Good morning friends, family and those who I love so very much! Another week has swiftly passed in the land of Devonshire and I'm excited to tell you all about it, so let's get cracking.
It was Thanksgiving last week and I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends. They do not officially celebrate thanksgiving in England, but a family who lives in the branch here fed us thanksgiving dinner anyways! They lived in the states for 10 years and so when they came back to England they brought thanksgiving with them. It was amazing and pictures are attached. I'm super grateful for all of you and for the support you give me. I'm beyond grateful for my family, my faith, my God, my life experiences, and the opportunity I have to be serving here in England.
Moving forward, through the week, there was a baptism this week! A boy in the neighboring congregation has been meeting with the missionaries there and Friday was his baptism! We went to help out. We got there only to learn that we needed a key to turn on the font...and the key the missionaries had didn't work. So they took a bus 30 minutes away to someone's house to get the right key...which also didn't work. So we started filling it with buckets and cleaned out rubbish bins. Long story short, after many buckets and a hacking of the electrical system with a screw driver (some one else did that not me), we got the water to turn on and the baptism was able to go forward (albeit happening 40 minutes later than planned). It was a sweet miracle to see things work out so that this boy could make a promise to follow Christ.
We had another cool miracle happen on Sunday. We had literally 15 minutes to try and find someone interested in meeting with us. 15 minutes. We said a prayer and asked God to help us find that person and help them find us. We rushed into the square and talked to the first person we saw. We chatted for a bit but ultimately he wasn't interested. Then we talked to the next person and he was! He is really keen on hearing about our message. He even texted us about an hour after we met him saying that he looked forward to talking with us. That hardly ever happens! So it was a very cool miracle indeed.
Other than that not many eventful things have happened this week. The other two parts of my title come from the information session we had from a member regarding how radiators work and a strange encounter we had. We were in a town called Launceston and we approached this man and started talking with him. He turned around and lo and behold, he was holding a tortoise. In the middle of the street. Just walking around the square, carrying a tortoise. We had an interesting conversation and long story short, he was not interested.
I find out on Saturday if I'm staying in Holsworthy for another 6 weeks or if I'm going. Next week you may be hearing from me from a different location. But for now, I'm here and I'm loving it :-)
British word of the week: cheeky - I'm not exactly sure how to explain it but it basically means sneaky in a manipulative way or to pull a fast one on someone. It's like when someone advertises that they're selling shoes 50 percent off but then you go in and find out that it's actually only one of the shoes in the pair that's 50% off and the other shoe is still full price. That a a really rubbish example, but it's hard to explain. Cheeky.
British Food of the Week: it's not super british but instead of ranch they have salad cream. It's not good. It's basically mayonnaise. So yeah, if you come to Britain, bring your own salad dressing.
Companion Comic: probably us running around the church building with buckets of water to fill the font. It was a fun time.
Scripture of the week: 3 Nephi 12:16 The LDS church has released an initiative called Light the World. It's a way to spread joy this season in 25 ways for 25 days. Check it out! I challenge you all to follow it! It'll bring you great got this season, regardless of your faith.
I love you all and wish you a great week! Thank you so much for your letters and emails, they are amazing and bring me much joy. Thank you for your support and love. Talk to you next week!
Elder McKinley
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