Sept 8th, 2014

This week was all over the place! 

Monday was excellent. Barry and David both received their patriarchal blessings, and I've never seen 2 recent converts to excited!! They are going to do big things for the church in the future. watch out for Liu Di and Wei Shangkun.  Tuesday, we had mission leadership council, it was brilliant to be with so many of my mission friends. One of the coolest things was that Elder Pogue, Elder Debeikes, Elder Unice, and Elder Costigan were all there, serving as zone leaders in different zones. I've been blessed with incredible companions.  We are focusing on The Book of Mormon this month in our proselyting, and we were able to give some sweet training on Wednesday in Zone Meeting.  one of my favorite parts was we talked about patterns in the scriptures. the pattern of a prophet in 1 nephi 1: 4, 8-12, 18, and 20. a prophet prays, receives a vision, sees divine beings, receives a book, feels the spirit, teaches the people, and their life is threatened. seems quite similar to a latter-day prophet.. I love finding patterns in the scriptures! 

On Wednesday we had to say goodbye to Barry.. honestly the hardest goodbye of my mission. I know I've said that in the past, but seriously, it was awful. Much harder than the goodbye at the MTC, or any other in the past.  Ivy came up to me as we were all crying, I pull away in the car,  leaving Barry's home and she comforted me, and she said, "That's what's so amazing about the gospel, is we will be together forever." at that moment in time, my whole world just stopped and I've never been grateful for anything in my life as much as I was then, for the opportunity that I have to be here in England, serving a mission. If I came on my mission and got rejected by literally everyone I talked to, but was able to meet just one of these people, it would have been worth the 2 years of discouragement, however, having these experiences makes me excited to go and find more people who will be my future best friends.  

Thursday I went on an exchange with a missionary who is struggling very badly.  If hitler served a mission, it would be this missionaries companion.  He means no harm, but he's extremely obedient for the wrong reasons. We're going to focus this week on helping them as a companionship compromise and go forward. 

Ariel passed her baptismal interview on friday and we were really looking forward to her baptism on saturday. She called us at 5 on saturday, (baptism started at 7) saying that she was having some female issues that would last a few days, and that she forgot it was going to happen at that time, so we're going to have the baptism and confirmation this following weekend instead. because of the small language barrier, on the phone I could have sworn that I heard, "Can we reschedule the baptism? I'm in Paris?" when really it was, "Can we reschedule the baptism? I'm in PMS." sorry about the TMI. we both laughed about it and it will be fine. 

working without a uni (University) is so hard! I have no idea how I did it for the first 7 months of my mission.. I'm probably just preparing for my last area, which most likely won't have a uni either, but either way, we'll find a way to increase our teaching pool! 

I love you all so much! I hope that your week is brilliant and full with miracles!  

p.s. Dad- I got your package! It is brilliant :) we are constantly turning off all of the lights and playing glow in the dark football haha, and the additional mini hoop is always a good add. thank you so much! and for your heartfelt letter as well! 

Mom- I got the oils in the post! thank you so much! I'm going to have to lose some weight before I come home :)

also, there is a golf course that is only £3 for all you can golf! obviously the quality of the holes isn't great, but it should be fun to mess around there every few p-days. love you so much!