So this week has been... Interesting to say the least. So Wednesday we travelled to London to drop off Elder Brunstad and so I could pick up my new Elder. Elder Ho! He's from Hong Kong and he's been out on his mission two weeks longer than myself. He speaks Cantonese and his English is pretty good. Everyday we still have to do a language study for a bit so while he learns to pronounce some English terms I've been trying to learn a bit of Cantonese! It's been fun and I've gotten some of the basics down hah On Friday we got to meet with our Chinese investigator and even though he speaks Mandarin- Elder Ho was able to explain things a bit better than I could've and so we taught him a lot and then we invited him to be baptised! He didn't quite understand what that was... So he said no. But then we explained it and he said yes! He was excited to be able to come closer to God and learn more about him. So we gave him a date and then taught him word of wisdom. And we saw yet another miracle- he already follows the word of wisdom! It's amazing to see how the Lord prepares some people. I know we were blessed to meet him and I know Elder Ho is here for a reason. Saturday we had our best sports day yet! A lot of members showed up and we got to have fun and get them excited about bringing people and coming more often. On Monday- Pday; we got to hitch a ride with the Huntingdon elders and the Kettering elders and we went to Milton Keynes to play football with the Bletchly elders. It was a fun adventure because we got lost twice and the driver had only been driving for a day or two. We got to play chair football (which is one of the funnest games ever by the way) and then we all went to the Slug and Lettuce. It's this pretty good food place. Their hamburgers are ALMOST as good as an American burger. So far this transfer has started out pretty good! Elder Ho and I are excited to work on helping people come unto Christ and become the best missionaries we can. P.S. To those of you who send letters to my flat- stop sending letters there on September 23rd because October 1st is the end of the transfer and who knows whether I move or not.
So the reason I'm email today instead of yesterday is because it was moves calls yesterday! Last night we got the call and were told that Elder Brunstad is moving to Stevenage!! With a missionary that has been out for a little over a year. And I am staying in Bedford and a missionary who has been out just one transfer longer than me is coming to work here with me. Anyway. So this week has been crazy! After our first few quick days in London and then Duston; Wednesday we had a pretty regular day. Except Elder Brunstad has been feeling a little sick this whole week. We had a couple of great lessons and got to teach our new investigator from Gambia about the differences in beliefs. It was cool. Thursday I went to Huntingdon to work with Elder Smith (this is his first transfer) and I got to drive all day and we tried to visit some less actives and we had an awesome dinner appointment and got to draw our testimonies and have some fun. We also went and met with a family that is moving into the Bedford ward soon so that was good. Friday we met with our wonderful loving bible basher investigator. She is so knowledgable and takes the bible very literally.. But she is one of our coolest investigators and her kids are some of the smartest I know! (We'll be seeing them today because Elder Brunstad wants to be able to say good bye before he goes.) Later on Friday we took the train to St. Albans for our first singing fireside! It was such a cool experience. The people loved the music and there was a ton of people who came up and thanked us afterwards. The spirit is so strong when we sing the music. Saturday we had our sports day again. Not too many members showed up.. In fact there was only one active member there. The other people that showed up were less active! It was cool hah and we got to go play pool with our less active afterwards. Sunday we had a pretty good day! We got our awesome Chinese investigator to church and were able to talk with him a bit. He wants to get more involved and I think he'll be super excited when we invite him to be baptised. We also met an athiest in town centre and had a 45 minute talk with him about God and why or why not He might be there. It was pretty fun to see his view and try to testify to him HOW we know there's a God. Later that night we got to see our wonderful recent convert and she told us to start teaching her sons! They sat in and we were able to get a feel for what they're looking for. They will be such a great family in the gospel. Yesterday we were anxiously awaiting a call about what was going to happen. The whole day. We waited. And waited. And waited. We taught a few lessons throughout and such but still no call! Finally. At 10:45. We get called and the whole zone gets told what's happening and everything. It took them so long to call! Hah it was a pretty good day though. A lot of the district is sticking together. We've only got three of them that are leaving us. Luckily I'll be able to see Elder Brunstad pretty often since we'll both still be in choir. This week has been extremely fast and from what I hear- it goes even faster as time goes on! Hope you're all doing well! -Elder Jespersen Sorry- forgot to mention something monumentous! The mission is no longer counting finding hours! Like oyming and tracting. Their only counting lessons with people. So we don't use finding time to fill time- we use it to actually find people. It's something that will help the mission become more focused on people. This week has been intensely fast! Lots of good things! Monday we did end up going to Buckingham Palace!! Not as impressive as I thought... But it was still amazing! We met two missionaries from London South that we're about to go home. It was pretty cool getting to talk to them. One was from Switzerland and the other was from Tonga. Tuesday we had to go to Northampton for Zone Meeting. We travelled by bus with the sisters. Sister Jones had the worst migrane I've ever seen. She spent the whole ride there crying curling up in a ball. I felt so bad for her and I wanted to do something to help her. I kept feeling like we should give her a blessing but I wasn't carrying any oil. When we finally got to Northamton we got her inside and the Zone leaders took her off and gave her a blessing. She slept through most of the meeting and then at the end she looked absolutely fine! She still had a bad headache but she seemed a million times better. I was so thankful for the priesthood power that was used to help her. It was amazing how quickly and how well it worked. Wednesday was very busy! We had a lot of potential appointments planned. It turned out that most of them cancelled! But everytime that happened; we would fine someone else that we wanted to talk to! While we were in the library with the sisters a man stopped us and started talking about history! We started talking to him about BoM history and got into a really cool discussion about the BoM and how it's true! By the end the sisters gave him our number and left and we helped him understand a few confusing things and then went on our way. We also ended up seeing on of our investigators in town centre and had a lesson with him! Then he called a friend he saw over and introduced us to him! Then he did it again and we met another of his friends! He just kept calling people over and introducing us to everyone! It was great and we were able to teach most of them right then and there. Friday I had my first lesson in DRIVING!! I finally got to drive! It was refreshing. At first it was weird to be on the opposites of everything.. But I got used to it a lot quicker than I had imagined! It was really cool. And I took another lesson on Monday. The reason I had to take the lesson was because yesterday I had a workover with the Zone Leaders and I went with the one who couldn't drive so I ended up driving all day yesterday. I love it! I miss driving a lot hah. Saturday we had our sports day and barely anyone showed up! It was horrible! But we had fun with the few people that did show up and then we had to go so my companion could have his driving lesson. We also went basketball finding in the park and met some interesting Polish chavs and had a good game with them! Elder Brunstad loves finding through basketball. He's really good and we do actually meet some interesting people. Sunday we went to church early to go pick up our wonderful Chinese investigator! We got him to church and gave him a Chinese BoM. He was glued to it for the first half of sacrament! Then he had to go back to work but it was a really cool experience. Later that night we went tracting and found a new family to teach from Africa! They are all excited to see what makes Mormons different from every other Christian religion. They were a blessing. We knocked on their door and their fifteen year old boy answersed. As soon as we said Jesus Christ he told us to just come in because they're Christian! So we went right in and were able to talk to them a lot about the BoM! It was great. Monday we had a mission wide conference (hence no email then) where Elder David F Evans came to talk to us. A ton of us thought it was going to be all about internet proselyting because he's from the missionary department but it turns out he told us about having the faith to find people to teach. About teaching while we find people and finding people while we teach others. It was a great talk. After the conference we rushed home and I had my second driving lesson. On Tuesday I went to Duston to work with Elder Paul! He leaves for home in a week! It was a great workover. It was probably the fastest day I've had on the mission! We were working the whole time! Everyone Elder Paul saw he stopped and started talking to. And we had a ton of appointments! We got to sing to this wonderful Chinese investigator and she absolutely loved it! We taught this lady from Kenya that is being baptised on Saturday and gave her a blessing of comfort so she can invite her friends. She is so excited and already calls herself a Mormon. We also got to see a few member families and have good visits. Elder Paul was saying his goodbyes. It was really cool to be able to work with him and see how he does it all. And now today. Today we're going to be singing in town centre again! Should be fun! Lots of miracles. I love being out here and doing the L:ords work. It is fantastic and I wouldn't wish to be doing anything different. Elder Paul is sad he's going home.. But he kept talking about how many ways he's be a member missionary. Everyone can do something to help with the Lords work even if it's some simple. We just all need to invite our friends to "come and see". Great things to come. -Elder Jespersen
This week has been the absolute best so far. Well mostly haha it's been the best in the way of lessons! We had the most lessons and hours of work this week than throughout the whole transfer! And maybe even last transfer! It has been great. We've been able to meet so many new people and have so many lessons with people on the streets.
So Monday we went bowling again which was pretty cool but I don't think we'll be doing much more of that... In this transfer- our last few p-days left; we have so many things going on. Today (Monday) we have choir practice and next Monday we're having a mission wide conference in London. A missionary department person is coming to talk to us. A lot of us think it's about technology! It's going to be extremely exciting. And the next p-day after that will be the Tuesday before moves! It's come so fast! And in these following two weeks- Elder Brunstad and I are going to be taking driving lessons so we can help the leaders drive people around. Not many of the missionaries in this zone have there hours of driving done so we're doing it so we can help out. And I really miss driving so that's a bonus. So Tuesday kicked us off with our miracle week. In the morning we had to go to the bike shop to pick up supplies to fix my bike (got a flat on Sunday) and then take the 30 minute walk to the chapel and fix it. It actually was pretty easy and quick. We got it done fast and then that evening we had a lesson with our new member Teresa and one of her 19 year old daughters dropped in and started asking a ton of questions about what happens now that her mom has been baptised. We gave her a chapter in the BoM to read and made an appointment for later. She asked a ton of great questions and we were able to teach her and she became a new investigator for us! Wednesday we had an even more posh day! We did some service of painting for a less active member and got him talking about his mission a lot! It was great. Then we went oyming for the first time in days! And we were super successful! We met about three people who were interested and two of them we even had great lessons with right there in the street. It's always a little awkward there when we ask to pray right there in the middle of the side walk but it's always a really good experience if they accept. After oyming we went to a fancy restaurant that a new Chinese investigator of ours manages. He lives above it. So we had a lesson in the middle of this posh restaurant while it was closed and got free drinks and everything. We taught him about God and prayer and then we prayed for him and after we closed our prayer he asked if he could pray in his own language. He offered an amazing prayer in Mandarin and asked if God was there. The spirit was very powerful. We invited him to come to church and we're working on getting him a Mandarin BoM. He is so excited to be learning about God. Thursday was a fantastic day as well. We had a lovely couple of lessons with the family members of Teresa and were able to teach them a ton. Her husband felt the spirit really strong and requested to meet with us one on one so there weren't as many distraction. He even started tearing up. As Elder Brunstad closed with a prayer I almost shed a tear or two myself the spirit was so present. We also taught him yesterday and had another amazing lesson with him, I think Teresa's whole family will eventually be baptised. Teresa provides a wonderful example for them and they can all see how it's changed and helped her life. Saturday we saw our wonderful confusing Portuguese investigator. He professes to be a member of the church and he even remembers when he was baptised in Angola but no one can ever find his records... Anyway. We helped him fix his bike and then took him to a bbq with some members. It was great and he reunited with some people he knew before. We also got him to commit to come to church because we fixed his bike. He ended up showing up after sacrament meeting but then he stayed for the next two hours. It was a good experience for him and he met a lot of new ward members. Sunday we had about an hour of finding time before our next appointment (which was with Teresa's husband and daughter which went great.) and so we decided to go tracting. The first door we knocked; the bloke opened up the door and said that if we were selling religion, he didn't want any part in it. We could tell he was a bit drunk.. So we asked him why not. He then started talking about how we're all here and then we die.. Which we all already knew.. Hah and we got him talking about everything really. He told us about his family and his life and how he knows he has a drinking problem. We were so uplifted by our meeting with him! He was hilarious too! His neighbour stopped by while we were talking to him and we got to give her a card because she told us she was interested in the afterlife. by the end of our meeting with the guy he group hugged us and told us he loved us. He was probably a bit more than just a little drunk.. But we're happy we could have a happy drunk man have a good impression on missionaries. So today is p-day yet again and we have choir in London (because we have a fireside to sing for in St. Albans on the 16th)! That means afterwards we might have a little time to explore. The sisters (sister missionaries in Bedford- we see like every day) wanted to go to Buckingham Palace and check out Green Park so I think we're going along with them. It should be amazing! |