35th

March 17, 2014

I have had a great week!!  

I got a message Tuesday from Amy telling about Kelcys mission call, she didn't mean to tell me where she went but she mentioned the England MTC so I guessed it.  That's really cool, I know a few people there!  I hear that it's beautiful and just really great.  Lots of curry wurst can never be a bad thing.  Also Hunter emailed me and that is so exciting as well!  Cambodian!  Who would've guessed that!?  It's so great to see all of my friends going on missions around the world.  I can not believe I've been out 8 months.  I'm still a young missionary but I'm starting to be one of the 'older' ones.  It's weird to talk about missionaries I served around in the past then realizing, awh man!  They're home!  Speaking of missionaries going home, it's also been a bit of a bitter sweet week.  

A lot of people have been emailing me lately, It's been good!  I hear from almost everyone periodically.  Do you know anything about Butterfield?  Is he putting papers in soon?  

 I have been studying a bit of Arabic, not as much as I'd like though, we've been too busy to have very much language study at all.  To answer your question, I decide on which badge I'm wearing depending on where we are going.  If we are going to Small Heath, Sparkhill, Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath I'll wear Arabic, anywhere else, English.  

The weather this week has been incredible.  I can't believe how nice it's been.  I'm getting excited for the summer months to come!  Which also weirds me out because it'll mark a year in the mission.  When it starts getting hot, it will really feel like it's been a year.  Then I'll know once it gets cold then hot again it'll be time to go home.  I'm not ready to even start thinking about that being a possibility. 

So for my week!  

Monday, we really just hung around and rested for P-day!  We cleaned a little in fear that we might have a flat inspection soon.  That didn't happen.  Then at night we taught English lessons.  The Albanians are really cool.  I'm enjoying teaching English but it's beginnig to be too much.  It just takes a lot of time.

Tuesday was a great day, we got out immediately and started doing work, then we had a lesson with Salin at 2.  We taught the Plan of Salvation again, which ended up being really confusing and not the best of lessons but it was alright.  We then walked up to the Romanian family, the David and Maria Rada that we taught last Sunday.  We gave them the Resto and Finding Faith in Christ DVD's.  I'll talk more about them later.  Then on Tuesday night we had dinner and a lesson at the Stilger home because Jeremiah (16) invited his friend to take the lessons!  That went really well, and Robert, his friend, seemed to really enjoy it.  Hopefully we will see him again soon.  So that was a great day,

Then Wednesday was amazing!  So last Sunday we had Stake Conference where we heard from Elder Adler an Area 70.  But then Wednesday, we had Zone Conference with Elder Teixeira of the 1st Quorum of the 70 and President of the Europe area.  Sister and President Rasmussen spoke, then Elder Teixeira and Sister Teixeira.  They were all so motivating.  I especially like Elder Teixeira.  He was really personal with us and told us a lot of great stories and encouragement. I took a lot of notes and things like that, so don't worry, I won't forget what he taught.  That was such a great meeting.  That took a lot of the day, so then we went home and studied.

Thursday we woke up nice and motivated for the day and went to Solihull for a last district lunch with Elder Hyde.  We ate at Pizza Hut and had a good time.  It was really sad to see him go and we'll miss him a lot.  (Whitney should find him on Facebook he's a stud.  Jarom Hyde)  We knocked on a chinese ladies door named Susan and she started saying loudly 'Jesus!?  Can Jesus give me money?!  I want money!'  It was really funny, but also really sad that her priorities are so off.  We were in a town called Mosely when at two different times people waved us down, 'Elders!  Elders!'  saying they're less actives.  One of them really wants to start coming back to church.  That's really exciting.  They are in the Harborne ward boundaries though.  We had dinner with the Camisani family, we went there on Christmas.  He's a really good cook especially with all the Italian he makes. 

Fridays.... I hate fridays.  Weekly planning is just the worst.  It takes so long.  But we finished weekly planning at around 1:30 and went to a referral we were given but that ended up being a false address.  We ate at a chippy that night, I had battered sausage and chips.  I'm so in love with fish and chip shops.  Especially chips with salt and vinegar, and sometimes with curry. We taught English at night though so that went well.  We're planning on starting to just teach the gospel at English class.

Saturday, we had a long list of people to go and see and we were able to make it to all of their homes.  But none of them were home.  That's okay though because we took the opportunity to go see the Rada's and see if we could get them to church on Sunday.  We were almost to their house when we saw David walking and we went with him.  Someone had broken into their house the night before and flipped so much upside down looking for stuff to steal.  Luckily nothing valuable was taken.  We talked to him on his way to the store then he drug us into Lidl and bought us cookies and juice... he and is family is so nice and giving.  The whole time he was just saying thank God for what we have and that my family wasn't there at the time.  Thank God that it wasn't worse.  What a good mentality to have.

Sunday we had church as usual which was good.  The Albanian crew, not the Romanians came to church.  The Romanians were sick and still recovering from the break in.  The Albanians came and seemed to enjoy it so that was good.  Sacrament meeting was quite sad because the Morris' (missionary couple that works in the office) are leaving.  That was their last Sunday in England.  We had gotten pretty close to them serving in their ward.  They've been in Sheldon for the whole year and a half.  We're all so sad to see them go.  Elder Morris would always take my Dr.Peppers and shake them up so they'd either fizz when I opened it or be flat.  He's always just joking around with people.  We had a munch and mingle after church for them.  Then we said goodbye and they fly out Tuesday.  

   After that we had our lesson with the Rada family.  David, Maria, and Nelu.  We went at 5 and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That went really well and we talked for a while about different things.  We then got into the Law of Chastity, turns out David and Maria aren't married but David said they want to take care of that as soon as possible.  They said they will get married so they can keep all of the commandments!  Then we talked about hte Word of Wisdom and they accepted that straight away too!  Even though it's so new to them.  David was so prepared for us to start meeting with him.  He'd been praying to know which church is true and where is the path he needs to go.  Then we met him and he says that he thinks that we are the right one.  It's such a miracle,  I'm so happy to be a part of it!  Hopefully we will get all of the marriage and baptism things worked out soon.  I left the house jumping down the street saying 'we're going to a wedding!' over and over again.  It's hard not to show that excitement sometimes when things are going so well!

They also always feed us! 

I hope all of you are doing great.  
Love y'all,
Elder Pogue