Oh, goodness. Opening my email and seeing so many TOTALLY made my day. And I printed them all off and will probably reread them all week long. :)


I can't believe it's already been a week to email! It went so fast! (Well, I mean...the days were long, but they went super fast)


I got your letter, Dad! :) It was so good! And thanks for sending the pictures. My desk looks a little more even now....I've got 2 pics of just Emery, the "take it slow" sign , and a family picture. Totally fair representation, right? It makes my morning when I start studying and can look at my family! Also, I left my iPod on Pennsylvania time. So when I turn on hymns for personal study, I always look to see what time it is and figure out what you guys are doing. It's usually like four am....so I assume Dad is up and working and Emery is playing in her crib. Am I right? (And Mom, I LOVE having good music to listen to. Good call. And I guess I just meant the twist up ones that are good for marking in scriptures. I think they sell like a twelve pack, which would be perfect.)


Dad, your email cracked me up! I can only imagine how entertaining the kid in security was. haha. I've got a story a little like that this week too. And you sound so super busy!!! Thanks for telling me all about your projects... I love knowing what you are up to.


Mom, I am glad you are home, but I'm super glad that you were able to get some alone time with your parents. And thank you so much for getting my stuff to G&Gs. I'm sorry I left stuff unfinished. But it was all so fast! And that show sounds hilarious. Seriously. It's funny....my companion and I have just one of those little apartment fridges, but there's so much room! It's weird. I've never had a fridge where I can see the whites of the walls. haha.


I got a few other emails, but I'm going to reply to them individually. :D






Okay, this week was crazy! Before I came on my mission, I thought, Holy Cow, missionaries have so much time. I just assumed they got everything done and then did finding to feel in the cracks.


This is false doctrine.





Maybe it's just because we have two hours a day less than most missionaries, but we NEVER get enough done! We literally RUN from place to place. And we have to sprint to catch buses all the time. But we are blessed. We always make the bus, even if we pound on the door as he's started driving off. Haha. If you want to know what riding the UK buses are like, go watch the Harry Potter with the night bus (3rd one). It is exactly like that. Only our bus doesn't magically get skinny to get between stuff...they just gun it! Sometimes I can't look out the windows because I'm positive we are about to collide with something. “Take it away, Ernie!”


Okay. I forgot my planner this week to write from, so it's a little bit scattered. Sorry about that.


One of my FAVORITE people in our ward is Caroline. She's recently reactivated and is as English as you can imagine. Another lady pulled out a photo and said “Caroline, meet my mom”. Caroline casually looks and goes “She's old.”


I DIED. It was just so casually said. I laugh all the time here, though. The British humor is just wonderful--dry, slightly grumpy style that I just love.


Caroline is so good. She's a social worker, and she's had a really hard life. I loved what my companion said: “Satan's goal is to destroy families. Caroline is a miracle worker at saving families, so he goes after her so hard because of how strong she is and how much good she does. Stopping her would make his job so much easier.” So true!!


Tuesday, we had several appointments with less actives. It was a little bit depressing though because several cancelled on us. I think one is scared...she told us she wants to quit smoking. So we prepared this AWESOME program from her (it's the standard one in our mission, and is supposed to be super successful). But she wouldn't let us in her house. So frustrating.


We went to visit a list of AUFs (people who've moved in to the ward but we know nothing about. So we go find them). We spent FIVE HOURS getting to and from this one man's apartment. So much precious time! But he wasn't even home. And that's kinda how our week went. I spent enough time on a bus this week I could've made it to the moon and back. Like six times. Uphill both ways.


You may have seen on my FB that I got a message from a girl named Paige. I LOVE HER!! She's this super adorable recent convert. She's 16, and so funny! Apparently my privacy settings are so people can't add me. So maybe we should change that so mission people can find me, yah?


Wednesday we had our District Meeting. Which is really boring, in case you were wondering.


Necessary maybe, but definitely boring.


However, it was super cool. My companion and I “presented” on increasing the number of referrals. I felt like I needed to share the Set-A-Date program. So I did. I have never seen a group of missionaries get so excited!! They were almost flipping out(correction: they WERE freaking out), and asked a billion questions. The Zone Leaders presented the idea to President Rasmussen that night. And so my ward is soon going to become the testing area for this program here in the EBM!!!!!!! BAH!!!!! Are you excited family, or are you excited! What. So. Cool.


We were tracting at the hospital. We'd walked past this man like ten times, and so we finally stopped and gave him a card. He said he was a Christian. We tried to share our beliefs with him, but he said “I have a question before you keep talking. Who do you pray to?”


We were a little surpised, but we told him that we pray to God, because He is our Heavenly Father, but in the name of Christ because he's our Mediator with the Father. He gave us high fives and told us he knew that was true. He told us we could come back and talk to him. (He'd just had a major operation, and so is at the hospital). We went back twice and didn't catch him. The second time he was just going in to meet with the doctor. He was so surprised that we were coming to just talk to him that he told us we could come back last night. So we did. We taught the Restoration. He told us he orders DVDs from the Church all the time, and he's seen the Book of Mormon. It was a super random lesson. We were in the middle of a hospital hallway, and then gave him the Book of Mormon in the elevator. But he told us that so far we were only teaching what he knew to be true! I love how the Spirit works!


Tonight, we're taking the Elders to give him a priesthood blessing, and then we're teaching him again. It's so exciting! He kept telling us: it's a miracle. I felt like you were sent to me. Well, Richard, I may have been sent to Birmingham for you.


Oh! And this sweet old lady named Lynne got baptized yesterday. But the boiler broke. So there was no hot water. And of course the Elders did not mention this to my companion and I until we caught them in the kitchen during the last hour of church...madly boiling and hauling water to the font. Boys. Seriously. We CAN help, you know. I mean, we baked all night so there would be food there. Certainly we could help provide water.


We were able to get enough water to fill it to the second step of the font. Lynne had to lie down to be baptized so she could be immersed! It was definitely a first haha. But she was just GLOWING afterwards. You could feel that she KNEW she'd done the right thing, and it was worth it.


Family, I love you so much!!! It's weird to think that I won't see you for a year and a half. BUT...we have eternity. So it'll all be good. It'll be GREAT!! And I'm doing my best so you can have blessings!





Pictures: I 'may' have misplaced my camera charger all week, so I only got a few pics. Whoops.





First one: Harborne High Street. We do a lot of our shopping there, and some tracting as well. It's so awesome!


The next picture: I may have contemplated offering my firstborn child for this table. Isn't it gorgeous? sigh.


This is the shop that the table's in. Like the name, Amy? :) I also got Emery's birthday present there. Please rewrap it and give it to her again on Christmas and her next birthday. haha.


We look terrible, but I wanted you to be able to picture my comp. So Sister Muller and I snapped this really quick. Promise someday we'll take an actual good one.