18th Letter from England (Eastwood)

Hey everyone!

 

I'm glad to hear that everything sounds like it's going great!  When is Khobar going to get a new place?  Yeah, I'm not too concerned about Christmas gifts or anything.  You know how I am, I never really need or want very much.  I got the triple combination on Friday so that was really good!  Maybe you could send some good music?  Maybe some of the good MoTab CD's and stuff like that.  Not necessarily their hymns but their special events.  I don't know what there is.  Even if you get it off iTunes and send it to me on a usb.  Other than that, the bike and the coat are good enough! 

 

Does the LuLu's commissary look like it's going to be good?  I bet the cheese bread won't be as good.  I miss that stuff!  Friday for some reason was a day that made me miss Saudi in a weird way.  I'll talk about that as I go through my week though... it was a crazy week.  We were tried very hard this week.

 

So MONDAY, we went to Derby to buy me some rain trousers and to just hang around in a bigger city, but I ate a Kebab and I started feeling extremely sick.  Nothing too bad though.  We got my rain
trousers then went back to Eastwood.  We ended up cancelling our dinner appointment that night and I called Sister Rasmussen and got permission to stay in.  I just went to sleep early and was feeling better the next day.

 

So on TUESDAY we taught Amy in the morning and had a really good lesson.  That night is when the awful things started to happen.  We had an dinner appointment at the Rawson's house.  They're so great. (That's definitely not the awful part!) They always feed us curry and for pudding we have a chocolate cake and blueberries with blueberry yoghurt. On the way over there we went through the fields and it was extremely muddy and almost impossible to go through.  We miraculously made it on time.  After the DA we start biking to our ward coordination meeting and Elder Steel gets a flat.  The walk is probably over an hour and a half.  We called Allen Stinson to pick us up and we got to the meeting but we had to leave our bikes in Jacksdale. 

 

On WEDNESDAY we had the MotivateU class, I'm pretty sure I've spoken about it before.  Amy came so that was great.  Then immediately after that we had to start walking to Jacksdale.  We got there over an hour later, fixed the bike.  Thankfully Nancy, Bill Marina's wife, made us some lunch!  I'm glad she did because otherwise we would not of had time.  We then started cycling back, and we find out that Elder Steel's bike still isn't fixed so we have to walk back!  We barely made it to Eats n Treats for a lesson with Rachael and Amy at 3.  We did some work in Langley Mill that night and almost got in a fight with a couple of chavs.  They were punks who were too afraid to hit us.  It was really funny because they were yelling that they were going to 'knock us out' and Elder Steel and I just kind of laughed.  Eventually one of them went inside and got his dad to come out to yell at us.  It was pathetic.  We happened to run into Ruby and talked to her for a few minutes.  It got extremely cold that night. 

 

On THURSDAY we walked down to a store called Decathelon to buy me a bike.  I got a nicer one than I had before.  It's really nice except I haven't been able to ride it much since then, I'll get to that in a second.  We ate lunch at Ikea!  Ikea hotdogs are only 60P each so we each got a few and started up with the bike.  We went to Heanor to talk to a less active and she was great!  Hopefully we'll be able to teach her!  On our way towards our DA though we were going down a hill, rounded a corner and Elder Steel's bike just catches an edge somehow and he slams into the ground and slides.  He had a glove on that was completely shredded and his face was on the ground the same amount as his hand!  It's a miracle he wasn't more hurt!  He did chip his tooth though, which has a follow up story on Friday.  We went to Luis' house to get him cleaned up, and left our bikes there because President Rasmussen told us to get him to drive us home and to stay in for the night. 

 

So this bike accident is actually a miracle.  On FRIDAY we had Zone Conference.  Elder Timothy Dyches of the 70 was there to talk to us.  So President and Sister Rasmussen, then Sister and Elder Dyches spoke to us and it was extremely good.  It was sad to hear some of the departing missionary testimonies, especially Elder Patten's (my old district leader).  So we would be in Leicester that whole day so we figured we'd get a dentist appointment for Elder Steel while we were there.  After calling several dentists we finally got an appointment at 3:00.  We leave Elder Dyches a little bit early and get to the dentist office.  Now let me give you a little backstory about Elder Steel.  Elder Steel's last area was Loughborough.  While he was there his mom had a feeling they should go to the nearest cemetery, they did and found this guy in the cemetery who was praying for the right path to go.  They started teaching him and his name is Darren.  So Darren was a miracle find to start out with.  After Elder Steel was transferred Darren kind of lost contact with the missionaries.  So back to the dentist office.  We're sitting in the lobby of this dentist office in Leicester, which is a couple hours away from Eastwood, and about 1 hour away from Loughborough and this man walks in and him and Elder Steel stare at each other then after a few strange seconds from my perspective Elder Steel says 'DARREN!'  We were able to teach Darren at the dentists office that he recognizes he was led to.  Darren went to church for the first time yesterday and we just got a text from him that says :

'Thank you my dear friend.  The righteous path is the rocky road I choose to walk.  No more hanging on the side of doing right, pretending I might have a slight inclination. I know what God intends.  I must follow the signs, that led me back to you when I was crying out for the chance to speak with you.  Wish granted.  I now surrender my self to the divine and ask,  What do you want of me oh Lord?  Show me so I may do what you will, and no longer what I want.'  (This is a picture of us teaching Darren in the dentist's office.)

 

 

THAT WAS A MIRICLE AT ITS FINEST!!  That was such a testimony builder that we are put where we need to be, even if it causes us a little bit of pain along the way. 

 

On SATURDAY we did our weekly planning, went to Heanor with no success and went to get our bikes. 

 

SUNDAY was great because Amy came!  Amy really loved church and had a great time.  She has now not smoked for over 35 hours!  We called President Rasmussen last night to try to schedule a baptismal interview for this Wednesday, there is a possibility that she will be baptized on Thursday, or maybe next Tuesday.  I am so excited for that.

 

It's starting to get really cold these days.  Sister Rasmussen said that below freezing temperatures with snow and ice is predicted for this week. D: 

 

Well I hope everything is going great for all of y'all!  I love and miss you all!

 

-Elder Evan Pogue

 

A lot of times at night we'll tract doors with lights on so we'll be walking along the roads where all the lights are off with just one or two houses with their lights on and we'll hurry over to those houses.  This week Elder Steel said that we're just like a couple of bugs chasing around the lights.  I thought that was pretty funny.