However street contacting never goes well while the weather is bad because no one will stop and talk. But there wasn't much else we could do so we just had to endure to the end. (Hehe missionary reference). This evening we travelled to Tunbridge Wells to do some tracting with the sisters in their area and it was actually pretty fun in the rain. We even got one guy who swore at us about 5 times all in the same sentence. Haha man those people are so funny.
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| Us pointing at a random sign after we did tracting in the rain |
Sunday: This Sunday was so great! I got asked to speak about agency so I spent about 3 days of my morning study preparing this talk and I feel like it went really well. We went with the Elders quorum President after church to go visit a couple of people who were sick and then brother Hobbs invited us over for dinner and we had some good pasta. After we ate we decided to watch the Christmas devotional since none of us had seen it yet and it was great. I even saw brother Williams from our ward in the choir!! Wow I just thought that was so cool. Tonight Mohammed had his baptismal interview and since he has a Muslim background he had to be interviewed by a member of the mission presidency because that's the policy I guess. Well guess what guys, Mohammed passed his interview!!!!!! Christmas just got that much better because we are going to be having his baptism on this Saturday the 22nd! He has been such a miracle and I am amazed at how much he feels the spirit. He doesn't have the greatest understanding because his English isn't great but he has a strong testimony in Jesus Christ.
This week has been filled with miracles and the tender mercies of the Lord. I hope that each of you will look back on this last week and recognize the many small blessings that came.
Elder Orchard
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| Here's a picture I found from the first zone conference |
Q&A:
Did you get your Christmas packages? Yes I did get my packages from the neighbours thanks! They are somewhat friendly, although they smoke a lot so our house usually smells like smoke when we get back at the end of the day so we have some cans of febreez that we just absolutely bomb the whole house with haha. Our zone conference is going to be this Thursday and it's a temple trip!! I am so excited now I will have gone to both temples in England. I will get the package then yeah. We have member who will have us over for Christmas eve, Christmas, and boxing day so we are set thankfully. Boxing day we will just spend with the members all day pretty much so it will be fun. I guess it's some type of holiday in the past where the rich people would put all the stuff in boxes that they didn't want the day after Christmas and then put it out on the street for poor people to get. They don't do that anymore though but they still celebrate the holiday haha.
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