September 8, 2009

We've been working really hard this week. Our baptism actually got moved up to Friday night instead of Saturday so that's when that one will be but she's still right on track so that's pretty sweet. Yesterday was pretty rough for the first part of everything. Nobody would listen to us at all. For like 4 hours we tracted and street contacted and got absolutely nowhere so it was pretty tough. But then we decided to say a prayer and guess what... The next two people we stopped accepted the Book of Mormon and return appointments! Crazy huh. Being out here is so much better than the MTC I love doing the actual work you know. And I forgot to tell you that we live in the basement of a bed and breakfast owned by one of the members so that's pretty sweet.

August 30, 2009

It's our last Sunday in the MTC today! I just had some more personal time thsi afternoon to write. We head to the field on Wednesday morning so this might be the last letter I write to you from the MTC.

So I have a couple of experiences I wanted to share with you. So I can't really remember whether I told you or not but last Sunday Elder L. Tom Perry came to the MTC to give us a little devotional. It was really good. He talked quite a bit about Nephi getting the brass plates from Laban. He likened it to missionary work really well; he showed us how they weren't able to get the plates until they trusted in God and he delivered them to them. It was way good. And then last night we had another devotional from Kenneth Cope. He came and gave a talk and it was so good! He talked about us being literal children of God and compared it to the love he has for his children. It really hit me hard. You know, I've heard people say we are God's children thousands of times but its never hit me like that... Like it cut me straight to my soul. All I could think about is what if one of my children were lost but I couldn't reach them myself? I would want someone to do it for me. Then I realized that's why I'm here! To rescue my brothers and sisters! It was such an amazing feeling! Kenneth Cope wrote a 4th verse to "Because I Have Been Given Much." I love it and wanted to share it with you. The words had a profound effect on me when we sang it at the end of the devotional.

Because of They life's mission, Lord
I too will serve.
I'll leave the comfort of my home
To teach Thy word.
I'll seek Thy sheep who've gone astray,
And those who've never known the way.
I will make Thy work, my work, today!

So I was going to tell you a funny story, too. So on Thursday we got to go out tracting in Blackburn, a nearby city, and quite ghetto I might add. But anyways, they sent us out to locate less actives and invite them back to church. So Elder Peterson and I got pretty much the most ghetto part of town; we were in all these little apartment complexes full of Muslims. We were literally the only white people within a 5 block radius so we looked really out of place anyway... But then we were in our suits and everyone else was in these long robes and Muslim hats. So we were in this on complex and this bobby (cop) comes out of nowhere and starts interrogating us about where we were from and what we were doing and everything. He asked about every question in the book and he had never heard of the church, so that didn't help. He wanted to know why we were in England and where we were staying and everything. He even made us show him our American driver's licences and everything lol. I guess he thought we were there to rob people or something. But luckily we didn't get arrested lol. It was close though. But we didn't end up getting into any houses or anything but on our way back to the van to go back to the MTC we ran into one white guy on the street who said he was busy at the moment but we could send anybody over to his house later and he'd love to hear our message, so we took down his address for the Manchester missionaries. So at least there was some success. Getting out and doing the actual work made it kinda tough to come back to the MTC, though, lol. Oh well, we get plenty of work later, right.

So I should probably tell you why I was with Elder Peterson, huh? Well its kinda crazy but Elder King has been really sick for the last 3 or 4 days, so I got paired with Elder Peterson now. We get along so great! Like seriously, you hear people talk about eternal friendships with companions and I'm here to tell you its true. Like just in the 4 days we've been companions we've become so good of friends. Unfortunately he is going to the London mission, though, so that sucks but its ok. We also get to take care of Elder King so I've gotten to be really good friends with him, too. We really have a good time together so it helps to keep the time passing and the homesickness down, which is really really nice! I've found that friendships and work are the best medicine for that!