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!