Therapist...(Peacemaker)

I really felt like this week was filled with a little bit of everything. Anything that could have happened in a week did happen, good and bad. Friday especially was a crazy day. It made for a really strange week:

Tuesday (Jan 7): Started off the week by going on exchanges. So I spent the day working here in Lea Valley with Elder Siu from Hong Kong. We had a great time, had a lunch appointment, did a little finding, taught a lesson, spoke to a super drunk guy in a barber shop, and then had dinner. I think it was a good day and I hope my temporary companion did as well. 

Exchanges

Wednesday: We had our zone conference today, a lot of it was about things that we had already spoken about at MLC but it was still pretty good. Our mission is now focused on not only baptizing new converts, but also working with recent converts and returning members of the church to take them to the temple. I think it's the right mindset and I'm excited for this year. When zone conference was over we traveled back into our area and had our usual gospel principles class at the chapel where we had some interesting discussions on the gift of the Holy Ghost haha. Then we headed back home for the night. 

Thursday: In the morning we headed to the chapel, did our weekly planning and then ate some lunch. After lunch it was time to go finding on the streets and we were there for a solid 2.5 hours and then unfortunately it started raining. If it hadn't have been raining we could have kept going but once it was raining it was time to do something else haha.  So we went back to the chapel to contact our friends from last week, and as well to call some of the companionships in the zone to do some ministering. Then we did a little more finding and also stopped by returning members in the evening, and made it home by 8:45 So we had a solid 15 minutes for dinner before 9. 

Friday: Wow let me tell ya this is a day to go into the book of missionary stories to tell. The beginning of the day was good, we spent a few hours street contacting, ate some lunch, did a bit more contacting, and then we had a lesson with someone we have been teaching for a while. Well she walks into the chapel and says "I was thinking about baptism and I was wondering if there would be enough time to do it today" 😂 We were shocked haha, we explained that we still needed to teach some things for her to understand and to prepare for the baptism so now she is on date for the 25th of January so let's goo! Then we were going to travel to one of the areas in our zone to help teach a first lesson to a referral that we had found and sent to those Elders, well the lesson didn't happen, so we traveled for about 45 minutes and then had to travel back. Luckily every Friday night we have our games night activity at the church and its always a fun time. Well we had just barely started when we get a call from President Checketts where he tells us that one of the companionships in our zone just had an intense argument with each other and are in such a spirit of anger that they needed to be separated for a few hours, and that we needed to go visit them and talk them through the problem to help them work it out. So we had to leave to get to their chapel and then there we spent about 2 hours getting to know the problem, talking to each missionary, and then helping them look past it and move forward. The craziest thing is that both of these missionaries are in their mid 20s, so here my companion and I are, young 19 year olds, helping 2 grown missionaries a few years older than us resolve an argument they had. We ended up staying at their chapel until nearly 10pm and then we still had to travel back home after that so we got home really late that night and I was exhausted from playing the roll of therapist for 2 missionaries. But it makes for a fun story so there's a positive to it. 

Saturday: Not quite as exciting of a day as yesterday, but it was still solid. We had a "lesson" in the morning with a guy who is Muslim and just wanted to prove to us how certain verses in the bible talk about Mohammed being a prophet. It was an interesting one. Then after that we traveled to a members home who we are helping prepare to go to the temple for his endowment. We spent some time at his house and then we came back to eat a very late lunch at 3pm. We ate and then went finding. Although there was a Tottenham vs Liverpool game going on tonight in our area that we didn't know about, and these are 2 really big teams, so the place where we usually go finding was so packed with people going to the game, so that makes it a fun time. When all was said and done we had a dinner appointment at our bishops house and then we went home. It was a pretty good day. 

Sunday: Church was solid today. We had 2 friends come to church and the ward was so good at fellowshipping, they talked to them for a long time and they really helped them feel welcome. Then after church we played football with some of the kids for a little bit and it was so much fun. Afterward we headed to the Brazilian members home for a great lunch that was so delicious just like every Sunday. Then after that we spent some time contacting returning members and doing finding. Then we came home and did our calls with the leaders in the zone tonight. 

And that's the end of the week. There was a whole lot of craziness that happened and it made for an interesting week but good never the less. That's about all from me though, I hope everyone else had a good week. Love you all!

Elder Orchard

 The Lea Valley missionaries matching

A really clever surprise we walked into at the chapel one day left from the Sisters

Some of the sisters in my zone found this street name.