This week for Elder Stahle and I was really good! We found 4 new investigators, which is great, but some of their stories are quite interesting.

So we met this guy named Fenton. He lives near the University here in Hull, but he is a guy who was raised in a council Estate all his life and has a really rough family background. Anyways we taught Fenton the first lesson this week, a few days after knocking on his door, and he loved it. He wants to have a family and he has never really had any contact with religion before. But we left him when we knocked on his door with a Book of Mormon and when we came back to teach a few days later, he had already read several pieces of it, and he actually said when we asked him about if he believes in God that 'this book has been increasing my faith'. Which is great! He loved everything we taught and wants to be baptized, but we couldn't give him a date because he is living with his fiancé, but they want to get married soon so we'll see how it goes! He didn't make it to church because he slept in and missed the bus, but he was devastated that he missed it, and he wants to come next Sunday.

 

Oh, speaking of next Sunday, next Sunday we are having, well actually everyone in the UK is having an extra stake conference, because Elder Holland is going to be in Scotland, and is giving a broadcast from there. So that is going to be pretty cool I think. Oh as well, I don't know if I told you this story, but the Sunday after I got transferred out of Leeds was the Leeds Stake Conference, and the Lady who was in charge of the Stake Choir was in my Ward, and so I was supposed to sing a solo at stake conference, but then I got transferred! So somebody else sang it. But this lady's mom is the Stake Choir Director in Hull Stake! And Hull stake conference was just last week, so my first Sunday in Hull, after I bore my testimony as I was walking off the stand, somebody (I don't even know who) handed me an envelope and inside was a song I had to sing the solo for the next week, and it had the rehearsal choir times on it as well. So I sang it last Sunday at Stake Conference here in Hull.

 

So there's also another kid who we met, his name is Ben. We were knocking in one of the council housing areas, and this kid just let us right in (after I asked him and talked to him a bit) and we taught him the Restoration as well. But get this, Ben is 19 years old and he is living with his girlfriend of 18 and they have a 8 month old baby boy who they take care of. In talking to Ben he was saying that he does want to be a family man, but he didn't expect it to happen this soon, and it kind of took him by surprise and just happened. (I'm glad we have the law of chastity in the church). But this guy as well really enjoyed what we taught about and he got really into the lesson. He wants to come to church this next Sunday as well so we'll see how that goes. Maybe he'll bring his kid. 

 

The culture in England is so different from Canada it's kind of unbelievable, well actually maybe I just grew up not seeing situations like these in Canada, because they probably exist there as well, I just wasn't out knocking on people's doors there. 

 

This Sunday for the third hour we had a combined Priesthood and Relief Society block, which was all about....   Member Missionary Work! We called it the Member Missionary Training Center, or the MMTC. It was great, we taught all about how we want to increase the finding efforts in the area from 8 full time proselyting missionaries (which we have, 4 Elders and 4 Sisters) to 150 full time missionaries. We shared a lot of prophet's quotes and things about how it is the role of the members to find people for the missionaries to teach. My mission here in England has been a lot of finding, but there is a better way I know. I hope you guys at home are trying to be member missionaries! Help those Canadian missionaries out! 

 

It was a good week for us here. Happiness is a choice.

 

Love you all! 

 

Elder Thompson