week14

Well another week in Gloucester this week we did quite a bit of traveling so that was fun! I gotta live the tourist dream on Pday a member who recently returned from her own mission took us out for the day. It was so fun she took us to see the areas outside of Gloucester in Gloucestershire so we gotta see some of the Cotswolds which are so beautiful and we gotta see a tiny village I guess they are a big English thing where a town will have a tiny replica of itself. We gotta go for a walk through some fields and saw lots of sheep, I love seeing sheep in the fields it's so fun! It's nice to know when you walk through the more wild parts of England nothing is gonna try and eat you either! We got to see a really beautiful tower that was built high up on a hill over looking everything. we were told it was for looking out for enemies but I'm convinced Rapunzel lived there at one point. We also gotta see where they plant lavender fields nothing was growing yet but I can imagine how beautiful it must be in the summer. Then we went to another town in the Cotswolds called Borton on the water it was so beautiful there were tons of ducks and just so many cute English buildings it's so cool seeing all these different buildings they are so beautiful. Oh and I found another Telephone booth! And a hedge that has been shaped to look like a Mini Cooper now I'm convinced that English people really do worship the Mini I'm proud to say I have also now ridden in one three times! Also moss grows on literally everything here and vines! It's crazy while riding the bus I saw a house that literally looked like it was being eaten by vines and moss and a tree haha.

We had Interviews with our Mission President and his Wife this week I loved being able to get to know them they are so cool and I can honestly say I felt so much love from Sister Leppard even though it was like the third time I ever really got to meet her I really appreciated her just saying how much she loves me and that I'm doing a good job it was so nice to feel that motherly love from someone.

This week we had such an awesome lesson with our investigator! She read a chapter from the Book of Mormon Hallelujah! And we showed her the Restoration video and she felt the spirit so strongly! It was amazing especially cause that video is a bit cheesy but it's so cool that the spirit will be there when someone or something is testifying of Christ the whole time during the video I just prayed and prayed and prayed that she would feel the spirit! And she did so Hallelujah! 

My favourite Tongan/Fijian family ever had a great week also! They all came to church! Hallelujah! The Auntie had a beautiful baby boy! Hallelujah! And her husband flew in safely! Hallelujah! And now next Sunday there two daughters are being baptised! HALLELUJAH! And the girls Dad is going to be even baptising them so it will be so good! I'm so excited for this Baptism it is gonna be so amazing and so great for this family I honestly love them so much and I know one day they are all going to be sealed together! Gah so great!

This week we only had one drunk white guy encounter haha, we were waiting at the bus stop and these men were walking over one of them stoped and pulled his trousers down to his ankles haha he still had his underwear on though so we good! No emotional scaring! 

It snowed! Well when I say snowed nothing actually stuck to the ground but snow was falling from the sky! Which is more then most places get. Mostly it's just been freezing here but I'd rather that then walking through waist high snow! Gross! 

On Tuesday I am no longer a Greenie Praise! I'm finally moving up in the missionary world! I'm a bit nervous cause before I was just a stupid greenie if I didn't know something, but now I'm just a stupid missionary so pray for me please! the next 15 months could get interesting! On  I celebrated being out three months Woot woot! It feels like it's been only a month but it also can feel like months at times as well haha.

 We found out last night what's happening this transfer! Sister Vousden is leaving me and going to Derby where she will die, (mission death not physical) my District leader/ mission father is becoming a Zone leader! And I am.... Staying in Gloucester Whoohooo! I am so happy I getta stay and get things going still with our Investigator and even better I getta see my girls get Baptised! And now My follow up trainer is..... Sister Swasey! Woohooo! I don't know loads about her but I will meet her Tuesday! So I'm super pumped! I'm so excited for change! this next transfer is going to be sooo good!

Love,
Sister Talia Brown 🇬🇧

15, The Courtyard
London Road
Gloucester
GL1 3PS

England

week 13

Wow this week was number 13... all the crazy stuff that happened this week makes a lot more sense now...

Starting of with a drunk white guy story! So my companion and I got on the bus and it was probably around 7:30 pm on a Tuesday night when we got up to the top of the bus and took our seats we started noticing a very unpleasant smell, soon after a very disgruntled voice started talking on his phone saying quote "mate I'm on the bus right now and I've literally thrown up all over the place " unquote, sister Vousden and I cringed when he said that, we looked only a few seats back and saw this poor smashed white guy with puke all over him and now even more on the floor making it's way down towards us.... blah it was awful and it smelt so bad, funny enough the guy called three more people on his phone to notify them that he had thrown up on the bus I think we might even be on his snap chat story haha.

It got super warm here in Gloucester so we came back in the afternoon to change as we walked in sister Vousden said oh my gosh sister brown you have poop in your hair! Whaaat?! Apparently while tracting that morning a bird decided to take a dump on my head haha

We decided to go to Burger King with the Elders and After eating I was waiting in line for the bathroom minding my own business, there was a blind man making his way out of the restaurant so I helped him get out by opening the door for him, as I waited by the washroom door I didn't notice that the blind man came back and he got really close to me, I said hi and before I had a chance to ask if he needed help he full on grabbed my chest I jumped a bit cause well ya know... and he asked me oh is this the bathroom? Yup this is the line for the bathroom I said trying not to laugh, cry and pee my pants at the same time. one of the Elders we were with saw it all happen and he nearly fell out of his seat all the missionary's were asking what just happened and I just waved them off until the blind man was gone. Needless to say I let the blind man go ahead of me..

So on a really crummy rainy night we decided to go to Kaspas for diner and I was wearing my rubber boots because you know rain. I was walking behind everyone took two steps hit the floor pretty dramatically haha I just kinda laid there for a second because one it really hurt and two because I kinda wanted to die in that moment hahaha. Now I have bruises all over the left side of my body.

Despite all the ridiculous embarrassing moments of unluckyness this week it was actually a super good week. We found another family that said we could come back. Our Investigator who we thought was trying to drop us is actually still interested and is wanting to keep learning and working towards baptism, and our wonderful Fijian family whom I love have booked the baptismal font for the 19th for there daughters To get baptised next week. The Dad of there family got up and bore his testimony and it was the most beautiful thing I ever heard I pretty much balled all of sacrament meeting the spirit was so strong.

On Sunday we were doing some tracting and I found the coolest/ weirdest tree of my life! It's called a monkey tree because the branches look like monkey tails, it was so cool i loved it! it reminded me of Hawaii.

Sister Vousden and I talked a lot about tender mercies and I definitely feel like while being on the mission you notice them happening all the time and I'm just so grateful to Heavenly Father for sending us these moments of joy and reminders that everything is going to be ok. I love that I get to study the scriptures everyday and even if I don't get the chance to share the gospel with someone that day it still helps me to learn and to grow and to just become better.

Week 12

Well this week was not super eventful but we had a mission broadcast on Wednesday and I really enjoyed hearing from Quinton L. Cook he said "Quit worrying about whether you are enough follow the rules keep your covenants and the commandments, God will send you those who are ready, it may take time it may not be often but you need to hold out in your faith until those moments come so you can survive the droughts."

And now pictures 

Also I found good hot sauce! And Joined a gang... just kidding we are so white... also I love nature!

Week 11

Holy moly! Never have I ever walked so much in my life! Haha Sister Vousden and I made a game plan of stopping by every less active in our area so every day we planned a couple areas a day and would bus to them and then walk all over them, we tracted while stopping by all these people and sadly most people did not give a crap about the gospel but then we found 1 guy out of our week of endless finding so that was really cool! We knocked on his door and he said oh are you Mormon missionaries? Come in! After we picked our jaws up of the floor we asked if there was a woman home sadly there wasn't so we had a nice chat on his step (story of my mission life) and he said we could come back so praise!

Another tender mercy of my week! we were tracting on a very particularly cold as night! And a cute little old Irish women opened the door and after chatting and being scolded for being out so late as two young single girls she asked if we wanted to come in for some tea or coffee. When we went in Sister Vousden asked if she had any thing else to drink besides tea or coffee and the sassy lil Irish women looked up at her and said ohh there's always a picky one! Haha she was hilarious so after she got us sorted with some HERBAL tea she looked at us and said girls would you like some apple pie..... uhhh yes please... then after she busted out the pie she found ice cream! So that was honestly just so nice being invited in for tea, pie and cream and have a chat with this adorably sassy old women, she has grown up strong in the Catholic Church and had no desire to learn more about our beliefs but she was basically the story of the Good Samaritan where she was able to put aside her feelings and help a couple sisters out. So I am so grateful to that sassy little old women who helped make our night.

Ok my not proud moment of the week but also so hilarious that I have to share, Sister Vousden and I had just got done with diner and were walking home and right away I could tell something wasn't right I just felt like my stomach had lava in it, and as we walked I felt this horrible wave of nausea so I looked around found an alley way and tossed my cookies.... now as I was tossing ... the .. cookies... Sister Vousden was gracious enough to offer to hold my hair but I told her to go away cause... yeah... anyways I got up and continued on our walk home and I said to Sister Vousden wow I'm so lucky there was a alley right when I needed it... Sister Vousden laughed and said Sister Brown that was not an alley way that was a drive way! So apparently in my sate of mind I confused a drive way for an ally and now some poor people got a nasty surprise that morning.... yes I am terrible but to be fair a drive way is better then a bus... Also another tender mercy the Elders in my district found out that I was "Ill" and they brought me flowers and my favourite treats! So that was the best our Elders are so awesome!

So when you walk enough around England... you see some things haha this week Sister Vousden and I were walking through a really pretty wooded area and there was a really pretty church so like the typical white girls we are we decided to take some pictures and as we got closer to the chapel we started to hear some major beats coming from the church... confused we went to the front door where we found the sign saying Church of pain... even more confused we listened more and just heard a whole lot more rap music that we definitely don't listen to as missionaries haha and we saw a guy come out with his sports clothes on and his gym bag and we realised holy crap it's a gym! So ya latter talking to a member they said someone bought the church renovated it and turned it into a gym so ya house of God, house of worship, house of abs haha

Also while I've been here I've discovered Gloucester is big in the rugby scene and they have a HUGE rugby stadium home of the Cherries so it's been really cool seeing people get there colors on every Saturday and finally I got pictures with the stadium. So that was fun! Sadly they don't play on Mondays..... yes I checked....

So ya life has been really chill this week not a ton of success but I definitely felt a lot more confident in myself and in my words which was really cool to see I also had a really cool spiritual moment where I truly felt protected as a missionary. We were getting a lift home from a DA and as we got in I wasn't in a super hurry to get my seat belt on because I had a big bag full of stuff that I was arranging in the back where I was seated as we drove off I just heard a voice in my head saying do up your seat belt. I of course ignored it cause I was still busy with the bag then we got off the side street I heard it again but louder saying "do it up now" I quickly did my seat belt and as we came to the first intersection someone drove through the red light causing my driver to slam on the breaks, causing us to jerk pretty hard against the seat belt now I don't have whip lash or anything crazy but it was scary minute and I honestly just felt so loved that I was able to have the Holy Ghost there with me I'm not at all saying wow I could have died but I'm pretty dang great full it kept me from slamming against the seat in front of me. Even just the little gesture of hey stupid do up your seatbelt I just felt like wow it's like having a parent right along side me even when I'm being a bit dumb the Holy Ghost is right there looking out for me. 

I'm really grateful for the experience of being a Missionary and serving in Gloucester I'm loving this little city more and more and even though we have not had a ton of success I still feel like I'm succeeding cause every day I'm forced to try something new and to learn something new so even if I didn't help someone get baptised today I was still able to help someone or learn something.

Week 10

Holy snap! It's been 10 weeks!

Where the heck has the time been going? Out the window! This week was so crazy fast so I guess I can't complain because last week dragged for dayz! This week has definitely been another roller coaster of crazy town but what would mission life be without it? 

Monday we went to Cheltenham and saw how the other half lives (Which is pretty dang good) Cheltenham is a super nice city and it almost overlaps with Gloucester except it has the way nice stores to go shopping at but it's probably for the best that it's not here in Gloucester for that reason! England has some stores I never knew existed which has been a lot of fun to check out! Something funky about English culture is that in there stores they don't really just sell one thing unless it's an American store most shops, grocery stores will sell house stuff, food, clothing, movies, furniture altogether in one place which is kinda crazy haha. It's hard to not develop some ADHD tendencies  cause I'll be minding my own business getting groceries for the week and then woah that's cute! Oh look at those post it notes! Wow only £4.00 for that skirt! Whoa look at those tea cups? There's a Union Jack tea cup! Haha they have a lot of random things that England has taken and made them adorable so the struggle is real for missionary's who don't wanna spend all there msf on pointless adorable things. By the way my favourite shops are probably Superdry Japan, Cath Kidston, Sainsbury's and Tesco... they have some really cool stuff....

Are week took a hit when one of our investigators dropped us. I was really annoyed because why the heck couldn't this person see that the things that brought her joy right now in her life were really ruining her life and that me as a Mormon now could do all the things she talked about doing but remember it the next day! Trying to move on after that I couldn't shake my annoyed feeling of why she couldn't understand how much greater her joy could be. Shortly after my trainer said I am so excited for her to get baptised one day! she is going to be so happy! And I was a bit taken back.. for some reason I had it in my head that this was the first and only chance this girl was going to have to receive the Gospel... and that she had now missed it... and then I thought of my own life.. Heavenly Father hasn't only given me one opportunity to get things right. Through Jesus Christ and his atonement I'm able to try and try again every single day of my life and so can everyone because of our Heavenly Fathers love for us. A parent doesn't put there kid on a bike and expect them to nail it the first time they know it's gonna take time and that there may be times where maybe the kid needs a break from riding the bike cause they aren't ready for it yet. But the parent keeps putting the work in because they love the kid and want for the kid to ride that bike and succeed. The same can be said for the investigator who isn't quite ready yet, no she did not get baptised but one day she will.. if not in this life she will be given that opportunity again in the next.. and maybe the however brief encounter with the missionary's helped them through that period of time in there life's. I know Heavenly Father won't give up or leave behind any of us who have not been given the opportunity to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And even those of us who have already received a testimony of it. Heavenly Father knows we are gonna screw up again but that's why he gave us the atonement so we can get through this Enduring to the end phase of life. 

(This was my super spiritual enlightening moment of the week by the way)

Drunk white guy story! 

So sister Vousden and I were out talking to people in the High Streets, and we started talking to this white guy, we talked to him about the restoration and he kept saying ladies you are so beautiful how can you tell me you believe in God? You must be brainwashed you are to beautiful and smart to believe these things! We told him that we did believe and that we could share more with him, he said he would love to learn more so we took him to a bench in the square as we sat done he pulled out a huge bottle of wine he had just shoplifted from under his coat and proceeded to drink from it as we taught him more about the restoration haha! At the end we asked him if he was interested in learning more and he proceeded to tell us that although he wasn't interested in learning more about the gospel he would be interested in learning more about us because we "fascinated him" (BARF) so needless to say we gave him the Elders number haha. 

We planned to do a full day of tracting on Friday in an area we had never been to that had lots of former investigators and less active members. We started the day by reading the 4th floor last door talk recently given by President Uchtdorf to help us get psyched for our full day of unknown doors. After reading it and crying through it ( I am my mothers daughter) we finally looked out the window and realised it had SNOWED! Ya I felt lied to because all the English people reassured me in the past that Gloucester never gets snow. Guess what it snowed! So after a brief pause to reavaluate our clothing choices for the day we slipped on our leggings and went to work! And guess what? Not one door let us in, not one less active had time for us and not one former investigator lived on the premises anymore. And then guess what? it rained! Sooo hard! haha it was laughable how sad our super awesome day of tracting was turning out. We got to the point where we only had one house left to check that belonged to a former investigator. So we got there knocked on the door and waited and waited and no one was home.. so discouraged we turned around and started to leave when someone called out to us. It was a young mom walking her girls home from school her youngest daughter ran up to us and grabbed sister Vousden and I and gave us a big hug and began to talk away to us like we knew her. When her mom and sisters caught up they introduced themselves and said they were the new owners of the door we had just tracted. Absolutely gobsmacked we introduced ourselves and explained who we are and why we were knocking on there door. The mom proceeded to share with us about her religious beliefs and how she thought it was so wonderful what we were doing and invited us to come back and share more.... as we left that family sister Vousden and I both felt all the grossness and disappointment of the day melt away because in just those few minutes of talking to that wonderful family it all became worth it. 

I feel like missionary life is so hard to explain, it can be absolutely great then terrible then really good then something crazy happens! But honestly I think it is the best growing experience I have ever had things that mattered to me before I really don't care about now. Things I didn't think about before are all I think about now. It's been 10 weeks, somedays it feels like 10 years, others like 10 days since I left home. But I honestly love it even when I hate it I love it! I am so excited for the next 10 weeks to see where I'll be and what has happened because in 10 weeks of missionary life I already feel so much better and stronger then before and I'm excited for the next challenges and growing moments because I know that with Heavenly Fathers help we all got this!

Love you all! Have a great week!

 

Week 9

Well this week was our first full week of missionary work since the holidays and conferences and honestly I think it was the longest week of our life! Haha we did a lot and we had a lesson everyday and we were sooo busy but holy cow this week dragged on for days! We had a lot of ups and some crazy weird downs! So it was definitely eventful but the week ended on a great note. On Sunday a less active family we have been working with came to church and the auntie bore her testimony and I absolutely balled while I listened because it just meant so much to be able to witness it. Also our less active friend we have been working with got up and bore his testimony! and he is now going to start passing the sacrament next Sunday! Woooohoo! So happy! Gosh I love seeing people grow and become better through Christ it's super cool! 

I feel like this week I got a whole lot more comfortable with being a missionary so that was awesome! I feel like a ton more confident in all the stuff we do so prayers are being answered! I'm starting my second transfer in the mission now. We have a fun new district. And lots of goals and plans for the new transfer! 

So I think it's so funny what missionary's do to find  there's this women we have been trying to visit and we literally have been stopping by her house at all hours and we haven't been able to catch her at home yet so a evening this week we tried to stop by and to get there we have to go through some forest. So we used our phone flashlight to help and it's creepy as heck looking, and I guess the birds don't like the light because they started diving at our heads haha. And we happened to be making a video the first time so it was pretty hilarious. By the way she wasn't home. 

Another weird thing we had to go looking for our stupid gas meter for the church office so I had to go digging in the bushes because ours isn't out in the open like all the other blessed people! ours is in the bush! Holy crap they grow spiders big out here in England cause I saw some things back in the bush!

We got rained on lots this week and then it got super cold out but in all funniness I have dyed yet another pair of garments a funny colour this week. This time they turned black haha. I am now the proud owner of red blue and black garments! 

Life is pretty good here in the EBM we had some killer lessons this week and had fun while doing it. I love it here even more every day I spend here even when the crazy stuff happens. 

Love you all have a great week!

Week 8 A New Year

Happy New Year!

Wow I can't believe how fast time is going but I'm loving mission life! This week was a hopping week. Monday was pretty chill but then Tuesday we were hosts to two other sets of sisters so we had a big sleep over. Then Wednesday we went to Cheltenham and we had a big multi zone conference and we had the General Authority Paul V Johnson and his wife come speak to us and we got to hear from one of the stake presidents in wales and then President and Sister Leppard. 

We learned lots we ate lots and we just had such a great time! Also I gotta see Sister Romero! Then Thursday we had District meeting and then had a few miracles! So after our meeting we had to catch the bus and with all the holidays Gloucester's bus system has been on the sucky side of things! So we were two blocks away from the stop and we saw the bus coming so we started to run but of course the bus passed us so we slowed down and walked again but then the bus pulled over! So we started running and we were able to hop on! And no one was even at the stop or even getting off! The bus driver waited for us! And because of that we made it early to our lesson so we decided to do some finding! 

We have a new finding approach here In the EBM called Powerful Approaches! It's when one companion will teach a principle then the other will testify of that principle and then you ask how they think that principle would help or affect them. I love this because it gets everyone involved and is straight to the point! There's no oh are they selling me something? Or when will they ask for the donation? It's powerful and to the point and often results in a meaningful conversation even if they aren't super interested, it still gets them thinking (seed planted). 

Anyways we tried it out on a door and we had a 5min talk with someone about family's. Even though we don't have a return appointment, we still got them thinking about something they hadn't thought of before (seed planted!). Anyway, we made it to our appointment with this family (3rd lesson), we went over the restoration again in better detail because they had a few more questions. We challenged them to work towards baptism and they excepted!

So we are super excited because we love this family. We found them

while tracting 2 weeks ago and they keep having us back so thats been fantastic! We also have another investigator who is a young adult she's awesome and she's really excited to learn. She wants to take things slow but she has baptism in her future which is so exciting because she is such a hard worker I know she will be able to use the atonement and work her way to baptism!

We also have another family we are working with they have 2 young daughters that are working towards baptism in February so I'm so excited for all these amazing people I've been able to meet in the last 5 weeks and being able to see them progress and feel the Holy Spirit work with them and change them and bring them happiness it is such a privilege to be a missionary and being able to bare witness that We do have a loving Heavenly Father who truly loves all of us and wants to be able to help us return to him. 

On Friday we had our mid trainers meeting but the night before we got a call telling us that the Swansea sisters were coming to spend the night! Guess who's in Swansea! Sister Romero! Haha we had fun that night and then getting up early to get to Birmingham that morning, but we had a good meeting we gotta talk about some of the joys we experience when we first start our missions and then we talked about things we can do to be better and do better. 

I love meetings it's so nice to be with everyone and to just get spiritually pumped up! 

Saturday was obviously New Years and missionary's get to be in by 6pm so we didn't party to much haha. And then Sunday we aren't allowed to go proselytizing because all the English people are drunk haha. So we went to church and then spent the rest of the day with a family from the ward so we had our own New Years Day party. 

Anyway I spent New Year's Eve thinking about resolutions and what I can do to be better and then I realized this whole year I get to be a missionary! I know exactly what I'm doing this year!  which I just think is so cool! So after I got over that I thought about what a good resolution would be and I came up with a bunch but one that I'm most excited about is that I wanna read everything! 

This year I'm going to read the Old and New Testament, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price! I figured when else am I going to have the chance to read it all so I mapped it all out and I know how much I have to read every day over the next 12 months so ya I'm super excited for that! Mostly so I can actually testify and say that I've actually read it all and know it's true! 

So ya that's my one big New Years Resolution! And I'm super pumped for it! So ya I'm super excited for this year of missionary work it's gonna be hard and crazy I'm sure but it's also just gonna be so good!

Love you all and Happy New Year!