Crazy tranfer's week!

"I realised at the beginning of this last week that all the District Leaders I’ve had so far have gone home! What a scary thought! Just shows how quickly a mission goes! But now that I have Elder Bunker as my District Leader, I know he will be here until two transfers before I go home!

Elder Desir and I had a great weekend! We have been trying to be more ourselves, and try different ways of doing missionary work.

On Saturday, we played some basketball with a recent convert and a load of his friends. They are all from the Philippines, and are really nice. Most of them had also met missionaries before in the Philippines so they kept asking us “Do you speak Tagalog? Because the missionaries in the Philippines do, and they are really good at it!” It was fun. We are hoping to play again with them this week, and while one of us plays, the other will be sitting down and teaching whoever else is sitting down. All of them also have families, so we really want to get teaching them and their families! It would definitely help the ward here in Shrewsbury to grow!

Then yesterday (Sunday) we had tea at our Italian Investigator’s home! There are ALWAYS other people there too! Now, everyone there was catholic besides us 2… But I think we did pretty well! At one point they were arguing about the big Cathedrals that the Catholic Church has, some of them agreed that they were necessary and some of them thought they were pointless. The investigator's son, asked us if we had any big buildings, and what our view was about it. I explained about how just like in the times of the Old Testament we have Temples, the House of the Lord – we even showed them pass along cards of the Salt Lake and the Preston Temples – and that the reason why they are so beautiful is because as an offering to the Lord from us, we build it with the best materials we can. The investigator then asked us if we really thought that God wanted such a building, so we used the Bible to reply to her question. I mentioned about how Jesus Christ, during his Ministry, drove the money changers out of the Temple because it was his Father’s house, and so we know for a fact that it is something that is important to God.

It was great! Whenever they were talking, there were multiple conversations going on at once, however, when we spoke, there was absolute silence, and it was almost unnerving to speak up because of how much silence there was!

When we were leaving, the investigator told us that she would like to come to our church in two weeks as she has never been to a “Mormon Church” before but ‘…would like to know what it is all about”.

This week should be really amazing! We are packed with things to do today – from spending time with one of the Priests, to an appointment-packed evening tonight – then there is the temple tomorrow!

Elder Desir and I are so excited to go to the Temple! It’s been so long since we have last gone in! I miss it so much! And now I definitely have a LOT more questions to take in with me than last time!

Can’t wait to feel of that Spirit and Love which can only really be felt at the Temple."

Staying in Shrewsbury with..... Elder Desir! :)

"What a wonderful surprise to be serving with Elder Desir for another transfer!

On Monday, after transfer calls, we went out to do some finding. What a wonderful day it was! We decided to pray and ask God to lead us to families. As we were street contacting, this man walked past us, with earphones in his ears, and Elder Desir spoke to him. We found out that he actually had a partner and 2 daughters. As we kept speaking to him, he told us that it would be a huge feeling of happiness to know that he could be with his family forever, and he set up an appointment with us, for the very same day. We taught a really wonderful Restoration lesson to him and his family. He accepted to read the book of Mormon and pray about it, and he told us he wants to read the whole book before we go over again. Thankfully he is a quick reader, so he told us he will have finished reading it in the next two weeks! We will keep popping by though just to see if we can help him receive the Restored Gospel into his life ASAP.

Praying for families has definitely been a huge help this last week! We have been seeing a lot of success from it! Prayer is the best thing ever! So simple, and yet so powerful! Elder Desir and I are really excited for this transfer, and we know that some good things will happen here in Shrewsbury!

I love being here in Shrewsbury! The people we work with are great! I love them to bits! And so does Elder Desir. I think that is one of the reasons why we have such great expectations for this transfer! These people will feel our love, and hopefully we will be able to feel their love too!

I am so excited to go to the temple next week! I miss it so much! It is such a special feeling to be inside it and feel of God’s love for us. Cannot wait!"

I love being a missionary!

"I love being a missionary so much! You just see so many miracles! It’s wonderful! Let me tell you about a couple of miracles we were able to see today!

So, on Wednesda, we had about 30mins to do some proselyting before our flat inspectors came to see how our flat was looking, so we decided to go out, into town – which we never do as town is always too crowded of “busy” people. Anyway, it was evening time, so there weren’t as many people out!

As we were walking through town, I saw a young man, with really long hair, Punk-ish look who looked sort of familiar, and both Elder Desir and I were certain we’d spoken to him before. However, I decided to approach him anyway as there is nothing wrong with a second chance! Turns out we had never actually spoken to him before. We had a really nice conversation with him about the Gospel. As we were trying to set up an appointment, Elder Desir said “I am sure you are very busy…” to which he replied “Not really… I have about 10 more minutes…” We were both shocked! But of course took this opportunity to sit on a bench and teach him the First Lesson. He was GOLDEN! He understood the need for baptism, and when I felt inspired to do so, I invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ which he accepted! The only sad thing about it: He is from Yorkshire. We left him with a copy of the book of Mormon which he actually asked for, and a pamphlet of the Restoration. I am very confident that he will read and pray about it.

The second Miracle that amazed me happened on Friday. After we got out of the house, as we were going up the road, a man crossed the road to meet with us. So I approached him and told him about our message. He told us that we’d tried speaking to him before, but he’d been having a miserable day so just brushed us off, however, as we were walking in the same direction, we could share with him our message."

We ended up walking with him all the way to his house, he invited us in, we sat down and shared with him about our message, and before we left we set up a return appointment. He is a Baptist and so he kept asking us about being saved by grace and not works. He also spoke about the dead not having a second chance after this life, and when we mentioned 1 Corinthians 15:29, he said that he had never come across that scripture before.

 

I love being a missionary and meeting so many different and nice people! It’s one of the things I love most! Shrewsbury Ward truly is a great Ward! I love it! The members are really nice, and they really like the missionaries. There is nothing I love more than when members and missionaries work together!"

Following the promptings of the Spirit!

"What a week it has been!

It started with an exchange with Elder Coomes on Tuesday through to Thursday. Elder Coomes and I really had a great time! That was the third opportunity to serve with someone from my MTC group while out here in the field. What made it even more special was the fact that Elder Coomes and I were actually in the same MTC District! We were able to see a couple of Miracles while we were together, as well as some hard times, but I loved every single second of serving with him.

First Miracle was on Wednesday while we were finding. We were tracting a road, up to the point where we actually had knocked at all the houses on the left side. Also, we were running short on time as we had an appointment in 30mins. However, as I looked to the right, the last door jumped out at me and I thought “maybe we should try one last door…” Now, something that Elder Matute taught me, is that if we give ourselves time to rationalize, we will ignore promptings of the spirit and say they were our own thoughts, so as soon as I thought that – to try one last door- I did what Elder Matute told me to do, I turned to Elder Coomes and said straightaway “Let’s try one last door!”

What a miracle it was to follow that prompting! When we knocked at the door, a man opened the door and invited us into his house. He introduced us to his family and invited us to sit down in his living room. We had a very chat with this great man and his wife, and although they were not interested at all, it was a great opportunity to share our testimonies and invite them to get even closer to Jesus Christ.

The second miracle came on Thursday. It was about 2pm and we hadn’t had a single QGC yet! Everyone was being really rough with us. Throughout the morning, I’d at times thought to myself “Perhaps we should pray…” so I brushed that thought aside. However, when we finish tracting half the street we were on, in my head the thought “Pray!” just kept on popping up. So I told Elder Coomes we needed to pray. We moved onto a quieter street and quickly prayed for Faith to see miracles, and love for the people we were going to speak with.

After our prayer, we knocked at a door and a lady opened it. We had a great QGC with her, and we set up an appointment with her for next Thursday! She is married and has a daughter. Before we left, she also asked us if we had a Book of Mormon that we could lend to her, so Elder Coomes gave her his last copy.

I love the power of Prayer! I know that there was a reason why I was being prompted to pray. Maybe if we had not prayed we would have knocked at this lady's door expecting rejection, or maybe she wouldn’t have felt the love from her Heavenly Father as we spoke to her. Whatever the reason it was why we had to pray, I know that it was inspired of God, and that it increased both mine and Elder Coomes’ testimony of Prayer!

During our Companion Study, Elder Desir and I have been talking a lot about the fundamental “The Role of the Holy Ghost in Conversion”. I really believe that that is one of the most crucial fundamentals there are. We may be the best at quoting the First Vision with a lot of feeling! But if we have not the Spirit with us, or if the investigator does not feel the Spirit, nothing is being taught to the Heart of the Investigator.

We visited a Part Member family in the evening. They are from Romania, and so the lessons with them are usually a bit of a process as we try not to get lost in translation. We were able to recognize and rely on the Spirit as we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The wife told us, in her broken English, that she wants to make a change as she has seen the blessing that the Gospel has been on her husband, but first she wants to read and know that the Book of Mormon is true. I love weeks like this! I love it when it becomes so easy to see Miracles even though there are also a lot of trials about! I love how much the Gospel changes people’s lives. I can’t wait for this brother to see his dream (his wife and son being baptised) come true."