Hey!
So I sent you loads of pictures, you got those right? I hope you're happy because that took ages. Now I'll email you. I'm glad to hear that everything is going great over there, and Dad's back home safely and all of that. TZ gets married on Thursday?! That's crazy! You have to send me a few pictures of that next week! How exciting. I wish I could be there. I'm sure it'll be great. So I guess I kind of owe you two weeks huh??
So last time I mentioned Duo, we taught Duo and he was elect, such a great guy from China and excited to learn! It was a powerful lesson and it just went really great and we were excited for him, but he dropped us yesterday unfortunately ): It was a pretty learning experience though, we left the lesson really excited, having felt the spirit, and knowing that we did exactly what the Lord wanted of us, then he sent us a message saying he didn't want to learn more and obviously we're gutted about that, but it's comforting to know that we did what was expected of us. Free agency just sucks sometimes.
New Years was nothing really special ahah I'd say the most anticlimactic New Years I'll ever have. We had to be in the flat at 6 so we were. We just kind of laid around and relaxed for a while. Listened to some music and ate some food. Then took care of all the nightly planning and business we had to do. It wasn't too long until it was night time and I just decided to go to bed a little early. We set an alarm for 11:55 to be up for the new year. The alarm went off, Elder Harris asked, what now? I said I don't know... I'm going back to sleep and we slept through the new year. We had to stay in in the morning as well to do weekly planning but with the new year we had some good studies and goal making so that's good (: I can't believe my 'black year' is over. (the full year I'll spend on my mission).
I also mentioned Zoe and Michelle, Zoe has been investigator for a while but we saw her and a group of her friends at a bus stop and I ran up to them. They were celebrating Michelle's birthday, we hadn't met her before though. We started singing happy birthday in chinese and making jokes and things like that and michelle invited us over for their birthday party. We went straight there and had a great time and Michelle liked it a lot, so we'll start teaching her as soon as exams are over.
Aurora was a cool miracle, we weren't sure if we should knock on a door or not but we decided to and Aurora answered and was amazing. She was very interested in the gospel and thought that we were cool. She invited us back and we taught her a little bit about the book of mormon and she said she'd read. One of the heart breaks of this week though is that she read the book of mormon... and is really hung up on the Nephi killing Laban thing. She said she was terrified when she heard that because it's completely against Buddhism. It's such a genuine concern and we did everything to try to resolve it but it'll take some more time.
Another highlight of the previous week was exchange with Elder Severe, he's just such a cool guy and we had a great time. We taught Duo and Aurora together and were able to talk about a lot of great things. He's into the same movies and music I am and he plays a lot of basketball. It was fun to get to know him better.
On the Saturday morning we played a massive game of football with a bunch of investigators and recent converts and a couple of members which was great. It was about 8 per side and a fast paced game. When we exchanged back Elder Severe and I were both sore and hurt; in so much pain.
So this week,
Last monday was so rushed because we had a DA at 5 and a member and a about to be baptized investigator came down from Cheltenham to hang out with us. So we were with them all day and we had to take our car in to the garage and things like that. One crazy thing was we went to pick up our car, and they had given our key away to someone else on accident and she had driven away in her own car, but with her key (she was using a spare key or something to drive her own) They did everything they could to get it back and we didn't have to wait to long. We played a bit of football and just had a good time for p-day. The DA was amazing, it was with a family called the Alexanders and we had a proper roast dinner. The spirit was strong in that home. We watched the video about Elder Hollands talk, An High Priest of Good Things To Come and the spirit was very strong. I think it was a message we all needed to hear. We then taught Aurora when she came out with this Laban thing, so maybe that DA was good preparations of that situation.
On Tuesday morning we had Mission Leadership Council which was great as always. We got some really good training from President and Sister Rasmussen and it was good to see a lot of our friends from around the mission. It was weird because it was the last time I'll see some of them! A lot of the Sisters are going home, like the sisters that are in my MTC group. It was good to see Sister Stone again and Elder Harris. Elder Harris said that that could be the last time we see him on the mission unless he gets transferred into our zone. isn't that weird? We went on exchange right after MLC and Elder Dryden and I went to teach Iffah at the Beasley's home. We talked a lot about the Atonement of Christ and how important Jesus is as our Saviour. It was a cool lesson to teach. The spirit was definitely there and I just love how every time we have a lesson and teach a principle of the gospel, my testimony grows. Doctrine and Covenants 88 says:
77 And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.
78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;
I really hope I have the opportunities for the rest of my life to teach the gospel to people, whether in church callings or just working with missionaries or anything. Obviously there will be in the family too, but I kind of mean independent of that.
On Wednesday morning we drove out to Melton Mowbray to contact some of the Address unknown files the church sends out. Nobody was interested but we did some good finding. Finding in Melton reminded me a bit of Eastwood because it's just kind of an old english community, it's a little more posh than Eastwood though. I enjoyed it out there and we'll probably go back. We exchanged back right after that and got ready for interviews the next day and did some finding.
Thursday we had interview with President Rasmussen, so we had to wake up and leave early to get everything set and ready for him. I like interview days because we get some one on one time with President (which always goes by so fast) and as a zone leader we get to see the whole zone and join their district meetings and all of that which is always great. I had a good interview with him where we talked a little about leadership and things like that. Again, it's really just all day of talking with other missionaries for us.
So on Friday morning we had our weekly planning and actually had a very good and effective planning session. Immediately after that though I went on exchange in Evington. I went with Elder Singleton. I like him a lot, he's hilarious. We just did a ton of walking though and it wasn't the most effective work. We had a good time talking about a lot of different things though. On the next morning we played some basketball which was a lot of fun. I miss playing sports a lot! We've been playing a lot recently though. The highlight of Saturday was after we exchanged back Elder Harris and I went to see Darren Sprintall (remember the miracle dentist office guy with Elder Steel last November?) Yeah, so it was great to see him and he really is just such a great guy. Then he started talking about how he's been trying to be better and he met with John Kear (a member of the stake presidency) over the holiday and they'd seen a film together and things like that. It was good to see him and his daughter.
So Sunday morning came and Darren came to church! He hasn't been in probably 9 months, so we were so excited to see him there. He say's we can meet up more during the week and he's back in it. Elder Steel and I are actually going on exchange later this week so we'll go see him together. A woman and her husband a baby came to church as well, named Fulana and Huan and Chenchen. The Baby is the cutest 2 month old asian in the world. It was great to see them there. I think we will pass them on to Sister Chen though, so they can be taught in Chinese. On Sunday after church we had to drive and meet up with Elder Harris and Lu to pick up a bag so most of our day was taken with that and then we had a DA with Yixing so not much happened. Our call ins were really good though and the zone did great! One of my favourite things about them are being able to hear of all the miracles the missionaries are having and seeing how happy they are. It's great.
So one other thing, remember in the past I talked about Jason? Well the reason I haven't spoken about him as much is because he's been on Holiday in Norwich. We referred him to the missionaries down there and they have taken him in a bit. He is planning on being baptized in the next couple of weeks but it's a little difficult because we don't know where to baptize him! It's great though that he's doing so well. Actually one of the missionaries in Norwich is Emri Haynies friend somehow? They're cool and good missionaries but it's a little tough to work together from different missions. It's great though that Jason's doing so great! I remember street contacting him and he was very uninterested until I said 'we teach how people can receive answers to their prayers.' and it just clicked for him. It's cool how the spirit can guide the words to be what will catch their attention.
So this week has been good! Transfers aren't for another couple of weeks, so we'll keep you updated! Hope everythings going well for y'all.
Love,
Elder Pogue
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