Monday, August 25, 2014

58th letter....from Loughborough

Hey everyone!

This week has been amazing.  I'm loving every second of my mission right now.  It's really nice serving with Elder Harris again.  We're getting on just the same as we did before.  It's cool to see how much we've changed in actual missionary work though too.  I bet it's nice for him that I rely less on him.  I am in love with the Chinese culture.  We've been hanging out with tons of Chinese people.  

Last monday we just had a normal p-day.  We shopped around, ate a kebab, and then took a nap.  We ended up having to drive half way to the mission home because the Assistants needed to give us some supplies for one of the teams in our zone.  After that we went to teach Stacy.  I actually met Stacy while I was serving with Elder Steel because she really really loved him and chased him down in Eastwood.  After Stacy we went and taught Frankie, Dannie, and Yong.  Frankie and Dannie are really only interested in learning English but Yong is way interested.  

Tuesday morning we did the service for Bob, laying down the patio.  That's almost done and we are excited for that to be over soon.  It's just taking so much time out of our days. It's been fun, though. We just have to finish the edges now though.  After the service we went down to Evington for exchange.  Exchange is probably my favorite thing about being a zone leader already.  I went with Elder Kezele who is from my MTC group.  We had a great time and were able to find some really cool people.  

Wednesday we went to the Demontfort district's district meeting, and exchanged back.  When we got back we taught a lady named Gabriela which was a referral from Reece.  Reece has given the missionaries 14 referrals in one week.  That's just crazy.  We taught her and that went well.  Then we went finding and I talked to a Chinese guy that reminded me so much of Daniel L.  It was great.  I talked to him and said I was from America. (by the way,I've been working on saying a few phrases in Mandarin....)  When I said I was from America he made a funny face and in his chinese accent said 'ooooooooooh!  That is why I understand every word that you say!!!'  Elder Harris and I laughed so hard about that.  It was that guy's first day in the UK.  That night we made Spaghetti for Barry, Ivy, Alex and Ariel.  They all loved it and had never had it before.  Then we went and saw Michael B., another investigator.  It's so great to have so many people to teach and share the gospel with.

Thursday we had our own district meeting, and then we went on a little split.  I went with Elder Hunter because his recent convert from Gloucester was coming to visit him.  They took us to Pizza hut for a couple of hours and it was great to see how happy they all were to see each other.  After pizza hut we went to Bob's house and sang happy birthday to Gillian (bob's wife) and all had some cake.  Her candles were so funny, they said 21ish.  She thought that was funny.  We worked a little more on the patio then had to head of to ward coordination which was a great meeting.  We have a great ward mission leader here.  It's Brother Ford (Camerons mission president's son).

Friday I went on exchange with Elder McCray.  He is from Snowflake Arizona and wants to be the worlds strongest man.  He's massive.  He is serving here in Loughborough.  In high school he bench pressed 415 pounds and right after high school benched 435 lbs.  We went and taught 3 of their investigators and had really good lessons.  At 5.30 we went and played basketball for a couple of hours and met a few new people.  That's been really fun, but it makes me wish that I had stuck with it in high school because I could have been a lot better!  

Saturday... was the worse day of my life.  It was awful and hilarious.  I just don't even know how to put my experience into words.  Elder McCray had agreed to do some service for some guy that lives in the another ward but has a warehouse in our area.  So he said the service would take 6 hours and would be heavy lifting.  So, at 8 in the morning we get picked up in this van with 3 seats.  Elder McCray is massive so we barely fit in the seats, I was being squeezed up against a plastic bit and it was very uncomfortable.  Then we went to the warehouse and literally spent 7 hours shuffling paper around.  My job was to stack 3 papers then put them on a bigger sheet of paper, then he would roll up the paper and elder mccray would put it in a tube and close the tube. It was some sort of planner for sheep herders about how to take care of their sheep.  We were standing on concrete and a little slouched over the whole time.  The worse part was that this guy just could not stop talking about lambs!  I know far to much about lambs!  Like if 'a ewe is lambing, and the head comes out first it's very bad!  You actually have to cut off the head of the lamb and shove the rest of the body back up into the ewe.'  Elder McCray said he didn't see me smile a single time the whole time we were there and I didn't see him smile either.  We probably said about 20 words between the both of us because this man was talking so much.  Poor guy just has all these ideas that never sell.  Like a tool to feed a dog a pill.  When he was talking about that I was thinking that you just put the pill in a piece of cheese and the dog eats it!  Why do you need a tool?  Then, when we were finally done with the service, he just drove us to an obscure city and gave us a tour of the place, still talking about lambs.  And when we left, he gave us.... 3000 pens.  I'm serious.  He was like, well I'm sure you could use some pens, hand them out to the other missionaries.  So we now own 3000 pens that.  On the pen, it says something about... sheep.  I was terrified that night that I'd dream about lambs.  Elder McCray and I got back to their flat and just laid down and started busting out laughing at how ridiculous the day was.  Elder Harris and Hunter came over very curious about what had happened because we hadn't had service the whole day and as we told them, they were busting out laughing too at how ridiculous our time was.  I felt like I was in shock for the rest of the day.

Sunday we had a good day.  We went in the morning to walk with Ivy Barry, and a couple of investigators named Jessica and Amber to church.  After church we did some weekly planning then came to Ivy and Barry's for dinner.  They taught us a sick chinese song on the guitar.  It's a really cool song, and we're kind of obsessed with it.  Then Sunday night we had our call-ins with all of the district leaders.  Our zone this week did amazing.  We set a record for new investigators found, so we're very excited about that.  

I love it here in Loughborough.  The ward is great and the investigators are great.  I am booked to take my theory test this Friday and then my practical driving test probably in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully I'll do fine.  I haven't bought a suit yet because I haven't had time!  Just be patient!

I hope y'all are having a great week.
Love,
Elder Pogue

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