Elder McKinley's Stint Across the Pond

Good morning and salutations everyone! So here we are, back to the regular format for these weekly emails, of which I have written right around 65 already which is just a mind boggling idea for me to process. I hit my 15 month mark this last Friday and I still cannot believe I have been gone so long. It does not feel like that much time has passed. However, I have the weariness to show for 15 months of work haha. I am so tired. But it's a good tired! It's the kind of tired you feel when you have accomplished really amazing and fulfilling things and I am so grateful I can work every day to help other people, especially during this upcoming season.  This week was interesting to say the least. In the spirit of Thanksgiving we wrote a lot of thank you cards to the families that have fed us recently. I just wanted to give them a shout out briefly. These families in any other circumstances would have no reason to associate with us. We come to their country and their towns from la...

Hey everyone! So today we spent the day in Portsmouth and my ability to email is massively limited. So I decided that I would send my usual bits and then a bunch of pictures. I promise that I'll be back to normal writing next week. Also, apologies if I don't get to respond to you individually.  Companion Comic: see attached pictures  Scripture of the week: Mosiah 15 - I read this chapter in my studies and I continue to love it so much. If you want to know who God is, read this chapter.  British food of the week: chocolate fudge milk - it's like chocolate milk but better  British word of the week: yeah I am fresh out this week - it means I am out of ideas this go round I am doing really well and am really happy about the opportunity I have to be serving the Lord this time of the year. I love my Saviour, I love England, and I love you all. Happy Thanksgiving and have an amazing week!

Hello everybody! I am coming at you live (but not when you read this) and here with a fixed toe! That is right everyone, my toe is now fixed. I will spare you the gory details (it was actually kind of cool) but I am doing well and on the right track in terms of healing and am excited to be able to not have to wrap my foot in a bag to shower in a few weeks after it heals #simplepleasures So after the surgery on Tuesday, I was not allowed to walk, so naturally we read the scriptures for 10 hours and then went to sleep for the night. Or kind of. We did read the scriptures but also: -watched a depressing but hopeful video called "The Last Leaf" (it is a movie produced by the church and we thought, let's see if this has any potential to help us with our teaching. a good film, but not really great for anyone we are teaching right now) -played a rousing game of DIY checkers on a white board with pieces of an advent calendar  -ate pizza -rested -called some people ...

Howdy everybody! This week has been absolutely fantastic. The reason? Two words: Elder. Brown. Elder Brown is from the beautiful San Diego/Japan/Germany/northern California/Delaware area! His dad was in the Air Force haha. He is "awesome" (this is in quotations because I forgot how much Americans say this word and being from southern California, it's Elder Brown's go to). I picked him up Tuesday at Hyde Park and he looked excited but also kind of dead. He had woken up at 4 am and we didn't get back to the island and to our flat until 10 pm so it was understandable. Nevertheless, he has been working hard and we are having a blast. We have a mutual love for Phineas and Ferb and a similar sense of humour so things have been *snaps* Okay. They've actually been brilliant but that was just a joke and I know it's losing it's humour now that I have said it was a reference to the show, but hey, when you are emailing a massive group of people, you have to explai...

o, in full disclosure, I have gone through my inbox and have been deleting things to make space for photos in Google photos and may have accidentally deleted old emails that I meant to respond to. So if you responded to my group email last week and I have not responded to you yet, that is probably what happened. It's hard to keep track   Also, I think I am on week  61 , but if not, please correct me haha. Anyways, welcome! This email might be just a bit shorter because we have a lot we need to do today. We are needed in london tonight because, drumroll please...ELDER BREWSTER IS GOING TO LONDON! I am so excited for him. He will be serving where the Westminster abbey, buckingham palace and big ben are so I am only a little bit jealous. I am sad to see him go. In homage to him, here is a poem: the power of friendship though underrated  is truly built on the foundation of people like warren brewster okay sappy stuff aside, I know you are all dying to...

Good afternoon/morning/Tuesday everybody! Sorry I did not email yesterday for I was otherwise engaged with interviews in Crawley. So today is our preparation day and we basically have just done shopping things today. It has been really nice to take it slow considering we have been running around like crazy these past few days. We have dinner with the Bishop tonight so that should be really nice.  Not too much has happened this past week if I am being honest. I went to this small little city called Winchester and it was charming. I was with Elder Andrade on exchange. He is from Portugal and really likes to work hard. We had a blast. We had the opportunity to teach this girl who is attending uni there. She is amazing. She has studied the gospel so deeply and she really knows this is true. However, her mom is avidly against her having anything to do with religion, especially our church. So she is a bit stuck at the moment. Just for privacy sake, I will not say her name, but still,...