3 Important Announcements

1. By the time you read this, I WILL BE IN LONDON. Meaning, address change. Not that any of you wrote me anyway, but don't mail things to the MTC because I won't get them for anothe like 3 months.

2. Speaking of mail, my birthday is in 6 days. Mail takes about a week to get to me so.....take that as you will.

3. Look who I found on the recent baptisms board! (It's Zach Waite if you can't tell.)

 

April 15, 2013- Courage, for the Lord is on our side!

So I leave on Wednesday and won't get to talk then, so they are only giving me 5 minutes today to email. I am bummed about that! Nothing really has happened this week. I got your letter today Mom, thank you for that. And thanks a lot everyone else for NOT WRITING ME! . We went finding in Manchester on Friday and that was.....something. Very hard, but I made a friend (not just a contact, like a really good friend) on the train back to Chorley named Holly. I love you all, I pray for you, and I'm having a blast. Even though this is REALLY hard. It's the best. I really don't know what else to say. Oh yeah, finally got to watch Sunday afternoon general conference. Elder Holland is a boss. I'm excited and scared to finally get to London. I hope the fair was fun, I loved the pictures Jenni sent me. I won't get to email until next Monday, so talk to you then! I hate not being able to get immediate responses haha. Social media has ruined me.

Sister J

Pictures:

Me at the train platform in Manchester

My first Kinder Egg! (illegal candy in America)

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Love and miss you, dude! Welcome to adulthood, now go register to vote or buy some spray paint!

Picture Post!

The Map!

Sign talked about in conference

 My roommates and I in the classroom

 Temple sign

New Friends!

April 10, 2013

Hey Yall-

First I need to rebuke you all for not writing me on DearElder.com. Go and do that. My days are really sad when I don't get messages. Anway, England is great and has been very sunny this whole time. It looks a lot like the more rural areas of California, but colder. My flight was about as good as you can expect from a 12 hour flight. Got about 4 hours of sleep. I had a chance to share a passalong card with the lady who exchanged my money, so that was cool. The day we got here was very chill and they let us just relax and get situated most of the day. I'm in the Abinadi district of the Hinckley zone. We're the first district in this MTC to have more sisters than elders (6 to 4). President Edwards and his wife are super cool and like the sweetest people ever. We are fed really well here, and the chef can sing like an angel so time in the cafeteria is always fun.

I seriously love all the missionaries here. I already feel like all these sisters are my close friends. We have a lot of fun together. I'm seeing a lot of miracles, but probably one of my favorites is the fact that the ESL missionaries talk fluent English and don't even realize it. Some have never studied English before, but I can hold conversations with them no problem. It is seriously incredible. My teachers, Bro Rojas and Bro Loynes are really cool and keep the hours of sitting in desks fun. I can tell I'm comfortable with them by the fact that I can be extremely sarcastic with them and they do it right back haha. Wasn't conference amazing? I thought it was wonderful. I paid way more attention than I usually do and got SO MUCH out of it. I serioulsy cried when they released Sister Dalton. I love that woman so much. She is amazing. The announcement of the temples was realy special. One sister from Cedar City literally shouted for joy. (P.S, this should not come as a surprise, I have found a descendant of Dudley Leavitt. That sister haha) Another elder from Rio had a great reaction to that temple. Anyway, I am WAY over my limit for email, so I'll talk to you all later. WRITE ME ON DEARELDER.COM. Like, you will not bug me if you send me something every day. It's free.

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My cover of Come Thou Fount

Shameless plug of my music before I leave? Why not. This is also a reminder that I really miss recording. Anyway, it's a hymn so it fits the page, right?

What I have to look forward to...

So I've found some gorgeous pictures all taken within the limits of my mission. Let me share:

Droppin Some Knowlege About Obedience

So...This is basically what I said for my farewell talk. Thought I would share with whoever stumbles upon this blog.

     I want you all to imagine you have a friend. This friend goes around telling everyone that they love you, but they never tell you directly. When you text, call, or email this friend, they never answer you and sometimes don’t even read your messages. This friend comes to your house every weekend, eats your food, and then ignores you the rest of the time they are at your house. They talk badly about people they know you love. They will ask you for advice like they care what you think, and never follow the advice you give them. Is this friend really a friend at all? Do you believe them when they tell everyone that they love you? Of course not.

     But don’t we sometimes, as the imperfect human beings that we are, do this to our Heavenly Father? It is really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that love is something you say and not something you do. Love is an action. The Savior told us exactly how we can prove our love to him in John 14:15 when he said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

The Why and Some Unsolicited Advice

     I'm not really a blogger, but recently I wrote something for One Year, Six Months, Forever, so I thought I would share it here too. Just an explanation of how I made my decision and what I've done to prepare.

     As soon as President Monson made the announcement of the mission age change, a black hole opened up in my stomach. My first thought was, “Oh no.” I knew it was an amazing thing that would affect the world so much, but for me personally I was just dreading having that major decision pushed to the top of my list. Honestly, I had never seriously considered serving a mission because I still had 2 years before I needed to think of that. I knew it at least warranted my consideration, so I spent about a week weighing the pros and cons and praying about it. But truthfully, I’m the kind of person that if I’m to the stage of weighing pros and cons, I have really already made my choice. 

Writing Me in the MTC

So this will only be important April 4th- April 17th. But this is a quick lesson to all those who don't know on how to write me at the MTC from DearElder.com. Which is the only kind of mail I want at the MTC, actual mail probably won't get to me by the time I leave.
Make sure you choose the Preston England MTC instead of the Provo one when you send it.

Click here to go straight to DearElder.com