Hello Family and Friends!!
Here she is answering some of my questions, but I thought I would share it. So if it feels dis-jointed. . . that is why ;)
Time IS flying. 2 months is happening really soon....AH! Weird. It feels fast but at the same time I feel like I have learned SO MUCH that it has to be longer than 2 months.
We haven't watched the broadcast yet, so what they do here is we watch the womens broadcast this Saturday at 3. and then we watch the Saturday morning conference session at 5 our time so it is live streaming, so we will be watching it at the same time as you but its just later in the day our time, and then we watch the Saturday afternoon session of conference Sunday at 1, and then the Sunday morning session Sunday at 5. So we won't get to watch Sunday afternoon session :( but Sister Lowder and I will probably just play it during emailing next pday so we can hear the talks! But yeah. That is how they do conference over here, cause they want to be kind of watching what they can live, even though we are 7 hours ahead. Kind of cool I suppose. We can go to every session if we have investigators and I think we should have investigators coming to everything! FUN!!
Things I miss from home....hmm. Well I am running low on lavender and peppermint oils haha. I do miss maple syrup surprisingly enough, cause we didn't have it all that often but I made pancakes the other day and it was ALL I wanted and their syrup here is gross so I just had yogurt. I think I just miss it as a treat. OHH I know what I really actually miss. They DONT HAVE ANY SPICY MEXICAN FOOD HERE!! THEY DON'T EAT SPICY FOOD! I miss good hot sauce. I finally caved and bought some tabasco cause that's all I could find but if you can find hot sauce here it is SO EXPENSIVE and they have like 2 kinds. And they have hardly any salsas ever. I miss having spicy spicy salsa and tortilla chips. I bought the hottest salsa they had over here and some tortilla chips and it was like mild salsa back home. I miss my spicy food! Food here is interesting cause they don't put spices or flavors in anything really. Most foods are SUPER bland unless someone makes you curry. Curry is a big thing here. But most people don't like spice....it is just sad.
I think we will be having fast Sunday after conference....so a cool thought about Kate and thinking she doesn't have a testimony. Lots of times investigators don't think they have faith or a testimony, but you just really have to explain what one is. Like "do you believe God loves you?" and "do you think Jesus Christ died for us?" and they usually say " OF COURSE I do" and you just explain that that IS a testimony. She might just need to have it re-explained. I don't know though.
I would LOVE a picture of the Cardston temple. We share pictures of temples all the time when we teach about them and I would love to have my temple to share. And members ask to see pictures of family and home a LOT haha.
Personal Progress is going well for Rosemary! (the 85 year old lady) she is working on Faith right now and she just is so excited to work towards getting a necklace I think :) She is the sweetest old lady. And the funniest...kind of like Sister Fitzner ( I think that is her name? She lives just up the street from us). Rosemary says the funniest things. But she really does have such faith and knowledge of the gospel! She has been a member for 3 years and has been the sunday school president for awhile. She is so amazing. We haven't started it with Deb yet, because we have struggled at being able to see her...she has a LOT going on but we are going to see her this week for sure!
Here is a look at her week -
Monday was PDAY! So we got food and did all the little things we needed to do, and then had district Pday with the whole district and played an entire game of phase 10 - and we all know how long that takes! It was really fun though. It is fun to spend some time with other missionaries and just play games. We then had dinner at a members home (the Hutchinsons! They have been married for just a year and are young and kind of crazy. But fun) and then went teaching with them! We taught Dennis who is now our new investigator :) And it was good! Dennis is SO intelligent and has such a knowledge of the bible and all the stories in it. I have learned a lot from him already....he is so solid though. I am excited for him to continue to learn. He told us that after reading some of the Book of Mormon he can't argue that is isn't true, cause it is definitely the word of God. SO COOL!
Tuesday was LONG and hard. We had so many people we had planned to see and no one was home, not even like ANY of our back up plans and back up back up plans....so we went tracting. And more tracting. And street contacting. We were so ready to find people but no one wanted to talk to us....and then people weren't home...it was HARD. But! a little miracle. WE finally were so exhausted of doing that and it wasn't successful so we called Lynn (a member in the ward) to see if we could do service or anything for her and we could! so we went and spray painted a bunch of dried flowers gold for her for her wedding WHICH IS IN TWO WEEKS!! She is the sweetest thing. So that was a little miracle for the daythat we were able to do service. Then we had dinner at the Holcombes again and they are just lovely! We finally had dinner with the WHOLE family and it was so fun to visit with them. They are the sweetest.
So on Wednesday we went tracting again and we got referral from a lady on the street so that was really cool! We also visited the Maizey's sister in law who is just LOVELY and we are hoping to get to paint something for them soon and get some service done there as well! I LOVE service. And we are really focusing on that this next month with the ward. WE also visited Brother bettridge and did some service for him in his garden, I'll send some pictures of that soon! ~We visited Vicki, one of the other recent converts and just did some scripture study with her, and then had dinner at the Liassides and WE ALSO GOT A NEW INVESTIGATOR AGAIN!! Marilyn was a referral from the Cardiff Central sisters, we helped her with family history that night and now she is our new investigator! She is so sweet and just wants to learn all about her family and she asked us why our church focuses so much on family history and...yeah! So cool! So we are super excited about that.
Thursday at our District meeting we learned a LOT about how to more effectively plan. I am excited to use a lot of the things Elder Pillay taught us about planning. We are going to split our area map and really focus on going to the places we haven't been yet, and visit people there and hopefully it will help us be more effective throughout the day as well. We also tried to visit a lot of people today but they weren't home...so we will keep going! We went to a park in Whitchurch and talked to this little old lady named Jennifer, and ended up teaching her and now we have ANOTHER new investigator! #somanyblessings Her husband died almost a year ago and she was out walking the dog they bought together right before he died, and we just started talking and she is SO sweet and willing for us to come around :) so lovely
we visited a lady we met on the street named Marilyn (yes, there are two of them) and she invited us back to help in her gardnen next week! She has been taught by the sisters before and has a Book of Mormon, and she just invited us back and gave us flowers to take home and is the SWEETEST! We are excited about that.
On Friday we did a ton of weekly planning, visited with Rosemary and checked on how personal progress was going (it is going well!) and then travelled to Taffs Well and did some service in a garden, and also had dinner at the Nunn's! They have the CUTEST little kids and they are just the sweetest family. Sister Lowder wasn't feeling well so we stopped in at Games night and then she REALLY wasn't feeling well so we went home. She slept, I wrote in my journal and looked through the area book....being totally ok while your companion is sick is hard. I just tried to learn and read some scriptures and talks and then went to bed on time. So Friday didn't feel super productive but we still worked hard and tried our best.
We took it a bit slow on Saturday as Sister Lowder was sick the night before. We finished weekly planning, and then travelled to Ely to have dinner and we tried to visit Deb but it didn't work out. As we were travelling home we had a cool experience....We could either wait 30 minutes for a train and then take it and bike the other 20 minutes home, or just bike straight home which would take us about 40 minutes....we figured just biking home was more logical, and as we went to leave I told Sister Lowder we needed to pray cause I didn't feel quite right and after the prayer I KNEW we needed to wait for the train instead of biking home. It would've been so dark biking and I KNEW that if we were to leave we would be seriously hurt. I don't exactly know how but the feeling was just SO STRONG. I cant really explain it but it was crazy! I just knew. And so we then took the train and biked home from the stop up ahead and were safe. We are so blessed as missionaries to be protected. I am so grateful for prayers and how they help us and how blessed we really are as missionaries. It is amazing.
A bit of sad news Saturday night...Lisa answered her phone when we called and just yelled at us to go away. soooo we got dropped by her. She was progressing so well and we don't know what happened...I was really sad but Sunday helped me feel peace and calm about it all.
Sunday was great! I always feel Sundays are SO BUSY but I love being able to play the organ in Sacrament and the piano in Relief Society or Primary. Being able to use music on the mission is such a blessing for me cause it relaxes my mind and helps me feel such peace at the end of the crazy week. I love it. We went and had dinner at the Riders, who are just the sweetest couple and they made me gluten free brownies!! The members are so good here about making gluten free things for me, even though its harder for them. I am so grateful to be in this area. we then tried to visit Kojo and his family but they weren't home....but we wont stop trying! I love Sundays.
We are going today after emails to go to another Welsh museum and to visit some Welsh shops and a market in city centre! I am so excited for that! The elders might join us when we go to the museum so I will be sure to send pictures of that next week!
My spiritual thought and challenge this week is just to invite people to General Conference! Invite them to come over for dinner and to watch a session, or for brunch or something! It is such a good family activity and you share the gospel at the same time! INVITE WHOEVER YOU CAN! It will bless you more than you know. So many blessings come from doing missionary work. I can PROMISE you that as you do this, your home will receive blessings and you will be able to feel of God's love for all his children. The worth of souls is GREAT in the sight of God. He wants us all to hear his word :) Invite whoever you can.
Love you all so much!
Sister Emma Beazer
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