Email 16:
Hey everybody!!
Every week I keep having to check what number email this is, as I can't believe how quick it is going. This week has been pretty good though. Weather has been going from glorious sunshine, to pouring down with rain, thunder and lightning. Typical England, can never make up its mind, at least Scotland is consistant... consistantly rainy. Anyway, I am not here for the weather.
Oh yeah, just so you all know, I have moved.... to... Downend! fooled you! I am still in Bristol with Elder Martin still. Our whole District hasn't changed, except Southmead are now in a tri. It is funny though, because our District leader Elder Wan is going home this transfer, he is getting so trunky. He is talking about getting a Homecoming Suit, and it is just really funny. I am happy though because I love Downend, the ward here is amazing and Bristol is just great, I love it!
This week we have had a few good points, and a few bad points. I'll get the bad points out of the way first then I can tell you the good parts. This week we were not able to see Dhruba for some reason, and we have not been able to get in contact with him. We have tried calling him and tried going round to his when we were supposed to have a teach on tuesday, but he was not in. So we have dicided it is going to be best to put his date back, or to drop him just for now until we can get in contact with him again. Then once we get a hold of him, we can rearrange a date. We have also had to do the same with Lisanne, she is on holiday for the next two weeks and we still have a lot to teach her so she won't be ready for the 1st of September. It is sad, but we will hopefully pick them both up again soon.
Anyway, back to the good news, We have another baptismal date!! We taught Jess on Wednesday and invited her to be baptized. She said she wanted to read the Book of Mormon first (she says she could read it in 3 days, but she reads a lot of books so I believe it) and to come to church before deciding 100%, but she said as long as she finds out it is true she will get baptized on teh 1st September which is great! Her grandparents the Tookers are amazing though and will help her, I know it.
Godfrey is doing well as well, we saw him twice last week, and have pretty much taught him everything we need to. It was all good for him to get baptized next saturday but then yesterday, he didn't make it to church. We have no idea why, we couldn't get a hold of him as his phone was off. So because of that our Ward Mission Leader has decided it will be best to push his date back a week so we can get him more intergrated with the ward and so that more people will come to his baptism and actually know who he is.
Paul is doing good as well. He hasn't given up smoking completely, but when we last saw him he was down to 1 that day, which is a vast improvement from the 3 he would normally have during the hour we were there when we first started teaching him. He is coming along so well though.
Naomi is doing great. She was our only Investigator to make it to church on sunday. We didn;t even know she was there until after Priesthood we went to the room when Gospel Principles is held and there she was! It was amazing to see her there, but we have a lot we still need to teach her before she can be baptized next month.
We have also been trying to see some less actives and former investigators. But that has been my week pretty much.
Hope all of you guys are doing well.
Well I gotta email president as well so I better wrap this up (can't wrap it up in any of the Mario wrapping paper I have left from my birthday, I'm gonna use it to decorate the flat though i think... hehehe!)
Love you all
Elder Mitchell
p.s Thank you all for the birthday emails/cards etc. even if they haven't got here yet.
Email 17:
Hey everybody!
Well this week has been interesting, and somewhat stressful towards the end of the week, but thats what happens when you have a surprise baptism to prepare for and then it doesn't go through. I will explain later.
So, unfortunately we still have not had any contact with Dhruba. We have called him, we have gone by his house on his usual days off and he hasn't been in. We haven't heard from him at all. Not too good. Lisanne is still on holiday too, but I think she is back this week so I hope that we can get to see her at some point. We have also had to drop Jess' date as I think she told Elder Martin that she didn't think she was ready. I don't exactly know because I was on exchange in Southmead when they last saw her.
I will tell you about the surprise baptism that didn't happen. As Godfrey didn't make it to church on last sunday, we were going to push his date back to the 25th of August, but on tuesday (I was on exchange in southmead at the time) He had a baptismal interview with our District Leader Elder Wan, and he found out he goes back to China on the 23rd, which is a bit of a big problem, as although there is a church in China, you cannot get baptized in China and have to go to Hong Kong which apparently needs a special visa which is hard to get and just sounds so complicated. So we spoke to our bishop and ward mission leader and got permission to baptize him on saturday 18th (surprise baptism). So we had another appointment to see him on friday and get everything organized, but the day before he went to London to do some sightseeing before he went home and, well, that's the last thing we have heard from him. We tried to call him all of friday and saturday but his phone was off, so we had to cancel the baptism on saturday at 1pm (the baptism was scheduled for 4pm) so yeah, that was pretty stressful.
Also, on sunday, we had no investigators make it to church. Naomi called us sunday morning and said she wasn't going to make it, and Paul was helping his dad with some stuff saturday and apparently overdid it so he wasn't there either. Paul is doing great though. As far as I know he has given up smoking which is great and he accepts everything we teach him. He is still reading the Book of Mormon which is great, he says that he opens to random pages and reads and finds something helpful which is great.
We also saw Jo and Paul this week. It was amazing as Jo had made me a late birthday cake. It was so thoughtful and I could not thank her enough. It was 3 layers of cake which is incredible. We still have some back at the flat that really needs to be eaten soon actually... If I come home fat you can blame Jo for making me such a massive cake (and you guys for sending me so many sweets! :P). But Jo asks a lot of interesting and deep questions, which sometimes even Elder Martin can't answer. She has a solid Christian background though, and has a lot of questions about like the bible being changed and why the apostles didn't pass the priesthood on before they were killed and stuff like that. It is really tough, and makes my brain hurt sometimes, but it is good as it makes us really think, and as we study and prepare to teach her we learn a lot.
I have actually been studying the New testament to try and help answer some of her questions, it is amazing how much you can get out of it if you really look, and also amazing how much clearer its teachings are with the Joseph Smith Translation. It is great.
So that has pretty much been my week more or less. Hopefully next week will be better, but we will see.
Hoep you are all doing well.
Elder Mitchell
A couple of quick emails, may bring a smile to your face...
Hi dad, hope you are doing okay.
How are things at work? And how is the Ward doing?
by the way, I have a correction for one of my past emails, Whichever one it was where I said who was President Millar's mission president, it was actually Bruce r McConkie, I can't remember who I said but I had a feeling I got it wrong, just to let you know.
Love you
Elder Mitchell
Hi Dad, just to let you know I got the letter from Dick and Janice with the money in. I dunno if I can use it because its Clydesdale bank money but tell them thanks anyway :)
Also, tell Uncle David, next time he sends me a letter, to put a stamp on it :P
Also, I saw the train the Mallard this week in Bristol, it was pretty cool :)
Take care
Love Elder Mitchell
Hi all, just a quick email, unfortunately it is a bank holiday down here so all the libraries are closed :( so i am currently in an apple store just to quickly email president. I will email you all properly tomorrow, just a quick email so you know I am okay and so you dont worry that you havent heard from me :)
Love you all
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