This week has been so busy it's unbelievable - I don't think I could
describe half of the things we've done in this e-mail! Things have
been going a lot better up here in Newcastle. We've found a load of
people to teach, we have a few who are working towards a baptism date,
and I'm getting to know how to work with my companion and how to help
the missionaries here in the zone.
For some reason for the last little while, several months I think, the
zone leaders that were here weren't doing too much in terms of
missionary work in the Newcastle area. I think they emphasised a
little too much going to visit other teams and build up their areas -
and didn't forget, but neglected a little the Newcastle area itself.
So we are building it back up, finding quite a few people to teach and
working hard to develop good relations with the members here.
On Monday it was Boxing Day - and flashback to Boxing Day two years
ago - we went to the Metro Centre in Gateshead, one of the biggest
shopping malls in Europe, which was fun. Afterwards we went and had
tea with a part member family, with the only member (the mom) being
less active that we met last week, and who were going to start going
through the missionary lessons with.
On Tuesday we went to a Carvery (like a restaurant but buffet style I
guess) with our ward mission leader Brother Howe! It was great. I'll
send a picture.
On Wednesday we went to several district meetings and helped out
there, and in the evening we had a couple of teaching visits with
investigators that we found last week - those were both really good!
On Thursday we found this former investigator named Thomas who was
taught in 2015 by a missionary that I knew. We knocked on his door and
he let us right in. He told us that he hadn't seen missionaries for a
long time, and he'd been going through a hard time when they came last
time. He said that the last time they'd came they'd given him a
blessing - and most of the hard things that had been going on in his
life seemed to go away, but then he didn't see the missionaries again!
So when we came this week he committed right away to coming regularly
and being baptised. He said that he'd felt like he let the
missionaries and God down last time by not going through with joining
the church and he wants to do it right this time. So that was a major
miracle.
The same day there were a few emergency transfers going on that we had
to work out - there were some sisters leaving an area and some elders
moving in, and so we had to get them to the train station and things -
it took a while, but it was good.
That night we also taught this guy named Akram, who is from Kurdistan.
He's been coming to church for several weeks, because he came with his
friend who was baptised several months ago, but who's now moved to
London. Akram keeps coming but he speaks almost no English, and
finally this week a member came to church who speaks Kurdish! So we
talked to him about joining the church and he's going to be baptised
in a few weeks as well! We went over with the member on Thursday and
had one of the most crazy lessons I've had - because I don't think the
member was actually translating what we were saying, but it was still
good!
On Friday we taught Thomas again, and that day and Saturday we knocked
on a lot of doors. On Saturday we went to this area of Newcastle where
there are loads of foreign people, like seriously every door was
either African or European. We met loads of people who came here from
the Czech Republic and Slovakia who want to learn more about the Book
of Mormon - and luckily some missionaries before must have known this
was the case because there are loads of Czech and Slovak copies of the
Book of Mormon in our flat!
We also met several fence speaking African families! And we're going
back to teach them as well! So Newcastle is way fun.
On New Year's Eve we had to be in early. But it was fun! Newcastle is cool.
Love you guys!
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| The new whip |
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| Toby Carvery with the Ward Mission Leader Bro. Howe |
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