Week 16: Zone Conference

Yup, we had zone conference this week. That was the big event! It was pretty fun, really cool to see all of the other missionaries that are serving in the north half of my mission. And President Pilkington, he is seriously the best. I will miss that man.

Day 110: Walked around the walls for a bit with the sisters. It was a beautiful day with a beautiful view of the back of the minster. I am seriously serving in a beautiful place. We were then going to teach our investigator C, but it didn't work out so we went and saw L, which is always great. She has such a testimony, just doesn't like coming to church for some reason!

Day 111: We helped the Elders move flats! That took up a good portion of our day, it was fun, just not exactly productive to our purpose. But since they helped us last week, we kind of had to help them as well. Thankfully, they had less stuff and less to clean. So it went a lot faster. We then went out finding, met a lady named S who had gotten out of a long coma only like a year ago. We then went and taught M who had called us a week ago. Then we had ward council. Then we street contacted until it was time to go home. And then the Ponty sisters came to sleep over because of zone conference the next day! Love them! Sister Cockburn and Sister Pro. They are super cool.

Day 112: Zone Conference! We got up, got ready, had pancakes, got on a coach, was spiritually uplifted, got back on a coach, and came home again. It was out in Billingham, so that was fun. It was colder up there sadly... But yeah, after zone conference, we went and taught C again with Sister Cosens.

Day 113: We tried by J again, but we are still not getting any sort of response. Total heart break. Taught this kid named C for the first time, not sure if he is really all that bothered. That night, we had tea with S and K. Love them! They are so cute and hilarious. Also, it is so frustrating because K so clearly does know and understand the gospel and can tell that all the good things that have happened lately have come from the gospel... He just refuses to act on these things!! Yeah, we are working with him.

Day 114: Went out knocking doors again. This old lady let us in and we had a good chat with her.  We later bought some flowers so we could give them along with some other things to S because the next day was her birthday! :) When we got there, the whole family was actually in, so we stopped for a bit of a chat. I am so grateful for their family.

Day 115: Dropped off a nice note by A because she hasn't been feeling all that well lately, which is sad. Knocked on more doors. Went on Blitz with the sisters. I went with Sister Chammings (Sister Barry's new trainee from Australia) which was a lot of fun. She is such an amazing and bold missionary already! And she is adorable. Love her. Afterwards, we ended up going to go see B to continue to help her understand the gospel. It is always fun seeing her. Also, today was the Queen's official birthday, the start of the Euro Cup, and another session of the York races.

Day 116: Yay church! Always good stuff. I love church. Before church though, we were out street contacting when we came across this lady sitting in a chair on the sidewalk singing loudly to rock music. To say the least, she did not want to talk to us... After church we went and saw P and K. Love them. Especially since it decided to start raining hard core... That sucked. Oh well. It keeps England beautiful!! :) At least it wasn't all that cold. The weather has been all over the place I feel like.

Another week of the mission done and gone! I can't believe how long I have been doing it! It is going by so fast! And I am loving it all along!

Love you guys!!!

--
Sister Barret

Week 15: Summer in England

Half of this week felt like February and we were wearing tights and winter coats. But by the end of the week, it turned super hot. What is up England? We can't ever seem to put away one sort of clothing because you never know what you are going to get! There is no such thing as seasons here in York. Why didn't anyone warn me of that!

Day 103: We didn’t do much for p-day, nothing super exciting. But then we went and did some street contacting, we gave this guy a Book of Mormon, and then we went and saw our favorite person, S! Her mum, A, and K were also there, so that was awesome. We talked about the Plan of Happiness, and between K and A, we had to answer so many questions. Thankfully, S is the most amazing person ever and could answer a lot of them herself! She is so great. I love her. Maybe K and A and their son S and L (S's girlfriend) are the reasons Sister Wood and I are staying here together in York.

Day 104: Taught J, she is so awesome. The only thing is that her mum is still being a bit difficult with the whole thing. Later, Sister Barry joined our companionship to make us a trio because her trainee missed a flight or something like that. So that was fun. finding  was especially fun with the three of us. Having three missionaries feels a bit like a gang to be honest... I feel like it is kind of scary when we approach someone. But it was a good experience. Went to ward coordination, which is always a blast, and then we went and saw K. She is so cute, I just wished she would overcome her fear of coming to church! We read His Grace Is Sufficient with her, which I would recommend to everyone to read on their own time sometime. Grace is a tricky subject to understand I feel like, and Brother Wilcox talks about it quite well. 

Day 105: Sister Barry has continued to be with us. We went and saw a potential, but he wasn't really interested. After meeting with him, we knocked on like two more doors and got let in by a lovely lady. She used to investigate the church years ago in California. We are going to go see her again. :) We ended up going into Sister Barry's area to teach a lesson with her, which was actually really awesome. It was also kind of fun for me, because of the seating arrangement, I could kind of watch Sister Wood and Sister Barry teach and learn from them. It was like a real life training model! Don't worry, I also spoke and taught and answered questions, I didn't just sit there.

Day 106: Got the worst news. J's mum won't let her come to church with us anymore. It's the worst. Technically, legally, since J is 18, she can do what she wants, but she still lives at home and loves her mum so she doesn't want to go against what she says. It is a struggle. So we shared with her the story of King Lamoni and applied it to her situation. So here is hoping!! We then went out, knocked more doors, got flogged a few times... But then we ended up having a member lesson with the Cosen's, which is always awesome. Love their family. After that, we brought Sister Cosen with us to teach C, since she overcame her smoking addiction, so she could help us with encouraging C to overcome her addiction as well. It was such a great lesson. We taught her a lot about repentance and forgiveness and the Atonement. The whole lesson C was saying how much she wanted a cigarette right then and there, but at one point we said a kneeling prayer all together and Sister Wood made her a promise and C then said that her desire to smoke again was gone. It was pretty incredible. We then took her tobacco, cleaned out her ashtrays, and did what we could to help her out.

Day 107: We moved! Yup! Hopefully for the last time! It is a lovely flat, let me tell you. The moving was fun, even though it made Sister Wood and I feel like wasters because it took us till half 4. We made the most of it though... Man, that flat we left on Beech Ave... It was so gross! We have to go back to clean it at some future date because it is that bad. Yeah. Our new flat is much nicer and newer and cleaner and we are going to keep it that way! Went and saw S! And basically her whole family! Just as we were arriving, S and L pulled in, and S told us to just walk in because we were practically all family. We didn't, but it just goes to show how close we have become with all of them. Sister Wood asked K to adopt us at one point. Love them. 

Day 108: Did a ton of finding. We got flogged twice, which is never fun. But at least we found a lot of new potentials, so that's awesome! That night, we helped usher at the BYU dance performance that was being held at a secondary school in our area. So fun. It was cool to see people from BYU! Love BYU! It kind of made me miss going to uni, but oh well. I'll be back there eventually. S, A, and L had a bit of a girls night and came to see it. They said they loved it, so that was awesome. I wish Sister Wood and I could have stayed to watch!

Day 109: Fast and testimony meeting. Because of the BYU dancers, York 1 and York 2 wards were together. So it was a bigger meeting than usual. And Sister Wood and I got the best surprise ever. We were sitting there, listening to people bear their testimonies, it was lovely, when all of a sudden S got up! She bore a lovely testimony. She is so great. She told us after that she wasn't planning on it at all, but she just felt like she had to. She is so incredible. After church, we went to see P and the Munzers. Love them. And then we went home to do our weekly planning since we hadn't done it yet with the whole moving thing on Friday. 

Over all, a pretty good week! We had some big disappointments, but we are keeping the faith and hoping for the best! And that is sometimes all we can do, hope for the best. But don't worry, we are also putting in a lot of work! ;) Love you all!