Week 24

This week was kinda all over place haha so my companion lost her
wallet so she can't drive anymore.... so guess who started driving on
Thursday... me! So I'd already been told the week before by President
that I needed to start working on my license so when I talked to the
mission home they said I'd have to come to Birmingham next week and
fill out the paperwork and then send my papers off with my details and
then it was gonna be a 2-3 week wait so I planned on learning the
driving ways over the next month. But since the wallet was lost sister
Stirm and I literally had to pull over and swap seats in our little
Hyundai. So after a quick prayer and some hyperventilating I drove in
England for the first time! And we didn't die! It's actually pretty
fun driving before I was getting bored just sitting there but now It's
a whole lot more entertaining. English driving is kinda messed up the
roads are tiny and people drive with now fear and there is a freaking
roundabout every 5 miles! But other then that it's pretty fun haha. I
drove to Lincoln today and Wednesday I'm driving to Birmingham so I'm
gonna have sooo many driving experiences this week.

This week we followed up with all our people we met during Challenge
week and are now teaching some new people yeah! We have been also busy
with the less active work in this area which has been going really
well we had eight less actives at church again this Sunday so that's
been great. There talking about opening a branch in Skegness because
of all the less active members that are there but can't come to Boston
because it's to far. So that will be really exciting!

I've been making sister Stirm try weird English food haha I made her
try malt loaf.... she did not like it haha which is sad because it's
so dang good. To be honest I can't really explain the taste of malt
loaf but it just a loaf of some kind of something. I also made her try
kinder eggs because they don't have them in America and that was life
changing for her! She's been collecting the toys now.

We went to Nottingham this week for Zone meeting it was fun seeing the
zone nothing to crazy happened. We also had interviews with President
this week so that was pretty good seeing them and talking about how
things are going.

I had a super spiritual experience this week we went into one of our
lessons and we were asked about why God cursed the laminates with dark
skin. That morning in my personal studies I literally studied that
topic in the Book of Mormon! So I was able to resolve his questions
and concerns he had about it and we were able to move on. It really
wasn't a big deal, but for me I was just so grateful that Heavenly
Father prepared me that morning for that exact topic it was so great
to experience that because in Preach my Gospel it talks about signs
when your being a good missionary and one of those was feeling the
spirit work through to help others understand the gospel and to be
honest sometimes it kinda feels like am I even being a good
missionary? so those moments are just so good when they do happen.

On Monday we went to the Tattershall castle mine and sister Stirms
first one so that was sick! it was so cool seeing all the rooms and
seeing all the history. It belonged to a Duke and his wife and the
fire places were seriously so big I could almost walk right into them
and not duck my head! The view from the top was so good we could see
the castle and cathedral in Lincoln and the stump in Boston from the
top and it's about an hour both ways to either one.
Also it fulfilled my little girl dreams of being in a castle with a moat!

Love,
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧
68, Norfolk St
Boston
PE21 9HQ
England

Week 23

Wow this week was so great!

So this week our mission had a challenge week! So every day we got
three challenges and my girl and I totally smashed it! We have a lot
of people to start working with now which is exciting it was really
good for us because it helped jump start our area I think and it made
us realise what we are capable of so we are gonna keep it going so we
can keep being strong and doing good work.

This week we gotta go to Coventry for a multi zone Conference so we
stayed the night in Peterborough with some sisters and then drove to
Coventry for the conference we gotta hear from the area 70 Elder
Phillip we learned a lot, sat a lot, ate a lot and drove way to much
but we still had a lot of fun.

The weather has been fantastic lately which has been nice because we
have been doing so much finding I took my girl tracting for three hrs
straight it was crazy but a lot of fun we definitely met some
interesting people on some of those streets but it was still great.

I seriously have fallen in love with this area it has been so cool to
see the country side and all the old buildings there is so much
history in this neck of the woods! There are so many adorable old
English villages we have seen and it's always nice to drive past the
sea.

We have been giving out more Bulgarian, Polish, Russian and Lithuanian
book of Mormons then English ones! It always cracks me up when we try
and have a conversation with one of them but it's pretty one sided
with the language barrier but I'm convinced if I keep praying hard
enough maybe God will bless me with the gift of tongues if we find an
elect Baltic person.

We met a lady while tracting who was sobbing at the door I gave her a
hug and tried to comfort her and she proceeded to tell me about how
she had to have her pet GUINEA PIG put down that morning we proceeded
to comfort her and teach her the plan of salvation haha. I love being
a missionary it's so cool how we get to meet random people and talk to
them about life and God and things. There is seriously no other time
in life that I'm gonna get this chance socially to talk to complete
strangers it's just so freaking cool! I'm seriously gonna miss the day
when I can't have a random conversation with a random person.

One day this week we were in Tattershall and we drove past a castle so
I made my girl pull over and we got a picture with it! It was a proper
castle by the way with a mote and everything! We are going back today
to properly check it out.

This morning we went to "The Boston Stump" it is a Small scale
cathedral built in the 1300's it has a huge tower on it that can be
scene from a castle in Lincoln that is an hour from here. I love
seeing churches they did such beautiful workmanship on them it's also
really cool seeing how people during The Apostasy were still trying to
follow Jesus Christ and building places of worship to try and be
closer to God. In a lot of Cathedrals they have graves and monuments
to the people who died and it's amazing to see what people did with
there hands when carving marble and stone and wood the details are
amazing.

We had a lesson this week with a Less active family we have been
working with. Last week was my first lesson with them and it turns out
that they didn't know they needed to be praying so I challenged them
to take turns praying at night out loud, then they came to sacrament
meeting last week for the first time in 20 years. This week in the
lesson I asked the Dad who he would like to give the closing prayer
and he said he would give it as he prayed the spirit was so strong
during his prayer, he sounded like he'd been praying his whole life it
was beautiful I of course teared up a bit during the prayer. He came
to church this Sunday and stayed for all three hours he is amazing I
am so excited for his family!

Easter was super great as well we got so much love from the ward and
ate way to much chocolate I got the call on Saturday morning from
Bishop asking if we could both speak in sacrament meeting so that was
scary it was my first assigned talk on my mission so I'm just glad I
had more then ten minutes to prepare for it. We had diner with some
members and then went to a ward fire side which was super good.

But ya this week was awesome I love being here so much it's so great I
love not being a greenie anymore I feel like mission life is so much
better not being in the greenie area I don't really know why but
something has definitely changed and I'm excited about it! Training is
pretty fun to! Sister Stirm is awesome and we've been having a lot of
fun she is a radio singer as well so we both sing a lot in the car.

 So life is wonderful and I'm doing great hope you had a wonderful
Easter and thought about the Saviour. I'm so grateful for the
Atonement I was talking to a member and we said Christmas is when we
celebrate the gift that is Jesus Christ but Easter is when we
Celebrate using the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Love,
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧
68, Norfolk St
Boston
PE21 9HQ
England



Love,
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧
68, Norfolk St
Boston
PE21 9HQ

Week 22

Well I've been out for five months! And just when I thought I was
starting to get the hang of things they went and changed everything on
me. So they killed the trio, Sister Gijka got taken away on Tuesday
and was emergency transferred to Banbury because a new missionary
never came in. And now I am the senior companion and also training and
my greenie sister Stirm has only been out for five weeks so it kinda
feels like we're white wash training a little bit so ya it been
nothing but adventures this week!

Before the trio died we had an awesome Pday in one of the city's in my
area called Skegness which is a cute little board walk sea town. It
had a super board walk feel except English style. It was super hot
that day which was awesome and we were able to go get some fresh fish
and chips, go to the Aquarium, stick our toes in the North Sea, eat
ice cream and donuts and find sea shells so basically it was the best
Pday of my mission! Oh also my mission baby touched the ocean for the
first time!

After our epic day we got the tragic transfer call so the next morning
we had to drive all the way to Birmingham and back a total of 6 hrs in
the car Blah! But we had an awesome lesson when we got back and went
finding.

We went to Nottingham again this week to go to district meeting
because our district leader is away waiting for his Greenie so we
gotta see more of Nottingham which was cool.This week we were mostly
busy with travel but we found some new people to work with that we are
excited about.

So just down from Boston is a town called Kirton and guess who's
prophets father came off the boat from there?.... Joseph Smith! So we
got a phone call from one of out mission Presidents councillors who
feels like we need to spend our time in Kirton. He thinks Joseph Smith
has some relatives who are still there who are ready for the restored
gospel. So sister Stirm and I are so excited to get to work in that
area!

We were able to help run a charity auction that some of the members of
the ward put on to help the refugees in England. It was really cool to
see people coming together to help each other out.

On Sunday we had an incredible miracle five of our les actives we have
been working with came to church! Two of them hadn't been in twenty
years it was so amazing! And it was fast and testimony meeting and my
first Sunday in the ward so I was pretty nervous but the whole day
went great.

I absolutely love Boston and I'm so excited to be here and the
atmosphere that's here. I am so excited for all the things that we
have going on here in Boston!

Love,
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧
68, Norfolk St
Boston
PE21 9HQ
England

Week 21

Well new week and so many new changes! I left  for Boston, England and I
got there without a hitch so that was awesome I had so much help along
the way so that was great it took five hrs to get from Gloucester to
Boston so that was fun!

My new Companions are Sister Gjika who is from Albania (fun fact the
church has only gotten to Albania in the last 25 years she's a
pioneer) and Sister Stirm from Idaho just started her mission,
it's so weird to not be the youngest in the mission especially when it
feels like I just barely got here!

Boston is an adorable little city with so many canals and old, old,
old buildings gah I love it and then on top of Boston we cover 16
smaller city/ towns and farming villages so the car has been pretty
fantastic although I miss biking a lot but maybe in the future we can
do some biking in Boston. This area is very much a farming area which
is so fun because it reminds me of home it's a bit more hilly but it's
been fun to see canola fields again. Needless to say being in a car
with a limited amount of music I can now proudly say I have about 50
Disney songs memorised now start to finish.

A lot of people who live here are from the Baltic countries so there
are so many foreign food stores and stuff it's awesome Members gave us
Lays chips from Poland unfortunately the Polish flavours are pretty
nasty so not much of an improvement compared to the English flavours
so that's probably for the best. We are starting an English class so
that should be fun. The people here are so much nicer holy flip! I
think people who live away from the city are just way happier in
general. we went tracting and a man apologiesed to me for not being
interested hahaha oh my goodness I was in shock the first couple days
because of how nice the people were being we got offered tea so many
times it was such a big difference compared to Gloucester.

We have an Investigator they found a week ago who is seriously so cool
he is from Poland and he  is so excited about the gospel he has been
coming to church and meeting with the sisters all the time. The other
day we went over the commandments with him and he told us he has a
problem with cursing so we decided to come up with alternative words
for him to say. So instead of OMG he is gonna say oh my days (very
English) instead of holy Mary he is gonna say holy flip and instead of
SOB he is gonna say Son of a Gun so basically he is gonna swear like a
missionary haha. He came to General Conference and he
absolutely loved it, it was such a cool experience to see someone
watch General Conference for the first time in there life he said the
spirit was so strong and he just loved every second of it so that was
so cool.

We went to Nottingham to watch General Conference with our
Zone. I absolutely loved watching General Conference it's a bit
different here because it's not live so we started watching the 
morning session Saturday evening and the Women's conference
night and the afternoon session on the
afternoon and the morning session Sunday evening. President
Eyerings opening remarks were amazing because it felt like they were
so direct to our investigator. I was so worried that'd we'd have to
explain everything to our Investigator but they do an incredible job
of explaining everything for visitors or new people who come to watch
it. When I was at home I never noticed this because it didn't apply to
me but now I am just so grateful for the great experience that any
person in the world can have watching conferences.

I loved Conference of course I really felt like for me one of the
things thats stuck out is having a strong testimony so we can be a
disciple of Christ. And I just loved that cause that's pretty much my
role in life right now is to be a disciple of Christ and I felt like
all the talks talked about what we can do or change to get there so
that was perfect for me.

I have absolutely loved being in Boston this week and being with my
new companions we have had so much fun and laughed so much bed time is
kind of a struggle cause we get into bed and no body can shut up but I
am so excited for this transfer that we have together!

Love
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧