Elder Coleman Thompson: Basketball and more

This week was awesome. So much stuff happened. I'll try to write lots,
but I definitely won't get it all.

Monday we organised a talent show for the Zone, mainly just to get
everyone together and have fun, and it actually was so much fun! When
the whole Zone gets together there's lots of energy and people really
enjoy each other's company, so that was sweet.

Also on Monday there were two missionaries in our Zone who finished
their missions, and so we organised for them to catch a train down to
Leeds that day, so for that whole day until the next day around noon
when one of the Elder's new companions arrived, we had Elder Ramirez
come with us. Elder Ramirez is a missionary from Toronto. He was
having a bit of a rough time with his last companion so we wanted to
make this night really good for him, but all of our plans fell through
right before the end of p day! So at 5:45 I called Alvin, and then we
went and saw him, and then after that we called Gemma, and went to see
her, so it turned out to be really good!

Cool thing though, we taught Gemma this week several times and one of
the times we taught her in a room in the Law building of Northumbria
University, so that was cool. We also taught her with the Senior
Couple, and once at the Library. She is getting so close to being
baptised! There was a Christian seminar thing at the Uni this week and
she was telling us about how when she went in they asked her what her
religion was and she said "Mormon" and then was like "I mean I'm just
going to the Mormon church... for the last two months..." and she
realised it had become who she was. She still has some concerns, but
she'll get there eventually.

On Tuesday it was transfers, so once again Elder Nielsen and I
organised all of the missionaries coming and going and all their train
times and everything etc. Then we waited in the train station to greet
all of them, while they came in. There was one sister who got off her
train and had been told by the previous missionaries to "DON'T MOVE"
when she got off the train. So she was like passed the barriers and
across a bridge, and we were waving and waving but she didn't see us,
so after a few minutes of trying to get her attention, the barrier
guard was just like "just go get her" and let us through the barrier
haha. Everyone got where they needed to go safely!

So for transfers we only had one brand new missionary come into the
Zone - and she's going to serve in Durham. Her trainer went to a
meeting that lasted pretty much all day on Tuesday in Leeds, where
they did a bunch of stuff. Long story short, they didn't catch a train
back to Newcastle until like 8:15 or so in the evening, which meant
that they didn't get back until like 10, and then we picked them up
and drove them home. So that was a bit of a late night for us - but it
was fun!

On Wednesday we went on exchange with some of the Elders serving in
North Shields, and that was really good. We taught some interesting
people that we'd found last week, a few who turned out to be right
crazy, but it was fun.

On Thursday amongst other things, some members asked us if we could
help them clean the Chapel, so we did and when we got there this guy
walked up to us in the church parking lot and asked us if we knew one
of the previous missionaries who had served here (which I did, because
I know pretty much all the missionaries who served here in the last 2
years) and then told us he wanted us to come over and teach him again,
so we were like ok. Pretty cool.

On Friday our investigator Alvin, who is studying at Northumbria
University, booked one of the courts at the Gym and invited us to come
play basketball with a bunch of his friends! It was so much fun, plus
one of his friends was from Hong Kong and speaks Mandarin, so we
referred him to the Chinese speaking Elders and they taught him and
he's super interested in coming to church and everything! We also got
the contact information for one of the other guys who came as well! It
was so sweet, plus it was really fun to play basketball again!

So on Saturday we were dead, because we were both super sore from
playing basketball haha. But it was still a really good day, lots of
knocking on doors! Love it.

And Susan and Sophie are my favourites, they love church. Alvin came
too, but Gemma was going to be late and so she decided to turn around.
We called her after to ask what happened and she told us and we were
so disappointed. She totally let satan trick her from coming. But it's
okay she'll come next week.

Love you guys!