Week 2: " You think Manchester's Beautiful?"

Hello everyone! First I wanted to start off my email by saying thank you. Thank you for your prayers and your thoughts because I have felt them. Thank you for the emails you send me with your updates about life and your encouraging words. I may not be able to respond to all of them, but I do read and cherish every single one of them. So keep sending them :-)

This week was a long week. I spent many hours in classes, learning more about my role as a representative of Christ and how to effectively communicate the message of Christ's restored gospel to any and all that are open to hear it. I am learning more about myself and my abilities (as well as my faults and weaknesses) with each passing day and I continually experience humility and joy as I progress in understanding the work I am undertaking. I thought I'd give a shootout to my amazing teachers, Brother Hunter and Sister Barrett. They come from Scotland and Ireland respectively and are some of the best teachers I have ever had. They truly remind me of Christ, the Master Teacher, through their love and devotion to our success and growth. Brother Hunter's most used exclamation: "Chill out!" in a very thick Scottish accent. Sister Barrett's: "Okay, let's sing a hymn." in a voice you can tell is weary from the continual hijinks of my district. 

The food continues to impress me although it can at times be slightly bland. Fish and chips night is by far my favorite night. However, the head chef in the cafeteria is Italian and so the pasta we have is always brilliant. 

Companion Comic: One of the lessons we teach as missionaries is about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We teach that through Jesus Christ, we can all be cleansed from sin. One of the exercises we do in class is attempt to teach lessons in 30 seconds or less, to make sure that we understand the central points of what we are teaching. In one of these attempts, my companion Elder Madsen accidentally said through Jesus Christ We can be cleansed "from skin". It had been a long day and that made me crack and I laughed so hard to the point I had to excuse myself from class. Needless to say, we did not quite complete the lesson in 30 seconds. 

I want to close my email with the highlight of my week. The England missionary training centre is different than most because we have the chance to go to the nearby city of Manchester and proselytize or talk to others about our faith. This is one of the hardest things we do as missionaries because we literally wander around a city talking to anyone that will listen in hopes that we can set up and appointment to meet with them and discuss more of our faith. My companion and I got off the bus and went on our way. We tried talking to everyone. Most people would say they were in a rush or didn't have time. Many would say they weren't interested. Some would even cross the street to avoid having to even exchange glances with us. While it hurt a little bit to be rejected so frequently, it was an absolute joy to be doing it. We did actually talk to many people, some for upwards of 10 to 20 minutes, about life, their struggles, their faith, and their hopes and dreams. We shared the message of Jesus Christ and His love, and of how the Book of Mormon can bring us closer to Him and help us feel peace and comfort. It was an experience that reminded me that this is real life. This is not some aimless quest but one that is built on the charge to declare the gospel of Christ to every nation. I'm humbled to be a part of it and I'm grateful for my Savior and the love He has for me. 

As always, if you have any questions about anything I have said, shoot me an email. I'll do my best to answer them. I'm getting ready to respond to individual emails and if I don't get to them I'm sorry. I love you all. 

British word of the week: chemist - pharmacist

Food of the week: galaxy chocolate- like chocolate but so much better because it's European

Scripture of the Week: Mormon 5:23-24

1) The MTC!

2) that beautiful pond again

3) two missionaries in my district matching exactly 

4) I forgot to mention I traced my family history back to Adam!