A Full Week

It was soo hot and humid this week like wow

Another extremely busy week for us here in London. And we had a bit of it all: Zone conference, exchange, crazy testimonies on fast Sunday. You name it.

Tuesday (May 28): Well we had a pretty empty day today. No appointments scheduled whatsoever. So this morning we did our studies and then we traveled to the chapel in order to print out some invitations to an activity we will be having on Saturday. Then we came back to the flat and had lunch and then went finding. After that we contacted some of the friends we found last week, and finally we stopped by less active members for a bit before coming home and having dinner.

Wednesday: This was one of the busiest days I've ever had in my mission. I had zone leader exchange and my companion was Elder Viloria from Venezuela.

Exchange with Elder Viloria

He's a huge baseball fan so we enjoyed talking a bit of baseball throughout the day and it was great. But honestly we were running back and forth from place to place all day. We have 4 lessons, a lunch appointment, and also a ward scripture study activity at night. We didn't even have time for dinner or a comp study. It was so crazy! I don't remember a lot of details about the day but I do just remember running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Thursday: Today we had zone conference and it was pretty good. Although it did go quite long and we didn't end up getting home until nearly 7. The main focus was about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of Christ's church on the Earth. We also received some great training and even 15 minutes of meditation courtesy of Sister Checketts. Our lunch was pork chops and rice with Strawberry Shortcake for dessert. I also got to see Elder Brown today and talk to my jr high basketball teammate Stockton (Elder Madsen) who just arrived in the mission last week. It was a pretty cool day!

Friday: Woah another busy day. Being in a London area sure makes for some super busy days. This morning we taught a less active member who smokes marijuana but wants to quit so we helped create a plan for him to stop that. Hopefully he sticks to it. Then we went to see another less active and talk with him a little bit. After which we came home and ate a late lunch until we traveled to another lesson. After that lesson we went to teach yet ANOTHER lesson to a less active family. We barely made it home by 9 tonight and just had to have some frozen pizza for dinner before going to sleep.

Saturday: Well today we were supposed to have 3 lessons but all 3 of them didn't end up happening :( We also went to stop by a referral that we received but she was asleep apparently, that's what her roommate told us anyway, so that wasn't super great. And then tonight we had planned to have a movie night and watch the Joseph Smith Restoration movie. We invited a bunch of ward members, friends, and less actives to come along and quite a few people said they would. But only 1 family actually came. It made for a sad ending to a pretty devastating day 😕

Sunday: Hmm fast Sundays are always fun. Our fast and testimony meeting was nothing short of entertaining. One of the less active members who was at church shared a testimony on why we should pray to the Holy Ghost instead of Heavenly Father, and he proceeded to explain his reasoning for about 10 minutes. Also, one of the ward members today gave me a Nigerian name which is "Ayooluwa" it means joy of the Lord. So I thought that was pretty fun. Also we taught a primary class which was super interesting. Then tonight we stopped by a member who was unable to come to church and we gave her the sacrament. After that we went to another members house and gave them a blessing. And then Bishop dropped us off at home where we had another late dinner after 9 and then went to sleep.

It was a really weird week because the days felt really short and quick, but the week as a whole felt soo long. But, we finally made it to a new week and I guess we will see what this one has in store!

Elder Orchard