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!